Sindri rapped the ferrule of his walking stick sharply against the floor. “Another bit of mendacity I must own up to, Miss Brigid. Thor’s Hammer.”
“Thor’s Hammer? You mean the GRASER cannon on the station?”
“I told Mr. Kane it was inoperable.”
“And it isn’t?”
“Oh, it most definitely was when I arrived on Parallax Red . Over the last few months I’ve been recharging the dynamos that power it.”
Brigid declared incredulously, “Earth is on the other side of the Moon from the station. You can’t shoot through it.”
“Actually, ” he replied confidently, “I probably could. But I have no coordinates for strategic targets on Earth. Besides, the GRASER consumes such an appalling volume of power, I’ll have only one chance for a single shot. I can’t afford to miss.”
Lifting his cane to his shoulder, Sindri sighted down it like a rifle. “I do have coordinates for a target on Mars, however. The pyramid. If my calculations bear out, and there’s no reason why they shouldn’t, one touch of ten million megawatts of GRASER energy will trigger corresponding and sympathetic vibrations within the transmitter.”
“And then?” Brigid asked flatly.
“And over a period of weeks, perhaps only days, Mars will shake itself to pieces in a cataclysm of Old Testament proportions.”
Sindri lowered the cane, twirled it jauntily and rested it on a shoulder. “Continent-sized pieces of the planet will tear loose and in the form of meteorites and asteroids be drawn in by Earth’s gravity well. Their mass will cause slippages in the polar icecaps, creating the rise of oceans and tsunamis. The impact of smaller fragments will trigger earthquakes of immeasurable magnitude. Dormant volcanoes will erupt. It will be world under siege from the heavens.”
Showing his teeth in a wide grin, Sindri added, “Real wrath-of-God-type stuff.”
Brigid listened to his quiet, self-confident litany of catastrophes and the cold fingers of fear crept up, then down the buttons of her spine. If even a fraction of what Sindri said could be believed, then another round of devastation would ravage an Earth still recovering from the nukecaust and skydark.
“You’ve done no tests,” she broke in, “you have no empirical data. You’re dreaming.”
Sindri snarled out a superior laugh. ‘ ‘Think of scientific precedent cloaked by myth and legend. The Ark of the Covenant brought down the walls of Jericho when the Israelites gave a great shout. Why wouldn’t they fall, if bombarded by amplified sound waves of the right frequency transmitted from the Ark?
“Merlin, who is reputed to be of half-Danaan blood, was said to have ‘danced’ the megaliths of Stonehenge into place by his music. What I propose is of the same order, but on a far grander scale.”
Brigid struggled with visions of Mars breaking up, spewing millions of tons of its crust and bedrock into space. She said faintly, “Your philosophy of destroying in order to save.”
“Very perceptive. Think of the long-term benefits, Miss Brigid. Not only will Mars be removed forever from the coveting grasp of the Archon Directorate, they will have no choice but to relinquish their claim on Earth. And I will have stopped the song, as they always wished.”
“If what you say comes to pass,” she stated, “there won’t be much left to relinquish. The loss of life will be incalculable.”
Smoothly Sindri replied, “As a point of fact, I have calculated it, at least in percentages. A few human beings will be left alive, of course. Humankind is too tough to be entirely killed off. Consider thisthe barons and the hybrids you told me about will suffer the most casualties, living in their villes, the Administrative Monoliths toppling over them. And they are used to acting on orders, but beyond the villes, the outland-ers still live by instinct.
“The villes will lie in ruins, overrun by vines and animals. The persecuted outlanders would make up the majority of the survivors. They will be grateful to me, for removing the heel of their oppressors. They would follow me willingly, no matter what kind of empire I wished to build.”
“Where will you be during the catastrophes?” asked Brigid.
“On Parallax Red . We will sit out the cataclysms that overtake both Mars and Terra.”