World Killers Page 8

They felt safe speaking their mind there in the center of Lang's research facility, satisfied that it was debugged and that the people he had gathered around him were loyal. Besides, his latest project was complete: one of the SDF Escort-class cruisers had been adapted with a spacefold drive.

  It had taken every gram of ore recoverable from the analysis labs and every speck from the secret cache Lang and Exedore had amassed with Breetai's help. At last there was a

  way to contact Earth, to pass along a warning of the Robotech Masters' intention to seek out the world to which Zor had sent the SDF-1 and the mysterious Protoculture matrix-provided the rest of the Plenipotentiary Council could be swayed.

  Exedore and Lang sat together, waiting, before the lab's main screen. The heated debate of the last five hours had them all exhausted, and the one-hour interlude before the vote, during which each member was to weigh the pros and cons, had come as a welcome chance to catch their breath.

  A tone sounded and the screen lit up again, split so that the other ten council members' faces appeared there. Former judge Justine Huxley said, "The moment for the vote has come. If there are no further objections, council members will be so good as to enter their ballots."

  Exedore and Lang complied, not hiding their vote from each other as they keyed in their codes. The tabulating computer came up with the result instantly.

  "By a two-vote majority, Dr. Lang's proposal to send the refitted SDF-7 class ship back to Earth, with warning of the peril constituted by the Robotech Masters, is carried."

  "I would reiterate my point that the voyage be undertaken as soon as possible," Lang was quick to put in, "and my recommendation that Major Carpenter be put in overall charge of the mission."

  Suddenly, Edwards's face replaced all others on the screen, flushed with fury. "You're all making a mistake you'll regret! That's the only spacefold ship we've got, maybe the only one we'll have for months or years to come!

  "Who knows what Carpenter and the others will run into back there? I'll say it again: the only sane course of action is to wait until we've got an armada and return to Earth in overwhelming strength!"

  "Are you saying that the majority of the council has lost possession of its mental faculties?" Exedore asked innocently. Edwards made a wordless sound of rage and broke the connection, so that the council's faces returned to the screen. After a few quick directives to the effect that Lang and Exedore should begin organizing the voyage, the meeting was adjourned.

  "Edwards never seems to learn his lesson," Exedore remarked. "Even though the bulk of his Ghost Riders failed to return from their mission to apprehend Breetai, he speaks as though he has the military might to enforce his will."

  "So I noticed-and it makes me wonder." Lang had had his own people circulating among REF personnel, and the overwhelming majority were on the side of the council, but still

  Edwards carried on as though he had a hole card.

  Then there was this strange business about the pilot who had tried to save Minmei. Lang could discover nothing about the man-sometimes he doubted if witnesses were right, and wondered if the pilot existed at all. Edwards, for his part, insisted that Minmei had escaped confinement and was probably being harbored by friends somewhere in Tiresia.

  But that didn't jell with the Edwards that Lang knew: what he had, he rarely let slip away from him.

  Edwards glared disgustedly at the blank screen.

  Idiots! The council was asserting itself more and more, now that the general's power base of Ghost Riders had been cut so drastically. It was a pity he couldn't give them a real taste of the power he wielded, but that would have been showing his hand too soon.

  All his efforts to infiltrate people into Lang's organization had failed, too, so there was little chance of getting his own agents onto Carpenter's roster. Devil take the luck! He wanted every spacefold ship for his own master plan, and the idea of an unwarned Earth, softened up by the Robotech Masters, was quite appealing.

  But he still had his options. Perhaps it was time now that he allowed himself a diversion. He opened a commo channel.

  "Medical? Give me an update on the patient."

  "No appreciable change, sir," a clinician's voice answered.

  Incompetents! Not fit to be called therapists. All they had managed to do was drive Minmei into near catatonia. He felt a sudden hunger for her, a need to reassure himself that she was still in his power.

  "Perhaps a little personal contact is what's needed," he said. "Remain where you are; I'll be right down."

  CHAPTER NINE

  To paraphrase the Human aphorism, "I think, therefore I scram."

  Cabell, A Pedagogue Abroad: Notes on the Sentinels Campaign

  The Invid Enforcers of the Regent's hordes were nothing like that class of mecha the Regis was developing. Hers were bigger than Battloids, mounting enormous cannons, her

  most powerful fighting machines, while his were scarcely bigger than the Armored Officers.

  Three Enforcers entered the Hall of Healing now, driving Cabell and Veidt before them, as the others looked up. Vince, Max, and Wolff were waiting there, as well as Rick, Lisa, and the rest. Vince's arm was around Jean's shoulder, while Max held both Miriya's hands. There was still some distance between Rick and Lisa.

  Veidt turned to the lead Enforcer. "I wish to speak to these prisoners alone."

  The media's voice sounded like a warped audio disk. "Those are not the Regent's orders! Count yourself lucky that you are not confined as well!" The Enforcers stayed where they were, weapons ready.

  Veidt made a helpless shrug as he turned to his friends. "Those of us who believe in freedom are doing our best to obtain your release," he said.

  "Not likely to help much, is it?" Max asked bitterly. "We've already been measured for slave headbands and restraining devices and cages. And you're telling me the people who sold us out-your people-are gonna find the backbone to help us now? Dream on."

  Miriya shushed him. "If it hadn't been for the Haydonites, we four would be dead right now."

  Max lowered his head, speaking so they could barely hear him. "Maybe that'd be preferable. Maybe we'd all be better off that way."

  His face went deathly pale as he said it; everyone there was aware that Miriya was pregnant.

  Veidt regarded Max for a moment. "I trust you'll change your mind in time." He came about, the hem of his robes swirling, and wafted out the door. One Enforcer left, and the other two remained on guard by the door.

  "Did you get to see Rem?" Jean asked Cabell.

  "No. A great joke of the Regent's, promising to allow us to. What he really meant is that we're all to be imprisoned along with him."

  "What a sense of humor." Rick grunted. "I wonder if he does weddings and funerals."

  He was looking around at the alien lab equipment, speculating on what among it would make the best improvised weapon-because he had no intention of ending up in a cage. And surely the Invid jailers would be there to fit the Sentinels with slave headbands any

  minute now; there wasn't much time to act.

  All of a sudden Cabell started using common Terran English of a sort. "We must ayk-may an eak-bray. Eidt-Vay will be ailing-way." Cabell said it as though he were leading them in prayer, or giving them a quiet pep talk.

  One of the Enforcers shifted, bringing its heavy rifle to bear. "Stop! No communication in offworld tongues, or we'll bind and gag you all. Healer, make the final checks that the Regent has ordered, then all of you stand ready to be transferred to the laboratories of the omnipotent Regent!"

  The Humans, meanwhile, had been absorbing what Cabell told them. Lisa found a moment in which to chuckle at the irony. Apparently Cabell had learned more than just science in his dealings with Lang, Dr. Penn and the rest, and with the Human Sentinels.

  We've got fifty-skillion bucks worth of taxpayers' money in Robotech paraphernalia, it occurred to Rick, and now the whole shebang's riding on one old alien coot talking i
n pig latin! Somehow, it seemed appropriate.

  It was like sending vital battle signals with a child's decoder ring from a cereal box, but it seemed to have worked. And the remark about the Regent's laboratories had everyone there determined to escape or die trying; there were fates worse than death.

  Even as the Enforcer guard was delivering his warning, Jean Grant surreptitiously adjusted a control on the life-signs monitoring equipment. Oscillators oscillated and alarms buzzed; lights flashed and electronic tones made urgent warbles.

  The Enforcer swung its barrel around. "What's this?"

  Jean pretended to be studying the healing devices. "I think their thalmic excrescences have formed a medullary fistula!" To her former patients she snapped, "Quick, all of you! Lie back down! Your refraction's stuck in the optical reciprocator!"

  The Enforcers were teetering a little, overwhelmed. "Wh-what are you saying, female? Explain yourself!"

  Jean demonstrated her impatience. "They're having a relapse, you big worm-in-a-can! Quick, you and your partner go get help! Get the healers! Get the Regent! Can't you see they're dying?"

  Karen was the first to pick up her cue and fall back on the floor moaning. Lisa gaped at her for an instant, then went into her own pretended fit, staggering around and twitching exaggeratedly, making some very strange faces. Rick caught on and flopped to the floor in a gatoring paroxysm; Miriya swooned onto a treatment couch and began uttering piercing

  sounds of pain.

  The two Enforcers were so nonplussed that for a moment they nearly did turn to go get help. But they caught themselves and covered the prisoners again. tand fast, you! None of your tricks now!"

  "Trick? Does this look like a trick?" Jean said, pointing to the incomprehensible sound and light show of the Haydonite medical apparatus.

  And I hope you don't say yes!

  The Enforcer stumped over to the machine to have a look for itself, motioning Jean aside with the gun barrel. She only moved a step or two away, but that didn't bother the Invid; she was nothing but an unarmed female Human. The second Enforcer moved up nearby, covering the oddly contorting afflicted ones just in case they were planning something. Unnoticed, Vince Grant slipped from sight between two stacks of equipment.

  The first Enforcer gazed at the baffling displays of the instruments while the supposedly relapsed patients drooled, howled like dogs, and went into vigorous spasms. Jean watched from a step away, her hands behind her back.

  "What does all this mean? Explain!" the Invid demanded.

  Jean produced one hand so that she could point. "It's all right there on the middle scanner! See?"

  As the thing leaned in for a closer look, she whipped around the power-delivery cable she had yanked loose and thrust it against the armored torso. Crackling wreaths of pure energy swathed the thing, sending it into convulsions. Jean made a silent prayer of thanks that the cable's thick insulation kept her from being fried as well. Nevertheless, the field generated by the furious current made her short hair stand on end.

  The radiant wrath of it drove her back after only a second or two, though, forcing her to drop the cable. The Enforcer was still shuddering and lurching; Jean thought she might have succeeded in mortally wounding the embryolike Invid inside, or the systemry of its mecha.

  The second Enforcer was angling for a shot at her, careful to keep the afflicted Sentinels and Max and Wolff in its field of fire. But as it raised its massive rifle, a hand pulled the pistol from its belt. Vince Grant took a quick step back and shot the thing straight in the back of the helmet.

  Smoke and steam and green goop burst from the gap in the Invid armor, along with the smell of incinerated tissue and forge-spatterings of molten alloy. Vince had to dodge

  quickly as the second guard collapsed backward, nearly pinning him.

  The other captives were all on their feet now, closing in on the fallen Enforcers. "D'you think they got off an alert?" Max wondered.

  "Probably not, but that doesn't mean we're in the clear," Wolff surmised. He gingerly touched the fallen rifle of the one Jean had zapped; it was warm, but intact and apparently still functional. He hoisted the rifle onto his shoulder.

  Vince passed his pistol to Rick and took up the other rifle. Lisa took the zapped guard's handgun before Max could grab it. It was shaped something like a giant Protoculture staple gun. "Rank Hath Its Privilege, and all that." She smiled.

  Max gave her a lopsided smirk. "Use it in good health, Lisa. Only, let's get goin'!"

  There was universal agreement on that. Rick weighed the bulky Invid sidearm as he led the way, grateful that the Sentinels had all done familiarization fire with enemy weapons against such an emergency. He paused in the doorway and turned to find Lisa a pace behind him, ready to back him up.

  They started off down the corridor. At the first corner, Rick came face to face with Veidt and almost shot him.

  "Come. Hurry." Veidt pirouetted and sailed away at high speed, leaving the others to pound after him. They followed him to a liftfield that bore them up to the roof of the place.

  "How did you know we escaped?" Max demanded as the field drifted him out onto the sunlit roof landing stage.

  "We can keep surveillance on anything that transpires in the Halls of Healing," Veidt replied. "After all, one is well advised to keep a close watch on patients. Quickly now: put those on."

  He pointed toward a pile of sleeveless Haydonite robes lying on a medium-smallish flying carpet. They dove at the disguises, tumbling onto the carpet. It took some reshuffling for Vince to wind up with the longest garment, and even then his legs were exposed from midshin down. He settled for kneeling, the bulky Invid rifle held between his knees.

  The others were more easily concealed, and in another moment Veidt had the carpet aloft. Lisa realized that there was no way to confine her hair, or for the others to keep theirs from flying, un-Haydonitelike, in the wind, but there was no help for that now. At least the high collars helped camouflage them somewhat.

  Of them all, only Miriya hadn't recovered completely. Max kept one arm around her as she

  hung onto him woozily.

  They passed through complex traffic patterns of carpets, cone-fliers, offworld aircraft, and Invid vehicles, but Veidt negotiated it with no apparent effort, and nobody appeared to notice them.

  "Veidt, I don't know what your plan is," Rick called out, "but we've got pressing matters of our own. One of them is that the Praxians are-"

  "Are being held as slaves by the Invid," Veidt anticipated. "I am well aware of it. And we're on our way now to do something about that. It's the most likely starting place for our effort to dislodge the Regent from my world."

  Rick wished once again that it was possible to call the Sentinels' cruiser-the Ark Angel, as they had dubbed her-for a pickup, but knew now that that would only result in an uneven battle the Sentinels' flagship couldn't hope to win. Besides, there was every possibility the cruiser would be attacked by Haydon IV's "antibodies."

  Wolff saw that the flying carpet was on a course toward the Invid stronghold at the juncture of Sky Road and Silver Way, where he had seen the amazon POWs earlier. He braced himself, wishing he had had time to pick up a gun.

  But under Veidt's guidance, the carpet began descending just before reaching the stronghold, to settle onto a landing hardtop on the roof of the building next door, overlooking the broad boulevard. "The next slave work party should come along just beneath us," he said.

  "What, you expect the few of us, with four small arms, to eliminate Inorganics?" Wolff scoffed. "If it's so easy, why didn't you do it before?"

  "As you know, direct physical violence is not the Haydonite forte" Veidt pointed out. "But since there is no longer any route of escape from the planet, aiding and abetting it is our only recourse.

  "And besides, the women will be guarded by Enforcers and Armored Officers, not Inorganics. More to the point, the successes of the Sentinels have given other Haydonites the
encouragement they needed to lend us aid."

  "It's just as well things worked out this way," Lisa said, checking her pistol. "We couldn't leave the Praxians here, enslaved."

  Again, that keenness in Lisa to fight took Rick somewhat by surprise. Looks like something I'm gonna have to get used to.

  "Other things will be working in your favor as well," Veidt continued, "and I haven't long to explain them."

  The line of Praxians moved tiredly, after a grueling day of work in the Invid warehouses and shipyards. The Central Slavepen loomed before them.

  Of course, the Invid didn't need the labor of the tens of thousands of women they had captured in their conquest of Praxis; there were drones and automata enough to perform the work. But it made sense to keep them busy and exhausted, and to utilize them. Besides, the practice pointed out to the Praxians-and the Haydonites and various off-world races represented in Glike-exactly what happened to those who defied the Regent.