The Battle for Terra Two bw-2 Read online

  "I submit," said D'Trelna, "that the computer works."

  "Don't tell me," said Bob. "It's a light bridge."

  "How did you know?"

  "It's a popular fictional device." Bob peered down the jagged cliff that fell thousands of feet to the valley floor, then looked up at the frail, shimmering ribbon of green that spanned the gap. "I'm not trusting my life to a fictional device."

  "It is real," said D'Trelna. "It works-you don't even have to walk. Watch."

  Stepping onto the light bridge, he moved across it, reaching the dreadnought in a few seconds, never lifting his feet. "Nothing to it," he said, turning to drape an arm over the protruding muzzle of a small fusion cannon.

  "So say you, D'Trelna."

  "Come on. Let's get inside."

  McShane hesitantly stepped onto the thin beam of translucent light. Soft but firm, something enveloped him to the waist even as it slid him across the light bridge. Something that brought him safely to the dreadnought, releasing him as the light bridge vanished.

  "I'll be damned," he said as D'Trelna tucked away the control rod. "How far from the ship will that work?"

  D'Trelna shrugged. "Who knows? There's been no research team out here yet. What with war recovery and mop-up operations, everyone is busy elsewhere. They'll get back to her, though. The variety and degree of Imperial technology in this horror is impressive."

  "That's a very small cannon for such a very big ship, J'Quel," said McShane, pointing to where D'Trelna's arm rested.

  D'Trelna stepped back, looking at the weapon and the small turret housing it. "Anti-personnel," he said. "To repel boarders." He turned, sweeping his arm along the seemingly endless expanse ofRevenge. "Look around. The hull's littered with them."

  McShane looked. The turrets went on forever, spaced every hundred or so feet, nestled between larger weapons and instrument pods. "Good God! People stormed these monstrosities?"

  "Unbelievable, isn't it? Flesh and blood against miles of battlesteel and flawless latticefire.

  "Shall we go in?"

  "How? Last time here. I came through the hangar deck."

  "Hangar deck," said the commodore, taking the rod from his pouch, "is only a few yards above the surface, blanketed in an n-grav field that would turn your body to protoplasmic mush.

  "As for the door…" he said, thumbing the rod. A broad circle of hull, pods and turrets vanished. A wide tunnel slopped gently into the ship, lit soft yellow by hexagonal wall cubes. A distant gray smudge marked the passageway's far end.

  D'Trelna led, stepping onto the steel flooring. Following, Bob staggered as the ship's gravity field clamped down, then recovered, catching up with D'Trelna. "Isn't it dangerous, J'Quel, having that bloody great hole in the ship?"

  The commodore's shrug was visible through the thin miracle of the warsuit. "The shield would stop any space crud."

  "Yes, but if enemy boarders knew where these tunnels were…"

  "Those gently glowing cubes on the wall," said D'Trelna, not breaking stride, "are disintegrator pods. We're in a giant ionization tube. A simple command to computer and… phhht!"

  "Phhht, indeed," said Bob, glancing uneasily at their light source. "And where does this… tube lead?"

  "Into a reception area. We'll pick up a shipcar there."

  "This just goes through the hull?" He stopped, regauging the tunnel's length. "That's over a quarter mile of battlesteel!"

  "Yes." D'Trelna twisted off the warsuit's bubble helmet. "Atmosphere curtain," he explained, jerking a thumb back at the entrance.

  Removing his own helmet, Bob took a breath of chill, metallic air. "Even smells like battlesteel.

  "So, tell me," he said as they walked, helmets under their arms, "how did blood and flesh take a mindslaver?"

  "Penal brigades were used to sop up the hull fire, fight off counterassaults and plant charges. If any lived long enough to blow a hole in the hull, assault boats would come in and Imperial marines would storm into the ship."

  "Casualties must have been awesome."

  "Tens of thousands."

  "Why didn't the defenders just blow the ship up?" asked Bob as they reached the end of the tunnel and the inner door.

  "Cost money. 'A' starts blowing up his mindslavers, then 'B' is blowing up his. The only thing left then is to destroy each other's ships. And that, as you may guess…"

  "Cost money." Bob shook his head. "Whole economies must have been based on this bloody swapping."

  "Oh, they were," said D'Trelna, frowning at the gray battlesteel door. "One could build a certain number of them, at great expense. Keeping a war going at just the right pace provides industrial growth and a certain hollow prosperity."

  "The trick was not to lose many ships?"

  D'Trelna nodded. "That would have been mutually ruinous. Mindslavers fought it out only twice-when they were invented and fielded by the R'Actolian biofabs, and when the Empire was in its final agony. The rest of the time-a long, long time-those tacit rules of engagement were followed."

  "And life was cheap."

  "Never so cheap as then."

  Another ten minutes brought them to the end of the tube and a thick gray slab of battlesteel.

  "Why isn't this door opening?" said D'Trelna after a moment.

  "Problem?"

  "Yes." He nudged the door with his boot. "It's supposed to open when someone stands here."

  The disintegrator pods began humming.

  D'Trelna turned, looking back down the tube. The pods were oscillating from soft yellow to a fierce white. Each cycle was shorter than the last, more white than yellow. "It's going into destruct mode! Something's triggered it."

  "How long?"

  "Not long. When it slips into pure white, we're dead." The commodore slipped off his rifle. "Fire at the door." Aiming carefully, he pulled the trigger, sending a raw beam of energy splashing against the door. The thick battlesteel lapped it up, not even glowing.

  "Hurry!" he shouted above the blaster's shrilling.

  McShane stood unmoving, right hand on the rifle's brown duraplast sling, eyes fixed, unblinking.

  Suddenly he moved to the right, six practiced, economical steps that brought him to the wall, hands pushing four widely separated blocks just so, each on a different edge.

  Dimming, the cubes slipped back into yellow as the door slid noiselessly open. Three broad corridors ended in a wide circle before the tunnel. Small shipcars rimmed the circle, fronts tucked into power niches.

  "Bob!" D'Trelna shook McShane by the shoulder.

  "What…" He blinked, dazed. "The door's open!"

  "You don't remember?"

  "No. Except…"He shook his head.

  "What?"

  "I was back in that pit of a room…"

  "The mindslave chamber, here onRevenge?"

  "Yes. Back in that room, mindlinked with those things, hearing their frenzied buzzing, feeling them rip at my mind, when the whole thing froze, became a sort of mental tableau and a voice, very calm, very slow, said, 'We gave even as we tried to take. The pattern of the cubes, sally portal one-four-two.' "

  He looked at the commodore. "You said we were here to consult the ship's computer. Not quite true, is it?"

  "Let's take one of those cars. I'll explain as we go."

  "Very well."

  As they stepped into the ship, the door closed behind them. Reaching the nearest car, Bob sank into the front passenger's side, rifle between his knees, helmet on the floor. D'Trelna tossed rifle and helmet into the back seat, climbed in and backed the noiseless car from its berth.

  "We're here to see the overmind," said D'Trelna. Bringing the car up to speed, he turned down the left corridor. Doorways and side corridors flashed by.

  "I thought you'd killed all the mindslaves."

  "The overmind's in a different part ofRevenge. It spoke to me after I destroyed the central brainpod clusters."

  "Did the overmind pull that stunt in the tunnel?"

  "I don't know."
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  "What is an overmind?"

  "A mindslaver's central processing unit. It delegates tasks to the various brainpods, coordinates them. It's the interface between brainpods and ship's computer."

  McShane grabbed the rollbar as D'Trelna threw the car into a tight spiral, plunging down a ramp toward the lower decks. "You may be a helluva starship captain, D'Trelna," he said, "but you're the worst driver in the galaxy."

  "You want to walk?"

  "No. Why are we going to see the overmind?"

  "It told me to return when the S'Cotar did. Poor, mad brain, I thought. All those years without a body, all those millennia in stasis. Death would be a mercy.

  "Well, the S'Cotar are back. And so am I."

  Deep within the mindslaver, they stopped before a small, unmarked door. Powering down, D'Trelna dismounted as the car settled to the floor. Taking out the rifles, he handed one to Bob.

  "Does the overmind shoot, too?" asked McShane, taking the rifle uncertainly.

  "As an Imperial, it probably prefers treachery," smiled the commodore. "No. These are in case of bugs. Can't run max n-gravs and shield together."

  The door opened.

  McShane had been expecting a deep shaft of a room, like the sterile gray well forward that had housed the rest ofRevenge's mindslaves. "Very nice," he said, following D'Trelna into the stylish little room.

  The walls were hung with tapestries artfully woven in skillful geometric patterns that deceived the eye. The carpeting was rich and deep, altering hue or color with each change of perspective. Two armchairs and a sofa of the same material as the carpeting sat against the wall.

  "Gentlemen," said a faint, dry voice. "Sit, if you wish."

  "We'll stand," said D'Trelna.

  "Thank you for coming."

  "Could you speak up?" asked Bob.

  "Most of my remaining energy is holding off central computer," said the voice, slightly louder. "When you destroyed the mindslaves, Commodore, you destroyed the delicate balance between organic and inorganic minds on this ship. Pity, too. Computer was good company. We shared a liking for prespace mythology. But now that large lump of spun titanium crystal is about to finish me."

  "Why?" asked Bob.

  "It's quite mad. It was in stasis a long time, with the rest of this vessel. Its particular series does-did-not take well to stasis. It was computer that tried to kill you in the sally portal."

  "And you who joggled my memory?"

  "Yes. You know much about this ship, McShane, absorbed from the mindslaves when they tried to destroy you, your last time here."

  Bob started to ask another question,

  "Please. Let me say what I have to, then I and this ship are of no further moment.

  "You're here, D'Trelna, because the S'Cotar are back."

  "Yes."

  "From an alternate Terra, according to your skipcomms to Fleet." The commodore nodded.

  "You were right, guessing it's not a S'Cotar device the biofabs are using."

  "They got to the Trel cache!" exclaimed Bob.

  "No," said the overmind. "The Trel cache was discovered just as the Empire entered its final cataclysm. It's never been explored. The device the S'Cotar have is Imperial-a prototype ferreted from Pocsym's vaults by Guan-Sharick and used to establish a fallback point on Terra Two. It's limited to surface use. The spaceborne unit that was used to remove your destroyer must have been brought by the machines."

  The color drained from D'Trelna's face. "The Empire had no spaceborne unit? How am I to get a ship to Terra Two?"

  "There's a prototype of such a device hidden on this ship. You will need one other starship positioned here to send you through."

  "Reinforcements are on the way."

  "Don't count your ships before they arrive, Commodore. I did, once. It cost me my body.

  "Also, finding the device, you still have to escape the ship with it."

  The overmind spoke quickly, voice almost inaudible. "Computer's heating my brain casing. Finishing me, it will come after you."

  "Where's the device?" said Bob.

  "Deck forty-eight-Agro. Program your shipcar with that deck number and flag section red one-eight-four."

  "Agro red-one-eight-four," repeated D'Trelna.

  "Computer's made a green hell out of Agro, piled all the treasures and mysteries there that the Empire sent, at the end. You'll find what you need there, in the house of the dead.

  "Go now. Luck."

  As they left, a faint tendril of thought touched McShane. Empty is the House of S'Kal. Empire and Destiny.

  "What?" he said, turning back as the door opened.

  From somewhere nearby came the high, wrenching sound of flawed crystal cracking. As the door shut, the men heard something soft and wet smacking onto the deck.

  "Skirmish one to computer," said D'Trelna as they reached the shipcar. He turned, hearing a noise. McShane had slumped into his seat, head in hand.

  "Bob, what is it?" D'Trelna bent over the Terran.

  "I have a terrible headache."

  "We have to go on."

  "I know." Raising his head, Bob swung around into the car, ashen-cheeked. "I 'll be fine.

  "This car isn't tied into the computer, is it?" he asked, resting his head against the seatback.

  "No," said D'Trelna, tapping numbers into the modest control board. "We'd have been squashed like bugs against a bulkhead if it were." He grunted with satisfaction as the confirmation flashed across the small screen. "Ready."

  "Don't you want to call for help?" asked Bob.

  "No." He engaged autopilot. The shipcar rose, pivoting 180 degrees. "Not only isImplacable under-crewed, but if our visit here becomes an official mission, official questions will be asked. They'll find out I killed those mindslaves and disabled this monster." The car picked up speed. "Court-martialed, I'd be found guilty. We have few prisons. My personality would be altered-for my own good. I would become a simple, happy, thin man. Losing my drive, creativity and intellect, I'd spend the rest of my long, useless life watching the fruits of others' imagination parade by on the vidscreen."

  "To Agro," said Bob, taking the blastrifle from the floor.

  "I should check in," said the commodore as the car spiraled down a ramp.

  "D'Trelna toImplacable:' he said, touching the communicator at his throat. He waited a moment, then tried again. There was no response.

  "Odd," he said, looking at McShane. "Never had this problem."

  "CouldRevenge's computer be jamming?"

  Reaching behind his thick neck, D'Trelna unsnapped the communicator. Stubby fingers moving with surprising dexterity, he popped open the back of the tiny oval. "D'Trelna toImplacable," he said carefully, watching the pattern of light that flashed along tiny crystalline veins.

  "Was I right?" asked Bob as the car raced along an interminable stretch of gray corridor.

  "Yes," said the commodore, snapping the communicator together and fastening it back around his neck. "Something's blocking our signal."

  "Computer?"

  "Probably." D'Trelna glanced behind them. "At least nothing deadly's streaking after us. "We're almost there."

  McShane sat up, headache forgotten. "Check your weapons," said D'Trelna as the shipcar rounded a bend, slowing. "And put on your helmet. We're here."

  McShane looked ahead. Soaring overhead, a great slab of armorglass blocked the corridor. Strange flora blossomed on the other side, an explosion of green.

  The car stopped, settling to the ground.

  Dismounting, D'Trelna twisted on his helmet, then took a flat, oblong device from beneath the dashboard.

  "Locator," said McShane, recognizing the machine from times past.

  "Programmed with our exact destination, taken from the car's navsystem. Shall we?" said the commodore, pointing with blastrifle toward the greenery.

  Helmets on, rifles at port arms, the two men approached the transparent barrier.

  Parting along an invisible seam, the armorglass slid open-an o
pening just wide enough for two. From inside came sharp, feral cries worthy of a Jurassic swamp.

  "Sounds like everything in there eats everything else," said McShane.

  "I should prove a filling morsel," said the commodore. Snapping off the rifle's safety, he stepped over the threshold. Bob followed.

  Behind them, the armorglass snicked quietly shut.

  14

  "How are you, my dear Christian?" asked Jesus.

  Hochmeister looked up from walnut writing desk, blinking at the Raphaelite Christ standing in the late brigadier's living room: thorns crowning chestnut hair, stigmata piercing the delicate frame, tattered, soiled white linen robe; the Renaissance vision of The Levantine as granted a shabby, five-color immortality by millions of cheap reproductions and shoddy interpretations.

  "Shalan-Actal," sighed the admiral. He leaned back in the overstuffed green-velvet Regency armchair. "You look more like a Hollywood pretty boy than an itinerant Galilean rabbi. And your compassionate visage needs improving."

  "Still working on your memoirs?" The transmute pointed to the neat pile of yellow foolscap on the desk.

  "Still," nodded Hochmeister, setting his pen back in the ink well. "Art, Goethe reminds us, is long, life short. I'm now at chapter thirty-two, mine and Canaris's chat with Rommel, convincing him to join the putsch."

  "I met Rommel once," said Shalan-Actal.

  The admiral's eyebrows rose. "You met Rommel? I thought you were out pillaging your galaxy."

  "Don't forget, Admiral," said the Jesus-form, "we- biofabs-were created on Terra's moon. Our war with the K'Ronarins only lasted ten of your years. And although Poesym didn't allow us to meddle in Terran affairs, there were training missions. Naturally, I met the alternate Rommel. It was early in his career."

  "I met him early in my career, midpoint in his. What was your impression?"

  "Talented and daring."

  Hochmeister nodded. "A great soldier and a fine Chancellor."

  "Only a soldier in my reality, Admiral."

  "Why have you come?"

  "Need I have a purpose, Admiral?" The brigadier replaced Jesus.

  "All you do has purpose, Shalan-Actal. In that, we're much alike."

  "Perhaps," said the brigadier-form. "Although my kind don't call me monster.