World Killers Read online

  But now the Royal Hall was lit from one end to the other, thanks to amblers and floating illumination drones. For an evening at least a corner of it was free of the tyrants' echoes. There, among ranked mecha, a court of inquiry had been convened. The Plenipotentiary Council sat ready to discharge one of its gravest functions; defendants and accusers waited silently or held quick conferences behind cupped hands.

  It was going out to just about every outlet and terminal under REF purview-with one special exception. In the prairielike square outside, the throngs looked at the screens, as people were doing elsewhere on Fantoma's moons, and on SDF-3.

  Most of the accused-Wolff; Vince Grant and officers of the expedition that had been sent to bring back the Valivarre-sat at the defense table. Breetai was the lone Zentraedi there, seated off to one side in a monumental chair. Kazianna Hesh and the rest of the giants were still aboard the Valivarre, and while no one had made much mention of it yet, so was the monopole ore.

  There had been some surprises for the returnees, the chief among those being that Wolff had been charged with the murder of the Regent/simulagent. But that charge had been set aside with their news-and indisputable proof in the form of sworn reports and battle recordings-that the Regent still lived.

  The group had also brought back word of Janice Em's true identity. Vince feared that it would prejudice the case, since it might make people completely mistrustful of Lang, but that did not seem to be the case. Vince figured that Lang was so far outside of Human norms-a Merlin of Robotechnology-that people simply were not very surprised by anything

  he did.

  And, since no one who had remained behind on Tirol (except for Lang) had any firsthand experience with Janice in her android persona, people seemed to take the news matter-of-factly. There was no sudden outbreak of paranoia.

  For his part, Lang refused any comment once he had assured himself that Jan was in no danger. But Wolff thought he detected something more in the man's manner than a mere concern that an invention was functioning, or that a strategem might have backfired.

  Counsel for the prosecution had been summing up his case when Edwards, no longer able to restrain himself, leapt up and intervened. No one was sure what transpired then; it was in low tones. The lawyer sat down with a look in his eyes like a hound called to heel, and Edwards stood forth to take up the argument.

  "You have every documentation," he said to the silent council, "every citation, every particular. There is no doubt here! These people, and the others who've temporarily evaded capture, have defied and subverted duly constituted authority, and conspired to stage a mutiny. Or more precisely, a coup."

  Edwards was about to throw his arms wide, but knew that grand gestures had long since lost their effect on the sort of people who made up the council. Instead he paused, pensive. "These were my brothers-in-arms. Don't you suppose this very scene is agony to me? But right is right, and treason is treason. And these people you see here...are guilty."

  Wolff and the others were watching Edwards's grandstand play, but Vince Grant was keeping an eye on Lang. And when Edwards was finally done with his stemwinder speech (to some considerable applause both within the hall and from outside), Lang stood up.

  Most of the onlookers and viewers were braced for an impassioned plea. Vince winked at Exedore, and Exedore winked back.

  Scott Bernard stood to one side, looking proud. Once people found out his part in tripping up Edwards, he figured, a lot of folks were going to know his name.

  In an altogether neutral voice, Lang rattled, "Hereby-submitted under my seal as council member, the following recorded data, pertinent to these proceedings."

  There were REF screens rigged everywhere in that corner of the Royal Hall. They were all abruptly alight with the scene between Lang and Edwards, the scene Edwards had been so sure his scramblers would render private.

  Edwards had been given to understand his interference devices-the ones in his epaulets and so on-would keep him safe from surveillance. They had done so in the past, hadn't they? But now he saw that that had only been because Lang wished it so, in order that Edwards be drawn into this trap.

  Forewarned, certain council members had caused riot police and MPs to be stationed in strategic points, but throughout the playing of the recording, the Royal Hall and the streets outside were silent, just silent. There was a final scene of Edwards, slinking away and nursing the wrists Lang had bruised so terribly-had only stopped himself short of crushing by an act of will.

  Edwards and his staff were on their feet, crying that this was some electronic/Protoculture forgery, but Lang's people were already submitting the authenticated taped originals that would prove differently.

  Justine Huxley stood, too, severe and cold. "I think it's obvious that there are mitigating circumstances here. Do I have a consensus?"

  Under her withering glare, with the undeniable evidence of the tapes, and the cries of the crowds rising outside, none of the would-be dissenting council members dared meet her eye. There was a tacit assent. All in an instant, Edwards saw that his plans were shattered and that, at least in terms of the council, he stood alone.

  Huxley went on, "And so all the principals, General Edwards included, will surrender to the custody of the-Stop that man!"

  This, because Edwards had vaulted the railing and sprinted for the door. Adams was a half step behind him, but the prosecutors froze, and the MPs closed in on them.

  Over at the defense table, Wolff was nearest. He was up on his feet, dashing off after his archenemy. Vince and the others would have helped, but court officers had already moved in to restrain them.

  Breetai came to his feet, but there wasn't any way for him to reach the general short of stepping in among the Humans and trampling some. And armed guards had fanned out to see to it that he kept his place.

  Wolff raced after Edwards like his own namesake, his blood boiling for a fight. Without warning, a blur came homing in at an angle in an attempt to tackle Edwards. It was Scott Bernard. But he lacked the weight to pull it off, and merely swung Edwards partway round just as Wolff was closing in.

  Edwards tore Scott off him in a transport of rage and was about to break the boy's neck. Wolff had the option of going for Edwards and taking a chance that Scott would be killed,

  or grappling to save Scott. Everything in him told him to do the former; many lives had already been lost to the general's schemes, and it was worth the sacrifice to stop him.

  But he found himself struggling to save the boy, hampered enough by the effort so that he couldn't get in the first blow. Wolff got Scott partway out of Edwards's grasp, but in the meantime the general landed a vicious flat-handed chop and nearly downed Wolff.

  Edwards released Scott and was about to follow up and finish off the colonel, but his all-pervading sense of self-preservation halted him. Court officers were closing in. He pivoted and sprinted on.

  The guards stationed at the doors were the biggest in the REF military-police contingent, and everyone expected them to grab Edwards and Adams, throw them down, and sit on them until such time as Justine Huxley said to stand up.

  But Edwards caught the first MP's hand in some kind of take-away hold, levered her aside, then drew a handgun from beneath his jacket and shot the second, a massive sergeant who was trying to get his own pistol out.

  Everyone was milling about, and that made it impossible for the court officers and other MPs to get through. In a moment, Edwards and Adams were through the inner door and Edwards was firing blasts through it. Adams was screaming something incoherent, but Edwards took no time to listen. Instead, he backhanded the man, then seized a fistful of his uniform and dragged him toward the front entranceway.

  Ghost Rider sentries and escorts there already knew Edwards's whistled signals. As other REF troops tried to understand what was going on, the Ghosts got the drop on them. In another few seconds, Edwards was inside his personal limo with Adams, lifting away.

 
Adams curled up in a corner of the luxuriously upholstered back seat, whimpering. Edwards tried to think, though it felt as if his blood vessels would peel the scalp away from his naked skull. The driver was already headed toward HQ and the armored escort vehicles were falling in before and behind.

  T.R. Edwards smiled in the dark, even as the rivulets of sweat poured down across his face and dribbled over his faceplate. The council thought it had him cornered.

  You've got me where I want you.

  Edwards gave a quick command. The rest of the motorcade went on, toward the landing areas and the shuttles, along the route the council would expect him to take.

  But the limo veered aside and down a ramp, through a recessed hatch that led to the underground levels. There were loyal troops there to welcome him; Edwards emerged

  and led the way down and down toward the installation that connected him so appropriately with the Regent.

  Behind the convoy, the street-access door rolled shut. No one was there to see a single figure, standing atop a building opposite, watch it close. Unmoving, the hunter poised and prepared himself. Tonight the hunt would end.

  There were two Humans, a Karbarran, and a Garudan; they were purposely shoving toward the compartment hatch despite Gnea's protests.

  "It's not just a request anymore," the Human, a junior officer Gnea recognized as Susan Graham, said. "Admiral Hunter says Tesla's to be braced right now, and answer a coupla questions."

  Gnea looked around at the mixed posse. "And suppose I say no? Tesla is unwell, and I've been charged with seeing to it that he lives." She placed herself before them, big-boned and used to fighting, seemingly indifferent to whether she lived or died. She fingered her halberd and waited, throwing the ball back into their court.

  Susan Graham brought up a pistol, and the others leveled weapons, too. "Then, you can either let Doc Obu here look at the patient or you can get your bellybutton micro-waved, toots, and we'll still see what we came here to see."

  Obu, the Karbarran scientist, growled and inclined his head gently. When he raised his eyes to Gnea's again, there was a frank sanity in his steady gaze. But there was mayhem on the backburners.

  "I-I see the wisdom of what you say," Gnea got out. It was very nearly a whisper. "But don't you understand? You'll frighten him. Just when we were doing so well with him."

  The Garudan, Quias, growled. "If we damage him, it's not much loss, is it?"

  "No! You're wrong!" Gnea objected so quickly that they drew back a little. Something told her that she had made a mistake, and so she looked around to where Jack Baker stepped out of the shadows.

  "We're not sure, but Tesla may be dying," he said quietly. "Those two Invid scientists, Pye and whosis, Garak, say they can pull him through-maybe. But not if you go in there and rough 'im up."

  While the deputation was wavering, Jack took another step toward them, so that the light fell across his face now. It was strangely composed and unsmiling, unlike the jaunty young man they knew.

  This Jack Baker stood shoulder to shoulder with Gnea, smiling at them with his mouth but frowning with his forehead. "And that wouldn't do anybody any good, would it? Put that weapon away, Graham. Relay my respects to the admiral, and tell him I'll have Tesla on a remote hookup for questioning as soon as he can stand it. Well? You heard your orders."

  Rick had put Jack in charge of the Tesla problem. Susan Graham slowly bolstered her pistol. "I just hope you know what you're doing, sir."

  "Move it!" Jack snapped.

  He and Gnea watched the foursome leave, then made their way back to the compartment where Tesla now dwelt. When they were sure no one was near, they entered. Inside, they stood with faces blank, as the thing before them threw their shadows on the bulkhead with its intense light.

  "Well done, my good and faithful servants," said Tesla.

  The drop capsule was a miracle of the combined sciences of the various Sentinels races as orchestrated by the capable Obu. Despite the increased Invid sensor surveillance in the wake of their defeats on Karbarra and Garuda, the tiny lozenge-shape fell through the planet's atmosphere without raising a single alarm, transparent to enemy detectors. In many ways, the war had forced the oppressed to out excel their oppressors.

  Rick badly regretted the limitations to the new techniques that restricted the size of an "invisible" drop capsule to something on the order of a padded commo booth. He would have liked to equip the Ark Angel with the same protection, but that was impossible as yet.

  Impossible, too, to arm and equip Teal and her son with Human-style gear for their espionage mission; where they were going, no hardware could follow.

  In due course the two Spherisians stood next to their abandoned capsule, looking out over the homeworld Baldan II was seeing for the first time.

  It was a prismatic landscape, reflecting and refracting and breaking into spectra the light of Blaze, the planet's primary. Human and Invid and other offworlders required visors or other eye protection there, so they weren't blinded by the furious splendor of it all; but Baldan II gazed, unblinking and unshielded, on the planet he had never glimpsed before.

  The capsule lay on a beach that scintillated like a field of stars, each infinitesimal grain throwing back its white or multicolored rays. The sea that crashed against the shore was as unreal as some computer construct, so radiant, its hues so quick-changing. Distant mountains shone like luminescent fountains.

  Baldan felt his mother's hand on his arm. He turned to see Teal wearing an expression he had never seen on her before.

  The arrival in the capsule had driven home to her, as nothing else had, how serious her circumstances and her son's were. What was bewildering her was that she was unexpectedly more concerned about his well-being than her own. That was a common phenomenon among some of the other races, of course-look how the Karbarrans had agonized over the fate of their young-but it was new to her, and troubling since it involved an offspring she had never wanted.

  When had she come to love her son? Teal couldn't recall, and yet there was an abrupt welling-up in her, and a desperate fear for his safety. If the capsule had been capable of a return trip to Ark Angel, she would have taken it with Baldan, or at the very least sent him back.

  But the road back was closed to them; they knew that when they volunteered. Teal studied the gemstone landscape for a moment, then pointed.

  "There." She set off toward a seam of crystal that had been upthrust by a rift in the planet's surface. Baldan hurried to catch up. By the time he did, his mother was standing before the glorious light of the stratum and undressing.

  "Wh-what..." he fumbled. Something within him was calling out, and something within Spheris was answering. But he didn't know how to be a part of the symphony all around him.

  Teal stood unclothed-her chiton fluttering down around her ankles-but not naked. She stepped free of the garment and was like a magnificent beacon, moving toward the exposed seam before her with arms spread wide as if to embrace a lover.

  She turned to her son. "Come; time for you to travel the Crystal Highways."

  Baldan threw aside the half tunic he wore. As his mother did, he pressed himself flat against the glittering rock. The planet sang to them in high, clear tones.

  For a moment they were half merged with it, like Mesoamerican bas-reliefs. In another moment they were gone, leaving their discarded clothing and the empty capsule behind. The only sound was the flashing sea striking rainbow surf from the diamond-dust sand.

  "Well! My dear, dear General Edwards! What a delightful surprise!"

  Edwards held his face in unrevealing lines, forcing himself not to curl his lip at the green

  goop streaming off the Regent-the nutrient bath, or royal jelly, or whatever the hell it was these maggots liked to splash around in.

  He also contained his anger. The Invid ruler had taken his own sweet time about answering the general's transmission, as if knowing that he had the Human at a disadvantage.
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  "Things here have become rather...counterproductive," Edwards said, tight-lipped. "I think it best, strategically, that we unite our forces at once."

  "Ah." The enormous liquid black eyes betrayed nothing as the Regent inspected the man. "In that case, do come here to the Home Hive, by all means! Er, how many ships will you be bringing, and how many troops?"

  Edwards's jaw muscles jumped. "There's been trouble here. I'll require a bit of assistance."

  Something moved up to sit next to the Regent-a Hellcat of extraordinary size, wearing a jeweled collar. The ones destroyed in the Haydon IV battle had been replaced, Edwards surmised. "How inconvenient," the Regent clucked.

  The Invid threw his arms wide. "Because, as you can see, you're about to miss out on the opportunity to serve the One True Ruler of the Universe! My life will be a roll call of triumphs! All Creation will grovel at my feet, as my courtiers do even now!"