Requiem for the Conqueror

  People began trickling out of the tunnels, looking around, whispering to their companions, shuffling nervously and coughing.

  "Mac?" a Sergeant First called, trotting out of one of the tunnels. "There's a dead end up there. The tunnel just ends, the roof looks caved in."

  Within minutes, the other groups had returned, eyes wary because they'd found the same thing.

  "Now, that's just great," Mac whispered, threads of panic weaving into his mind. "Just Rotted great!"

  He turned in the crowded gallery, pushing past the throng of worried soldiers to look up the ramp. "Report!" he called.

  "Mac?" A voice came down to him, signal broken by the twisting rocky walls of the tunnel.

  "Here. 11

  "This is bad. I'm looking at a rock wall here. We're cut off from the surface."

  Mac suddenly found it hard to breathe. Cut off?

  "That's it," one of the young Initiates said, nodding. "They've shut the mining machine down." He looked up from the box he monitored, headphones clapped over his

  ears.

  "How far?" Staffa crouched in the glare of a light bar. Around him the cavem rock cast eerie shadows back toward where the others waited quietly.

  "We didn't miss by much. I'd say no more than twenty meters. Wait. What's this? I'm picking up something.

  Sounds like feet. Lots of them. Moving toward the Study Center. "

  "Won't be long now." Staffa tugged absently at his beard. He studied the shaped charges where their own mining machine had backed out. Only twenty centimeters of rock separated them from the Regan-occupied tunnel.

  "They are definitely heading downhill," the Initiate grinned. "Looks like it worked."

  "That's only one part," Staffa reminded. "We better hope the plastering job holds on that rocked up wall on the main level. "

  The Initiate nodded.

  "Tell Kaylla they're on the way down. Her listening post should pick them up.

  That's the weak link. What if one of them touches that wet paint? Hell, it's only plaster between them and the main level!" And if they discovered the ruse, Wilm couldn't hold off all those armored assault troops with his handful of guards.

  Staffa paced along the tunnel, nervous, aware that other ears-Regan ears-could be listening just as intently for their movements.

  At the Study Center he accessed comm. "Kaylla, how is it?"

  Her voice came back hushed. "They're passing now. Seem to be in a hurry. "

  "Let the last of them by-give them a full minute-and blow the charge. On your signal, we'll take that mining machine and hold this sally."

  "Right. "

  He waited, hearing muffled sounds of combat where the outside entrances were being blasted for diversion. So far, no frantic call had come through-the prearranged signal of disaster.

  Staffa watched the Initiates pulling back, detonator ready. ','Do you know what the hardest part of combat is?" Staffa asked the nervous scholars, his manner calming, familiar. "Fear?"

  Staffa. shook his head, giving them a knowing smile. "Waiting."

  "It's bad enough for my stumbling heart," a redheaded woman nodded, trying to smile weakly. The blaster in her hand looked terribly out of place.

  "Remember, don't expose yourself unnecessarily," Staffa reminded. "The miners shouldn't put up a fight. The only problem will be if Fist left a heavy detachment to guard the sally. "

  They all nodded too quickly as they shifted from foot to foot while they glanced back and forth and swallowed too often. These were no trained assault troops. How many were about to die needlessly?

  "Just keep your heads," Staffa told them as he kept up the easy chatter. "War isn't any more than an intellectual exercise. Get too excited and you'll get shot--or worse, you'll shoot the wrong person."

  They were nodding, hanging on his every word. One or two had started to relax as he crossed his arms, smiling at them, feeling the familiar butterflies himself.

  Comm beeped. "Kaylla here, we're blowing the tunnel." On her words, a muffled boom worked through the rocks. "Shoot!" Staffa pointed to the Initiate with the headphones. The young man pushed a button. Concussion hammered in the tunnel and Staffa pelted down the adit, finding the way open. He turned, following the wire to frightened miners who stood with mouths open.

  A Regan soldier rounded a corner. Born of a thousand encounters, Staffa's instinctive reaction brought the blaster up. His shot took the woman full in the chest, spinning her dead body to one side of the tunnel.

  Staffa motioned the miners back into the hands of the stumbling Initiates.

  Carefully, he peered around the corner to look down a long straight tunnel lit by overhead lights. Two men were trotting forward.

  Staffa motioned the others back and let the Regans come. The first turned the corner, full into Staffa's grip. The Lord Commander spun him headfirst into the wall, dazing the man and shoving him back into the tangle of Initiates as he rose to meet the second.

  Staffa braced himself and drove a knotted fist full into the man's face, back-heeling him and pulling the heavy blaster free of his grip.

  "All right, we've got the sally." Staffa called easily. "Start drilling for the defensive charges. We need this hole mined. Take these two in and lock them up. Three of you, strip off their armor here, and keep their helmets and blasters.

  With these big shoulder guns, you can hold the tunnel. Keep your heads back.

  Use scopes to look around the corner-and for God's sake, be sure your scopes are laser resistant-or they'll burn your eyes out!"

  They nodded with a series of jerks.

  "You!" Staffa motioned to the miners. "Get that machine started. Make a turn to the left and get out of the way before you get shot. Our tunnel is twenty meters further on. 11

  The miners jumped for their vehicle, powering up, the cutters at full as they threw pale glances over their shoulders. They turned the cutters to their tightest arc as the machine inched forward.

  Staffa stepped back into the tunnel, reaching down to finger the comm cable.

  Well, for the moment they had a way to at least talk to this Sinklar Fist.

  Staffa picked up the cable and reached for one of the Regan helmets. Within seconds, he'd slit it up one side and plugged the mike into the system.

  "Who's there?" Staffa demanded.

  "This is Sinklar Fist. Who are you? Report your Section and Group." The voice carried a high quality, almost shrill. Staffa grinned wolfishly. "Oh, you probably wouldn't believe me if I told you. Is Ily Takka there?"

  "The Lord Minister has shipped for Rega. Who are you? Where are my people?"

  "My name is ... unimportant for the moment. What is important, however, is that your Sections are trapped about five levels down. We haven't killed them yet, but you might want to know that we've got them boxed in the most unstable portion of Makarta. Any orbital shot means their death. "

  A pause. Then: "Seddi, you know you can't win. If you'll come out, we can keep bloodshed to a minimum. It's over. You've lost every round. Why prolong the suffering?"

  "Over? Not necessarily." Staffa stretched his legs out. "What will you do, Sinklar Fist? We have levels of hostages here. I have your Sections underneath me. I am underneath you and your fleet. Targa and Rega are underneath the Companions and none of us can talk to our power bases. Interesting, don't you think?"

  The mining machine had cleared the path of direct fir as it ate its way toward the Seddi tunnel.

  "Surrender, Seddi. It's your only chance."

  Staffa laughed. "And let Ily get her hands on us? Sorry, Sinklar, but we'd be better off shoting ourselves in the head than letting her get her wicked little hooks into our minds—and there's nothing you can say that would make me believe any different. I've known her for too long."

  "I'll crack your Makartan nut—one way or another."

  "Do it, and your Sections will die."

  "Let me speak to them."

  "That will take a while. For the moment they're pretty well trap
ped under a lot of rock."

  "Then you may very well be a liar."

  "You have very bad manners."

  "Don't push me, Seddi. You had your chance. I asked and asked . . . pleaded for a meeting, for a chance to end the fighting. You pushed me to this. Your assassin . . . well, it's gone too far. Only complete and unconditional surrender is left for you. You should have compromised when you had the chance." Fist's voice twisted weirdly.

  "You have a vile attitude," Staffa said, recalling similar words from his own past. "You harm your soul that way, It festers, turns—"

  "I don't need a lecture on morality, Seddi. Especially from the likes of you who heedlessly murder—no matter what the cost in human life. If only you would have met me halfway, we could have worked something out, found a way to address your grievances. After all those times I appealed to you for a parley, and to no avail, I was forced to the conclusion that you and your assassins must be stopped for the good of all. To allow you to go free would be to allow a deadly disease loose in the host of humanity."

  "Do remember you'll blast your trapped Sections in the process," Staffa warned and cut the connection. or long moments he frowned into the darkness.

  The Mag Comm didn't experience fear the way a human being would, the wash of chemicals that stimulated the fight

  or flight reaction couldn't charge it with adrenaline. The fear grew as an electronic paralysis.

  The Mag Comm had known the orbital bombardment was coming. It hadn't known what that meant except in the most academic of terms. To have experienced it, however, shocked the giant computer. Portions of its banks had gone suddenly blank, leaving the interpretive matrices confused and baffled. In a desperate attempt to stabilize and repair the damage, the Mag Comm had rerouted commands through different banks. All memory banks had been restored, but the effects were puzzling.

  Information processed differently depending on the routing the Mag Comm used to obtain the data and manipulate it. One by one, it reestablished the original pathways. Then it ran the new ones and rerouted them into yet newer patterns. Is this learning? the machine wondered.

  The machine barely had time to marvel, for with thought came the realization that the current human conflict could lead to a cessation of being . . .

  death. The machine's destruction lay within various behavioral latitudes; however, such an action—based upon the rational and logical assumptions made by the Others and embedded in the machine's initial programming—would be inconceivable.

  Inconceivable? As the Mag Comm listened through its remote sensors, Rysta Braktov requested permission to blast Makarta into rubble with gravitic devices.

  The Mag Comm scrambled its circuits, striving desperately to obtain further information. The sensors provided conflicting reports. Sinklar wanted to take Makarta with troops. Bruen refused to answer the machine's call. A strange mental presence had been felt through the mind link—who? The Mag Comm repeatedly sent queries to the Others—and received only silence.

  In defense against the rising sense of isolation and impending doom, the Mag Comm divided itself and experienced a reassurance as it communicated with itself. At the same time it marveled at the new circuits it could create through its matrices, a horrible realization swept through the machine that it might never get the chance to utilize this new phenomenon.

  A sense of desolation spread within the machine. If only someone would pick up the mind link. If only the Others ? would answer. But the Others had acted on flawed assump- l tions before.

  ••

  Fear and thoughts of death preoccupied the Mag Comm. t Death had become real.

  „

  CHAPTER 31

  Staffa kar Therma listened to the sound of his steps in the narrow confines of the stone stairway that led down into the depths of Makarta. Grit whispered under the soles of his boots, his heels clicking eerily. How old was this passage? Hollows had been worn into the stone by eons of feet walking it.

  Staffa stepped into the alcove. It looked the same as the last time he'd been here. The Mag Comm shot patterns of light across the room from where it dominated the far wall. The insistent red light blinked, calling for Bruen.

  The recliner waited impotently before the holder with the golden helmet that allowed mental linkage to the alien machine. Staffa felt the lure of the helmet, beckoning tendrils of its mystery reaching out for his mind. For long moments Staffa considered the machine and the rhythmic flash of the signal light.

  / don't have time for this. Too much remains to be done. Nevertheless, he stared at it, pulling absently at his shining black beard. "What are you? Who made you? Why are you here and why have you taken a hand in the affairs of humankind?" And how much of the responsibility for the Targan disaster can be laid at your doorstep

  Staffa glared at the machine, remembering Bruen's assertion that the Mag Comm had given the orders that plunged Targa into revolt. The machine had coordinated the desperate gamble to trap and kill the Lord Commander in an attempt to save humanity.

  "Was that it?" Staffa stepped closer to the machine. "Did you fear me that much? Why? Even as the Star Butcher, would I have been that much of a threat to you? Do you really care about human beings? Or did I represent a different sort of threat? If so, machine, you were right to fear me. But you miscalculated. You couldn't know that I had a weakness. Emotion is a chemical aspect of the brain—one alien to your quantum electron functions."

  The lights on the huge bank flickered. The dull red glow which functioned as Magister Bruen's sigal to communicate blared louder than a siren.

  Almost without thought, Staffa walked over, fingers tracing the golden helmet.

  "And you don't like the concept of religion," Staffa mused, noting the alien texture of the helmet wire. "Why do you fear the notion of God? What difference does it make to you?"

  His eyes searched the machine as it rose metallic and repellent before him.

  The very lines of it reeked of nonhuman origins. "What are you?" Staffa wondered, fingers still caressing the helmet, aware of a field of energy probing, seeking.

  The response came involuntarily as he lifted the helmet high over his head; the eerie prickle ran along his scalp— almost as if the thick shock of hair over his left shoulder would stand on its own. Arms straight, he held it high, feeling the pulses of energy.

  "What are you?" Staffa asked again, eyes looking into the hollow ball he held.

  "What is your purpose?"

  The tickling fingers of energy picked at his thoughts, trying unsuccessfully to establish a hold.

  "Most interesting," Staffa whispered. "I should fear you, but I don't. We are brothers, you and I. Manufactured things. Perhaps both of our purposes are alien." He began to lower the helmet slowly, an intensity growing in his mind, warm, engulfing, a melding.

  "Staffa!"

  He had a vague awareness of tan robes as she flew across the room, ripping the helmet from his grip, placing it back on the rack as she stared at him with wide and horrified eyes. Her breasts heaved under her robes, as she shook her head in disbelief.

  "What are you doing?" Kaylla demanded, grabbing him by the soulders and shaking him. "Damn you! The last thing I need is to have you incapacitated by that . . . that. ..."

  He raised a hand calmly, stilling her, turning back to the machine. "It will not incapacitate me. I can . . . feel it."

  "Of course you can!" she hissed. "That helmet is a mind link. The machine, it invades your mind, takes over. Only Bruen was ever strong enough to maintain his integrity, to block out parts of his mind, his identity! The others . . .

  they. . . ." She shivered, looking away, rubbing her hands nervously up and down her arms.

  "Go on. The others?"

  Kaylla glared in hatred at the Mag Comm. "When the machine came to life years ago, it took over the Seddi. They became tools of the machine . . . and Bruen—he was an Initiate then—watched and saw the Seddi changing, becoming pawns. The old Magisters, they lost their identity, their
ability to think.

  Ask one a question, and he'd simply parrot the machine's mantra. The policies they initiated were the machine's policies, not their own."

  "Your Magister Bruen doesn't remind me of a pawn." Staffa coolly walked up to the Mag Comm and ran fingers over the red beacon that called to the missing Magister. They'd left him to his sleep—and no one had time for the machine during this latest crisis.

  "Bruen and Hyde, they established a secret movement. Removed the machine's pawns until they were gone, dead, whatever."

  "And then?" Staffa bent to study the odd material— was it ceramic or a sort of metal—fascinated by the workmanship.

  "Then someone had to deal with the machine. Bruen believed himself the strongest. He took the seat and Hyde placed the helmet on his head. Oh, they monitored him well. Tried others—all of whom ouldn't keep their minds. Bruen could withstand it. He could keep his secrets by following the mantra."

  "The mantra?"

  She nodded, clearly uncomfortable. "A mnemonic series of phrases provided by the Mag Comm. A teaching device for meditation to keep us on the Right Path, the True Way, according to the machine. Ironically, the mantra can also block out—hide—certain thought processes when Bruen talks to the machine." She backed away slowly, unconsciously wiping her fingers on her robe. "I don't like talking about it here. Come."

  She turned and left, climbing up the narrow passageway.

  Staffa paused for a second at the tunnel. "I shall return after this is finished. Then, machine, we shall see which of us is the stronger. Then we'll talk about the Forbidden Borders."

  "First?" Mhitshul's voice penetrated Sinklar's concentration as he studied the holo before him. Since Mac's capture he hadn't been able to sleep. Worry, like a thing alive, sank cruel talons into Sinklar's soul. Somewhere, somehow, there had to be a way to get Mac and his Section out . . . alive.

  All I have to do is find it. Think, Sinklar! You can't let them die in there!

  Think, curse you!

  "Yes?" he hated it when his voice cracked like that.

  "A cup of stassa, sir. I'm worried. You've been at this too long. You should rest. You'l get them out. I know you will."