“I already told you, I can do nothing with Esro.”
“I disagree. Permit me one question. He has used you, over and over. You are a person with strength and a considerable intellect. Why do you continue to help him, knowing that he will use and abuse you again?”
Tatty found to her surprise that she was crying. Salt tears mingled with sweat and ran down her cheeks onto her upper lip. “1 don’t know. I suppose it’s because — because I have no one else. Without Esro, I have nothing. I have no one. He is all I have.”
“Possibly.” A soft forelimb came forward to stroke Tatty’s hair and dab at the tears on her cheeks. “But there is another explanation. Suppose that you stay because you know that you are all that he has. If not you, to whom would he turn for comfort? If not you, whom would he ask for help? You know that you love him. Ask yourself, do you want Mondrian destroyed?”
“No!” Tatty tried to sit up, but the bindings still restrained her. “I mean, I don’t know. Many times I’ve cursed him and wished him dead.”
“And always, you have relented. Always, you have been his support. If you really want to help Mondrian — and I have to tell you, it may be impossible, and already too late — then you must do the one thing that can make his treatment more effective: Remove your support. Tell him that it is all over, that he cannot come back to you and expect to be forgiven. Tell him that now he has no one”
Skrynol reached forward and unclasped the bindings that held Tatty. She leaned forward, to place her open hands wearily to her face. “Suppose I did that? What good could it do him?”
“Perhaps it would do nothing. Perhaps he is past all help. But perhaps it would give me that little window, the chink of vulnerability that I need to treat him successfully. I admit it frankly: I am desperate, seeking any sort of lever. Your abandonment of him might provide it to me.”
Skrynol helped Tatty to her feet. She stood leaning against the giant skeletal figure. “Do you think it will succeed?”
“No, I do not. I believe that it will almost certainly fail.” The Pipe-Rilla gave an imitative human shrug of her narrow body. “But what choice do I have? Since it is the only course left to me, it must be attempted.”
Skrynol reached down to take Tatty’s hand, like an adult leading a small child. “Come. Let us away from here. If you are to have your confrontation with Mondrian, it must happen before he again leaves Earth.”
Tatty took a final look around the thiefhole as they moved on into stygian darkness. “Aren’t you going to tell me to keep this a secret? Suppose that I were to tell someone of this meeting. Wouldn’t it destroy all your plans?”
“Tell anyone.” Skrynol chuckled, but there was no humor in the cheerful voice. “You may tell anyone you like, Tatty Snipes. Who do you think would ever believe you?”
Chapter 32
Guard duty rosters were posted at the Sargasso Dump as a matter of principle. Nagging by the Dump’s computers allowed a few of those duties to be performed roughly as scheduled, but for the most critical functions — food, air supply, transportation, and safety — the guards were carefully excluded. They meant well, but most of them had long since lost all sense of time, urgency, or reliability.
So it was some other sense that brought the guards now to the great hemispherical dome of the Assembly Hall, and for half an hour they had been wandering in from all parts of the Dump. Luther Brachis would have been proud of them — and astonished. They came through the great master airlock with their dress uniforms neat, medals and insignia of office sparkling, and suit helmets newly polished. They took seats on rows of chairs facing the shrouded central platform, and waited without speaking.
Blaine Ridley sat alone at the control panel below the front of the platform. For the first time in weeks, his replacement eye was rolling and his jaw was working from side to side. He mirrored the excitement and anticipation of everyone in the hall.
At last he turned, and stared into the screened space behind him. He heard and saw nothing there.
But it was time.
His hand trembled as he pressed the button to roll away the metal screen. He had helped in the early phases, but the final body assembly had been done without him. For the past two days there had been no contact at all. If anything had gone wrong …
The screen vanished into the platform, and the overhead lights gleamed red. Within their fiery glow, M-26A came drifting forward. Blaine Ridley held his breath. Complete? No, more than complete. Perfect!
That is not so. M-26A was moving to the front of the platform. Ridley felt the rebuttal at once within his mind. Did the same message go to all the others?
Behold. Latticed wings lifted high above the rounded head, and the Construct slowly turned around. I am as complete as perhaps I will ever be. But if I am perfect, then so also are you. For I am no more whole than you are. We share our imperfections … and our destiny.
The platform lights blazed to white. Around the hall all the guards were stirring, craning forward for a closer look. And suddenly it was obvious. What had seemed at first sight like a flawless, seam-free body showed cracks where pieces had been cannibalized from other Construct fragments. There were slight size differences between sections, and other small patches glazed or discolored by the heat of weapons. The luminous eyes of M-26A were as mismatched as Ridley’s own.
You see only my exterior. But as some of you will learn, my interior is no better. Yet I am ready, as you will be ready. M-26A came forward, to the very front of the platform, and waved Blaine Ridley to stand. Proceed.
Action took away nervousness. “We have researched all the stellar Link points within the solar system that can be reached through the local Link access in Sargasso.” Ridley could be heard by the other guards, but he was speaking to M-26A alone. “And we have confirmed what you predicted. Solar system security learned its lesson at Cobweb Station. The stellar Links are monitored closely. There is no way to reach one and activate it, before Security would move to act against it.”
And you are discouraged. That is natural. But it is not appropriate, for I anticipated this possibility. Did you find the person?
Ridley nodded. He had followed instructions, without understanding why. He walked six steps away from the platform and returned leading a slim, red-haired woman by the arm. She showed no sign of injuries, but she trembled continuously and hair grew only on the right side of her head.
“This is Gudrun Meissner. She was chief engineer on the Coriolanus, before the accident. Her record shows that she once had experience of every kind of Link equipment.”
Ascend, Gudrun Meissner, and come close.
“She cannot hear, or speak.” But as Ridley said the words, the woman stepped up unassisted onto the platform.
She is already hearing. Soon she will speak, and soon she will accomplish great things. M-26A reached out its wing panels, and enclosed Gudrun Meissner within them. The luminous eyes stared into hers. After half a minute her trembling body quietened.
Now we are ready, said the voice inside Blaine Ridley’s head. Open the ceiling.
It was done with a single touch of Ridley’s finger on the control panel. The dark dome of the Assembly Hall cleared to an absolute transparency. A hundred faces peered upward, and saw against the starry background a hexagon of glowing blue. At its heart lay a concave star of moldering darkness, a shrunken and crude travesty of a Martin Link chamber.
If we cannot make use of the solar system’s active stellar Link points, we must accept that fact. But this is Sargasso, where all things may be found.
M-26A drifted down from the platform, still holding Gudrun Meissner.
The Mattin Link was long in development, and it did not come at once to its present perfection. Behold one of the original units. It has been floating in the Dump for five hundred years, it is primitive, it is inactive, it is deemed without value. Yet, like other things judged valueless, it may work again to fulfill its destiny.
Suits closed!
T
hat reflex lived on, even in the most damaged guard. Helmets were lifted into position and locked closed.
Follow me. And we will show the universe how much can be done with little.
M-26A itself needed no suit. The Construct, holding Gudrun Meissner protectively to its silver-blue body, led the procession. A hundred guards marched proudly behind M-26A to the master airlock, and drifted on through it.
They held formation all the way; all the way through open space, to where the obsolete hulk of the Mattin link unit, derelict and neglected, floated far above them.
Chapter 33
It was late when Luther and Godiva came home to their living quarters on the ninety-fourth level of Ceres. They were both tired. He had taken her on a long-postponed sight-seeing tour, pausing at the high-mag viewing ports of the outer shell so mat he could point out the many worlds of the solar system, and far beyond them the scattered stars of the Stellar Group.
It was all old hat to Luther. He could not remember a time when he was not familiar with everything that they saw. It was a shock to find that Godiva, raised in the dark subterranean runs of the Gallimaufries, had only the vaguest idea of planets, moons, and stars. She didn’t know the difference between them. She had never heard of Oberon Station, or Cobweb Station, or even the Vulcan Nexus. She seemed to believe that all the asteroids were as developed and cosmopolitan as Ceres. Most startling of all, she had no idea of distance; to Godiva, the Oort Harvester was as near (or as far) as the remote Angel world of Sellora.
She had laughed at Brachis’s astonishment and disapproval. “What does it matter, Luther. Who cares how far away any of them are, when you can get to all of them in nothing flat using the Martin Link.’
“Well, yes, that’s true. But the distance …” Brachis stopped. Godiva was uniquely Godiva. Time and space meant nothing to her. And when he thought about it, he was not sure that she was wrong. “Close” points were really ones that could be reached quickly through a series of Mattin Links. “Distant” points were all others. Luther allowed Godiva to take his hand and they went on, drifting through the endless outer corridors of the planetoid. The original one-hour tour continued through a long and pleasurable day and evening. The corridor was deserted when Brachis paused at their apartment door and made his usual thorough inspection of the settings. All the seals were unbroken, and there had been no callers. He carefully slid back the heavy door and they went on through into the hallway.
The advent of Godiva had changed Luther’s life completely. Before she came up from Earth he had lived in a sparsely furnished single room. That had been abandoned in favor of a luxury apartment. The main living-room, dining area and kitchen were off the hall to the left, the bedroom, bathroom and study to the right.
“Hungry?”
Godiva shook her head. She yawned, stretched, and slipped off her light wrap. She gave Luther a smile of sleepy suggestion, dropped her bag onto the hall table, and went through the bedroom to the bathroom.
He took off his uniform, sat on the broad bed, and pulled off his boots. Naked, he walked through to the study and sat down at the communications terminal. He was tired, but as always he had to make his evening check for messages.
He switched on. As he did so there was a sudden high-pitched hissing sound. An intense pain like a hornet’s sting burned his left cheek. Brachis saw a little puff of vaporized blood blossom out from below his eye. He shouted at the pain and jerked upright. As he did so there was a second sting by his right nostril, and another sudden puff of bright red.
He jumped to his feet. His first thought was that there had been some sort of short circuit in the communications terminal, showering him with specks of hot metal. The hiss that went with each blow seemed to come from the top of the display unit. As Brachis looked that way three more jolts hit him, one on the chin and two above his right eyebrow. He lifted his hand to his face, and saw them: four miniature figures, crouched behind the front lip of the display. Each manikin was no more than an inch and a half tall. Each carried a weapon pointed at Luther’s face.
They were after his eyes! He covered his face with his left forearm, in time to block three more shots.
Adestis simulacra — at the maximum size permitted, and hunting him.
Luther swept his right arm across the top of the display, knocking the minisims to the floor. As he completed the movement a hail of shots from behind made him shout with pain and spin around. On the desk at the far side of the room, half-hidden behind a jumble of data cubes, stood another group of tiny figures. At the same moment a rattle of shots came from a new direction, over to his left. Explosive projectiles riddled his left arm and hip with thumbnail-sized craters.
Brachis roared with pain and ran across the room. He had both arms in front of him to shield his eyes — if they blinded him he was finished. Halfway to the door he felt another hail of shots in his groin and belly. The simulacra in ambush by the exit had chosen a different target.
He stopped and spun around again. The attack was obviously well-organized. They had planned for his natural reaction, to run for the door. They would expect him to cover his eyes, and now his genitals. If they knew his habits at all, they had known that he would walk through naked to check the communicator. While he hesitated in the middle of the room, another half dozen projectiles stung his face and neck. They were flaying him, systematically ripping the flesh from his body with a hail of tiny shells.
He needed time to think. Luther dived to the left, rolled across the floor, and came upright close to the wall. He smashed his hand at the lighting panel. With the door to the bedroom closed, the study was plunged at once into darkness. The hiss of shots went on, out the attacking simulacra no longer had a target.
Brachis dropped to the floor again, and went shuffling on hands and knees across the room. He had a brief advantage now. He could track the minisims by the uvarovite-garnet glint of their crystalline green eyes, glowing in the dark. They were moving about in confusion. He knew it could only be a temporary respite. The attackers must have allowed for darkness, too.
He felt his way back to the display and slapped the Emergency switch on the communications panel. That would bring help — but far too late. Another half minute of those explosions on his skin, and the rescuers would find him a sightless, skinless eunuch. He was filled with a new and terrifying thought; Suppose that Godiva came out of the bathroom and wandered through into the study to look for him? A shout to keep her out might have exactly the wrong effect.
He was still standing upright by the emergency switch when an orange light appeared on the other side of the room. It was an aerial flare, ignited near the door. That was where the maximum cross-fire would have hit him if he had tried to escape that way. But the orange flare was enough to illuminate the whole room. He was visible again.
Another crackle and hiss from miniature weapons — another hail of blows and blaze of pain across his body. He couldn’t take much more. He dived, rolled again, and came up near the desk. As the attackers there fired point-blank into his unprotected chest and side, he hit a sunken wall panel with the palm of his left hand.
The Fire Protection System came on in a fraction of a second. High pressure jets of water and emulsifier cross-crossed the room from floor to ceiling, while the loud warning tone of a bell sounded through the apartment and its nearest neighbors. The emergency low-power wall lights filled the study with sickly green.
Spray and foam filled the room. The miniature weapons at once went silent.
Another reprieve — but for how long?
Luther could not wait for help. He had to do this himself. He hurled himself across the study, soaking and bloodied. He ran first for the place where the attackers had been most dense. Water hit him from all sides, stinging his wounds, sluicing down his ripped skin. He welcomed it.
The minisims were trying to regroup, struggling to stand amid the bombardment of water drops and frothy foam. Ignoring the pain in his hands, Brachis smashed them flat and crushed t
hem one by one between thumb and fingers.
The study door slid open and Godiva appeared. She was naked except for a pair of gauzy briefs. “Luther!”
He ignored her and ran back across the room, a scarlet Nemesis that left bloody, puddled footprints behind him in the carpet. The first group who had attacked him were on the floor by the communications unit, trying to point their weapons up at Luther while a quarter-inch flood of water surged and tugged at their legs. He stomped every one of them, wincing as the angular figures cut into his soft flesh.
A final scatter of shots came from his right. He headed that way, smashing and devastating with bare hands and feet anything that moved.
And suddenly it was over.
By the time that help arrived the sprinkler system was off and the study a junkyard of flattened simulacra. Godiva took Luther through to the bedroom and began to apply antiseptics and surrogate skin. He lay faceup on the bed, his face, chest, and belly an eroded mass of raw wounds connected by shreds of loose skin. He swore continuously as Godiva smoothed on the yellow synthetic flesh. He waved away the emergency service staff. They went back into the study and started to clean up the mess, suctioning the room clean and dry. They were still at it when Esro Mondrian arrived.
Godiva had finished Luther’s left side and was telling him to turn more to the right. He was ignoring her, and talking furiously on a handset.
“Useless!” he growled to Mondrian. “They don’t know one damned thing. Adestis Headquarters won’t have regular staff there until tomorrow, and maintenance can t even tell me if simulacra are missing, never mind what sort. Ouch!” He winced as Godiva began to patch skin onto the ball of his right thumb.
“Does it matter how many?” Mondrian picked up one of the flattened simulacra from the heap at the bedside and inspected it. “I didn’t know they made them this big. What are they used for?”
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