Crown of the Serpent

by Allen Wold

  It took a moment to restore order after it had gone, and then the only evidence of its passage was a trail on the floor where the dust had been swept aside, and a lot of dust now hanging in the air. The noncoms had a hard time getting the goons back under control, indeed, were having a hard time keeping from getting hysterical themsleves.

  "Are you sure that's not the Tathas doing that?" Sukiro asked Rikard.

  "Absolutely," Rikard said, "there's no new Tathas scent here, and besides, Tathas move very slowly."

  But he, too, was beginning to feel frightened. Without fur­ther hesitation he led them on into another corridor. They went along it for three sections until they came to a ramp, in the middle of the corridor, which went both up and down. They went down, then along another section of corridor to where it opened onto the ground floor of a two-level arcade. The level above them was surrounded by balconies. There were more doors there, reached by spiral ramps recessed into the corners of the arcade and into the centers of its long sides, where a catwalk crossed the arcade at balcony level.

  Rikard had to pause in this large space, to find the direction of the now very faint Tathas trace. "I think it's coming from over there," he said at last, "on the second level, and down toward that end."

  They had crossed half the distance to the side ramp when all the irises on both levels snapped in rapid succession, several of them more than once. Plumes of dust rose into the air, behind things moving so fast that they could not really be seen.

  Nobody had time to react before the dust-devil streaks car­omed through the outer edges of the group, knocking several people down. The dust-devils raced away, and there was not even a hesitation at the irises as they worked the latch-plates. Before those goons who had fallen could get to their feet, there was another attack.

  Rikard pulled his gun, felt the slowdown of his time senses, then something brushed him very lightly but with great force. His gun flew from his hand as he was spun around.

  When he stopped moving the dust-devils were gone again. His gun was a few meters away. As he went to retrieve it he shouted, "Everybody, backs together in the middle of the room!"

  There was a moment's hesitation then, as Rikard got to his weapon, the noncoms repeated the order. Then the dust-devils came again. Most of them knocked against the goons on the outside of the group, but some passed through the center.

  Rikard gripped his gun, time started to slow, the air was filled with dust. Goons jostled against him as they tried to move together and were hit by the dust-devils. Falyn backed sharply into Rikard, knocking him off his feet backward.

  With his time perception slowed he almost seemed to float down through the air toward the deck. Even as he fell he saw things passing on the edges of his sight. He tried to turn his eyes to look at one of them, but his eyes could move no faster than normal. Only his perceptions were speeded up, and before he could focus on one of the dust-devils, it was gone again.

  He struggled to his feet, ready for another attack. The goons around him were organizing as quickly as they could, forming a ring with himself and Grayshard in the center. Rikard eased his grip on his gun for a moment, and time returned to normal. They waited.

  But no attack came.

  "Where's Sukiro?" Nelross suddenly asked.

  "She was right here," Yansen started to say, and then they took count. Besides Sukiro, six other goons were missing: Gos-podin, Hornower, Tamura, Longarth, Saydee, and Brisabane.

  "What the hell is going on!" Jasime demanded.

  "The raiders are onto us," Sladen suggested.

  "There was nothing like this in the briefing," Majorbank complained.

  "We've seen the raiders' tracks," Rikard said, "they're human. This is something else."

  "There's no time to argue about it," Nelross said. "We've got six goons missing—and the major. We've got to go after them."

  "But which way did they go?" Denny asked helplessly.

  "Check the doors," Rikard said. "Look for unusual tracks."

  The noncoms gave orders to do so.

  "Maybe it's the people who built this place," Raebuck sug­gested.

  "Don't be silly," Falyn said, "this station has been derelict for ten thousand years."

  Judging by the marks in the dust, most of the attackers had come through ground-level doors, and one in particular, at the far end, seemed most promising as their probable exit.

  "I think they went out this way," Colder said when Rikard came to her summons. "See, it looks like they were dragging something."

  "I think you're right," Rikard said. "In any event, it's our best bet." He called the others and they went out.

  In the room beyond the iris was a new kind of object, sitting over to one side. It was a pink quadrilateral the size of a desk, but with very rounded corners and edges and without a knee-hole. The surface was pebbled instead of smooth, and covered with a random pattern of brown stripes except where the top surface was sunken. From the center of the recess a round spike projected upward to a point—the only point in the room— ringed at odd angles with navy.

  Rikard gave the object only a cursory glance, but while he and Denny paused to determine which way the tracks led, Rae-buck prodded at the desklike thing, and once tried to move it.

  "I think this was their rallying point," Denny said, tracing the marks from door to door. "It looks like they split up here and went to other entrances, so as to attack us from all sides at once."

  They went through the far door, from which most of the tracks seemed to come, into another room. There was no central table in this room, nor counters, nor stand-alone "furniture," just an object that floated in the middle of the room, at about head height.

  It was roughly octahedral, about fifty centimeters across, of an amber color the same as the ceiling except that it was opaque. On each face were panels, of the same shape as the face, made of what looked like milk-glass. There were no pro­jections or recesses, no controls or knobs.

  It was a startling object. Woadham reached out to touch it even as Falyn snapped, "Leave it alone!"

  Beyond the far iris was another transverse corridor that ran parallel to the arcade. It was completely dark, but off toward the left they could see light coming up from a descending ramp, and the dust trail headed in that direction.

  "Robots could move that fast," Falyn muttered to Denny.

  "They can," she said, "but they'd have to be controlled, and the controller's reactions couldn't be that fast."

  "Not telefactors," Falyn said, "robots, completely autono­mous."

  "Then they're soft robots," Sladen said. "When I was hit it was something soft, ft was just moving so fast that it knocked me around. If it had been a robot it would have taken my arm off."

  Then the light in the ramp went out. "Headlamps," Denny ordered.

  Rikard found a switch by an iris, but it didn't work. They went on, using their headlamps. They came to the ramp, started to descend, and halfway down the light in the section of corri­dor below came on.

  At the bottom of the ramp was another corridor parallel to the one above. The dust marks along the floor were perfectly evident.

  "Maybe the attacks are made by some kind of energy field," Raebuck suggested, "you know, set as sentry against intruders."

  "On a station like this," Petorska said, "who would expect intruders."

  "Besides," Yansen said, "the attackers didn't act like fields."

  "Of course," Raebuck said, "you're right."

  "No," Falyn said, "it could be possible. If the walls con­tained a grid, a field could move in three dimensions and be of small size."

  "But we could almost see something moving," Yansen said, "and fields would be invisible."

  "If they could use fields that way," Nelross said, "why not just crush us between a pair?"

  "We know nothing about their psychology," Petorska said, "don't make assumptions."

  "Whatever it was," Colder said, "they left drag-marks." She pointed to the trail on the floor
.

  They went down three sections of corridor to a side door, which opened onto a descending spiral ramp. It was twice as wide as the others they had been in, and was swept clean of dust. It went down a long way.

  "No life form we know can move as fast as our attackers," Denny said as they descended. "If we discount robots and en­ergy fields, maybe it's some kind of energy being, a life form sort of like the Taarshome."

  "It's not the Taarshome," Rikard said. "They don't behave that way, and besides, if a Taarshome touches you, you just turn into a cinder."

  "Well, not them, then, but something like them."

  "I suppose it would be possible, but then how come they haven't attacked the raiders in the year or so they've been here?"

  They went down at least four "levels," as far as they could judge. When they came to the bottom they found themselves at the head of a T of three corridors, each ten meters wide and about twelve meters tall. There were intersecting corridors and Ls in all three directions.

  The trail led them to the left, through an iris to a balcony at the top of a four-level room. There were four tables on the floor below, and an open spiral ramp in the corner leading down to it. There the trail split into a number of smaller trails, but the drag-marks became more pronounced, as fewer of the attackers were left to carry each victim.

  They went out the far door into a two-level corridor. There the trail turned left past a four-way intersection and on to a T, then turned left again to another T almost immediately. There they turned right and went to the third door on the right, and into a three-level room. It was empty except for another floating device.

  This one was a dark green dodecahedron, with pale lavender spikes projecting from all but the top and bottom faces. Each spike ended in a cube of milk glass. As soon as Raebuck saw it, she stopped, transfixed. The others crossed the room, following the obvious trail over a waist-high rail between the first section and the next, which was three meters lower. There was a ramp at one side leading down, broad enough for only one person at a time. But Rikard lagged behind with Raebuck. "What's the matter?" he asked her.

  "Nothing," she said, but her attention was fixed on the floating object.

  "Come on," Rikard said, "we've got to go."

  She turned to follow him but kept looking back over her shoulder as they went into the lower, center section and up the ramp in the middle of the two-meter rise to the far side of the room.

  They went through an iris into the side of a corridor. They followed the dust trail to the right to a four-way intersection. There the trail led them left to where a ramp, occupying the right half of the corridor, went down.

  "At least we're not being attacked anymore," Dyson said.

  "Maybe they're locpl," Sladen answered.

  "Except that we're following their tracks."

  "Maybe they got what they wanted," Yansen said.

  "Maybe they were just hungry?" Jasime suggested.

  "I suppose they could be vermin of some kind," Dyson said, "surviving somehow and mutated."

  "How could they survive," Sladen said, "without goons to feed on?"

  The ramp ended in a door that opened into the side of another corridor. From there the trail led them left, past a three-way intersection to a T, then left again to a four-way, and right again to an iris on the right side of the corridor. This opened onto a balcony at the room's second level.

  As they went around the balcony they passed an open panel, in which were shelves containing objects like those they had investigated before, things like rubber crab legs, jackknife bread loaves, and other small things wrapped in transparent foil.

  At the corner the trail went down an open ramp to the floor of the room, which was split into two levels, the second a meter higher than the first, with a rail between but no ramp connect­ing. On the floor were two round-cornered, round-edged recti­linear objects.

  The first of these was yellow, twice the size of a desk, with random narrow stripes of deep red shading to maroon. There were round-edged holes going all the way through from one side to the other, and another hole at the front that went only to the transverse hole. Each hole was lined with round knobs of dark green.

  The second object was light blue, and rather small, a meter high and seventy centimeters from side to side both ways. It had narrow half-tori projecting from three sides, all of which were navy or black, and had a half dome on the top, of a paler blue, which extended down over the fourth side, and was marked with ugly olive green streaks and smears.

  The trail led over the rail to a door on the right side and out into another corridor. From there they went left past a three-way intersection, to another like it where they turned left again, on past a four-way to an iris on the right, which opened onto a balcony at the third level of a large room.

  There was another floating object here, larger than the first two, a pale gray twisted bipolar pentagonal prism. The far side of the floor was half a meter higher than the near side, with no railing between, and around the walls were counters. The trail led down the corner spiral to the main floor.

  The faces of the floating object that were visible from the near side of the room were blank, but the four contiguous faces on the far side were deeply recessed. Within each recess was a series of hexagonal crystal lights, and around the equatorial juncture between the two pyramidal prisms was a series of levers or rods, projecting into the recesses in the faces.

  This stopped Raebuck dead in her tracks. After a pause, in spite of the goons moving past her, she went to the floating object, and reached out to touch one of the rods in one of the upper recesses.

  When she did so, the rod sank down into the body of the shape, and a series of hexagonal lights in that recess went on, shining white, and one light in each of the other three recesses also went on, shining blue.

  Nelross came around the floater just then, and watched as Raebuck touched another rod, a silver one in the other upper recess. A string of lights in that recess lit red, and one light in each of the other recesses lit yellow.

  Rikard was watching her too, and he went to stand beside her just as the whole object turned from pale gray to pale blue-white. Raebuck did not seem surprised by this but reached out for another rod, a black one, which she pressed to the right. All the unlit lights in that recess lit green, and two of the lights in each of the other recesses went pink.

  Rikard could hear a faint hum coming from the object. The goons who were still nearby hesitated to half watch as Raebuck turned the machine on. Rikard said, "What is that thing?"

  She had not heard him approach, and jumped. "I don't know," she said. But she reached out and touched a flat plate at the back of the upper left recess. All the lights went out, and the floating device returned to pale gray.

  "Then how did you learn how to turn it on?" Nelross asked.

  "Sorry," Raebuck said, and hurried away.

  Rikard and Nelross exchanged glances, then went to catch up with the others, who were going out the door at the far side of the room. Beyond the iris was a corridor. The trail went to another iris directly opposite, and they went inside.

  The seven missing people were lying scattered on the floor of the room. Hornower, Gospodin, Tamura, and Brisabane were only unconscious, thoügh badly bruised, but Saydee and Lon-garth were dead, apparently due solely to rough handling. Su-kiro was alive, and began to come to even as the others were being revived.

  Denny and the corporals questioned the survivors, but they could say nothing about what had happened, and didn't even know where they were. Sukiro was unable to help either.

  The tracks of their attackers went off in all directions. Nelross wanted to pursue, but they had no idea which way to go.

  "And besides," Sukiro said, "we still have the raiders to deal with."

  "How can we be sure," Nelross asked, "that they aren't the same as whoever it was who brought you here?"

  "Because it's totally out of character," Sukiro said.

  "I think,"
Grayshard said, "that if it had been the raiders who have been attacking us, they would have just killed us, not have taken prisoners only to abandon them later."

  "And even if it were the raiders," Sukiro went on, not exactly liking to agree with Grayshard, "then this whole business was just a ploy, to divert us from their base when we got too close. If we go off chasing after dust-devils now, we'll be doing exactly what they want. We've got to go back."

  "What about Longarth and Saydee?" Falyn asked.

  "We can't do anything for them," Sukiro said. "If we can come back for them later we will. Right now we've got other work to do."

  3

  Rikard kept his eye on Private Raebuck as they followed the broad trail in the dust, back the way they had come. She had known too well how to work that thing for it to have been just some lucky guesses. Where had she picked up that knowledge, and why wasn't she saying anything about it now?

  They retraced their steps to the three-level room in which they had found the second floater—about half the distance back to the arcade. As they passed through, an iris snapped on one side of the room and another iris opposite snapped almost im­mediately after. The goons were tense, and three of them got off shots which merely put pockmarks in the wall. The only evi­dence of their invisible intruder was a cloud of dust hanging in the air, stirred up by the speed of its passage.

  As the other two noncoms brought the goons back into line, Nelross told Sukiro that he wanted to try something.

  One of the items of special equipment his goons were carry­ing was a vibracoil, a kind of energy weapon that was harmless to most objects but that literally cooked organic matter by disrupting any materials with high moisture content. It could also shake certain microcircuitry to powder. It was typically used when a criminal had blockaded himself in a place that couldn't be reached by regular weapons, or which was too valu­able to destroy by blaster fire. It had the advantage that its energy could pass, with only minor attenuation, through rigid materials, such as metals, stone, and certain very stiff plastics, although it was thoroughly damped by wood, normal plastics, and any thickness—ten centimeters or more—of clothing or flesh. Armor was unaffected by the vibracoil, but its energy, passing through lighter grades of armor, could cause the wearer to boil in his suit, so rapidly that he exploded.