“Fight them!” he yelled into the mike, slopping more blood and nipping shut the blowhole in his cheek in order to increase the volume of his words. “Cut them down—the guards and trustees alike, and any who won’t join us—but keep away from those three monsters. Their touch can kill! And that vessel, which we helped build . . . we must find a way to destroy that machine, for if we don’t it will surely destroy us! So fight! Fight for your lives! Fight for all you’re worth!”
The machine, the Mordri vessel, yes. But the question was: how might they destroy it? Because since late last night it had been protected by an alien energy screen that—in combination with the awesome presence of the Mordri Three themselves—was the source of all the wild fluctuations in the complex’s electrics.
The cylindrical grav-ship and the entire tangle of cables and conduits connecting it to its various servicing adjuncts on the workbenches—including the benches themselves—all these things were visible through a pulsating glow that sheathed them in a swirling, sickly green mist some two or three inches deep. Even the main power cables from Schloss Zonigen’s generators in another part of the complex: they, too, were affected, shimmering under this constantly writhing warp of energy where they snaked over the cavern floor from the mouth of a service tunnel to the workbenches and the alien vessel.
Yet paradoxically, and in one respect at least, the green glow could be said to be advantageous; for it added a finishing touch to the alien appearance of the great cavern and loaned an element of substance to the whispers that had brought about the uprising. Moreover, its weird appearance emphasized the fact—though it no longer required emphasis—that these Mordris were utterly inhuman and their intentions pure evil.
As Gelka Mordri blurred back into being on the dais of the black disk, this is what she saw:
Her trustees and guards, under armed attack from the slave workforce in the greenly illumined cavern! And her lieutenants, Mordris Two and Three, where they also occupied the dais: their mouths were hanging open, their gaze rapt on the milling crowd. Struck dumb, apparently immobilized by what was happening, they seemed rooted in position, swaying this way and that apace with the toing and froing of the hand-to-hand fighting. For the spontaneous revolt—which had commenced only moments after Mordri One had departed to investigate for herself the disturbance in the prison tunnel—had taken them completely by surprise.
As to how it had happened:
Hans Niewohner, ever the rebel, had heard the rumours and passed them on. He had noticed a degree of unease in several of the trustees—people like Gunter Ganzer, with members of their families held hostage in the prison tunnel’s cells—and taking a fearful chance had approached them with a plan scribbled on a scrap of paper. Some of them agreed that if he started the riot they would follow suit; others made no promises, but no one any longer seemed entirely against what he proposed.
The actual plan was basic; indeed, it seemed the very essence of simplicity if only on paper. Hans intended to approach and kill one of the more brutal guards, a thug whose duty station was in a secondary service tunnel. Taking the guard’s machine pistol, Hans would then sneak it into the great cavern and turn it on other guards, hopefully a group of four who usually located themselves close to the dais. Their weapons could then be commandeered by other rebels, and so on, until everyone who opposed the uprising had been taken out.
As the riot got under way, Hans would then climb the ladder to the observation shack, produce a number of Molotov cocktails that he had already manufactured, and hurl his bombs down onto the workbenches and perhaps even the dais and the Mordri Three. Having seen the terrible damage done to Guyler Schweitzer—by whom or what he couldn’t say—he already knew the effect that fire could have on these beings; why, it was even possible that the blasts and the heat from the kerosine explosions might also disrupt the alien force screen protecting the spaceship!
In a nutshell that had been the plan; most of which, with the exception of any injuries to the Mordri Three or damage to their force screen, had proved successful. As for Hans’s self-mutilation: he considered that worth it. He loathed the Mordris with every fibre of his body and would do whatever was required of him to see them brought down. He had not believed his warped flesh would ever be put back to rights, and he would rather die in an act of retaliation than face the last few minutes of his life as a freak.
Now, spitting blood and hatred into the Tannoy’s microphone, stained crimson down his front and starting to feel waves of dizziness, it was gradually dawning on Hans that his ridiculously simple scheme might actually succeed. Schloss Zonigen’s insurgent slaves were winning!
Or they could be, or they had been. But now—
—Mordri One had returned, her angular mantis-like figure materializing just a moment ago on the dais of the black disc!
47
For all the world like a great stick insect, Mordri One thrust her head forward on its long neck and looked up at the observation shack—or “The Watchtower,” as the captive workforce had long since dubbed it—and screwed up her face in rage. “Hans Niewohner!” she snarled out loud. “It’s him up there. Hans the troublemaker. Oh, but I should have dealt with that one a long time ago!” Then:
She looked at her lieutenants and her fury was redoubled. What? She raved at them in their shocked minds. I leave you to your own devices for a minute—perhaps two at most—and this is the result? You idiots! One of you get down among them, use the touch, put an end to this . . . this uprising! You, Guyler—get down there now. And you, Simon—use your localizer, go to the observation shack, and hurl that troublemaker down!
Snapping her rage, she gazed in disbelief at the melee in the cavern, the furious hand-to-hand fighting. What? Have they gone completely insane? Or is it simply a desperate attempt to jeopardize our departure? Hah! Do they believe it’s even possible? But then, as suddenly a terrible doubt crossed her mind: Or should I ask, is it possible? No, of course not. But in any case we must put an end to this. Now move, you great fools!
Mordris Two and Three looked at each other—then looked away—and moved not at all. Gelka jerked upright to her full height; her hair stood out from her head as if electrified and she stuck her face into theirs, one after the other. Then, out loud in their own Shing’t tongue, once again she cried, “What? Are you both suddenly brain-dead? Or could it be that my mentalism has failed me? Well perhaps, but I’m sure you can’t also be deaf! So now . . . will you please be so good as to get about your tasks!”
Mordri Three, known as Guyler Schweitzer, was by far the most deranged of the three; but even Guyler—not only mentally but also physically impaired, burned up his right side from his narrow waist to his thin shoulder, and feeling the incredible agony of it—even he was not entirely insane. “Gelka, I cannot obey you,” he said, lurching to and fro. “I’m employing my powers to heal myself! Using the touch will only deplete me further and so delay my recovery. We’ll have to rely on Mordri Two.”
“You’ll have to what?” Simon Salcombe rounded on his One and Three, his look scornful, even contemptuous. “You’ll do no such thing! Rely on me? My localizer is running close to empty and I can’t recharge it except from our vessel’s drive when it is enabled and operational!” And then, turning to Gelka Mordri herself: “Would you have me exhaust my localizer on some frivolous trip to the observation platform to kill someone who shall in any case soon be dead, along with this entire world? I think not! Nor will I climb that ladder, because for all I know Hans Niewohner has more incendiary bombs that he would be delighted to rain down on me—which is something I can well do without! Surely we have enough on our plates with one badly burned, utterly ineffectual member without risking more and possibly worse setbacks.”
“Ineffectual!” cried Mordri Three, fidgeting and favouring his right side where his ribs were tender under scorched flesh, and great blisters wept yellow fluid through his kaftan. “Meaning me? How dare you!”
“Not only ineffectual,” Simon Salco
mbe repeated his accusation, “but a grave liability to boot! Did you really believe, Guyler, it would escape our notice that it was you who brought about this uprising? You, tormenting the hostages with details of our best kept secret? For they now know that they are going to die, which is what this revolt is all about!”
Gelka at once turned on Mordri Three. “What? Is it so? And have I been so busy with the vessel’s computer that I failed to notice? You mad thing! You truly insane thing!” And then, questioning Salcombe: “Why didn’t you inform me of this before?”
“Because I’ve only recently learned of it myself,” her Two answered. “I heard it from a concerned guard who in turn had it from a hostage he went with. I repeat, from a hostage! They all know—hostages, trustees, even the most gullible of the guards—each and every one of them knows or at least suspects!”
“Well, and what of it?” said Schweitzer, his arms flapping and his face twitching. “They’re only animals. They can’t do us any real harm.”
“Oh, really?” said Gelka, showing him the red splotches on her kaftan, and pointing a shaking finger at the yellow ones on his. “And what pray is all of this if not harm? To some extent, however insubstantial compared with your own injuries, I, Gelka Mordri, have suffered depletion! And if this rabble wasn’t busy engaging the guards—if we bore weapons in our own right with which to shoot back—I am sure that even now they’d be firing at us! All because of you, Guyler!” She fell silent, for a moment lost for words.
Then with a grimace, throwing up her hands, she continued. “Enough! Enough of this arguing which achieves nothing. Time is growing short; indeed we are down to minutes, and I must enable our vessel’s systems. You two shall remain here and ensure that the energy screen suffers no interference, thus protecting the ship as best possible.”
But as she went to use her localizer, Simon Salcombe said, “Gelka, wait! Wouldn’t it be safer if we all entered the vessel together?” Suddenly alert, he was obviously suspicious.
“No,” she answered him. “First you’ll see to it that nothing occurs to prevent our departure. And then when all is ready I’ll call you aboard. Be reasonable, Simon, and do as I say, or it’s possible that none of us will get out of this place!”
Before he could argue further, Gelka used her localizer to enter the grav-ship. Almost immediately the force screen around the ship and its many adjuncts intensified by a factor of four, and the energy field began to throb that much more urgently; so that it was at once apparent to Mordris Two and Three that even if they used their localizers they couldn’t enter the ship now. In fact, if a localizer so much as touched any part of that enhanced energy field it would instantly explode, self-destruct!
But while as physical beings Gelka’s lieutenants couldn’t enter the ship, their bodiless thoughts could. And:
Gelka, what are you doing? said Salcombe, nervously.
Testing the systems, she replied.
But it seems to me you’ve locked us out!
Don’t be ridiculous! she answered, shielding her innermost thoughts. I am simply protecting this vessel, which is what you should be doing. And now perhaps you’ll obey me, get down among these animals, and give them something extra to worry about!
Is that a command? said Mordri Three, sniggering involuntarily, then groaning from the additional pain it caused him.
No, it is a necessary requirement, said Gelka. I shall require you to do certain things—for the good of us all, you’ll understand—just as you, soon or eventually, shall require me to do certain things. Each action in its turn, of course, dependent upon the preceding action. Now then, are we in agreement?
Absolutely, Gelka! Mordri Two answered at once. Naturally we’re in agreement.
But he, too, was now shielding his innermost thoughts . . .
It was then, as Guyler Schweitzer and Simon Salcombe came down from the dais to do Gelka’s bidding, that Scott St. John, Wolf, and the freed hostages entered the cavern and the fighting. And since a majority of the trustees—or at least those with clear consciences, with nothing in the past to cause them to fear for the future—had now joined forces with the rebels, Scott and his group might well have made an immediate and overwhelming difference. They might have, but Mordris Two and Three were already wreaking havoc, lashing out indiscriminately where they used the terrible Shing’t touch on friends and foes alike. Even Guyler Schweitzer—completely mad now, no longer wholly intent upon healing himself—lurching like a grotesque mannequin among the fighting horde, touching left, right, and centre. And everyone he touched suffering near-instantaneous, crippling transmutations.
Long-striding Simon Salcombe, too, moving jerkily, erratically through the furiously battling ranks, extending twig-thin arms to touch faces, limbs, straining bodies; and never pausing to watch the ones he touched crumple, as if their legs had been scythed from under them. And he was laughing; with his Khiff on his shoulder he laughed until he cried, as the twin delights of murder and madness built up in him and the crowd thinned before him . . . until suddenly he and his Khiff came faces to face with someone or something else.
It was a young girl, but one that he recognized from somewhere. And as it dawned on him where precisely he knew her from—and when her tattered aspect confirmed the fact that she was dead—then Salcombe concluded that he was now as mad as Mordri Three! For she was so very nearly fleshless that it was obvious she wasn’t here by virtue of any Shing’t touch. No, for corpses require muscles and ligaments to dance and cavort, and this one had none of those. Yet here she stood, upright and reaching for him! And reaching out in his turn—if only to loan credence to his crumbling senses, or perhaps corroborate his insanity—he allowed a trembling, long-fingered hand to make contact with her skeletal paw.
And however inadvertently, he administered the touch.
Except that this time it was very different. This time he sensed his power being leeched from him; not driven by his will but drawn out by this dead girl’s, perhaps to be turned back on him. And he knew at once that having been called up by a powerful Other, hers was the greater will!
Snatching his hand away and beginning to gibber, Salcombe turned and fled; his Khiff, too, an obscene jelly-thing, melting away into his ear and leaving a single crimson orb to peer out. Daring to look back only once, he saw the dead girl’s eyes dripping pus as she came lurching after . . .
After the Necroscope Scott St. John had called them from their icy coffins, the dead people from the cryogenic level had split up into two parties. The larger group had gone to Schloss Zonigen’s reception area in order to assist Trask and his E-Branch agents, while this smaller handful had taken a longer route and finally found their way here. Now, as best they were able, they were taking part in the last of the hand-to-hand fighting. And that was where they came into their own.
For they were dead and couldn’t die twice. Cut them down, cut them into pieces, and even the pieces fought on! The dozen or so remaining die-hard guards and Mordri cronies were aghast. Low on ammunition—driven back by their once-captive workforce and vengeful, triumphant ex-hostages—even as they abandoned their weapons and turned to run they were swept under by a tide of death, by dead men and their crumbling or rotting remains.
Meanwhile Shania had done with her healing of wounded and/or altered men, women, and children in the prison tunnel and had come to seek out Scott and Wolf. Upon entering the central cavern, however, where even more healing awaited her, Mordri Three had at once spotted her and recognized her for what she was. It was her Shing’t aura, which at close range she could never have disguised from one of her own kind.
Now, even in his madness, Guyler knew why his One had been so determined to get into their vessel—her vessel now—and understood what she’d meant when she said it was possibile that none of the Three would get out of this place. Gelka had discovered something of the forces ranged against her and had decided to cut and run! But. . . without her Two and Three? Would she do such a thing? Would Guyler Schweitzer
in her place? Oh, absolutely!
Now, too, Guyler noticed a grim- and grimy-faced man heading in his direction, a man with just such a fire weapon as had burned him in the Idossola Gasthaus!
Suddenly panic-stricken, he called out: Gelka, is the ship enabled? Will you power down the screen and take me aboard now? Won’t you please take me aboard now!?
But apart from a definite quickening of the pulsing of the energy screen and an audible increase in the throbbing from the grav-ship’s drive, there was no answer . . . and the man with the flamethrower was closer. Guyler sensed concerned thoughts pass between the man and Shania Two: they were lovers; they were the ones who had caused the dead to rise up and join this rebellion against the Mordris. And moreover, they were the ones who Gelka Mordri feared!
All very well for Gelka, who was safe now, but as for Guyler: now he must protect himself . . . except he didn’t know how!
My Khiff, he said, what can I do?
Aha! his familiar at once replied. Now you call on me. Me, who you’ve so often suppressed, denying me my special needs!
Because you were mad, Guyler answered, and have made me no less mad. But now we are both endangered, for if I die you die!
This is not necessarily so, said the other. Do I feel your pain, the delicious agony of your burns? No, not if I choose to ignore it. And anyway, you are merely a host . . . one host.
One host? What do you mean? Now Guyler was sore afraid.
Nothing, said his Khiff. Take no notice of my raving. I am mad, as you yourself have so rightly pointed out.
The man with the flamethrower was much closer now, but he was moving toward Shania Two, not Guyler Schweitzer. And hiding behind a knob of rock in the shadowed wall of the great cavern, Guyler thought: He hasn’t seen me, doesn’t know I’m here! Then, to his Khiff: Well, can you help me or not?
But haven’t I always helped you? said that one. Of course I can help you. Quickly now, take Shania Two hostage. For since she is one of the driving forces in what has happened here, she may yet be our salvation.