Suddenly they could feel more than see a kind of shade, as if something huge had come over them, blocking off the hidden sun’s deadly rays. Han Li reached up, grabbed hold, and shouted, “It is the fighter! Reach up! Grab on to the netting!”
They did so, each holding on for dear life, as the fighter then rose a bit in the air. Even as it did so, they could hear yells and screams and curses from the water below, and things started striking and bouncing off the sides of the fighter. Dura screamed as something struck her tail, followed in a few seconds by a building, searing pain, but in spite of the shock of it, she hung on. The fighter accelerated and soon left the war party far below in the choppy seas, unable to follow.
It settled down gently, hovering less than two meters off the ground on a tiny, overgrown and neglected island. All three let go and came down on the ground. It was still nearly impossible to see, and they had real problems for a moment orienting themselves.
“Dura! Han Li! Are you both there?”
“Yes!” Han Li responded. “But I think Dura is hurt. Oh! A spear right through the tail on the right side. I wish I could see better but I will try to pry it out. Dura, are you ready?”
“Yes.” She gasped. “Get rid of it and help me to the transmitter. I’ll be all right if we can just get up to Lightning.”
Han Li pulled with all her strength, although she was slightly weakened by the sudden switchover to the less efficient breathing of air, and Dura gave a scream of pain, but the spear came free. Blood poured from the wound but there was nothing to do but be quick about it.
Takya was with them. “Over there! It is nearly impossible to see but there is a large, dark shape there. It must be it! Come—hold on, Dura! We will get you there!”
Han Li froze for a moment. “I hear a war party approaching! Some of the watch was alerted and saw where we were carried. Let us get out of here!”
The door slid back on the special fighter rigged with the transmitter, and they used all their strength to get Dura inside and the door closed.
“We have some time,” Takya said reassuringly, “if Raven is actually up there. The war party has to crawl up on the island, find us, and they are as blind and exposed as we.”
There was a clicking sound and then the fighter gave a loud whine and shuddered slightly. It seemed an eternity until that door opened again, though, and the war party, hearing the noise, had shifted its search and was now coming straight for them.
Takya gave the backpack to Han Li. “You next. Take this. I will follow.”
“No—it is yours! You planned this!”
“No arguments. I should have sent it with Dura. Get it up! It is all that really matters right now.”
The door opened. Han Li hesitated for a moment, then grabbed the backpack and pulled herself inside. The door shut and there was another whine and shudder. The war party sounded pretty damned close. Too close. She could hear them, and it was getting dark enough so that she was starting to see a bit. Maybe a minute or two and that frenzied mob would be upon her. Recycling the transmitter would take longer than that. She readied a couple of bombs and reared up on her tail to face her would-be killers.
One of the small covering fighters swooped down, having calculated the same thing, and began firing into the war party with devastating effect, shaking the ground. Its weapons weren’t intended to shoot people but other ships; it was like killing mosquitoes with a cannon.
The concussion almost knocked Takya down, and she steadied herself against the side of the transmission fighter and then almost got crushed when the door came open again. Dizzy, hardly thinking straight, she managed to get up and pull herself in. The door shut.
She could hear that a few warriors had made it even through the fighter fire and were actually at her transmitter. They were rearing up, beating and pounding on the ship.
There was a sudden click, a disorienting sensation, and all that noise ceased.
As soon as the last agent was aboard, Raven triggered the universal destruct and gunned Lightning away from Alititi. There was no time to waste recovering the fighters; they had figured, rightly or wrongly, that as soon as the ring cleared the planet all hell was going to break loose and come down on them anyway.
Below, all three fighters exploded—along with virtually every other piece of extraplanetary gear they had introduced—leaving only twisted hulks, many dead bodies, and enough new legends for a hundred generations to come.
“Why do you come to this sacred island?” the captain of the guard challenged. “You have no rank or right to be here!”
“Be at ease, Captain,” Fernando Savaphoong responded in his humblest voice. “Send your man below and you will hear the calls that confirm what I say. Horrible sacrilege has been committed against the People. The Temple is violated, many priests and acolytes, even the Highest One, are dead or in strange trances, and the holy badge of office has been stolen. There are no active priests. I am commanded to the gates of the sacred heiau to call upon the gods and the service of the priests therein. Let me past. I would not violate the heiau, merely plead at the gate.”
The captain nodded to one of his men, who went under, remaining a good five minutes or so, then emerging once more. “What he says is true, Captain,” the soldier reported. “It is said that some of our own people were possessed by demons. There has been great demon-fire and many deaths among our warriors.”
The captain didn’t like this, but there seemed little harm in it. “Very well—to the great guardians of the gate and no further, or you shall be roasted alive in the fires!”
“Thank you, kind sir!” Savaphoong responded, and began the fairly long lizardlike crawl up the road as fast as he could move.
It was as Takya had said: two new, glistening, mean-looking tikis had been added on either side of the heiau’s entrance. He could see how they might be Vals; he sure as hell hoped they were.
“All right, Vals,” he said in Maurog as loudly and confidently as he could. “I am Fernando Savaphoong, formerly of the pirates of the Thunder. I have come to tell you that my former comrades have just stolen your pretty ring from under your very noses and that I have decided that I have been wrong all this time and am surrendering myself to your authority. I wish to be taken to your commander!”
For a very long moment he was afraid that he had lost this gamble at the onset, that these were indeed just new tikis and that Takya had been wrong.
Suddenly one of the tikis turned slightly toward him and asked, “Why should we just not take your mindprint and dispose of you now?”
It startled him, but he was so relieved that he never lost his composure.
“Such a move would give you only the facts that I know. I can be of far greater value because I have lived and worked with these people for years. I know how they think, what they will do next. It will take time to even study and evaluate what I can freely offer. For example, do not think that this is merely another lost battle. You have been fooled—we stole the ring on Matriyeh years ago and replaced it and your Val goddess with fakes. They have all four rings that were scattered among the stars even now. The fifth ring is already on Earth, most probably in the hands of one who knows where to use them even as Hawks of the Thunder knows how to use them. If you do not wish to see the pirates become your masters, you had better deal with me and quickly!”
Again, the slight hesitation, and then one said, “I am summoning a ship now and transmitting the alarm. We are pursuing. Having scanned you and seeing nothing threatening, we will accept for the moment what you say, but you are under arrest nonetheless on charges of piracy and actions and thoughts against the system. We will take you to Brigadier Chi as soon as we can arrange for a pickup.”
Savaphoong rested back on his tail and gave the Alititian equivalent of a smile. He was back in business.
8. The Malebolge Run
“TOOK FOREVER TO GET IT OUT OF THAT MEDALLION,” Isaac Clayben remarked. “We couldn’t use the transmuter without risking damage to the ring, and we couldn’t try the usual chemical baths, either, although I suspect it’s pretty sturdy. It’s stood up under salt water for perhaps centuries, after all. I finally had to dig it out physically and perform virtual microsurgery to get off the glop they used.”
Hawks stared at it. “It is the real ring, though? No question?”
“Not in my mind. The medallion is at least four centuries old and has apparently been handed down from high priest to high priest since it was made, with embellishments each time, of course. Composition is exact and there is consistent circuitry within the synthetic jade. This is not to say that we couldn’t have had one put over on us, but I doubt it.”
“It just seemed too damned easy compared to the rest,” the chief responded, shaking his head.
“Not that easy. Remember, we weren’t supposed to even find the world—it’s unregistered, unlisted, its population underwater and hostile to any outsiders. Even we weren’t really certain until we got down there, if you remember. Finding its exact location was sheer good fortune—Master System reacting with typical straight-line logic on the information it had, which was that it was highly improbable we’d be anywhere around these parts during the small amount of time they were there. Even so, the hypnocasters almost did us in, and without those implanted locators they would have done so. And the other route, via the birth island, was very well covered, I suspect. No, it simply looks easy in retrospect. Not the most difficult, but certainly not easy.”
Hawks nodded absently and went over to a small case where all four rings now sat. He felt a curious lack of emotion on looking at them, although he knew he should be celebrating at the sight. They had done the impossible, at great cost and risk. The fact that they had been helped along by that mysterious enemy, Nagy’s bosses, did not in any way tarnish the achievement. Their unknown ally had merely provided the necessary tools to place them on a more or less equal footing with Master System; it had not in any way aided the attempts nor minimized the price. The fact was, without the special personnel, from Vulture to the other specialists on the team like China and the Chows and Clayben, no one else would ever have had a chance—but that was all they had been given. A chance.
Raven entered, cigar in mouth, and stood next to Hawks looking down at the rings. “Well, we did it,” he said, shaking his head. “I can’t believe it, but we did it.”
“No, Raven, we haven’t done a thing yet,” the chief replied. “Master System still rules, we are still pirates, and everything is exactly as it was.”
“Yeah, but—we got all the rings now.”
Hawks gave a weak smile. “Oh, really? I count four, Raven. We have roamed over a quarter of the galaxy and we have made a mockery of Master System’s safeguards, its Vals, and its human army, but we have done nothing of importance yet. Tell me, Raven—there’re the rings. Now, where do we go from here?”
“Huh? Earth, of course. We go home. That’s where the fifth ring is.”
“All right, so we go home. You think Master System and Chi don’t know that? Do you think Lazlo Chen, if he still lives, and the Presidium don’t know that? It was Chen who initiated this plan, remember, and it was Nagy’s people who made it possible. They’re around, too, and we don’t know who or even what they are, but they know, too. Four rings, Raven—and you know what? We are compelled by the location of the fifth ring to bring them all back to Chen. And even if he’s still got it, still somehow has managed to remain the boss, he only has to own, to possess that ring, not wear it and flaunt it as he did for me. He has a vast area of mountains, deserts, steppes, and wastes to hide it in, too.”
“Well, he’s a crafty old son of a bitch, I admit, but he ain’t no different from the other C.A.s we took on. Besides, he can be dealt with. He’s got one ring, so he and his associates maybe get dealt in if we can’t figure a way to steal or cheat ’em out of it. But just as these four ain’t no good without his, his is no good at all without these four.”
“Suppose you’re right,” Hawks responded. “Suppose we make a deal. We have all five rings and I’ve got a fairly good idea of how to use them. But where do we use them? Where is Master System, Raven? Where is the human interface to it? We knew the location of four rings and we found the fifth, but those were only the rings. Who gives us the directions to Master System, Raven? Even the Vals don’t really know that, I don’t think. They are remote programmed at their bases. It doesn’t even directly interact with humans, and it interacts with its machines through subspace tightbeam that could be coming from anywhere in the galaxy. Anywhere. And it’s had almost a thousand years to hide.”
“Well, ain’t you the gloomy one! But I don’t think it’s all that damned hard considerin’ how far we come, Hawks. For one thing, I can’t see Chen kickin’ in and settin’ this up or Nagy’s people, or whatever they are, goin’ to all this trouble if you can’t find the end of the rainbow. My old nose suspects that Master System never moved at all. It wouldn’t risk it, ’cause it’d have to be disassembled. I mean, back in those days supercomputers were big mothers. It wouldn’t dare move. It wouldn’t take the chance.”
Hawks’s head snapped up and he stared directly at Raven. “My god! Raven, if that’s the case, then Chen already knows where it is, and so does almost everybody. Where did your original territory as a field agent cover?”
Raven shrugged. “North-central tier, basically. Crow, Sioux, Blackfoot, Cheyenne…. Why?”
“Cheyenne…” Hawks breathed. “Of course! For years now I have been poring through the historical tapes and records we have here, studying the time and persons and data to get what I could.” He sighed. “All right, let’s go get the last damned ring!”
She was small, nude, a study in feminine perfection of beauty and form, the essence of sensuality, and she glowed slightly, a vague but attractive green. All who saw her worshipped her and obeyed her every command, for she was the Goddess of Matriyeh and a living incarnation of the supernatural.
And she was not really human, not anymore, although the original goddess had been totally inhuman, a Val in human form. Her own body was based upon an analysis of the carcass of the destroyed original, her original tiny body merged and mated with the humanoid Val structure to create a near-perfect duplicate. She was, however, a fake.
The computer alarm sounded, indicating that someone was coming in on the train that ran far below the great temple. She didn’t like that; the last time that alarm had gone off it had disgorged a couple of very unpleasant colonials in SPF uniforms and two Vals, and she had needed all her self-control and poise and acting ability to get through it without being detected. The sensors had not indicated any landing or new orbital craft in the immediate planetary sphere, so this time whoever it was certainly did not want their presence advertised. That was not necessarily a good sign, although it might mean a visit from her old comrades.
That would be welcome. Ikira Sukotae had elected to stay on Matriyeh thinking it would be the fulfillment of her dreams, but the truth was that it had been very frustrating; the challenge of keeping Master System ignorant of her presence or the success of the band here had mostly prevented the slow and progressive redevelopment of this primitive and harsh society into something greater. Being a true goddess, all-powerful in many ways, had blinded her to her own basic inner humanity. She was not the machine she pretended to be and had replaced; she was a human being inside a mostly artificial body. The incredible crush of loneliness had simply never occurred to her until it was too late.
She went down the back way, curious to see who or what was coming, less fearful than eager that at least there would be some break in the monotony, some companionship. She had even found the Vals and SPF a relief, for all the danger they presented. A tremendous number of possibilities of whom this might be went through her head, but the one waiting at the station for her was completely unexpected. She stopped, frozen, just staring at the figure standing there.
“I would tell you to rush and get packed, but you don’t have anything to pack,” Arnold Nagy said casually, his voice echoing around the station walls.
“But—you’re dead!” she protested, trying to understand. “No one could survive being expelled from an air lock in space!”
He shrugged. “And you’re dead, too, aren’t you? At least, the goddess is long dead now. I must say that they did a hell of a job on you. More than anything, we make a pretty good pair.”
She walked slowly down to him. “Just what the hell are you, Nagy?”
He grinned. “Haven’t you guessed? But, come—we have to get you out of here and off Matriyeh and fast. Master System has learned that both you and the ring are fakes. They’re on their way and could be here almost any time. I have no idea how much, if any, of a window we have. You’ve been forcibly relieved, girl—at least for the duration. Wouldn’t you like to be there for the endgame?”
She hesitated. “How do I know I can trust you? I mean, considering your death and sudden, mysterious resurrection, why should I trust you now?”
“You’re smart,” he responded. “Deep down you know, and the rest you’ll figure out. Shall we go?”
“To aid them?”
“Not me. That’s against the rules. That’s why I had to die. Maybe you, if need be. But you can’t stay here, that’s for sure.” He turned. “Ah! That’s our train, I believe. Coming?”
She nodded hesitantly. “But—what about Warlock? The system here?”
“It’ll go along fine. As for Warlock—the last one I want in command of Master System is Manka Warlock. After you, my dear.”
Brigadier Chi studied the computer models, turned, and sighed. “All right, so they have four rings. As I understand it, it does them little good without the fifth that’s on Earth, right?”
Fernando Savaphoong, in his special tank, only his head and shoulders above water, nodded. “That is correct. One would expect that Master System is even now assembling the largest fighting force in history to defend that system. And has it occurred to you, Senorita Brigadier, that, now that you have picked my brains, as it were, and know of the rings, you are no longer an asset to Master System but rather a threat in your own right?”
She bristled. “All my life has been devoted to preserving and defending the system.”
“All the same, all who know, including myself, are under the most expedient method of safety for the system—a death sentence. You have already violated your orders by keeping me alive, have you not? Admit it.”
The problem was, he was telling the absolute truth. Any and all of the pirates of the Thunder were to be kept in the hands of the Vals and other machine forces, mind-printed for their information and data, and then destroyed. Her own curiosity about the rings and their importance, combined with her current authority to overrule Vals—an authority likely to be quickly terminated now—had saved him for the moment, but it might well have doomed her.
“All members of the SPF stand ready to die for the preservation of order,” she told him. “I am no exception.”
“A noble but useless, even insane, gesture. Consider how far they have come. Do you think they will let even a great task force stop them now? Do you not think that the mysterious enemy behind them will allow them to fail at this point? Twice you underestimated them. I beg you, do not do so again. Even with this fleet, Master System is splitting logic hairs in the manner of dealing with the devil. They are humans on the Thunder. The core program gives them the right to go for and use the rings. That is why the Vals hesitate, and why the system allows a way or two to slip through the net. So Master System mounts a defense on the pretext of serving arrest warrants on Hawks and China and Raven. Do not be so blind, Senorita Brigadier. Their mere possession of the rings will give them an edge, a way to get past, or around, the fleet, to get in. It is true that they may not find this path, but it is required. It must be there, and they have found either the path left open or made their own path so far. And once the five rings are united in human hands, even the pretexts will be gone. I believe that once all five are united they will not only be able to go for Master System, they will be required to do so.”
She looked up and stared hard at his bizarre, monstrous face with those eerie, cold deep-set eyes. “Required?”
He nodded. “And I truly believe that Hawks, and perhaps Chen and others, know the correct sequence needed to use the rings. It is no longer a choice of duty to the system, Senorita Chi. It is only a choice of new masters. The so-called pirates, the Presidium, or….”
She stood and cocked her head. “Just what are you getting at, Savaphoong?”
“Are you not human? Am I not, no matter what my form? The core, it says nothing about who is or is not qualified. Humans, just humans. Act while Master System is preoccupied. Act while you still have freedom and authority to do so!”
“Act? What are you saying?”
“We, you and I, have just as much right as anyone else to go for the rings. If you believe so much in the status quo it is even your duty to do so! And we know exactly where four of those rings will be, don’t we? Taking us to the fifth. Sit here meekly and die, Senorita Brigadier. Perhaps they will name a medal after you. Die, and do not survive to see the death of your precious system. Or act now. All humans, no Vals or others subject to other orders.”
She sat down, stunned by the enormity of his proposal. Stunned, and also damned tempted.
“Your arguments are persuasive,” she admitted, “but why should I take you along?”
He shrugged. “Partly because I know them. My knowledge of them and your expertise in security will be a powerful combination. And because in that part of my mind that has been rendered impervious to mindprinter techniques lies the answers. I, too, know the key to the interface. Once I realized that Hawks had discovered it there was no trick to correlating the ring designs with the data banks aboard Thunder until I got a match. That should be worth one ring out of five. No, do not think to pry it out of me. Like your own mind, any deep attempts at involuntary extraction will only result in my death. And I can only be an asset. I can hardly be a threat. I have a fish’s tail. The direct light of most suns will blind and harm me, even kill me over a prolonged time. In deep water I might be dangerous, even to you, who are also a water creature, since you cannot breathe what I most crave, but—like this”? I am at your mercy.”
She thought it over, then sighed. “All right. For now, anyway. But this will take careful planning and will not be without risk. We must stay out of this or other fights and we must hold back until they show us where the interface is. We must also be on guard for this enemy, whoever it is. We need no ugly last-minute surprises. That is why I will do it. Not because of my own life, or yours, but because if it is not me, we shall be wide open to that enemy. I will give the administrative exec the orders now. There is no time to lose on this. If I were this Hawks, I would be making for Earth as fast as possible in the hopes that the forces there will not yet be gathered and fully organized.”
But, she had to admit to herself, this was also to salvage her own ego and pride. Twice she had been out-maneuvered and outwitted by these… people. But those losses would be meaningless if they were denied the final prize.
“A fleet is assembling,” Star Eagle told them. He had sent out a probe far in advance of their arrival, in the hopes that it could send back information before somebody noticed it and shot it out of existence. “I have never seen so many Vals, so many automated fighter systems. They are indeed preparing for us, and there is no way for any of our ships to get in close without triggering their attention.”
The council of captains listened and watched the visuals as they came in, represented by all-too-clear graphics.
“I am surprised that they have not yet come after the probe,” Maria Santiago remarked.
“Not I,” Captain ben Suda responded. “It is small and unobtrusive and they have no real defensive organization as yet. It is even possible that they know it’s there but choose to ignore it.”
Hawks frowned. “How’s that?”
“They want a fight. Everything they have done has been an attempt to provoke a repeat of the Battle of Janipur, although on even more favorable terms to them. I believe we have come this far partly because, at its heart, Master System was designed as a brute-force defensive war computer. We have beaten it to this point with subtlety, and there is little subtlety in anything Master System ever did. Big battles and major actions are its chosen forte, its best and most comfortable situation. If it hits our probe or shows just how well monitored the system is, then we might back off, wait, even for years, until we figured a sneaky way in. That still might be our best move.”
Hawks shook his head negatively. “From one viewpoint, maybe, but not the real one. Four rings do us no good at all. Give Master System time and it’ll figure out a way to move or obscure our fifth and final ring, maybe turn Earth into that permanent primitive hell it seemed bent on doing years ago. Maybe even obscure or move its own interface. No, we have to go in. The question is, can we sneak in or not?”
“The probability against anything, organic or mechanical, penetrating the Earth’s atmosphere unchallenged at this point is virtually nil,” Star Eagle replied. “After all, it was Earth that Master System was originally supposed to protect anyway. No, the only way in is to beat it, and every day we delay, it will gather more strength from its far-flung outposts.”
“What if we hit ’em hard now with all we got?” Raven asked the computer. “Do we stand a chance?”
“Practically none. We have a far inferior force and the fleet already present is at least six times as powerful as at Janipur. We are outmanned and outgunned many times over. The only thing that could take that force would be a task force as big or bigger than it.”