“What is this?” asked Silves, coming up behind him.
Startled, Brock withdrew his head and turned. Eight people stood in the control room, staring about in astonishment mingling with curiosity.
“What is it?” asked Silves, brushing past Brock to poke in his head. “It looks like a symbiotic access point similar to those we use in our psychotherapeutic unit.” He drew in his breath with a hiss, sounding almost Chaimu. “If you’re going to use that, then you must have your atrox repaired. Without it, you won’t be able to amplify sufficiently, and you won’t be able to drift in order to minimize the stress factors. The drain will be tremendous.”
Brock swallowed. He’d been afraid of that. “How long will it take to repair my atrox? If it can be repaired at all?”
Silves frowned, suddenly looking remote and professional. “If you will permit…”
He pressed his palm against Brock’s chest, where the ripped tunic was stiff with dried blood and black from dirt and smoke. “Severe damage.” He made it an accusation. “Extended neglect. However, some natural healing is indicated. Yes, it can be repaired.”
Brock sighed, an unconscious weight suddenly dropping away. “I thought it was beyond hope. How long?”
“Multiple applications would be the best approach. However, the quickest treatment would require several hours and there would have to be at least a day or two before anything more strenuous than drifting was attempted.”
Brock was already shaking his head before the healer finished. “No. There isn’t time. We must leave orbit now.”
Silves frowned. “But you haven’t a chance without—”
“That doesn’t matter,” said Brock grimly, pulling away. “It must be done. Let’s get started.”
“But, wait!” Silves blocked his path. “At least during the journey there permit me to begin applications.”
“I must be conscious at all times,” said Brock. “I can’t depend—”
“We are in this together now,” said Silves sternly. “You must trust us, as we are being called upon to trust you. Let me try.”
“All right.” Brock nodded. “At the first opportunity. Believe me, Silves, I am not anxious to step into that booth unless I have a chance of coming out again.”
“Can we leave orbit without you being in there?”
Brock frowned. “No. But direct linkage won’t—shouldn’t be necessary.” Not giving himself time for more doubts, he swung into the booth and fitted himself in the seat.
“Healer Silves, what do we do?” asked one of the novices diffidently.
Both Brock and Silves looked at her. “Take a seat, each of you,” said Brock. “I’m sure the computers are programmed for the contingency of an inexperienced crew. Accept those communications linkages and follow any instructions you are given.”
“You make it sound so simple, Dire-lord,” said Silves drily, and Brock grinned.
He waited until they were all in place, then, holding his breath, he laid his left forearm in the groove across the top of the instrumentation and fitted the goda band into its notch. A smooth shudder ran through the control room. Complicated patterns of light flashed over indicators, and tactical boards opened. A viewscreen activated, bringing in an enormous panorama of space and the next tiny planet of the Praxos system. Brock gasped at the magnification power. There was a rumble, felt rather than heard, and the neighboring planet suddenly jumped at them. Someone in the control room cried out. Brock thought of the atmosphere shearing away and wondered how much of the planetary surface was being torn off. A vision of dying Sedkethrans shook him like a dark spear into the mind. Guilt overwhelmed him, making him clench his free fist. Indeed his hands were bloody.
“Brock!” called Silves, breaking through his wrenching thoughts. “What coordinates?”
Hastily Brock pulled his wits together. He would think about dying Colonids instead. At least he had the satisfaction of knowing the entire force sent to destroy Felca was now destroyed itself. Giving Silves the coordinates, he added, “Maximum speed, Silves.”
“Yes. You were right, Dire-lord. I have only to tell the computers what we want.”
Brock nodded. So easy. They were on their way. He hoped they would be in time.
“Dire-lord.”
The soft voice woke Brock. He straightened immediately, annoyed at himself for dozing off.
“Goda Secondary is on our screen.”
Brock stared up at the vast viewscreen, his eyes darting from the appalling carnage of burning and disabled hulks hanging crookedly in space to the dim outline of Daijahl Imperial lying beyond. “Heldfleet,” he whispered. “No…”
A wedge swooped by, its once sleek sides scored black from the battering it had taken. Brock took hope. One survivor. How many others?
Silves was shaking his head regretfully. They all sat slumped in their chairs, diminished in Sedkethran horror at senseless violence. Brock’s gaze narrowed. He had lost them. Temporarily or permanently, he was not sure. Closing his eyes, he sought that inner tie to Ellisne that told him she was still miraculously alive.
“Cuh perser mon,” he said grimly to himself. It was the prayer all Held warriors spoke before going into the arena. And as he said it, the screen turned and he saw Goda Secondary looming at him.
It was a daunting sight. Lumpy and mishapen, with vast parts of its disguising surface sheared away down to the metal structure, it hung out there like a taunt.
“Brock—”
Ignoring Silves, Brock reached up and pulled down the headset to fit it over his temples. He flinched at the pain of initial contact, then steeled himself against the discomfort, forcing himself to make the adjustment, to separate his mind rigidly into compartments capable of assimilating the rapid-fire chatter of computer lines. Silves had given him two brief applications. He felt stronger than he had for a long time, but he could not help but wonder as he settled himself deeper in the seat how long his atrox could hold out against the demands he would shortly be making upon it.
He opened an outside line to the other goda. Falmah-Al answered at once, as though she had been expecting his call.
“At last, Dire-lord!” she said, her voice ringing out harshly. “You have interrupted my sport, but no matter. I shall finish with Heldfleet later.”
“No, there will be no later for you, Colonel,” said Brock, tensing himself. The interior of the booth was hot and stuffy. He could barely breathe. “Your bloodbath is over.”
“And you destroyed the force I sent against Felca.” Her dark eyes, mad and lusting for vengeance, blazed at him from the viewscreen. “Millen was my best fighter. I did not think you had the stomach for such a move, Dire-lord, but you will pay for the lives of my men.”
“The fact that I am a Sedkethran has frequently made opponents underestimate me. Now, Colonel, let us call an end to this. We each have a goda. Will we destroy each other? Or will we recognize a new balance of power and make agreement—”
“I knew you would cry for peace!” she shouted. “You poor pale fool, why should I strike a bargain with you? At last I have my chance to rule the Collective, to rule even the galaxy if I so choose. You try to bluff. I am amazed that you dared bring your goda from its orbit. How many millions did you kill? Are their souls crying upon your conscience, ghost? You’ll never fire on me. Two godas locked in battle? When we finished there would be nothing left. You know that. You are powerless.”
Brock’s mouth set itself. His mind was already leaping, firing orders at the computers, bringing up low-register weaponry equivalent to the howsers a conventional heavy battlecruiser carried.
TARGET MATCHED, responded the gunnery computer.
Fire! ordered Brock, and felt the backlash as two precise pinbeams stabbed at Goda Secondary.
“Dire-lord, no!” shouted Silves, twisting around in his seat.
Falmah-Al’s face abruptly faded from the screen in a burst of static, to be replaced by a long view of her goda. Ignoring Silves, who was now pounding
on the glastel of the booth and still shouting at him to disconnect himself, Brock watched through narrowed eyes as chunks of the goda surface split off, boiling dust and rubble into space.
COMMUNICATIONS DESTROYED, reported internal computers.
Raise shields, ordered Brock. Maneuver. Z minus forty-thousand myls. Gunnery. Realign target sights.
Silves was still beating on the booth with both fists and trying vainly to open it. But Brock knew the booth would remain sealed as long as he was connected to the headset. His gaze flickered briefly to the healer, and his concentration wavered for a fraction. Pain shot through his temples. He winced, then drove it away, regaining complete concentration.
SECONDARY RETURNING FIRE, said the computers.
“Crew,” said Brock into the mike. “Brace for impact.” He did not even see Silves turn and run back to his chair. Brock’s attention was focused totally upon his own job. He swiveled on his seat, his hands flying over controls in response to instructions coming in over the headset. The entire control room rocked, shuddering with enough force to slam Brock’s abdomen against the edge of his instrument board. He lost his breath for a moment and wheezed desperately, then was jerked backwards in the recoil. Pain jabbed through his skull as he again failed to maintain concentration. The computer linkages seemed to be searing trails through his mind, and he fought to catch up, still winded. His atrox, trying from automatic reflex to drift and flick in sequence in order to maintain perfect linkup, began to throb as it had not done since he first injured it.
There came a second, harder shudder as Falmah-Al fired again. She was ignoring low-registry weapons. He wondered if her technician Egel even knew how to access them.
Boost shields, he told the computers, and the control room lights dimmed as power supplies were swiftly rearranged. What was happening to the Sedkethrans who had taken refuge in the cave? But Brock had scant time to wonder about them as he upgraded weapon power.
RECOMMEND MAXIMUM FORCE, said gunnery computer.
Denied! He ordered more maneuvers, still seeking the correct angle to split open Goda Secondary. There must be a seam axis. If he could hit it precisely with the low-registers, there would be no need to engage the dreaded—
WARNING! WARNING! NEGATIVE ENERGY ENGAGED. ABORT SHIELDS. ABORT SHIELDS.
A claxon blared insistently over the control room, and Silves and the others were exchanging frightened, bewildered glances.
They were all dead, thought Brock. The entire galaxy was finished. His free hand clenched. Damn Falmah-Al! She was insane! Didn’t she know what she was doing?
ABORT SHIELDS! ABORT! ABORT! ABORT!
Brought back to what he was supposed to be doing, Brock gave the command, momentarily bewildered by such insistence on dropping their shields, then suddenly understanding. The computers were flashing information back and forth so rapidly now he could not keep up. He heard himself scream in agony, and his body arched in a reflex he could not overcome. Goda Prime turned slowly on her axis, swinging up closer to her sister.
Closer, he commanded, fighting his body to keep it still. There was no escape. There could be no escape. Already space was tearing, the delicate balances of matter and energy failing as the blast from Goda Secondary spread out, diffusing quickly, rippling out wider and wider like the concentric circles of water disturbed by a pebble. Closer! ordered Brock, desperate to stop as much of that diffusion as he could. Goda Secondary loomed larger and larger on the viewscreen. They were on a collision course.
“Brock!” screamed Silves. “What are you doing? Brock! Remove the goda band! It’s your only chance to stop this! Brock, we’re going to crash! Brock—”
But Brock was too busy coordinating the pulsing out of controlled bursts of negative energy, blotting as much of Falmah-Al’s spread as possible.
CONTAINMENT. MAXIMUM FORCE RECOMMENDED, said the computers.
This time Brock listened. The control room shook visibly as rumbling vibrations betrayed the stress of such tight proxmity between the two godas. She had tried maximum force once, determined to destroy everything just to defeat him. She would try it again.
Target, he said. Maximum containment.
Goda Prime. Not just the first goda built, but also the strongest. The goda provided with a failsafe mechanism to contain the ultimate mistake. The trick lay in timing. He must buffer negative energy with negative, matching them equally without the slightest degree of error, in order to recreate positive energy in the blast. He hovered intently, alert to the slightest pulse in his monitors, ignoring screaming nerve endings and the roaring in his ears. His heart was thundering in distress beneath an atrox that was raw agony. He paid none of it any heed. His mind was completely chambered now from the rest of his body, focused down upon those monitors, ready to interpret and act as soon as Goda Secondary struck again.
Would Falmah-Al recognize that she was defeated? Would she acknowledge stalemate? Would she turn away from insanity?
Secondary fired, pouring out everything she possessed in her power banks. It was massive, fast, consuming. Even as he ordered the match, Brock felt the lag in his reaction time. The computers made the match, but it was too late. Secondary’s blast was ahead of Prime’s, outracing it, unraveling time, unraveling space, unraveling existence. Everything was falling out of sync, vibrating madly, fading.
Boost! he screamed to his computers. Maximum gain!
Compensation suddenly leaped with a surge in what remained in Prime’s own power banks. He stayed with the monitors, his own brain shredding inside his skull until he was only dimly aware of the ripple slowing, slowing, stopping, reversing, speeding.
Stop! he ordered, desperately hanging on. Contain!
And the ripple of overcompensation from his own goda died back, stabilizing as the two godas moved slowly apart, widening the stability of the area, pulling the tearing fabric of existence carefully back into place. With containment established, there was one last thing to do.
ABSORPTION RECOMMENDED, said the computers.
Brock was not sure how many times that recommendation was repeated before his mind grasped it. His body had ceased to exist. He was suspended entirely between two points of reference: the goda band on his wrist and the headset. Hang on. He must hang on.
Absorption commence, he said, and there was immediately an alteration in the steady roar filling the control room. Goda Prime began to gently sap the power banks of Secondary, compensating containment as needed until at last, at long, long last, Goda Secondary hung less than twelve hundred kilomyls away as an emptied body. The explosion came fifteen seconds later, spinning Goda Prime back like a gigantic ball held safely behind its restored shields.
STANDING DOWN FROM BATTLE SEQUENCE, droned the computer, kicking on automatic.
The clamp holding the goda band firmly in its niche released, and the agony searing through Brock’s skull abruptly ceased. The silence replacing the linkage was almost as bad. Brock slowly moved clear of the headset. His eyes were wide and unfocused. He felt drained and cold…he had never been this cold before. The door of the glastel booth slid automatically open, letting fresh air inside. He could not draw it into his lungs.
“Brock! You did it! I don’t know how, but you did it!” Silves was shouting, crowding at the booth with the others.
Brock frowned, trying to comprehend the words, but they were only sounds blaring at him. He pulled his arm from the niche, and it fell limply to his side. Then he was moving forward, effortlessly, without his own volition, and it was not until he toppled out of the booth into cold endless darkness that he thought, I have carried out my suprin’s orders. I am now free to die.
He awoke slowly to the splash of sunshine upon his face. There was the luscious, heavy scent of maryh blooms upon the air blowing in through an open window. Outside, he could hear the burbling splash of a fountain and voices, male and female, chattering in low murmurs of sound. Beside him, Ellisne was humming a melody in soft counterpoint to the droning of an insect blund
ering in and out through the window. Opening his eyes, Brock turned his head slightly to watch her. She was always nearby when he awoke, her womanly form swelling with the life growing inside her, her hands busy with the intricate stitchery she was working. Beloved.
Her eyes lifted from her work to meet his gaze, and at once became luminous with her love. “Good morning, beloved. How was your rest?”
For answer he started to rise off the suspensor bed, but with a quick, graceful gesture she stopped him.
“Wait. Silves is eager to examine you—”
“Again?” Brock loosed a mock groan and lifted a hand to rub the sleep from his eyes. “He told me yesterday I was well. Why can’t these healers make up their minds?”
She laughed, bending over him to give him a quick caress at his throat. “Because caring for the Held’s next suprin makes them nervous. And Eondal insisted they be here.”
“Wait.” He grasped her hand, holding her when she would have gone out. “It’s the great day at last, Ellisne. You are not sharing your thoughts. Why? Do you still have doubts?”
Her eyes clouded slightly. “There will always be doubts, beloved. We have spoken of this before. I cannot erase my training as completely as you have done.”
“Ellisne—”
“There are so many changes, Brock! Too many, coming upon us too quickly. It is a life I do not understand. The responsibilities. The rituals. The power. I cannot keep up. Perhaps I shame you.”
“Never.” He watched her eyes, seeking what was really troubling her. “You knew my ambitions from the moment of our first contact. And you are adapting beautifully.”
She turned her face away. “I think of our child. What will his life be like?”
The Goda War Page 26
