05. Children of Flux and Anchor (11 page)

"You mean," Rondell put in, "that they're gonna hold the kids as hostages to get
us
to show them how to use it? Or get our expert help on figuring it out? Maybe operating it for them?"

"Something like that. Whatever it is, it'll be clever. This gang ain't no pussycat. They're gonna be rough as hell to take out. This stuff with the kids was deliberate. Not just taking ours, but sparing the rest. They showed us by the whole thing that they're clever, ruthless, that they'll kill kids with a smile, and yet by sparing those kids and nurses when they didn't have to—and killing might have bought more time—they showed they keep their word. That was a message for us."

"First we gotta get out of
this
,"
Suzl noted. "That sounds like an army arriving with full battle gear."

It took all night and most of the following day before they were able to spring the two boys and get some rest in a guest hotel in the city. Power had still not been restored to much of Logh Center, except the immediate center-square area which was fed by the transformers from the old temple and only needed some new wiring.

Still, Matson was almost a blur of action after they rested.

"Dell, I want you to get back to Freehold. Tell Sondra to come here, in full old stringer regalia, understand? Just Sondra. I don't need a mob scene, and Jeff's got to run things and won't be a big help on this anyway. Tell somebody to get to New Pericles. Bring both Spirit and Morgaine if they can. Tell 'em we'll meet 'em at the old West Gate. All of them. West Gate in—oh, two days. Suzl, you stand by with me. Me, I'm going down to the stringer office now and fire off a message to Cassie she's not gonna like."

Suzl was excited. "You're sending for
Cass
?"

"No. Damn it, she's totally immune to Flux. Totally. Anybody shoots her, all the wizards in the world can't stop the bleeding, or mend a broken arm. Up at the Guild redoubt she's got doctors for that. She's also lecturing in history at the Guild college, and doing a fine job raising prize horses and good beef. I'm telling her to stay put.
That's
what she isn't gonna like. But I want her standing by with a world-class Guild wizard, the strongest there. It's entirely possible we may have to fly her God-knows-where at a moment's notice."

Suzl looked at him. "You've got a plan."

"A bunch of ideas. Can't have a plan until they make the next move."

Rondell looked at him in wonder. "You're actually
enjoying
this! All these dead, three innocent kids out there in terror, a horror weapon in the hands of their kidnappers, and you're
enjoying
this!"

Matson sighed. "Son, last night five firefighters died fighting those blazes. It's a crappy, risky job that's ninety percent boredom and ten percent life on the line. They don't get much respect, but they're necessary. Ever wonder why anybody'd be one?"

"Huh? I don't see. . . ."

"There's some folks that just love fires. It's a thing in their heads. The crazy ones go around setting them, or just follow the firefighters and dote on 'em. Now, the firefighter's got the same disease, only he's a sane and normal sort. He doesn't want any fires to break out. He doesn't want anybody to get hurt, and he doesn't want anybody to lose property to fire. But, by God, if there's a fire,
he wants to be there!
Same with me. I hate this kind of shit for the damage it does to people's lives and futures. I really do. I wish there never was a bad crisis or a gang of murderers or a kid kidnapped or abused or invaders from another world or anything else. I like peace. Among my happiest times were the past few years. But I got a talent and I'm good at what I do. If there's some kind of trouble
I
want to be there.
And, by God, here I am again."

At that moment a young security officer came in. Internal security hadn't been very friendly to them up to now, but because they were directly involved in this there was a certain level of consultation that was grudgingly given.

Suzl grinned sardonically when she saw the officer. Major Verdugo did not look pleased at being a messenger boy.

"Yes, Major?" Matson prompted.

"Verdugo, sir. Internal security. I've been assigned as your liaison in this unpleasantness so long as you remain in New Eden."

Matson's lips curled into a sour smile. "In case we get contacted by the kidnappers or something, you mean. I'm not a novice at this system, Major. You did what you did under orders, but your patron's dead now and your superiors have decided that it's all your fault because it can't be theirs. Your career depends on a successful resolution of this mess. All right—we can't avoid you at this stage. Have they found where the raiders crossed into Flux yet?"

Verdugo was not used to being spoken to like that, and he bristled. His eyes clearly betrayed his wounded ego. Matson had deliberately made an enemy of him.

"No, sir. No trace of the lorry or the others. It's most puzzling. We've had the army scouring every millimeter of Flux border along the eastern frontier and there's nothing. No sign at all, not even tracks."

"Uh huh. Then they didn't go out that way."

"But they must have, Mr. Ryan. They would certainly be conspicuous now heading either west or southwest along the route they came from."

"Then you've either missed them or they're still here someplace. It was well-planned and well-executed. There was excellent intelligence before the raid and good timing. They even knew that ranch would have sufficient horses for their needs. Any of the newer staff up at Vishnar's unaccounted for? No body, I mean?"

Verdugo seemed suddenly struck by the logic. "Yeah! Yeah! Just one. In the gardening staff. . . . Well I'll be damned!"

"Amateurs," Matson spat. "You're so hung up on your technology and controls that you consistently underestimate a determined enemy. All right—Dell, here, is about to take the two boys home and get some messages out to the clan. We're going down to the old West Gate to meet some people and decide what to do next. Nothing else we can do unless they contact us or until your folks find them."

"The
old
West Gate? You mean the old Anchor Gate?"

Matson nodded. "I mean exactly that. They're not going east, because that would take them through Assam, and the wizards of Assam were on very friendly terms with Vishnar and will be hell-bent, like all the Flux wizards, on getting that gadget for themselves in any event. If they go northeast they're going into Freehold territory. Hostages and gadgets or not, they're no match for Freehold if they even run into one of 'em by chance. At some point they have to go north, where they have good relations with the local Fluxlords and have the additional cover of a Flux war up there. The old Gate's a good compromise location. They have to break out sooner or later. I know they still have that little train going down that way, so we'll use it if we can. You can be a big help arranging it for us, including transport of our horses."

For now, the major was resigned to this. "I'll see what can be done. And you?"

"I have some messages to send, and I'm going to do some shopping." He turned to Suzl, who'd been ignored through all this. "You any good at barbering?"

"Yeah, sure," she responded. "You ought to be chief mommy to a hundred Freehold brats."

"No thanks. I'll want everything set up in the room when I get back, though. I want to pull out of here as early tomorrow morning as the schedule permits."

"I'll arrange the necessary permits," Verdugo broke in. "May I ask who we are meeting down there?"

"Oh, nobody you're going to like," Matson told him, and prepared to go out on his errands.

5

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

Suzl had examined the packages Matson had brought with him, and watched as he removed a small wooden case from his pack. He did not open the case right away, but instead removed his old clothes and took a shower. Matson believed that showers were the one great thing New Eden had rediscovered, having always disliked baths.

He was quite hairy, a mixture of black and gray over most of his body, and still quite lean and solid, as he had been in his younger days. Suzl found his body extremely attractive, and couldn't help noting that his sexual equipment was at least as formidable as the rest of him. He radiated power, self-confidence, and strength at all times. With the fear element removed, as with her, he was a considerable turn-on.

He did not bother to dress again immediately but settled in for a haircut and a shave. "You know how I want it." he told her.

She was mixing the materials, but she had doubts. "Are you sure you want to do this? You went to a lot of trouble getting 'killed' that second time convincingly, and there's a statue of you facing outward from the temple not three blocks from here. It's like painting a huge sign."

"I know. That's just exactly what I'm doing. First, it'll cut through this New Eden bullshit, since, as Matson, I hold the titular rank of Field Marshal. More important, those women back at the ranch knew who Matson was. If
they
knew, then those above them know. I
want
to be easy to find. If we have to go through Flux after them, I'm going to be in a much better position as Matson to deal with the Fluxlords as well."

"Yeah, but everybody also knows that you don't have much Flux power. You'll be a sitting duck out there. Everybody likes their heroes well dead."

"Maybe. That's why I'm taking the rest of you along. It's a lot of Flux firepower if need be. As for Flux power, if I had a lot of it I'd be dead now. What good's it done you lately? The
old
Suzl, the one who worked dugger on stringer trains, now
she
didn't have any power at all, but I think she was a lot happier."

She began to cut. "You're right, I guess. Seems like everybody knows my problem. Even Verdugo."

"It's a natural deduction based on your own self now and then and knowing the way things work. You weren't cut out for this role; you're trapped in it. You should never have stayed at Freehold. You should've come with us at the start."

She stopped clipping for a moment, then continued. How could she ever explain to Matson that she'd been
jealous
of him? "It would have worked out just the same," she told him. "At least in Freehold I was needed for a long while."

"Then why'd you decide to leave now?"

She sighed. "Because first of all there are so many good parents there I wasn't really needed anymore. And, well, it was getting worse—faster. All my fantasies have been bondage fantasies. I only really feel alive, worth something, when I'm doing something like this. The rest of the time I'm either in deep depression or I just switch off, like downstairs until you turned to me. I've been alternating between acceptance, letting go, and killing myself." She stopped suddenly, feeling a bit embarrassed. Why was she going on like this? How could any man, let alone Matson, understand any of this?

"You don't have to have wizard power to feel like that," he told her. "Lots of people get into things they feel they can't solve, that they're buried too deep, and get into that kind of mind rut. Most folks get into it without any effort at all on their own part. We now—all of us— were victims of outside forces beyond our control. That damned Soul Rider got all of us into a mess, including Cass, Sondra, Jeff, even me. The Guardian, now, sold you down the river for a mess of years. They not only
allowed
New Eden to happen, they actually gave it several pushes, since it served their own purposes. They didn't care about people in particular if it helped them guard people in general. It could have been done a lot cleaner than New Eden, with a lot less bloodshed and misery, but it was here, it was convenient, so they took it. Hell, that's the real legacy to the children of Flux and Anchor. For thousands of years people used machines. Now we're at the point where we're tools of the machine, to be used and used up and sacrificed or discarded when no longer useful or even if we're just in the way. That wasn't you over in the Master Control Room playing God. That was the Guardian doing what it damned well pleased and using you to do it because it needed you."

That stopped her for a minute, while she thought it over. It wasn't the way she or anyone else had thought of things, but clearly Matson was right. She hadn't really
done
anything. The Guardian had picked her and salted her away here until needed and then used her as a conduit to connect it to some other computers. The original Fluxgirl spell Coydt had forced upon her, in fact, had been in machine-language code, far too complex for her to really follow—or anyone else. The same with Spirit's. How had Coydt gotten such codes together? Or had he? Had they, in fact, been furnished by either the Soul Rider or the Guardian?

"The way you say it, it's like we're in a zoo," she said thoughtfully. "Or some kind of laboratory, maybe. Being played with by our—owners."

"Yeah, I think that, too, sometimes," he admitted. "I keep feeling like there's an audience out there, observing us for its own amusement. Makes you feel sometimes like nothing's worth it. I get that way a lot, particularly now that I've grown so old and learned so much. You get to wondering what the use of it all is. Those things are so far in advance of us we can never understand them, and because we got no way to provide even the basics for ourselves without 'em we're stuck. The big difference between us and the animals is that we alone can know that we're owned and operated." He stopped, realizing he was getting her more depressed than ever, which hadn't been his intention at all.

"Now, look," he added, "this really isn't the end of it all. When I get too down I figure it's not much different in the long run between what we got and all those religions we clung to. We were always
somebody's
property—the gods, the goddesses, the wizards, whatever. O.K., so we now know who and what our gods are. So what? A wizard's spell is nothing more than a prayer to the gods for a miracle. Unlike most folks, that wizard usually gets the prayer answered. No big difference. So we do just what everybody in the past has done with their religions—we cope. We live our own lives and hope the gods won't notice us. And, if they do, we dance their tunes and play their games until they get tired of us and let us go again. We can't help it when the gods play tricks, but the rest of it is ours. Your problem was started by them, maybe, but it continues because of you. You said it yourself. Your own mind is doing it to you and you know it. You get the choice—become a sheep like most folks here, Flux and Anchor, male and female, or become one of the few who have control. Most folks don't have that choice."