The little eight-pa.s.senger Toyota filled with the intense weight of H"lim"s Influence, potential energy that gathered like an approaching hurricane. They rode in silence while Inea puzzled out the Cobra control board, producing an occasional squawk of voices as she flicked across World Sovereignties channels.
Then, nosing past the station outbuildings, they heard the flurry of traffic as the station prepared to receive the "tainers, which, t.i.tus was gratified to discover, were on course and on schedule. Listeners, not knowing of the plan and its code words, wouldn"t have made any sense out of the brief messages audible before scrambling was invoked and the Toyota"s radio lost the signal.
t.i.tus found a double ribbon of tracks going off Project Station toward the Eighth, no doubt made by the maintenance crews now based at the station, the closest habitat to the Eighth. With a sigh of relief, he ran the shield over the direct vision port, cutting out the painful sunlight and Earthlight, fljen stepped down the screen images so the sun was bearable, Earth only hinted at, and the stars invisible.
Just past the station perimeter, he spotted a crude sign made from a dented oxygen bottle with an 8 painted on it and the glyph of a frowning face. As they pa.s.sed it, he saw the reverse side showed a smile and a P.S. When they had lost sight of the station and had not yet seen the Array, he was very glad of the track, and the occasional frowning face painted or carved on rocks.
H"lim"s power pounded through him, reaching for Abbot, casting a shimmer of unreality over everything. Even the dim images of the sky, human symbols electronically cast, seemed unreal to his luren vision, arbitrarily manipulated.
He tried to shake free, building in his mind an image of how Earth would look to H"lim"s naked eye, five times brighter than the moon, faint swirls of infrared, throbbing with colors only luren could see. He knew all the graphs, but until this moment, they had remained just mathematics. Now, fighting the pall of Influence, he synthesized breathtaking spectacle, the Cosmic Artist at His best.
Then he thought of H"lim, suffering from the negligible particle flux within the Toyota, and knew what the luren had meant when he labeled his species a bioengineered failure. To see the spectral beauty they were designed to see, they must endure being scorched by their own sun! All his deductions from the output spectrum of the lighting panel had been hogwash. Luren built their lighting systems to suit their artificially designed senses, not to replicate a sun that had not guided the evolution of their genes.
He tried to explain this to Inea, but she shook her head, crouching over the scanner board, hunching inside her suit.
t.i.tus became aware of Abbot"s presence, hurling a spear of outrage through the haze of H"lim"s power. It took no telepathy to know why. His son and his grandson were defying him, H"lim trying to paralyze Abbot even from this distance.
As the battle raged invisibly around her, Inea stifled a whimper. t.i.tus. .h.i.tched over as far as he could and gathered her up. Through the odd tactile effect of suit against suit, he created for her a bubble in the flow between H"lim and Abbot, explaining the battle. "So the overwash is getting to you, like a fourteen-cycle note. Understand? You"re afraid because it stimulates your nerves, not because you"re afraid."
"Oh, that surely helps a lot." Her voice quavered, but there was a thin smile on her lips now.
H"lim"s tinny voice issued from the helmets. "He"s slowing, but I can"t hold him."
t.i.tus read the suppressed agony in H"lim"s tone. The solar flux was depleting the luren"s strength. "I"m not expecting miracles," t.i.tus replied, "just do your best."
They pa.s.sed the left-hand cutoff up to Collector Six, the station"s furthest and largest outlying power source. It was plastered up an inside curve of a crater opposite a bulldozed rim so the panels got the most direct sun. Hundreds of panels sent energy to superconductor storage tanks for the long night ahead, keeping the station independent. The Sixth was the newest on the moon, so efficient the station sold power to refineries, factories, and supplied the Eighth Array.
The Collector fell behind them, the path becoming fainter and narrower. Gradually, t.i.tus noticed he was struggling with the steering. Something was wrong with the left tread, but he refrained from mentioning it. H"lim"s power filled the cabin with such pressure, t.i.tus thought it would surely burst. He wasn"t about to disrupt that kind of locked concentration. He"d heard tell of Influence duels to the death, but never witnessed one before. I don"t understand how H"lim can do it!
Then he remembered that H"lim had claimed the higher loyalty to his First Father. If Abbot"s message went out, his First Father would be in danger. He"ll kill Abbot before we even get there!
Without conscious decision, he found himself adding his weight to the luren"s, supplying energy for that stupendous field. His lips peeled away from his clenched teeth as if he were making a physical effort.
From the helmets stowed on the instrument hump between him and Inea, H"lim"s voice erupted in a karate yell. All the gathered energy exploded outward. t.i.tus felt it connect, felt Abbot recoil, and then abruptly, everything cut off. For a moment, he thought he"d gone blind and deaf, too, but then realized that only the luren senses had been paralyzed.
"I got him!" shouted H"lim. "Did you hear me? t.i.tus? Inea? Are you all right?"
"Is he dead?" asked t.i.tus, oddly bereft and frightened.
"No. I am merely a co-mortal, not a G.o.d to work miracles. I distracted him, and something happened to his vehicle. I believe the terrain was the real victor."
Ashamed yet relieved, t.i.tus answered, "It may be enough." His whole body was ringing and aching, and all he could do was put a gloved hand over Inea"s clad knee and try to convey confidence. She didn"t look well.
A nerve-racking and tedious time later, H"lim announced that a large number of humans were converging on a point off to their right. "Shall I divert them?"
"No! Must be blockaders after the decoy caravan," said t.i.tus. "Inea, get a fix on them. This thing must have radar. Read the labels. That"s how I found the ignition."
"This is all Cobra stuff, just like the observatory." A screen lit with an overhead radar scan. "I make it seven ships at two-o"clock-those converted two-seaters the blockaders use as bombers." She checked the readout. "I"m guessing, but I think they"re over the decoy caravan. Whatever it is, it"s heading toward the quarantine dock they built outside the station perimeter, but going cross-country, not on a path. It"ll pa.s.s within two klicks of us."
"Got to be the caravan, then." t.i.tus fought with the controls.
"t.i.tus, it"s changing course! It"ll intercept us-somewhere over that big sharp hill ahead, the one with the spike sticking out the top."
"What?" He checked his odometer and her readouts. "That spike is the radio mast of the Eighth. The decoy caravan is heading into the Array basin!" Clumsy in his vacuum suit, he hitched himself out of his seat pulling Inea around him. "Quick, you drive." He squirmed over the instrument hump and reached for the scanner controls.
"t.i.tus! I can"t drive this thing!"
"Nothing to it. Just follow the frowns to the spike," he said while he fumbled at the scanner controls. They hit something and bounced, causing H"lim to cry out as the loose equipment shifted. "You okay?" he asked H"lim.
"Yes. The suit"s not punctured."
The speaker rattled to life. "Got it!" As t.i.tus had feared,4tf was the screech of computers handshaking on the decoy"s remote command frequency, where there should have been silence. Frantically keying instructions and swearing over error messages, t.i.tus coaxed the little Cobra to identify the sources, one of which was high above the other. The higher one had been stripped of its legally required I.D. response and the other transmitted only a request for a security code.
"Blockaders! They"ve seized control of the convoy-must have discovered it"s unmanned." It was nothing more than had been planned, yet n.o.body had antic.i.p.ated they"d take it into the Eighth. But of course they would. It"s got the nearest landing field! And when it blows. ."
t.i.tus gnawed his lips, unable to remember seeing any of the communications protocols for the convoy. He couldn"t redirect it. He didn"t dare warn the blockaders, a.s.suming he could get through to them on any frequency his equipment could transmit. Inea had just gained control of the Toyota when the screech of computer chatter resumed, one signal overriding the other. The blip on the ground ponderously changed course again, and t.i.tus fought the computer until it yielded a map of the ground. Should have thought of this before. Of course there are maps aboard!
Picking out the decoy"s new cross-country course, t.i.tus found where it intersected their path and went on toward the Sixth Collector. Then he knew. "It"s Abbot. He"s at the Array and using its mast and the Array"s power to command the decoy"s guidance computer! He"s going to blow up the Collector! If he"s solved the code."
"He"s solved the code," predicted H"lim. "But he won"t blow up his power source until after he"s sent his message. What would he do to buy time? What could he do while working to attach his transmitter to the Array?"
"Talk," said Inea. "He always talks when he"s breadboard-ing. t.i.tus, scan the other frequencies."
As they rumbled up the last steep grade toward the mast, he got voices-one of them Abbot"s.
". friend, repeat, friend. Do not approach the Convoy. It"s packed with explosives. Repeat, packed with explosives. Do you copy?" Abbot paused for the reply.
"Who are you that we should believe that?" a voice asked, directed at Abbot, but louder. Echoing as if far from the mike, a female voice commented, "Wonderful way to make us keep our hands off the supplies we need." A third voice yelled, "Holy s.h.i.t! The Array"s moving-all of it!"
Abbot"s signal came back, broke up into hash, then steadied, louder than the blockaders". ". told you I have rerouted the convoy. If you stay clear, it will blow up Project Station"s Collector Six, the large one that makes them independent of their landlines. You"ll have total control of the station"s power supply. Do you copy?"
"We copy. Who are you? Where are you? Why should we believe you? You got a code name? A pa.s.sword?"
"Never mind, just check this out. In a descending orbit heading down on the far side of Project Station is a string of cargotainers. They contain the supplies you think are in the convoy. The landing field is beyond the quarantine limits, the stationers aren"t armed to speak of, and the W.S. defense forces are busy elsewhere-as you well know. You want supplies-go get them, but leave that convoy alone."
Inea spat, eyes sparking at t.i.tus, "He"s a traitor!"
She had the knack of steering the Toyota now, easily keeping them on the track, pushing into the hard climb. The entire forward view consisted of crushed rock pa.s.sing into the black shade of their shadow. Black and white. Was anything ever so simple?
"No, Inea," t.i.tus said. "Abbot"s completely loyal. To the Tourists. Not to the secessionists, Inea, to the Tourists."
"I don"t know how you dare defend him! He"s framed his grandson for a murder he himself committed, he"s sending death to the station and all the humans on it, he"s ruthlessly used and slaughtered Mirelle, and he doesn"t give a d.a.m.n if he kills all the humans on Earth if his vicious Tourists survive! The only reason he"s ever helped you is to further his own plans! t.i.tus, don"t let him get away with it!"
"Watch out!" yelled t.i.tus, lunging for the controls.
But Inea jerked around, saw they were cresting the rise heading directly into a boulder that jutted skyward, blocking the straight path. She yanked the sticks over left, steering servos whining as the threads bit into the sharp turn then ran off the path that curved around the obstruction. The right side sc.r.a.ped rock.
t.i.tus"s hands closed over hers. It took all their combined strength to veer back onto the path. Then the ground disappeared from under their treads.
The front end of the Toyota fell abruptly while the rear end rose, sending H"lim"s barricade tumbling toward them. t.i.tus fended off a First Aid kit, stopped an air cylinder with his foot, and suddenly found H"lim in his lap, arms and legs flailing, spitting luren epithets. Then they were grinding down the inside lip of the crater into dark shade, the Eighth Array spread before them in dazzling sunlight.
t.i.tus gaped at the view, time standing still. The Array filled the bottom of the giant bowl, like a bouquet of alien silicon-life flowers, fragile and glittering. The identical antenna modules were set at precise intervals, all in the same att.i.tudes. None of the structures-made of slender poles and thread-thin guy wiresa" could have withstood Earth gravity or weather.
Cables tunneled through the lip of the crater from the Sixth Collector and fed the mammoth superconductor tanks cl.u.s.tered between the Array"s landing field and the sparkling white control hut. On top of the hut was a security camera turret that could view the whole basin, and attached at one side of the hut was a supply shed for recharged vehicle power cells, oxygen, replacement parts, lubricants, and survival kits for stranded travelers.
Loose rubble dislodged from the slope had gathered near the walls of the hut and someone had sculpted and painted the rocks into a mock flower bed.
Neither hut nor shed was ever pressurized, and now the hut"s door stood open. Directly ahead of them, on the steep path down to the hut, lay another Toyota, canted onto its side, treads still moving, half in half out of bright sun. Held by a paralyzing sense of deja vu, t.i.tus thought, We"re going to die. The boulder that had caused the wreck lay on the tread marks, a smile painted on it.
"Inea!" But she had already hit the brakes. The faulty left tread snapped loose, ends smacking the cabin with sharp reports. They lost power, and even t.i.tus"s strength couldn"t budge the sticks. The cabin tilted to the left, the vehicle pivoted, but momentum carried them on in horrifying, nightmarish slow motion, on into the wreck before them.
"Helmets!" yelled t.i.tus, shoving H"lim away and grabbing for his, which was on the driver"s side. H"lim canted awkwardly across the console, kicked Inea"s helmet toward her groping fingers. In the back of t.i.tus"s mind, the drill took hold. Secure your air first, then help others.
Training held, and t.i.tus pulled his helmet on while everything in him wanted to reach out and affix Inea"s for her. Then they hit.
The toppled vehicle skidded ahead of them down the slope, soaking up the momentum just enough to prevent the collision restraints from being triggered. The high-pitched whistle of escaping air penetrated t.i.tus"s helmet, and he squinted hard against the shaft of raw sunlight that came through the front window, where the covering plate had been torn away. H"lim came to rest curled up on the instrument console, head tucked to his knees, back to the cabin, facing the dark screens, a streak of light bisecting him.
The last thing t.i.tus heard before the sound from the speakers was lost in vacuum was the m.u.f.fled timbre of Abbot"s voice saying, ". three of them in the second crawler, and one"s the alien. The alien"s in the second crawler!"
Inea pulled herself back up onto the canted driver"s seat, helmet in place. t.i.tus breathed a sigh that was almost a sob. She"s all right! He pushed himself up. "There"s a jack here somewhere, to connect a suitphone."
While t.i.tus searched, Inea crawled onto the console where H"lim lay curled. "Maybe he"s already dead." She tried to straighten the huddled form. He jerked away.
t.i.tus got the phone jack into place just in time to hear the commander"s voice say, ". no wild stories! Now I don"t believe-" He broke off, and his voice was m.u.f.fled as he asked, "What? They did? There are? You mean he"s legit?" Then more clearly, he ordered, "Ben, Roger, peel off and take a look at those crawlers. If that monster"s there, get him. Rendezvous over the station. Go!"
Power was flickering on and off. t.i.tus couldn"t tell what the seven bombers were doing. He helped Inea straighten H"lim out, muttering encouraging words in the luren language. Then as t.i.tus watched H"lim"s skin turned pink. He rolled the stiff body up in his arms and climbed back into darkness, scrambling awkwardly over the loose junk that had gathered at the lower end of the cabin.
He wedged the luren back into the cubby he"d chosen for a refuge, then built up the pile of junk again as best he could at the high end of the slope. "Better?" he asked as H"lim began to stir.
"Yes. I"m sorry."
"Nonsense," cut in Inea. "You saved my life. I could never have reached my helmet."
t.i.tus patted a last cylinder into the pile, to make a natural looking mess that searchers could pick at without exposing H"lim. Clumsy amateurs. Amazing we survived this long. He turned to find Inea stuffing small oxygen cylinders into the arms and legs cf a spare vacuum suit. It was the untailored sort with adjustable everything. G.o.d forbid you should have to do anything in it.
"Don"t just gawk! Help me."
He held it while she strapped. "What"s this for?"
"They don"t know H"lim can"t get out even in a suit. They"ll count three of us going for the hut, and they"ll follow. When they find an empty suit, they"ll never believe Abbot again! Come on. We"ve got to hurry! Abbot"s already got the Array in motion, and it doesn"t have far to go!"
"t.i.tus," whispered H"lim through dry lips, not a sc.r.a.p of Influence around him. "Listen to me. There are higher instinctive loyalties than to a First Father. To save us all, our planet, Earth, all of us-you can win if you know you must."
"Don"t worry, I"ll get him, or die trying."
""Bout time you realized that," grunted Inea.
"Yes." They tore a cushion from one of the seats for the torso and left the helmet empty. Draped over t.i.tus"s shoulders in a fireman"s carry, the suit did look occupied.
By the time Inea and t.i.tus emerged, two bombers were circling the Array"s landing field dropping small bombs, testing for b.o.o.by traps. Laden with the extra ma.s.s of the stuffed suit, t.i.tus veritably flew down the rest of the hill. He caught stride and let momentum carry him, knowing exactly how hard he"d impact the hut and refusing to think about it.
At the last minute, when he was out of sight of the bombers, he hurled the suit against the hut wall as a kind of "breaking jet" and turned so his shoulder hit first. Even so, he almost blacked out. Inea smacked into the hut right beside him, gasping, and slid to the ground.
t.i.tus rolled sideways and rounded the doorjamb in a crouch, looking for Abbot.
The interior was a study in black and white, laced across with dazzling cones of light. The panel readouts had been carefully designed for use in vacuum, through suit helmets, but by human eyes. There was the oppressive inaudible thrum of high gauss fields which t.i.tus had never identified before meeting H"lim. And parts of the machinery casings glowed with infrared colors that filtered through his faceplate, his gla.s.ses, and his contacts. Or is it my skin that"s "seeing"?
Bent low, he circled left, keeping behind consoles and housings, focused on locating the distinctive tang of Abbot"s Influence. He was half hoping his father had been permanently crippled by H"lim"s efforts.
There!
Abbot, his back to t.i.tus, bent over a console nested in a nearly complete sphere of display screens. The console desk was made of two semicircles with an operator"s chair in the center that could pivot to bring each segment into reach. Abbot, outside the circle, leaned awkwardly to consult the screens. There was a chair behind him, and others around the desk facing inward, a sloping control board in front of each. A team of five could operate the entire Array manually, debug and test, evaluate and correct anything that could go wrong.
Parts of the console were lit, and some screens showed data shifting as the antennas rotated to point clear of Earth. One set of screens showed exteriors of the two crashed Toyotas and of the landing field, the two bombers still making cautious pa.s.ses testing for mines or traps. A black cable tethered Abbot"s suit to the console.
t.i.tus dug his boot toes into the floor and charged, leaping onto a console and pushing off in a flying tackle, ignoring the antic.i.p.atory twinge in his bruised shoulder.
He hit, and the two of them tumbled, bounced, and rolled in the narrow s.p.a.ce between screens and desk. t.i.tus tried one of Suzy Langton"s low-grav moves, and marveled when he ended up on top. Abbot grunted, heaved, and sent t.i.tus flying over the round desk. Arms flailing, he crashed into a display panel, which cracked behind him.
He got to his knees, searching for the black casing of the transmitter amid the glittering electronics. That was his target, not Abbot. He spotted it, nested inside a cavity in the desk where the panel had been removed to expose the works behind the keyboards. t.i.tus figured that had to be the board connected to the console back in the observatory, which meant it was the masterboard that could control everything here.
Then Abbot"s Influence engulfed him like a clenched fist. His muscles locked, leaving him half crouched.
Getting to his feet with an air of utter finality, Abbot plugged in his black cable again, and resumed settling the transmitter into place, suitgloves making him fumble. At the edge of t.i.tus"s field of view, the screens showed the landing field, where the bombers were now settling down amid clouds of dust and small rocks.
t.i.tus gathered his power tightly about himself. I"ve got to move. I"ve got to break this. He recalled the moment in the lavatory on G.o.ddard when he"d turned his hand over despite Abbot"s will. Fixing on the black lump of the transmitter now just barely visible, he strained forward against the force that held him. The barrier"s in my own mind. It"s human to suffer divided will.
He summoned the image of Earth overrun, humans taken away to slavery under Tourist Influence, used the way Mirelle had been used. A blast furnace deep within his soul opened and his will fed on outrage.
"They"ll never buy it," he said, his voice rusty.
Abbot jerked around then fiddled with his suit frequency. He hadn"t heard the comment, but only felt the crack in his control of t.i.tus. Now that Abbot was on t.i.tus"s frequency, t.i.tus could hear the distant chatter of the blockaders Abbot was monitoring through the suitjack.
". convoy! It"ll get too d.a.m.n close. Let"s go!"
t.i.tus"s arms knotted with strain, and he thought he felt movement. To distract Abbot further, he grated out words. "You can"t sell humans as slaves to the galaxy."
Again, Abbot seemed startled. "So you got into Mirelle"s calculator. Such a son to be proud of if only. Well, no matter. It"s too late, t.i.tus. I"ve won."
"They don"t want us-or our dreams-loose in their galactic war." t.i.tus moved a step forward.
Abbot turned from his work, and t.i.tus felt the whole of his father"s strength come to focus on him. He strained against it. His front foot shuffled forward. A trick of the lighting gave him a glimpse of Abbot"s face through his helmet, mouth twisted with strain.
Distantly, t.i.tus sensed the flavor of H"lim"s power wafting through the hut. Abbot"s attention flickered to counter the luren, but H"lim was too weak to affect the struggle, except that now t.i.tus was able to pull his trailing foot up. He had taken a step. Filled with the triumph of that, he jerked his right arm forward, reaching toward the transmitter, like a badly articulated robot.
"Don"t make me kill you," said Abbot, voice betraying nothing of the expression on his face. His hand reached out for a tool lying on the console-a laser cutter. He started toward t.i.tus. "What sort of nonsense has H"lim been selling you that you"d turn against your own blood?" He stopped with the laser cutter inches from t.i.tus"s chest. j "Humans are of my blood, too. And so is H"lim." t.i.tus managed another step, angling toward the console, not Abbot, daring him to use the cutter.
As he shifted angle, a movement on a screen caught his eye. t.i.tus turned to see H"lim scrambling up the trail to the top of the rim. The four blockaders abandoned the approach to the hut and went after him. Abbot"s suitphones relayed the tiny voices cursing and guessing who they were chasing. But even when he reached the deep shadow, H"lim was hurting. He"ll never make it without Influence!