Читать книгу The Return of the Emperor (Sten #6) - Allan Cole - Страница 7
ОглавлениеCHAPTER TWO
IT WAS A QUIET little planet in a nondescript system overseen by a dying yellow star. The system had no particular history, was well off any major trade or tourist routes, and rarely had any visitors.
Many E-years before, an Imperial Survey Mission had made a desultory study and found little of interest. The science officer had duly noted that it was about .87 E-size, had commensurate gravity, E-normal atmosphere, and sat three AU from its sun. The climate was tropical to subarctic, and the planet supported any number of thriving life forms. The top predator on land was a shy, catlike creature that proved to be of no danger to anyone.
There were also “No beings of higher development observed.”
The planet was dubbed Survey World XM-Y-1134. And for several hundred years, that was its sole name—although it was unlikely anyone ever asked.
It got a proper name of sorts from a restless entrepreneur who built a mansion in the temperate zone for himself and his hangers-on, then briefly toyed with the idea of turning it into a remote resort. To this end, he had constructed a state-of-the-art spaceport. Whether or not the idea had merit, no one would ever learn. The entrepreneur lost three or four fortunes and came to an obscure, rather sad end.
But the planet didn’t mind. It hummed and wobbled busily about its orbit as it had done for several billion years, scratching its fur against a cosmic stump every few hundred millions of years or so—and wiping out any life-forms that had become too prolific and giving another group a start.
The planet’s new name was Smallbridge. The source for that name was buried along with the entrepreneur and his conceit.
Sten liked it fine. He had spent more than five years exploring Smallbridge’s beaches, marshes, broad plains and deserts, forests and ice floes, sometimes with eager companions, sometimes alone. There had been a few adventures—and more than a few trysts with lovely women. But nothing had stuck. He had encountered no one like the steel-willed Bet of his youth. Or the relentless Lisa Haines. Or the fiery gambler, St. Clair.
In the last year or so, he had found himself just going through the motions of living. He had fallen into a dark mood he couldn’t shake.
During rational moments, he would rouse himself. Give himself a good talking to. Call himself all kinds of a rich fool of a clot.
He had everything any being could want, didn’t he? Gypsy Ida, his old Mantis teammate, had seen to that. He and Alex Kilgour had exited the Tahn POW camp wealthy beyond their dreams. While they had languished in the Heath slammer, Ida had rolled their ever-growing back pay into one investment after another until the result was two not so smallish fortunes.
Besides the money, Kilgour wound up with the poshest estate on his heavy-world home of Edinburgh.
Sten got his own planet.
Thanks a clot of a lot, Ida. Now, what?
Come on, don’t blame the Rom. As Mahoney would have said: “Don’t be kicking over the milk the cow gave.” Mahoney would have reminded Sten that he had plucked him off the factory world of Vulcan, a young Delinq half a breath from being brain-burned. Mahoney would sneer and point out that Sten had crawled through the mud and worse to rise from the ranks as an infantry grunt to a deadly Mantis operative to commander of the Emperor’s personal bodyguard to hero of the Tahn wars—and finally to admiral. He would brush over the oceans of gore Sten was personally responsible for and tell him that he was still a young man and just needed to pluck his finger out and get back to business.
But Mahoney was dead.
Sten’s old boss, the Eternal Emperor, would have laughed at him, poured a double shot of stregg to put blood in his eye, and sent him off to face a suitable enemy. It wouldn’t matter much who the enemy might be. It would be enough that the beings were threatening the peace and security of an empire that had thrived for nearly three thousand years.
But the Emperor, too, was dead.
The last time Sten had seen the Emperor, he had sworn to the man that his career in the military was over. This despite promises of many honors and much important work to come in the aftermath of the Tahn conflict that had nearly bankrupted the Empire.
The Eternal Emperor had scoffed and said Sten was just weary, and understandably so. He said to look him up when he tired of the peaceful life. The Emperor had estimated it would take no longer than six months.
It was one of those rare times when the Eternal Emperor had been wrong. Almost six months to the day, Sten had looked up from blissful idleness in his mansion at Smallbridge, patted the curvaceous naked form nestled against the pillow next to him, and whispered “no clottin’ way” to his absent boss.
A week later, the Eternal Emperor had been assassinated.
It had been one of those stupid things that Sten had dreaded when he commanded the Emperor’s bodyguard. No matter what precautions were taken, there was no such thing as absolute safety for a man as public as the Eternal Emperor. Even the fierce loyalty of his Gurkkha guards was not complete protection. The little men with the long, curving knives who had kept the Emperor’s foes at bay for nearly thirty centuries were helpless under certain circumstances.
The Emperor had returned to Prime World the conquering hero. Billions upon billions of beings across his far-flung empire had watched on their livies as he stepped from his royal ship and advanced across the tarmac to the phalanx of waiting gravcars that would whisk him home to Arundel.
Tanz Sullamora, the great ship-building industrialist and most trusted member of his privy council, was at his side.
Sten remembered watching the screen in the mansion’s vidroom. The newscaster’s voice was hoarse from describing the triumphant return. The schedule, he said in a raspy whisper, called for no ceremonies at that moment. The Emperor would board the waiting craft and head for a well-earned rest. In a week or so, a grand celebration of the victory over the Tahn was planned. Beings from all over the Empire would gather to honor their leader. There would be no recriminations, it was said, even against the shakiest of the Emperor’s allies.
Sten didn’t believe a word of that. He knew his boss too well. There would be a purge. But it would be swift, sure, and hardly a bubble of interruption as the Emperor turned his attention away from war and back to the business of being the chieftain of the greatest capitalist system in history.
But it would still be a good show. The Emperor was a master of dazzle and triple speak.
Idly, Sten noted the small group of spaceport employees gathered far to one side of the screen. They were drawn up in what was obviously a receiving line, waiting to shake the hand of the Emperor. Sten was glad his old boss was heading in the opposite direction. Not that there was any real danger. What would be the point of attacking the Emperor now that the war was over? Still... His instincts always fought his common sense in such situations. Once among the press of flesh, it would be impossible to totally protect the man.
Then he saw Sullamora catch the Emperor’s attention and nod to the waiting line. Sten let out an automatic groan. Tanz would be pointing out, he knew, that the spaceport group had been waiting for hours to greet their ruler and should really not be disappointed.
Sure enough, after a moment’s hesitation, the Emperor’s party turned toward the assembled group. They were moving fast. The Emperor obviously wanted to get this bit of duty over with as quickly as possible. The Gurkkhas hustled on stubby legs to keep the shield up.
Then the Emperor was going down the line in that smooth, graceful way he had among his people: the charming, fatherly smile fixed on his young features; the tall, muscular body bounding along from being to being; one hand coming out to shake, the other going for the elbow for a warm double-grip that also moved the greeter swiftly aside, so the next hand could be taken.
Sten had seen a blur of motion. What was happening? He heard the distinctive crack crack crack of pistol fire. And the Eternal Emperor was falling back. The camera swirled into mass confusion. Then it cleared—but just for a moment.
He saw the Emperor lying on the tarmac. Sten’s heart was still. His breath caught somewhere in his chest. Was he... dead?
Then the screen turned to pure burning white, and Sten heard the beginnings of a mighty explosion.
Transmission was cut.
When it was finally restored, Sten had his answer.
The Eternal Emperor had been assassinated.
By a madman, it was said. Some malcontent named Chapelle, who had acted alone out of some insane motive—revenge for an imagined slight, or ambition for an odd sort of immortality.
Along with countless billions of other beings, Sten had been a numb witness to what followed.
It was inconceivable that the Emperor was gone. Although there were few who believed that any living thing could be immortal or even close to it. There were a few odd cells—usually particularly virulent things that destroyed their host, hence themselves—that could theoretically live forever, as well as a few dwellers of the seas and upper atmospheres. But that was nit-picking. For all things, to be alive meant eventual death.
For human beings, this was particularly so. And the Emperor was a human being. There was no dispute on that and never would be.
But as long as anyone could remember he had always been there. Whether one agreed or disagreed with his policies, the Emperor was a comforting and permanent presence. Even the most bitter and radical scholars gnashed their teeth as they tracked his reign back century after unbelievable century. It was no accident that the word eternal was the official preface to the Emperor’s title.
It was also something one didn’t dwell on. An ordinary human might live for two hundred years if he were lucky. To think of someone vastly older was frightening.
Sten had personally known the man a great deal of his own allotted span. In apparent age, the Emperor was no more than thirty-five or so. His eyes were youthfully bright. He even made occasional mocking references to his great age. But there was little the Eternal Emperor didn’t mock. Nothing was holy to him, especially himself.
Sometimes, however, Sten had seen him overtaken by a great and terrible weariness. It had happened more often toward the end of the Tahn debacle. Deep lines would be etched on his features, and his eyes would suddenly grow so distant that anyone looking believed for a moment that the man had seen and been places far beyond any being who had ever lived. And somehow one was sure he would remain long after one’s own memory was lost in distant time.
Two days after the assassination, the members of the Emperor’s privy council had, one by one, mounted the stage hastily set up in the great grounds around the ruins of Arundel Castle. Only one member did not appear; Tanz Sullamora. Faithful servant to the last, he had died in the explosion that had also wiped out everyone within the one-eighth-of-a-kilometer kill zone. Why Chapelle had found it necessary to set off such an enormous explosion after he slew the Emperor, no one could say. Except that it was the act of an insane man. All else remained part of that mad puzzle, because Chapelle himself had been one of the first victims of his actions.
The five lords of industry stood before the vast throng assembled on the grounds. Prior to their entrance, it had been explained in great detail exactly who and what they were.
There was Kyes, a tall, slender, silver being, who controlled most things involving artificial intelligence. He was a Grb’chev, a vastly bright race, and appeared to be the chief spokesbeing of the privy council. Next was Malperin. She ruled a gargantuan conglomerate that included agriculture, chemical, and pharmaceuticals. Then there was Lovett, scion of a great banking family. Finally, the Kraa twins—one grossly fat, the other painfully thin—who controlled the major mines, mills, and foundries in the Empire. Besides Sullamora, there had once been another member of their group. But Volmer, a media baron, had died in some silly mishap just prior to the end of the war.
Kyes had a dry, light, pleasant voice. It was somber now as he explained that Parliament had cast a unanimous vote urging the five lords to rule in the Emperor’s place during this terrible emergency. None of them had sought this awful burden, and none of them certainly felt worthy of the trust beings everywhere were placing in them at that very moment.
But they had been convinced that for the time being there was no other choice. Order must come out of this awesome chaos, and they pledged to do their very best to govern wisely and fairly until the proper moment came—very soon, he hoped—when free elections could be held to determine how exactly the Empire was to be led without the presence of His Majesty, their martyred ruler.
Kyes said he knew this was a weak solution at best, but all of them had racked their brains for tortuous hours and could find no other way out. A commission was being set up—as he spoke, in fact—to study the situation and to make suggestions. He and the other members of the council awaited word from this eminent body of scholarly beings as eagerly as anyone watching and listening. But he had been told that what they were attempting to accomplish had never been done before and might take a great deal of time and reasoned debate.
Kyes counseled patience, then pledged he would carry on in the spirit of the great man who had rescued them all from the threat of enslavement under the Tahn.
One by one the others stepped up to make similar remarks—and to add a bit of detail, such as the date of the funeral, which would be vaster and richer than any funeral that had gone before. New honors were announced to be posthumously bestowed on the Emperor, and a year of mourning was declared. Sten palmed the button that blanked the screen and sat back to reflect.
He did not need his Mantis psywar training to know that he had just witnessed a power grab.
So. The privy council would reluctantly govern until free elections could be held. Sten had propped up a few despots in his time with similar empty pledges. He wondered how long it would be before the first coup attempt. And which one would eventually be successful. And then the one after that. And the other—on and on until the entire system collapsed. He supposed there would be constant warfare of greater and greater intensity for the rest of his life.
Ultimate power was at stake. He who controlled the Empire determined the flow of all the Anti-Matter Two—AM2—the fuel upon which civilization everywhere was based. It was the source of cheap power, the key to all major weaponry, and the sole practical means of interstellar travel. Without AM2, trade would be almost entirely reduced to intrasystem lumbering about on the infinitely practical but painfully slow Yukawa drive engines.
But there was nothing Sten could do about any of it. The Eternal Emperor was dead. Long live the Emperor.
He would mourn him. Not as a friend. No one could call the Emperor friend. But, as—well, a comrade at arms, then. Sten got drunk and remained drunk for a month, switching from Scotch to stregg and back again—the Emperor’s two favorite drinks.
Then he tried to get on with his life.
Sten didn’t pay much mind to the chaos the Empire fell into. He only coppered his bets by purchasing all the AM2 he could lay his hands on, and it wasn’t long before the shortages began and he was congratulating himself on his foresight. The why of the shortages didn’t concern him. He assumed the privy council—in its infinite wisdom—had determined such a course to further line their already heavy pockets.
He dabbled a bit in business, found it far from his liking, then was reduced to an endless series of momentary enthusiasms. Not unlike the Emperor, who had a host of hobbies always in progress. He became a fair cook, although he knew he would never be the Emperor’s match. He honed his skills with tools and building things. He took a fling at a few of the lusher fleshpots. When he wearied of that—a little too quickly for comfort, he sometimes thought—he explored and improved Smallbridge.
He and Alex corresponded, always swearing to get together soon, but soon never came. And as the controls on AM2 tightened, travel became more and more impractical, and before he knew it “soon” wasn’t even mentioned in any of their letters.
Ian Mahoney—his only other real friend—quietly retired to the life of a military historian, then died in some silly accident. Sten had heard that he had drowned and that the body had never been found. He supposed there was some irony in such a meaningless death for a man who had managed to survive against impossible odds so many times before. But he didn’t see it, or he was too depressed to examine it. The final year of his self-imposed exile was proving the worst. His bleak moods were constantly on him, as well as a gut-itching paranoia. Whom he should fear, he had no idea. He had no suspects. But he became paranoid just the same. Every residence he set up on Smallbridge was enclosed with increasingly sophisticated and—he had to admit it—eccentric security devices, including some nasty, being-devouring plants he imported from some hellhole whose name he had easily forgotten. They had taken off like mad in the nonthreatening environment of Smallbridge. Every once in a while he had to set the perimeter on fire to keep the grove under control.
Lately, he had taken up residence in the northwestern sector of the second largest land mass in the temperate zone.
Temperate was a weak, nondescript word for this place beside the chain of four mighty lakes. The winds always blew fierce and cold there. The snow lay deep on the ground and bowed the trees of the forest for many months of the year. But for some reason it had a powerful attraction to him—just as it seemed to have for the being-devouring plants, which thrived in the cold, wet climate.
Sten had built several frontier-style domes in the cluster by one of the lakes. One was devoted to a kitchen and pantry where he prepared and stored food, butchered out a little game, or cleaned the strange, bullet-shaped but tasty dwellers of the lake. He grew vegetables in the hydroponic tubs that took up all of one side. The second dome contained his workshop and was crammed with tools and building materials of every variety. He also kept and worked on his weapons there, as well as the snooping devices he was always toying with. The last dome held his living quarters and gymnasium. He spent hours in the gym and outside in the cold, endlessly practicing and honing his Mantis skills.
He lined the walls of his living quarters with real wood cut from his own forest. He built bunks and cabinets and all sorts of things from the same material. When he was done, it looked so homey that he was pleased with himself. Still, something seemed to be missing. He scratched his memory until he came up with an “aha.” It wanted a fireplace. After several smoky and tortuous attempts, he finally had it. And it was huge, big enough to take a two-meter log. It drew like clot and gave off a wonderfully cheery glow.
A woman who had stayed with him a few months said it reminded her of something she had seen before but couldn’t quite make out. Sten pressed her, but all she could remember was that it had involved some item at a shop where “less expensive things” were sold. From the tone in her voice, Sten got the drift she meant garish and sentimental.
He was so lonely, he let it pass.
A week or so later, he was returning from some errand in the forest. It was a beautiful, gray day, and a light snowfall was drifting down from the skies and through the trees.
Sten hailed the dome, and the woman opened the door to greet him. She was framed in the doorway, with the glowing fire lighting her from behind, and Sten knew then what she had been thinking of. Because now he remembered, as well.
A long time before, his mother had extended her contract for six months to buy a muraliv. A country girl completely lost and out of place in the workshops of Vulcan, she had deeded half a year more of her life for what she believed was a work of art.
It was of a snowy landscape on a frontier world. He remembered the snow drifting down on the little cluster of domes, and the door that always swung open to greet the returning workers from the forest and field—and the bright cheery fire the open door had revealed. It was his mother’s dearest treasure. In eight months, it had gone quite still.
Sten had unconsciously recreated the mural.
He made some excuses and hustled the woman on her way. It was silly to blame her for a slight she couldn’t know she was committing, but he couldn’t bear to have her around anymore.
That was when the gloom reached its absolute bottom. Month after month, he pricked at the wound. He didn’t need the walrus-psychologist Rykor to tell him what he was doing. Sten knew. But he did it just the same. He even named the four lakes after his long-dead family.
The largest lake, where the domes were clustered, he named Amos, for his father. The next in the chain became Freed, for his mother. Then Ahd and Johs, for his brother and sister.
When that was done, he sat and brooded, hoping his condition was no more than a lingering fever that had to be endured until the viral tide shifted and the fever broke.
* * * *
Five hundred miles to the north, a bright light winked into being and arced down through the night skies. It steadied a moment above the frozen ground, then sped toward the lakes and Sten’s retreat.
Then a globe appeared, hanging amid the stars. Powerful jamming devices hummed into life, bathing Smallbridge in an electronic blanket that comforted and coaxed Sten’s alarm system into believing all was well.
A light very much like the first separated from the globe, then sped off in the same direction.
A few klicks from the domes, the battered little space-boat came to ground, a black splotch against the snow. The port groaned open, and a dark figure exited. After dragging on cold-weather gear and snapping snowshoes to his feet, the man straightened, then hesitated, scanning the skies, an immense, bulky figure, sniffing the air for danger very much like a big Kodiak from distant Earth. Suddenly he saw a light pop above the horizon. It was the other ship, coming fast.
The man turned and hurried across the snow, moving like a nullgrav dancer despite his bulk. He scanned the ground ahead with a practiced eye, setting a zigzag course and not bothering to obscure his tracks. There wasn’t time.
Occasionally—for no apparent reason—he sidestepped little pimples in the snow. Behind him, he heard the other ship settle, the frozen crust shattering under the weight with little pops and cracks.
At the tree line, the man spotted an almost imperceptible ridge. He stopped. Moaning in frustration, he moved in first one direction, then the other. But the slight ridge seemed to stretch without relief all along the outer edge of the woods. For some reason, the man considered his path blocked.
The port of the other craft hissed open and seven black figures tumbled out. They were already garbed for the terrain. Fingers flew in silent code. Agreement was reached. And they sped off in the man’s direction. They moved in a ragged vee, with the tallest being taking point. They skimmed effortlessly across the snow on gravskis, keeping a fast, measured pace.
If anyone had spotted them, there would be no mistake about their business. These were hunters—after very big game.
Their quarry was kneeling beside a drift, his gloves off, digging gently around the ridge. His fists felt like heavy, unwieldy things. He had to stop now and then to pound them back to life against his coat. Behind him, the figures moved on.
Finally there appeared a silver thread so slender that it would be the envy of an arachnid. Snow dust hung from it. The man blew on the thread, puffing out warm moisture that collected and froze. When he thought it was thick enough, he pulled out a tiny little device with just-visible daws. He flipped open the back with a fingernail, revealing little programming holes. He inserted a pin in several of the holes, until the device gave a chirp indicating that it was alive.
The man clicked it shut, breathed a prayer, and slowly... so slowly... stretched it toward the thread.
A laser blast cracked the frozen air with its heat and blazed a furrow in the snow millimeters from one knee. The man winced but fought back the urge to jerk away or hurry. He knew that if he was wrong, worse things than a charred hole in his corpse would occur.
He had to get to Sten, before Sten got him.
The little claws gripped the thread. The man held his breath, waiting. Another laser blast cracked. The heel of one snowshoe exploded as the lased AM2 round detonated. Finally a chirp from the tiny device said that all was well.
The man plunged across the wire into the woods just as the marksmen found their range. A hole boiled at the spot where he had knelt one breath before.
As he disappeared, the hunting team surged forward, faster. Skimming around the pimples their prey had avoided, they leapt the wire and landed silently on the other side. The leader motioned and the vee divided and the hunters scattered into the woods.
* * * *
Sten paced the room. He was edgy. He picked up an antique, leather-bound book and he stared at the title, but it didn’t register. He dropped it back on the table, strode over to the fire, and poked it up until the flames were hot and leaping. He still felt a little cold, so he tossed on another log.
There was something wrong, but he couldn’t make it out. He kept glancing at the bank of security monitors, but all the lights were calming green. Why did he have this feeling that he was being lied to? The hackles were crawling at the back of his neck. One part of his mind said he was behaving like a whiny old being: afraid of the dark, jumping at every noise. Ignore it, that part ordered. But the tiny voice of survival kept up its keening.
Sten palmed the override on the monitors and went to manual scan. Still green. He flipped from sector to sector. Nothing. Disgusted with himself, he put it back on automatic. Just for one heartbeat, the lights seemed to blink yellow, then went to steady green. What was that? He switched back to manual again. Green, goddammit! Then to auto. This time there was no telltale yellow as the lights stayed steady emerald. He must have been imagining things.
He went to the front door, slipped to one side, edged it open and peered out. All he could see was the empty expanse of snow, bright under the hanging moon. He had reflecting devices hidden in several trees within easy view. Sten studied them. He could see his shadow peering out from the edge of the door. There was nothing lurking on either side of the dome.
Feeling like all kinds of a clotting fool, he slipped a miniwillygun from its hiding place in a slot by the door, flipped its safety off and stepped outside.
There was not a sight or a sound out of the ordinary. Sten scanned the area, millimeter by millimeter. Nothing seemed remotely awry. He snapped the safety back on, telling himself that if he was that edgy, he might drop the damned thing and blow off a knee. Still, old habits die hard—and, sometimes, not at all. He slipped the gun into his belt, backed into the dome, and swung the heavy door shut, turning to the fire as inertia carried the door on greased hinges.
He stopped.
Sten hadn’t heard the lock click or the thud of the door closing. He probably hadn’t pushed hard enough. Yeah. Probably.
He tensed the fingers of his right hand. The muscle sheath that held his surgically implanted knife contracted, and the slender, deadly blade slipped into its resting place in his palm. He curled his fingers around the haft.
Just to keep himself honest, and in tone, Sten sometimes played a game with himself. He would imagine there was someone behind him. A breath would give the lurker away—or a slight motion, a rustle of clothing. Failing that, his old Mantis instructors had pounded into him a change any sort of presence added to a space, changed and warped that space. More heat. A shift in pressure. It didn’t matter what the change was. One’s senses just had to recognize it when it occurred.
Sten spun, dropping away to one side, to avoid any blow. At the same time, he slashed up with his knife. The knife blade was only fifteen molecules thick. It would cut through steel like ripened cheese. Flesh would be no contest at all. If there was an arm bearing a weapon, coming down at him, that arm—its hand still gripped around the weapon—would be neatly sliced off. It would plop to the floor while his enemy stared blankly at him, eyes widening in amazement and then dulling to instant shock as blood spurted from severed arteries. His enemy would be dead in seconds.
Meanwhile, as Sten fell, he would try to spot any other threatening presence. Which way he rolled when he hit the floor would be determined by the angle of the next attack, if any.
Sten slashed empty air. He continued the fall, imagining the first kill, concentrating on the second. More slashing at empty air. Panting, he stood with his feet splayed apart, staring at the almost-closed door. Of course, there was no one about. There never was anymore. The knife disappeared back into his arm.
Grinning and shaking his head, Sten walked to the door to push it the rest of the way shut, idly wondering what he ought to fix himself for dinner.
Just as he touched the knob, the door slammed back at him. The heavy wood caught him flat. He was hurled backward, clawing for balance and trying to twist as he hit the floor to free his knife-hand. He curled into a ball and let himself roll all the way. He rebounded off the wall, and using the force, was coming to his feet and slashing out before the knife had even cleared.
“Dammit, Sten!” the man shouted. “Stop!”
Sten froze, gaping. What the clot! It couldn’t be. It was...
“Get your wits about you lad,” ex-Fleet Marshall Ian Mahoney said. “There’s a Mantis team right on my heels. And if I stand here explaining, we’re both for the meat locker.
“Move. Now!”
Sten moved.
* * * *
Sten and Mahoney quick-crawled through the tunnel that snaked from the hidey-hole behind the fireplace toward a small stand of trees about eighty meters from the main dome. It was dimly lit—on purpose. And it contained many bends—also on purpose. They could hear someone breaking away the stones of the fireplace to get at them. Sten tried not to think of the months he had worked on the beast, or of all the heavy rocks he had carried from the edge of the lake to build it.
He was only very thankful to the gods of paranoia that had commanded him to construct a bolt hole in the face of no apparent danger. When—not if—the hunters broke through, Sten and Mahoney would be dangerous game to follow. The lights would make aim difficult. The many twists and turns would make it even harder. They would also lessen the force of any explosions set off. And the narrowness took away any advantage in numbers.
Of course, there was always gas. But Sten was comforted by the howl of the powerful ventilators constantly pumping in fresh air. The atmosphere of the entire tunnel was recycled in seconds.
They finally reached a dead-end vault where they could stand. Emergency clothing, gear, and weapons were stacked on shelves to one side. The exit was just beyond. With a press of a switch, the port would lift silently away. The exterior was artfully camouflaged with brush, dirt, and rocks. The tunnel emptied into a thick clump of woods near the edge of the frozen lakes.
Sten quickly began donning his gear. He motioned for Mahoney to pick up a pair of gravskis like his. A small explosion rocked the tunnel as the hunters finally broke through the fireplace.
“They’ll have this end covered, as well,” Mahoney said.
“I know,” Sten said. He palmed the switch, and cold fresh air flooded in as the port lifted aside. It would close automatically behind them. He pressed a marble-sized bit of impact-explosive under the edge of the switch, a down and dirty booby trap.
“They’ll find it,” Mahoney said.
“I know that, too,” Sten said. “But it’ll slow them down.”
“Maybe we ought to—”
Sten raised a hand, cutting Mahoney off. “No offense,” he said, “but there isn’t a clottin’ thing I don’t know about tunnels. And exiting some. I had a little experience, if you recall.”
Mahoney shut up. Sten had spent a small lifetime digging under the POW camp at Koldyeze. Actually, as Big X—commander of the escape committee—he had done a lot more than dig.
“Now, give me a hand,” he said.
He pulled the cover off an elderly snowcat, which had been converted to burn combustibles. Together they muscled it over to the exit. Sten flipped the various switches to the “on” position and set a meandering course on the navigator, then told Mahoney to stand back as he fired the engine.
A great blast and gout of smoke roiled out. Mahoney coughed and wheezed.
“So, we’ll not be sneakin’ up on them, then,” Mahoney said, dry.
Sten silenced him with a glare.
Then he jammed it into gear and leapt to the side. The snowcat jumped forward with a loud roar and in a flash boiled out of the tunnel. Sten peered after it. The tracks churned up huge clouds of snow as the cat plunged forward—straight for a tree. Sparks showered out of its engine ports, eerie against the night. The cat brodied to one side at the last minute. Laser fire smeared the darkness, and several holes appeared in the cat’s body.
“Now!” Sten shouted.
And he and Mahoney hurled themselves outside. Sten had just enough time to see one startled hunter whirl back from the cat and raise his weapon.
The hunter jerked, and a neat hole appeared in his forehead. As the hunter slumped down, Mahoney got another shot off at the man’s companion, who dodged to one side. By the time she had recovered, Sten and Mahoney were gone. The Mantis operative moved forward, throat-miking hoarse instructions to the team inside the dome. She found the footprints leading deeper into the woods. They wouldn’t be difficult to follow. They stood out starkly—almost deep blue—in the moonlight.
Then she sensed something behind her. She half straightened, bringing up her weapon and trying to spin to the side. Then she was lying in the snow, blood gushing from the red grin of her throat.
Sten wiped his blade on her tunic.
“Am I just getting old,” he asked as Mahoney stepped out from behind a tree, “or are the new kids really just not as good as they used to be?”
Mahoney looked at the corpse of the Mantis operative. As the former chief of Mercury Corps—meaning Mantis, as well—he had mixed feelings about seeing one of his own in such a state. Then he looked at Sten. He was a little older, and there were a few hard lines etched in his face, but he seemed tougher, somehow. Harder. His dark eyes were sunk deeper into his skull. They were a little bitter, but there was still that touch of cynical humor in them. Mahoney saw the slender dirk disappear back into Sten’s arm.
As for Sten’s question: No. They weren’t slower.
Mahoney shrugged. “You’ve been practicing,” was all he said. “There’s five more. I doubt we’ll be so lucky with them, lad,” he said. “I hope you have a plan.”
“I do,” Sten told him. Without another word he stepped into the bindings of the gravskis, flipped them on, and adjusted the lift so that he hung bare centimeters above the snow. He poled off into the woods, digging the poles in hard just to make sure no one would lose the track.
* * * *
Mahoney had seen a lot of strange things in his long life, but the thick grove that Sten was leading him through had to be up high on his personal list of the bizarre.
The trees weren’t really trees at all, although they took that form. They towered over what, from a distance, appeared to be a gigantic root system at least three meters high before the main trunk started. Up close, the root systems were revealed to be more like immense tubers. They were so huge that Mahoney thought it must have taken centuries for so many leaves to form together to make such large bulbs for water and nutrients. Later he learned that it had only taken a few years.
The branches were furry and appeared almost muscular—if a plant could have muscles. And they looped about like tentacles, although they seemed stiff and relatively sturdy, like wood. The leaves were long, needlelike, and edged with sharp spines, and they were covered with a thin film of moisture. Extremely odd in this climate. Why didn’t the moisture freeze?
He reached out a hand to touch.
“Don’t,” Sten snapped. Then he saw the puzzled look on Mahoney’s face and took pity—but only a little. “They don’t like to be touched,” he said. He pushed on with no other explanation.
As far as Mahoney could tell, they were doing nothing more than traveling in a wide circle. Moving closer to the lake, he thought. With a shrill cry, a large, white bird with leathery wings suddenly bolted for the sky. It circled about in the moonlight, obviously angry.
“They’re coming,” Sten said. “Finally. I was afraid for a moment we’d lost them.”
“Not likely,” Mahoney said. “Probably talking to their mother.” He pointed to the night sky beyond the bird. He was referring to the command ship, which he assumed was in a stationary orbit—very low, very close.
“We’ll have to do something about that, too,” Sten said.
Before Mahoney could ask exactly what, he saw the knife slip into Sten’s hand again. Sten moved cautiously toward one of the odd trees. Picking out a low-hanging branch, he inched forward, knife blade gleaming. As his hand neared the branch, Mahoney swore he could see the branch ever so slightly move toward Sten. But the motion was so miniscule, he wasn’t sure. The drops of moisture seemed to swell into larger beads, almost dripping like saliva, and the leaves seemed to be rotating so the teeth were facing out.
Sten leapt forward and struck. Moisture boiled from the wound and the branch snapped forward at Sten, trying to curl around him. But he bounded back again, just to the edge of safety. Mahoney felt his blood run cold. The liquid pouring out of the wound hissed and bubbled in the snow.
“That should make him nice and mad,” was all Sten said.
He pressed on, Mahoney in his wake. Sten repeated his attack at least a dozen other times, each time with the same result: the tree lashing out in agony, just missing Sten. For a few moments, it was all painful motion. Limbs squirming, seeking justice; caustic moisture pouring out. But the wounds seemed to heal instantly, and in a few seconds the tree would fall still.
When Sten had first come upon the plants during his travels, he had been instantly repelled by their appearance and attracted by their nature. They possessed a defense system only an ex-Mantis kiddie could love. Something had once found them extremely delicious—hence the sharp leaves and caustic fluid. When attacked, the plant reacted by pouring even nastier fluids into the area where it was bitten. That took about fifteen minutes. Some creatures got around it by developing a tolerance to the normal fluid and just nibbling small areas at a time, moving on to a new section before the plant could react. The plants were a bit like cabbage or tomato or tobacco.
But the plant species had not stopped there. A drastic change in climate, perhaps, had sent it in search of further means to feed. Why not the beings that ate it? With its superefficient tuber storage system as a base, it evolved into a carnivore. Oh, it would make do for years at a time on the nutrients in the soil and water, but the flesh and blood of any number of species were its particular dining pleasure.
And now that Sten had gotten their attention with his attacks, they would be laying for whoever or whatever followed. Such as the Mantis team.
Mahoney heard a terrible scream. It was not the kind that cut off abruptly. It went on and on, growing more horrible as long minutes passed. Laser fire cracked. Silence. Mahoney shuddered.
“Now there’s four left,” Sten said.
Mahoney didn’t answer.
* * * *
They knelt by the edge of the ice. Their cover was a small outcropping of rock. It was false dawn, and the light was tricky. But Mahoney could make out the tree line on the far side of the lake. It was little less than a kilometer, perhaps a two-minute crossing on their skis, if they didn’t stumble.
He and Sten had led the surviving hunters on an all-night chase. Sometimes he thought Sten was trying to lose them. Then he would slow—purposely, he thought—and soon he could hear them on their heels again. By now, he thought they should be tiring. Clot! So was he.
The only good news he could think of was that the Mantis team had yet to be reinforced. There could only be one conclusion. There weren’t any beings aboard the command ship to spare.
There had been no time for Mahoney to do more than hazily sketch in what was going on. Nothing about himself. Only the situation at hand.
The privy council was desperate. They had sent out similar teams all over the Empire. Their mission: Capture and return for questioning any being who had been close enough to the Emperor to know his deepest secrets.
Sten was amazed. “What the clot could I know? Sure, I commanded his bodyguard. And I had clearances up to my eyebrows during the Tahn business. But that’s old news. Nothing worth ferreting about. You could stuff it in the small end of nothing and it would still rattle around. They should have saved themselves all the bother and just asked.”
“It’s the AM2,” Mahoney said. “They can’t find where our boss has it stashed.” Sten gobbled. “But, I thought—I mean, everybody assumes...”
“Too right, lad,” Mahoney said. “And we all assumed wrong. Now the AM2 is running out.”
Sten thought about that for a moment, munching on a dry nutra stick. Then, anxious, he said, “Alex! They’ll be after him, too. We have to—”
“I already took care of that,” Mahoney said. “I sent warning. Hope he got it. I didn’t have much time.”
He waved out at the darkness in the direction of the hunters. No further explanation was needed. Obviously Mahoney had only been half a step ahead when he reached Sten.
“We’ll have to get word to Kilgour when we get free,” Mahoney said. “Tell him where to meet us.”
Sten laughed. “No need,” he said. “Alex will know where to find us.”
Mahoney started to ask how, but something cracked deep in the woods. They moved on.
They were at the edge of Amos Lake, waiting to cross. Sten wanted just a bit more light. Mahoney cursed. The little clot wanted to be seen.
A hand gripped his wrist, then was gone.
It was time.
As they rose to make their dash, Mahoney saw a small, black orb in Sten’s hand. There was a large red dot imbedded in the center—a pressure switch.
They soared out onto the ice, the wind at their backs so they barely had to pole to keep up the speed. The frigid air tugged at their garments, finding gaps where none in fact could exist. The cold nipped through those gaps with sharp, tiny teeth.
Mahoney thought his lungs were so brittle there was no way any self-respecting oxygen molecules could attach.
Ice gouted just in front of him, hurling up a thick cloud of particles that choked him as he sailed into it. The crack of the laser fire followed the shot. This was bad. The hunters had found them. It was also good. They were at a distance.
The far shore came crashing up at them. Mahoney could see the snow-choked trees just beyond. Without slowing, they plunged onto rocky ground. Mahoney felt the wind knocked from him, but he stayed low, hugging the frozen ground like a lover.
He saw Sten roll until he was lying on the ground, facing the enemy. Mahoney fought for air and dared a look, then ducked as an AM2 round powdered the rock in front of him. But he had just enough time to see the hunters advancing in a broken pattern so he couldn’t get off a decent shot. Just to keep them honest, however, he raised his weapon.
The hand went on his wrist again.
“Not now,” Sten whispered.
Mahoney found a safer angle to peer out.
The Mantis team was nearing the center of the lake. He heard motion beside him and looked over to see Sten holding the hard, black ball. His thumb rested on the red spot. The knuckle whitened as he pressed.
Instinctively Mahoney looked out on the lake. But all he saw was hunters coming on.
Then there was an ungodly roar as the entire center of the lake lifted up. Sheets of ice the size of small buildings were hurled to the side.
A gleaming white ship arose straight through the center. He saw bodies—or what had to be bodies, from the way they were flailing—spin upward and then plunge into the frigid water.
He didn’t know if death was instant, or long and agonizing. If anyone screamed, he wouldn’t have been able to hear it over the noise of the rising spacecraft.
Then he saw Sten sitting up and fumbling another nutra stick out of his pack.
Mahoney groaned up himself. He looked worriedly up at the sky. “There won’t be any question of capture, now,” he said. “And they won’t chance another team. If they’ve even got one. That command ship will just hunt us down and bomb the clot out of us. That’s what I’d do, at least.”
“I’ve been thinking the same thing,” Sten said. “But we’ve got that—” He pointed at the white ship hovering obediently over the lake. “And we’ve got two spares. Yours, and the team’s. Should be enough for a diversion, don’t you think?”
Mahoney caught his drift. It might work—just. He started to get up. Sten motioned him back.
“I’m starved,” he said. “It might be a while before we get another chance. Let’s eat.”
Mahoney felt hunger pangs gnawing at his own guts. It was a comforting, being-alive kind of feeling. What the clot!
They ate.
