World Killers Read online

  Jack started undoing his hospital gown, but she was out the door before he could moon her.

  Actually, his first excursion out of sick bay promised to be the trip of a lifetime. Numerous Sentinels had already made the journey; all had received heartfelt invitations from the grateful Spherisians.

  It so happened that today was the first day the Hunters could get away to make the pilgrimage, and Gnea, hearing that Jack was to go, decided to come along, too, for a second visit. Burak announced with august dignity that it was only fitting that he witness the most guarded shrine in Spheris. Veidt, his flier repaired, felt it was a good time for a test flight.

  Teal and Baldan II, learning who would be on Veidt's flier, insisted on showing the Sentinels around personally.

  Veidt was perfectly comfortable hovering several inches off the deck, but seats like long-legged director's chairs had been provided for others. In addition, a picnic lunch lay in a pile of thermal canisters at the rear of the bubble-domed passenger space.

  "Still not ready for volleyball, Baker?" Rick asked innocently as Karen helped Jack to his seat. Jack snorted a laugh and then groaned in pain, but he didn't complain; it was just the sort of thing he had done to other people, and he had no intention of being accused of dishing it out but not being able to take it.

  Though Karen might abuse Jack, however, she wasn't about to see anybody else do so. "Admiral! Unless there're enough people here with matching blood types to give Lieutenant Commander Baker transfusions in the event he should rupture a gut, Sir, I respectfully suggest we go easy on him."

  Rick coughed behind his hand to hide his grin. "Of course; quite right." Lisa elbowed Rick, then looked out over the devastated but rebuilding Beroth, throbbing silently with laughter.

  The ice-cream-cone flier took them out across the crystal countryside, to a volcanic chimney the Spherisians had opened so that their liberators could see their greatest treasure. They descended past sights as wonderful as anything they had seen on their journeys so far.

  At last they came to rest with the narrow promenade flange that encircled the little passenger dome even with a cut-glass walkway. They were miles deep, yet the temperature was comfortable, the air pressure little different from that above. Rick wanted to ask how that could be, but he was sure the Spherisians would only confuse him again, as they had the Sentinels engineers and scientists.

  The party stepped out and followed Teal and her son along, through an immense archway of lava pulled and braided like multiple strands of taffy. On the other side, they all fell mute except for a few loud, indrawn breaths.

  No outworlder had ever seen that representation of Haydon until the Sentinels were invited into the lower domains of Spheris. It was set in the middle of a cavern from which light shone in darts bright enough to bother the eyes of the non-Spherisians. It stood in the polished, faceted glory of the planet's most beautiful gem setting, a form a thousand feet high.

  A figure of clay.

  The stuff was a nondescript color, impossible to discern there where fantastic light-shows changed from instant to instant. The matter of material strengths and the impossibility of such an immense amount of the stuff holding its shape was barely worth mentioning, because the reality was there before them.

  The clay was unfired, looking like it had been molded only moments ago; yet it had stood there since the epoch of Haydon himself. It was as if a divine artist had been called away, for a moment, from an unfinished work. Again there was that lack of features but the definite strength and nobility of the outline. It agreed in form with the others the Sentinels had seen.

  "Haydon was the living model for its shape," Teal said in a proud, distant voice. "Come;

  look closer."

  She led the way toward an ascending path a yard or so wide which connected to a network that spiraled around and up and down the stupendous cavern. Awed, the rest began falling in automatically.

  Except for Jack, who took one look at that corkscrew webbing of trails and knew he could never make it. In fact, he was already feeling a twinge in his mending middle from the activity; the nurses had made him promise to sit in the flier and not move at all, and he had already disobeyed them.

  Karen was about to help Jack to Veidt's flier, but Gnea intervened. "I've been here once already, Sister. I'll give him a hand."

  The others were already wending up the steep pathway except for Burak, who was still immobile before the clay Haydon. Karen nodded and let go of Jack's arm, then hurried after. Jack hobbled along, more or less leaning on Gnea, letting go a blissful breath as she helped him into his chair again.

  "I'm not an invalid anymore, Gnea. You can go on with the others; I'll be all right."

  She eased into a chair next to him and patted his forearm. "No problem, bucko. Are you hungry?"

  "No, I-"

  "Well, I am!"

  "Well, you're a growing amazon," Jack pointed out.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the Regent-Tesla conflict is one that cannot be verified but was a persistent rumor among the Invid.

  It was alleged in various quarters that the count of Special Children eggs left behind by the Regis upon her departure was one short. Further rumor had it that she'd chosen to raise one of the select brood as a secret experiment, telling no one about it, not even the Special Child-and that she raised it as a Scientist.

  Perhaps Tesla's crimes were, like something out of Greek drama, even more enormous than he imagined.

  Lemuel Thicka, Temple of Flames: A History of the Invid Regent

  The pilgrims to Haydon's shrine became separated, going off along various paths that

  wound the cavern walls, to view the stupendous icon from assorted angles and distances. Karen was walking alone when Baldan emerged from the glittering wall to stand before her.

  He was as tentative as any adolescent male approaching an attractive older female. "There is-something I thought you might like to see," he began hesitantly. "I'd like to show it to you-to thank you for helping teach me the fighting skills."

  She came with him into a passageway that reminded her of a cut and polished ice cave. It led to a sort of domed gallery or rotunda, where objects were set near the chamber's walls. The things he had brought her to see were like nothing so much as diamond footballs, or stylized Easter eggs, as big as a small groundcar. They were perrate pedestals that were aligned along a complex celestial design in the window-clear floor.

  Baldan led Karen over to one. "Stand on that spot, so, and look into the Microcosm."

  She took her place, and the egg before her lowered itself a bit so that its tip was level with her eyes. It was wondrously crosshatched with lights and colors even though it was clear, but she saw nothing coherent. She was about to ask Baldan if she was doing something wrong when the world seemed to fall away on all sides.

  She found herself looking at a place that had been ravaged worse than Tirol or even Spheris. Yet, somehow she knew that it had once been a thriving scene. She shuddered at the windswept tors, bleak wastelands, and dank, treacherous bogs. Off in the middle distance, though, something began to come into focus.

  It was an Invid hive, far larger than any she had ever seen. Its central dome alone was bigger than Glike, Beroth, and Monument City put together. It, and the satellite structures connected to it and one another by a network that shone as red as canals of lava, covered much of one continent.

  "Optera," she heard Baldan say. "And the Home Hive of the Invid."

  She backed away and the vision faded. "Baldan, what are these?"

  "They are our fenestella-mental looking-glasses for viewing other worlds. Seeing the Invid hive has upset you, hasn't it? I'm sorry; stupid of me to begin with that one-"

  "No, no!" She laid a hand on his arm. "It was amazing! Was I actually seeing what's going on at this moment on Optera?" The G-2 intelligence staff would go wild over this!

  But Baldan wa
s shaking his head. "These are representations-depictions. And there are more pleasant ones: Garuda and Karbarra and others the Sentinels have never visited. Let me show them to you."

  "I'd like that."

  As they went, he talked about the different worlds and their histories. She could tell that Baldan I was coming more and more to the fore in him.

  o the Regent and Tesla and their folk, Optera is a beautiful world," he told her, "even though it's not the paradise it was. Part of the purpose of this place is to remind us that Spheris is only part of a much greater scheme of things."

  He spoke like a person with an old soul, as she had once heard someone put it. "I think you're a very wise man, Baldan," she told him.

  He looked subdued. "Baldan I was in many ways the sum of our race. He was slated for great things, great accomplishments, before the Invid came. His death was a very untimely blow to all Spherisians. So I have a very great deal to live up to, you see."

  Gloom had settled on him. Karen slipped her arm through his and pressed her lips to the glassy, strangely warm cheek. "You're going to do just fine, I know it. Now c'mon; show me some more!"

  Aboard Ark Angel, Rem bent to his studies. Cabell would expect him to sift through as much of the data gained on this voyage as possible, and to have furthered his own studies as well.

  There was a tone from his quarters' hatch signal. When he gave it leave to open, Janice Em stepped into the room.

  She was wearing the guise of the Human, as she usually did with him-and around most crewmembers, to put them at ease. Even so, there were many who kept their distance from her now that they knew she was an Artificial Person.

  Rem himself had no such prejudices; one reason was that he had been on the receiving end too many times. But there was another, far better one.

  "It's late," she said. "Haven't you studied enough for one evening?"

  She turned out the light over his work station and took his hand, kissing his neck and lips as he kissed hers. Together they went to his bed.

  Max Sterling fought the urge to hang onto Aurora, to see to it that she didn't hurt herself. But his daughter was screaming bloody murder, eager to practice her walking there on the

  carpeted floor of his quarters.

  He tried to keep from dwelling on how crazy it all was. Here she was, only weeks old, taking her first steps. Max let go, and Aurora tottered toward Miriya, who knelt a few yards away.

  The changes in Miriya were more subtle than the ones taking place in Aurora with every passing minute, but they were unmistakable. The peerless champion of the Quadronos no longer seemed the least bit interested in getting back on flight status or resuming her military career in any fashion whatsoever. Whenever Max brought up the subject, she simply gave him a serene smile and changed it.

  It was as if the almost-fatal pregnancy and the birth of Aurora had given Miriya a secret wealth of knowledge.

  Baby Aurora was doing splendidly, just as she did everything, when she abruptly went as stiff as a board, like someone suffering a seizure, and keeled over. Max and Miriya almost knocked heads, rushing to her. To their immense relief, she was breathing again, and the seizure seemed to have passed. But she gave no sign of hearing them.

  Instead, she lay with eyes wide and focused on the ceiling. They heard her tiny voice but it took a few repetitions to understand what she was saying. And when they did, Miriya let out a cry of pain, as Max felt the hair on the back of his neck standing straight up.

  "Dana, the spores! Beware the spores! Dana, beware the spores!"

  "Not very subtle, is he?" the Regent scoffed, looking into the screen. "Where's all this Evolved refinement we keep hearing about?"

  It was true: Tesla's battle plan lacked finesse. Apparently, he thought the appearance of his force would in and of itself oblige the Regent to sue for peace.

  "Fool!" the Regent reflected, his nasal antennae flashing. "He doesn't realize the true strength of deevolution!"

  Outlying strongholds and defensive bases had been neutralized, and the central dome of the Home Hive itself was Tesla's straightforward objective.

  The transports began sowing their crop of Terror Weapon dropships and skirmish fliers. While these went on ahead, the transports descended to let forth rank after rank of Inorganic bipeds and packs of Hellcats. The troopships fired in support of the assault but kept well back, since the hive's mammoth guns were shooting in answer.

  The smaller invading craft and ground units advanced fearlessly, though. Suicidal attacks by a number of Tesla's Terror Weapons resulted in awful losses but succeeded in knocking out most of the big cannon-something that would have been inconceivable in the days when the Home Hive was operating at full efficiency and power.

  It was fratricide, carnage between identical twins, as Inorganic fought Inorganic. As it turned out, on Spheris Tesla's soldiers had picked up tricks of battle concerning such duels that the Regent's fighters had never had occasion to learn. That was one more thing in the challenger's favor.

  In an infernal landscape of Protoculture blasts, dismembering hand-to-hand combat, and fanatic killing and dying, the outnumbered loyalist army was pushed back and back toward the hive.

  When he thought that the time was right, the Regent turned to one of his toadies. "Release the Special Children at once."

  He turned back to watch as they rose from forward positions in camouflaged bunkers. Tesla's soldiers were caught off guard as new enemies burst into their very midst.

  Though it infuriated him to think about it, the Regent's own scientists were very much the Regis's rejects. She had wanted only those who were energized by her Great Work, the seeking of the Ultimate Invid Form. Others, she banished from her presence.

  Therefore the Regent's scientists-mostly culls-hadn't been able to fathom all the potentials and secrets of her Special Children. Several savants had died before the Regent's fury. The Invid monarch finally decided that he didn't need geniuses or great biogenetic artists, ESP savants or spiritual guides. "Give me living, breathing killing machines," he commanded.

  And so it was. The things that began hurling back the invaders' advance were bigger than any other mecha the Invid were ever to field. They resembled the Enforcers that the Regis was later to develop on Earth, but were bigger and of greater brute strength, bearing heavier armor and firepower.

  But like the Inorganics, the Special Children had multiple upper limbs. These were provided with pincers, tentacles, great scythelike ripper-blades, weapons muzzles, and more. The things could defend and fight on all sides.

  They waded into Tesla's attack waves, slashing Inorganics in two and hurling the pieces in different directions, blasting them apart, tearing them limb from limb, or simply stomping them into the ground-up soil of Optera. The advance was stopped, the lines breached; the Special Children spread out, visiting destruction upon everything in their path.

  But Tesla, in the safety of his transport ship, breathed a sigh of relief. Only in his Evolved state had he finally understood some of the things for which the Special Children were designed. One of those functions was to absorb and store Protoculture energy.

  Brought to term properly, the Children wouldn't have been particularly imposing specimens or doughty fighters, but they could have stopped Tesla cold by draining all energy from his soldiers. The Regent, however, had approached the situation with exactly the devolved simple-mindedness Tesla had foreseen.

  "Second wave," he ordered.

  In his hive, the Regent shook the walls with his ire when twice again as many Inorganics were sent in by Tesla. Again, the renegade was willing to suffer horrific losses in his drive to victory. For every Inorganic that the Special Children slew, three more swarmed up at them.

  The irreplaceable Special Children began to suffer losses, driven back toward the hive though they fought like demons every foot of the way. One of the Invid's greatest genetic treasures was being spent, at a hellish rate and to no great effect, in
a few minutes of a battle between equally unworthy leaders.

  "Commit all reserves!" the Regent ordered. "And establish a direct link so that I may speak to Tesla face-to-face!"

  The defending lines wavered but held. The last power of the hive was supercharging the Regent's fighters, and Tesla suffered more attrition. But it didn't matter.

  In his command ship, he vowed, I will rule the Invid!