by Allen Wold
"After twenty-five thousand years," the Ahmear said, "you might as well have left me. I thank you, and you can come with me if you want to, but I'm going after the Prime. That's why I came here in the first place."
"Let him go out the front door," Falyn said, "he'll distract the Tschagan"—she looked pointedly at Raebuck—"and we can find another way out."
"There should be a stage entrance around to the side," Raebuck said. "At least the tapes showed Tschagan officials entering from offstage somewhere."
"What I'm worried about," Falyn said, "is if the pirates can use the comcons, and come looking for us as we go up. We haven't really gone that far away from their base."
Droagn had gone to the edge of the stage, but now he turned back. ~These pirates,~ he said, ~these are the brain stealers you spoke of?"
"Yes," Rikard said. "They have destroyed half a million people so far."
~And how many of these brain stealers are there then?~
"We're not sure," Sukiro said, "but I guess about a thousand or twelve hundred altogether."
~You tackled a force that large all by yourselves?~
"We've taken casualties," Sukiro said, "we're not up to full strength."
Droagn looked out at the auditorium floor, and it was as if he was seeing all the Tschagan bodies for the first time. ~You seem to have acquitted yourself fairly well so far.~
"We've been lucky," Rikard said. "When Grayshard projects, they slow down enough so that we can see them well enough to shoot at them. Without him we'd have been wiped out by now, even though, until the last attack, none of the Tschagan had weapons."
Droagn surveyed the group again. ~Which one is Grayshard?~
Grayshard stretched up like a loose basketwork column. "I am."
Droagn seemed confused. ~There's nobody there.~
"There is indeed," Grayshard said, and set a short, sharp projection at Droagn.
~I can't feel you,~ Droagn said. ~There's no neurostructure.~ He looked enquiringly at Rikard. ~That's an automaton, isn't it? ~
"Didn't you feel his attack?" Rikard asked.
~What attack? Look.~ He sent a tight beam telepathic signal at Grayshard. The Vaashka didn't waver. ~See, he doesn't respond at all, that's just a construct.~
"On the contrary," Sukiro said, "members of his race are the masterminds behind the brain pirates. They make their victims mindless with their psychic attack."
Droagn's eyes glowed as he stared at Grayshard and he snaked closer to the Vaashka. Grayshard crept backward a bit, apprehensive of this being who was invulnerable to his psychic weapons.
~I see, ~ Droagn said, ~I've heard about a race like this, not animal as we know it but a fantastically advanced form of fungus. But how can a mind such as his have any affect on you?~
"We don't know," Rikard said, "but he can. And the pirates have soldiers of his race, who ride on zombies they've created, and if you meet them, you won't be able to stop them with your own psychic abilities, and"—he looked at Grayshard—"can those zombies use blasters?"
"Of course they can," Grayshard said. "They may be simple, but they are capable of perfect control of the bodies they ride. Those carrying the warriors and administrators take direct orders from their masters, and work as if they were parts of one body."
~Then I'll just have to avoid them,~ Droagn said, and went back to the edge of the stage and slid off to the floor.
Raebuck stared after the retreating Ahmear, then exchanged disappointed glances with Sukiro.
"There's nothing you can do about it," Rikard said to her gently. "Now we've got to get out of here, while Droagn buys us some time."
Raebuck nodded.
"It would have been the greatest find of all time," Sukiro said to her.
Raebuck took a deep breath, then went toward the left end of the stage. The others followed. "I hope I can find the way," she said.
Then Droagn called to them from the floor. ~What the hell did you use to kill these people with?~
Rikard paused to look back. "Blasters, most of them." he said.
Droagn was fingering one of the corpses. Then he looked at one of the rails that had been blown apart. ~I've never seen such destruction, how could the Tschagan be any threat to you?~
"They move too fast for us to see."
~Ha! ~ Droagn said, an actual vocalization. ~That makes sense. Ah, tell me, are these brain pirates you came here after armed the same as you?~
"Rather heavier," Sukiro said. "We brought in only our lightest weapons, because we didn't want to damage anything. The pirates don't seem to care."
Droagn went from body to body, then looked back toward the stage just as Grayshard was remounting Ming's shoulders. ~Are you being directed now?~ he asked the goon.
"No," Ming said, "I'm just giving him a lift."
~Let me see one of those "blasters,~ Droagn said.
"You've got to be kidding," Sukiro told him, "you're dangerous enough as you are."
~Show me how one works, then.~
Sukiro gestured, and Raebuck went to the edge of the stage, aimed her light blaster at one of the more intact corpses near the stage, and fired. The blaster bolt blew a thirty centimeter hole in the body.
Droagn stared at the remains of the corpse, wiped spatters of its ichor from his face. ~That's a terrible weapon,~ he said.
"Not at all," Sukiro told him. She gestured to Denny who drew her heavier, sergeant's blaster and shot away two rail seats. Chips and splinters flew, and the shots left shallow holes in the surface of the deck. Droagn backed off.
Sukiro said to Droagn, "The raiding parties, if they come back, and they're due back right now, are armed more like this." She held out her own blaster, larger even than Denny's. She went to the edge of the stage and shot down at the floor. The bolt blew a hole all the way through into the chamber below. "But don't let that worry you," she went on, "you can avoid them, I'm sure. Let's go, Raebuck."
~Wait a minute,~ Droagn said anxiously, ~are these pirates following you?~
"I have no idea," Rikard said, "probably not."
"What are the chances, Grayshard," Sukiro said in an audible aside, "that the pirates would like Droagn's brain and body?"
"If they could take him undamaged," Grayshard said, "he'd bring a tremendous price, the only known slave Ahmear brain. And whoever had his body to ride would have immeasurable prestige, though of course they couldn't ride it in public."
"Come on," Rikard said, "let's get out of here. There's no chance the pirates will even know he's here." He was embarrassed by the ruse, and by playing along with it.
~I believe you, Rikard Braeth,~ Droagn said, ~but I prefer not to take that chance. Let us strike a bargain. I came here for the Prime, and I will not leave without it. I know where it is. Come with me, and I will protect you from the Tschagan as best I can—~
"Grayshard can do that," Sukiro said.
~But he can't find you a way out,~ Droagn went on, ~and I don't believe you can either, Jania Raebuck. Your uncertainty is all too clear, and we are not where you think you are. Help me find the Prime, and I will take you back to the surface, if you will protect me in turn from those pirates, should they appear. And I may need a way to get off this station, if my ship has been damaged which, considering the nature of the Tschagan, and the amount of time that I've been here, is almost a certainty.~
"My friends have been playing with you," Rikard said, "hoping to bring you to something like this."
~I know that, but those blasters are real. And too much time has passed, if I get out of here I'll be rather at odd ends, and I need to learn the present situation among whatever star nations now exist before I go back to find my people. You can help me with that. Do we have a deal?~
"We do," Sukiro said.
~Then come with me.~ Then Droagn started snaking up the sloping auditorium floor toward the arches.
"Let's do it," Sukiro said, and they all came off the stage after her.
But instead of going out one of the arc
hes, the Ahmear led them to a corner at the back of the auditorium, where he fingered an area of the set of triple dark blue stripes. A service hatch slid up, beyond which was a very broad ramp that spi-raled both up and down. The walls were cream colored instead of light blue, and there was only a single triple black stripe, not dark blue, along the wall, at shoulder height. The ceiling was more yellow than amber, and the floor was pebbled, a bluish gray.
~This is the way most of the trophies were brought in,~ Droagn said, ~and it leads straight to a ship's hatch at the surface. But first I want to go down. Do we still have a deal?~
"We do," Rikard said, and they followed the Ahmear deeper into the now not so derelict station.
4
The ramp descended a long way, with here and there a landing, at each of which was one of those service hatches which nobody but Droagn seemed to know how to work.
"How do you know about this stuff?" Sukiro asked the Ahmear.
~I studied their architecture.~
"The Tschagan just let you do that?" Rikard asked incredulously.
~Of course not. A few of their stations fell into our hands, back when they were just coming out of their system. ~
"I didn't know there were any Ahmear around then," Rae-buck said.
~A few of us stayed in this part of the galaxy, just to keep an eye on things as it were. We kept out of people's way mostly, but the Tschagan found out about us and didn't like us even being around. I guess we were too much of a counterexample. Anyway, they decided to try to take one of our bases—there were only ten of us in the crew—I wasn't one of them of course, that was before my time—and they lost.~
"What happened to them?" Rikard asked.
~I don't know, shipped back home I suppose. ~
"So that gave you access to their ships," Sukiro said. "How did you get to their station?"
~They towed it in themselves, and set it up sunward of where our base was located. It was just a small red star, no habitable planets, but that was the way we liked it—keep out of people's way. We are not at all a warlike race, though we used to be way back in our history, but when somebody comes shooting we can defend ourselves. This happened in a couple of places, and we wound up with three of their stations under our control. No sense trying to give them back, so we took them apart to see how they worked and all.~
"This was before your time," Rikard said sardonically.
~Several hundred of your years before I was born. But then when I learned that the Tschagan had sacked Tromarn, the last place where the Prime was known to have been, and that there was no trace of the Prime after that—it wouldn't have been destroyed by anything short of a fission blast—I guessed that the Tschagan had taken it, and so I did some research, and decided that the Tschagan had it on their capital, where they kept everything else they'd stolen.~
"You knew that their capital was a giant space station?" Rae-buck asked.
~It made sense. Their worlds were too vulnerable, you can move a station somewhere and hide it—as they did, after all. And since the Prime had been missing for something like half a million years, and was the only one of our devices we'd ever let fall into alien hands, I figured I'd go get it and bring it back.~
"All by yourself," Sukiro said.
~Why not?~
"You have your own personal starship, I suppose."
~Of course, or had. If the Tschagan haven't taken it apart.~
"But how could you know anything about this station," Rikard insisted, "from the other one's you studied? Surely it's a different design, and much larger."
~Larger, yes, but the basic scheme is the same. All the equipment works the same way. All the stations, and their larger ships, too, have these service ways. I think it's a racial holdover. ~
"So how come," Sukiro said, "none of the rest of your people tried to get this Prime if it's so important?"
~I guess none of them thought to try. And besides, your space was an awfully long way off. The few Ahmear left out here on the frontier had been called back after the Tschagan affair. It took me a good half of a year, in your terms, to get here.~
"Distances are relative," Sukiro said, "how fast was your ship?"
~It takes a couple of days to get between our closest stars.~
"You came halfway around die galaxy on a chance?" Rikard said.
~I'm afraid I was not considered a very good citizen. A year or so away from home seemed like a good idea. I guess it turned out to be a bit more than that. There never were very many of us, by your standards, and we tended to roam around a bit. By now, there may be none of us at all back where I left them.~
At last Droagn stopped at one of the landings and opened a service hatch. They entered a broad corridor with a low ceiling and no doors. But this was just another of the service ways, which apparently interpenetrated much of the interior portions of the station.
"How much further do we go?" Sukiro asked.
~At the rate we're moving, at least another half hour.~
"You were in trouble with the law?" Raebuck asked.
~I guess you could say that. I'd rather not be, but life is otherwise pretty dull.~
"Sounds like you and Rikard ought to get along," Sukiro said.
~Indeed.~ If Rikard could judge, the Ahmear was smiling.
"Are there a lot more at home like you?" Denny asked in parody of the stock question.
~Something useful was usually found for people like me to do,~ Droagn said. ~I just didn't care to go along with it. I'm no criminal, I've never hurt anybody intentionally. I like to think that I've even done some good in my time. Bringing home the Prime would have been a real coup.~
"How come your government," Sukiro said, "if they knew where the Prime was, didn't just come and take it?"
~They'd tried negotiating with the people who had it any number of times. But nobody wanted to give it up. You have to understand that we're basically a peaceful people, and we didn't want to just slither in and take it.~
"But you were going to steal it," Rikard said.
~Hardly stealing, taking it from people like the Tschagan. Besides, I thought it would be fun.~
Indeed, Rikard thought, Endark Droagn was a kindred spirit.
~After all,~ Droagn went on, ~it was our policy to keep to ourselves as much as possible. But there are an awful lot of worlds out there, and lots of peoples. I couldn't just sit at home, I wanted to go places, do things. It's gotten me into plenty of trouble before.~
"So you came looking for the Prime," Rikard prompted.
~Well, yes, like I said, I thought it was a good idea to get away for a while. You folks don't seem too impressed by my telepathy, but the peoples where I live—or lived—were either frightened of it, or wanted to acquire it for themselves. No need to be frightened, I can't read your mind, though I can feel your neurological presence. And as far as I know, unless you have the talent~—he looked at Rikard oddly—~a racial characteristic, I'd thought until now—~
"I was taught by the Taarshome."
~Of course. They can do wonders. Anyway, unless you have the genes and the neurological structure for it—or are taught by the Taarshome—there's no way you can acquire telepathy. It's not what people think. And how you Humans can hear and understand me I don't know.~
~Anyway, I was just looking around on Li'kha'n and let myself get found out. One of their governments raised a ruckus with our Resident there—the people of Li'kha'n didn't know we were telepathic I guess—and things got kind of hot for me. But that was where I heard about the Prime—never mind how —and when my local mentor got all excited about what I'd done, I decided I could squash two bugs with one rock—disappear until things cooled down, and bring back the Prime into the bargain. ~
"And started off by going to your local library to study Tschagan architecture," Rikard said.
~Well, not exactly. I went to Fremorsh, where my people are well known and accepted, and, ah, sort of told them a story. By the time word got back home, I'd learned what
I needed to know and was gone. If I could have brought the Prime back, I would have been a hero. Maybe I still can be, if I can find my people again.~
"On your own personal starship," Sukiro said.
~It was only second hand, and not very big. Ah, my people have, over the millennia, developed a rather higher standard of living than most of the starfaring species we've met. Private starships are not that uncommon.~
"And what did you do for a crew?" Sukiro asked.
~Robotics. What else?~
"And when you got here," Rikard said, "what did you do, just knock on the door and walk in?"
~Of course not. Service hatch.~
"But how did you avoid the Tschagan?" Denny wanted to know.
~Well, that was a bit of a trick, they can move awfully fast. But I can see them, even so, and I can 'feel' their neurostructures, so I know when there're nearby. But I wasn't careful enough. When I was doing my research, I spent most of my time studying these service ways. I should have paid more attention to the sensing devices they have built into the walls. So somewhere along the way I must have tripped something, or maybe left other traces—I spent nearly ten of your days learning my way around.~
~In any event, after a while, they were on to me, and started trying to hunt me down. It was damn frustrating, because I'd just found out where the Prime was being kept, and it was a good ways off from where I was. They set a trap for me, and I fell for it.~
~I was cornered—there were maybe sixty or so of their soldiers—and they used some kind of electronic device I'd give my lower right arm to find out more about. It knocked me out and I was taken prisoner.~
~They tried to kill me—I guess they wanted to make a mummy out of me like they did with the other important prisoners they'd captured—but when they couldn't they put me into stasis. And except for a lot of strange dreams, that's all I remember until I woke up just now.~
By this time they had come to the end of the corridor, and Droagn led them out through a service hatch onto a broad walkway above a dark space, the floor of which they could not see, as the ceiling was lit only over the walk and their headlamps were not bright enough to reach bottom when they looked over the chest-high railing. If there were walls, they were too far away to be visible.
