Robotech Read online

  A five-fingered grappling claw was attached to the side of the vat, its purpose immediately obvious to Louie as he took in the rest of the room. Behind them was a conveyor belt, also equipped with a grappling arm, and a tableful of artificial heads.

  “It’s an assembly line!” Bowie said in disbelief. “And we thought these aliens were humanoid!”

  “Mustn’t jump to conclusions,” Louie cautioned him, leaning toward the tank now and reaching forward to touch the arms and legs floating there. He was fully composed again, curious and fascinated. “These are android parts,” he said after a moment of scrutiny, amazement in his voice.

  Dana decided to risk another look and watched as the corporal pulled and probed at the ligamentlike innards of a forearm and the artificial flesh of a face.

  “Incredible,” Louie pronounced. “The texture is actually lifelike. It isn’t cold or metallic … They seem to have developed a perfect bio-mechanical combinant….”

  Bowie, feeling a little like a corpuscle in a lymph node, had wandered away from the vat to investigate the membrane walls of the room—any excuse to absent himself from Louie’s continuing anatomy lesson. But even so, words from his science courses kept creeping into his thoughts: cell-wall, vacuole, nucleus … A minute later—during an elevator ascent through thin air—he would recall that osmosis was the last thing he had said to himself before being sucked through the wall….

  He also told himself that it was useless to struggle against this new situation: stepping off the radiant disk under his feet or propelling himself clear of the globe of soft light encompassing him seemed like risky ventures at the moment, and for all he knew this ride would land him outside the fortress, topside, smack dab in the middle of all that fighting and strafing, which was fine with him—

  But all at once those dreams of an easy out came to an abrupt end, along with the disk itself. Bowie picked himself up off the floor—thankful there was one—and brought his assault rifle up, shouting demands into whitelight fog: “All right—what’s going on here?!”

  He was answered by the music they had heard in the water-recycling hold, who knew how many levels below him now. Only it was much more present here and, he realized, haunting and beautiful. He lowered the helmet’s face shield and took one cautious step forward into the radiant haze, then a second and third. Several more and he began to discern the boundaries of the light; there was a corridor beyond, similar to those hexagonal ones they had already negotiated but on a smaller scale. The walls were textured, bare except for the occasional ruby-colored oval medallion, and the floor shone like polished marble. There was also a dead end to this particular windsong-filled corridor, or, as it turned out, a doorway.

  Twin panels that formed the hexagonal portal slid apart as Bowie made his approach, revealing a short hall adorned with two opposing rows of Romanesque columns, medallioned like the walls. Overhead ran a continuous, arched skylight, hung with identical fixtures along its length—cluster representations of some red, apple-sized fruit. Shafts of sunlight danced along the hall’s seamless floor.

  Following the sound, Bowie turned left into a perpendicular hall, with curved sides and proportionately spaced rib trusses. The music was still stronger here, emanating, it seemed, from a dark room off to Bowie’s right. Bowie hesitated at the entry, rechecked his weapon, and stepped through.

  In the dark he saw a woman seated at a monitor—a curiously shaped device like everything on this ship, Bowie told himself—an up-ended clamshell, strung like a harp with filaments of colored light. The woman, on the other hand, was heavenly shaped: somewhat shorter than Bowie, with straight deep green hair that would have reached her knees if loosed from the ringlet that held it full halfway down her back. She was dressed in some sort of sky-blue, clinging chiffon bodysuit, with a coral-colored gauzelike cape and bodice wrapping that left one shoulder bare. She had her small hands positioned at the light-controls of the device when she turned and took notice of Bowie’s entry. And it was only then—as her hands froze and the music began to waver—that Bowie realized she was playing the device: She was the source of the music!

  He recognized at once that he had frightened her and moved quickly to soften his aspect, shouldering his weapon and keeping his voice calm as he spoke to her.

  “Don’t be scared. Is that better?” he asked, gesturing to his now slung rifle. “Believe me, you have nothing to fear from me.” Bowie risked a small step toward her. “I just wanted to compliment you on your playing. I’m a musician myself.”

  She sat unmoving in the harp’s equally unusual seat, her eyes wide and fixed on him. Bowie kept up the patter, noticing details as he approached: the thick band she wore on her right wrist, the fact that the hair bracketing her innocent face was cut short….

  “So you see we have something in common. They say that music is the universal language—”

  Suddenly she was on her feet, ready to run, and Bowie stopped short. “Easy now,” he repeated. “I’m not a monster. I’m just a person—like you.” As he heard himself, he imagined how he must appear to her in his helmet and full-body armor. He rid himself of the “thinking cap” and saw her relax some. Encouraged, he introduced himself and asked for her name, tried a joke about being deaf, and finally dropped himself into the harp’s cushioned, highbacked chair.

  “I’m forgetting that music is the universal language,” he said, turning to the instrument itself and wondering where to begin. “Maybe this’ll work,” he smiled up at the green-haired girl, who stood puzzled beside him, taking in all his words but uttering nothing in return.

  Bowie regarded the ascending strings of light, marveling at shifting patterns of color. He positioned his hands in the harp, palms downward, interrupting the flow. As the tones changed, he tried to discern some correlation between the colors and sounds, thinking back to obscure musical texts he had read, the occult schools’ approach to Pythagorean correspondences … Still he could make no musical sense of this harp. And it was soon apparent that the harpist herself could make no sense of Bowie’s attempts.

  “How long has it been since you had this thing tuned?” he said playfully, as the woman leaned in to demonstrate.

  Bowie watched her intently, more fascinated by her sudden closeness than the richness of her music. But as her graceful hands continued to strike the light-strings, Bowie felt a soothing magic begin to work on him, eliciting feelings he could not define, other than to say that the harpist and her instrument were the source of them; that it felt as though he could somehow be made to do the harp’s bidding.

  “That’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard,” Bowie said softly. “And you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

  She had scarcely acknowledged his earlier attempts at verbal communication, but this seemed to give her pause; she turned from the harp to stare at him, as though his words were music she could understand.

  Then all at once the room was flooded with light.

  Startled back to reality, Bowie leapt up from the seat, his helmet crashing to the floor, as a raspy synthesized voice said, “Don’t make a move, Earthling.”

  Bowie reached for his rifle, nevertheless, snarling “trap” to both the harpist and the armored shock troopers who had burst into the room.

  “Don’t be a fool,” cautioned the second trooper.

  Bowie saw the wisdom of this and moved his hands clear of his weapon. It was difficult to know whether there were humanoids inside the gleaming armor worn by the aliens, but Bowie sensed that these troopers had been assembled from the android parts he had seen only a short time ago. This pair was human-size, armed with featureless laser rifles, and encased in helmets and cumbersome body armor, including long carapacelike capes that stood stiffly out behind them.

  “Another move and it will be your last. You’re coming with us—now. You, too, Musica.”

  Bowie turned at the sound of her name, and repeated it for Musica’s benefit. He thought he detected the beginnings of a sm
ile before one of the android’s said: “All right, Earthman, come along quietly now”—as though lifting dialogue from an archaic motion picture.

  Bowie sized up the two of them: They were side by side, perhaps three yards from him, gesturing with their rifles, but more intent on capturing him than blowing him away. Spying his helmet on the floor now, Bowie saw an opportunity and went for it. He took a step forward, as though surrendering to them, then quickly brought his right foot against the helmet, launching it square into the face of one of the androids, while pile-driving himself into the other one. The trooper took the full force of his blow and staggered backward but remained on its feet. Bowie was clutching the thing like a tackle when he saw that number one had come around and had the rifle leveled on him. He sucked in his breath and slipped out of the clutches of the second, just as number one fired, catching his companion through the face with several rounds. Both Bowie and the android were motionless for a brief moment while the weight of this reversal descended; then Bowie had his own rifle out front and put several rounds in the suddenly speechless alien. The trooper dropped to the floor with a thud.

  Bowie turned to Musica and threw his shoulders back triumphantly. But this was no green-haired Rapunzel he had just rescued, and it didn’t occur to him that he had just aced two of her people. Musica, her hands like nervous birds, was staring at him distressfully, backing slowly away, as if expecting the next round to come zinging her way.

  Bowie finally realized what was going on and tried to persuade her that he had done her some sort of favor. “Don’t tell me you’re still afraid of me?” he said, putting his hands on her shoulders while she buried her face in her hands. “I saved you from those two, didn’t I? Doesn’t that prove I’m your friend?”

  Musica was whimpering, shaking her head back and forth while he spoke; but still he went on: “Now all we have to do is get out of here … Can you show me the way?”

  She finally succeeded in tearing herself away from him and began to run. Bowie was starting after her when all at once a blast rang out from behind both of them catching Musica unawares in the calf. Bowie caught up and supported her, thinking that she had been trying to warn him. He looked back toward the trooper who had loosed the shot: the android was on its knees now, but there would be no need for Bowie to waste a charge against it. In a second the thing was going to topple facedown of its own accord.

  But again the mistress of the harp broke free and ran, this time through a blue and red triskelionlike doorway—some ultra modernist hexagonal painting that slid apart into three sections as she approached, and closed just as quickly behind her.

  Bowie tore after her and found himself back in the columned hallway, but Musica was nowhere in sight. Then he chanced to look to the right and there she was: casually entering the hall from a perpendicular corridor.

  “Well, that’s better!” Bowie said smiling.

  But off she went again and the chase was on.

  “Take it easy,” Bowie shouted after her, breathlessly. “You shouldn’t be running on that wounded leg.” What he really meant to say was that it wasn’t fair of her to be outrunning him, but he was hoping that a demonstration of concern for her well-being might prove more effective than an admission of defeat. But then he noticed that her leg showed no signs of the wound he had definitely seen there only a minute before. And come to think of it, he found himself wondering: wasn’t her hair more green than the blue he was seeing now?

  The intersections and branchings grew more and more numerous, a veritable labyrinth of hexagonal corridors, polished replicas of the ones belowdecks, with medallioned walls and stark blood-red ceiling panels seemingly filled with axons and dendrites.

  Bowie lost her in a maze of twists and turns. He stood still, breathing hard and fast, listening for any sound of her. But what he heard instead was the approach of something large and motorized. He brought his rifle off his shoulder and moved to the center of the corridor, waiting to confront whatever was about to show itself from around the bend.

  CHAPTER

  FIVE

  Did you ever see a dream walking? Well, Bowie did.

  Remark attributed to Angelo Dante

  IN AN ORGANICALLY-FASHIONED CHAMBER LONG AGO GIVEN OVER to the demands of the Protoculture, the Masters observed the Humans who had been allowed access to their ship. The rubylike corridor adornments Louie had called medallions were their eyes and ears, and when the humans had strayed from these, the Masters had relied on intelligence gathered by their android troopers, the Terminators—the same armored beings who had almost gotten the drop on Bowie and were presently exchanging fire with Sergeant Dante’s contingent, still trapped in the generator hold, one of their number already dead.

  The trio of aged Masters was in its steadfast position at the shrub-sized mushroom-shaped device that was their interface with the physical world. In many ways slaves to this Protoculture cap, generations past the need for food or sustenance, the Masters lived only for the cerebral rewards of that interior realm, lived only for the Protoculture itself, and their fleeting contact with worlds beyond imagining.

  But though evolved to this high state, they were not permanent residents in that alternate reality, and so had to compromise their objectives to suit the needs of the crumbling empire they had forged when control really was in their hands. This mission to Earth had proved to be as troublesome as it was desperate, a last chance for the Masters of Tirol to regain what they needed most—the Protoculture matrix Zor had hidden aboard the now ruined super dimensional fortress. The Masters were not interested in destroying the insignificant planet that had been the unwitting recipient of their renegade scientist’s dubious gift; but neither were they about to allow this primitive race to stand between them and destiny; between them and immortality.

  At this stage of the Masters’ game there was still some curiosity at work: viewing the Earthlings was akin to having a look at their own past—before the Protoculture had so reconfigured fate—which is why they had permitted this small band of Terrans into the fortress to begin with. Earthlings had thus far proved themselves an aggressive lot: firing on the Masters when they had first appeared and goading them into further exchanges, as if intent upon ushering in the doomsday the Zentraedi had been unable to provide.

  But perhaps this was but a measure of their stunted development? And this small reconnaissance party was nothing more than an attempt to determine exactly who it was they were up against. They were beginning to reason for a change, instead of simply throwing away their lives and resources, waging a war they were destined to lose in any case.

  So, in an effort to glimpse the inner working of the Humans, the Masters had subjected the intruders to several tests. After all, they were not really to be trifled with, having in effect defeated the Zentraedi armada. They had even foiled the Masters own attempts to gain information about the Protoculture matrix by passive means, by accessing the information in the SDF-1’s master-computer, which the Humans had named EVE.

  The Masters had permitted the Terrans to enter through a lower level corridor that led to the mechanical holds of the ship. It had been interesting to note they had split up their team, showing that they did indeed function independently and were not in need of a guiding intelligence. There were also demonstrations of caring and self-sacrifice, things unheard of among the Masters’ race. One group was currently battling Terminators in the generator hold—the troopers were ascertaining the strength of the Humans in close-fighting techniques; another group had wandered into the Optera tree room; while a third group had found the android assembly line.

  One member of the latter group had actually conversed with Musica, Mistress of the Cosmic Harp, whose songs were integral in controlling the clones of the inner centers. But that Human was now reunited with his teammates, who at the moment were returning to their predesignated rendezvous point. The second group was also en route, and so the Masters passed the thought along to the Terminators that the skirmish in the gene
rator room be called off, allowing the third group to follow suit. Once the Humans were regrouped, the Masters would initiate a new series of challenges.

  General Rolf Emerson and Colonels Anderson and Green would have given anything for a glimpse at what was going on in the fortress. But the recon team was already an hour overdue and hopes for their safe return were sliding fast. In an effort to do something, Emerson had ordered a stepped-up assault on the fortress, in the hope of hitting it hard enough to shake the team loose—lost ball bearings in an old fashioned pinball machine. But instead of tilting, the fortress had merely upped the ante, filling the skies with Bioroids on their hover platforms and sending out ground troops to combat the teams stationed at the perimeter of the crash site. It had been a calculated gamble, but one that had not paid off.

  The situation room was as busy as a hive, but the three massive screens opposite the command balcony told a woeful tale of defeat.

  Emerson sat back into his chair to listen to the latest sitreps from the field, none of which were encouraging. A rescue ship sent to ATAC area thirty-four had been destroyed. Air teams were sustaining heavy casualties from the fortress’s cannon fire. Bravo Fourteen had been wiped out completely. Sector Five had been overrun. A rescue squad was being summoned to Bunker niner-three-zero, where nearly a hundred men were trapped inside. Medics were sorely needed everywhere.

  “Have you reestablished communications with Lieutenant Sterling yet?” Colonel Green asked one of the techs.

  “Negative,” came the reply. “But we’re still trying.”

  Emerson caught Green’s groaning sigh.

  “Let’s not give up on Lieutenant Sterling yet, Colonel,” he told him, more harshly than was necessary. “She won’t give up until she’s succeeded in her mission.”