George Zebrowski (23 page)

Gorgias looked directly at Kurbi, “You’re either lying or deluded.”

“But we can and would help,” Kurbi said.
I’m whining
.

Gorgias looked toward the woman before answering again.

“My people, you say — but where are my people? Have you seen them lately? What’s left are mindless freaks. Their wills are dead.” He motioned toward Myraa.

“There are others. You and I could gather them, bring them here.”

“And what about me?”

Kurbi knew. He had always known. If Gorgias were captured, he would be tried, perhaps mindwiped, even killed; at the very least he would be imprisoned. The Earthborn immortals had a long memory, and many of them would delight in tormenting the Herculean. It was a problem without solution. Too much pride and history were involved, too much hatred; no one would accept compromises.

“In time … you would be permitted to live here.…”
Without ships or weapons. The planet would be your prison. And without medical care, your immortality would one day end. You would live with the knowledge of approaching death
.

“Permitted! I’m free — I will not be permitted anything. You don’t offer anything better than what I have now.”

“You have nothing,” said the stocky man.

Kurbi turned and glared at Julian.

“Gorgias, what do you have?” he asked looking back to the Herculean. “Endless wandering …”

“You’ll see what I have. I don’t need anything from Earthmen. Get out!”

Julian took Kurbi’s arm and guided him toward the door.

“I’m all right,” Kurbi whispered. The door opened and they stepped outside.

They started down the hill.

“Fool!” Gorgias shouted behind them. The word echoed in Kurbi’s ears.

“I will destroy all of you!” Gorgias cried. “I know your game, Kurbi. You may not know it, but I know!”

Kurbi stumbled and regained his footing.

“Weaklings! That’s all they send against me.” The Herculean laughed.

Kurbi turned at the bottom of the hill and looked up. “I’ll give you an hour, Gorgias,” he shouted. “After that it will be out of my hands. Give yourself up, Gorgias, it’s your only hope.”
I’m useless, and the hope I offer is none at all
.

“Look around and breathe all you can, Earthman. Today is the last day of your life!”

“Let’s go,” Julian said.

Kurbi turned away and they started back toward the large ship. “Julian,” Kurbi said suddenly, “ — the ship, he’ll make for the ship while the field is down!”

“Don’t worry. We’ve got scouts watching the house. If he comes out the back, up it goes. Are you all right, Raf?”

“Yes.”

“We’re not amateurs, and neither is he.”

“I think in some ways he is,” Kurbi said, “to fight such a hopeless fight.”

“All the evidence he’s ever had tells him that he’s done well.”

He’s right
, Kurbi thought.
If I were he
,
I wouldn’t believe anything an Earthman told me
.

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“She holds her future close, her lips

Hold fast the face of things to be …”

— Swinburne,
Cleopatra

GORGIAS RAN DOWN the hill.

The siege canopy reappeared. He stopped in the sudden, gloomy silence. His eyes adjusted and he saw that the ship was still within the circle.

He rushed toward the light of the open lock, afraid that at any moment the field’s diameter would be reduced to cut him off from the ship.

He jumped into the lock and marched forward into the control room. He sat down before the screen and examined the images of the three hunter ships sitting on the grass outside. The visualizations were ghostly, but they came in despite the barrier. He wondered if the canopy’s strength could be increased to blind his subspace instruments.

THERE IS A FOURTH SHIP IN LOW ORBIT.

“Are our instruments being jammed?”

YES. THE FOURTH SHIP IS INTERFERING WITH OUR

NEUTRINO AND TACHYON SENSING, WITH SOME SUCCESS.

The hunters would have to lift the field and attack with a ground force to have any chance of taking him alive. He was certain that they could not have more than a hundred soldiers in the ships. After he had destroyed these three vessels, the ship in orbit would have to come down and face him or flee. That would give them something to worry about on Earth.

“Can we enter jumpspace through this field?”

THERE IS A SMALL CHANCE OF SUCCESS. NOT ADVISABLE.

It didn’t matter; he would face the Earthborn at last. He thought of the dead in the Magellanic Cloud, and the cinder of the home world. All the ashes were his now, to remold as he saw fit. Even the most withdrawn Herculean survivors would recognize him after the coming victory. They would come here from all over the galaxy, from every hiding place in the Federation Snake, and he would welcome them. Myraa’s World would become the staging area for the return to the Hercules Cluster. He thought of the armies that would soon be his, the fleets of ships, unimaginable weapons developed toward the end of the war. The psychological blow of the surprise itself would be enough to cripple the enemy.

Myraa would throw off the otherness which now possessed her, and take her rightful place beside him.

Kurbi had given him an hour, and that hour would be fatal to him.

Gorgias got up and went aft to the weapons closet. He wondered if Kurbi would lead the attack; of course, they would not have a chance to attack, because he would not allow things to reach that point. The Earthborn would not have a moment in which to seize the initiative.

The lights went on as he entered the weapons chamber. He looked around at the Empire’s ancient arms; all were personal weapons in the light-to-heavy range. They covered the walls like ornaments.

In the center of the small floor space stood the tripod; it was complete now, with the black box containing the cylinder strapped to the control panel. Gorgias examined the assembly, trying to imagine the reality of its capabilities. Myraa was wrong. The storage of an army would include supplies, a fleet of starships, scouts — everything needed to support a large military effort.

Suddenly he was afraid. What if it didn’t work after all this time? What would he do then? He would have to risk entering jumpspace through the barrier. Perhaps he should have tested the cylinder somewhere, deploying the troops in advance; but then, he realized, he would not have the element of surprise.

He would have to run if the cylinder failed. Sooner or later they would lift the canopy and he would have a chance to escape without the risk of trying to penetrate the field. Suddenly the thought of running again seemed worse than death.

“
You’ll die here
,” his father said within him. “
What do you know about commanding a large force?
”

He took a body harness from the rack and strapped it on. Next he took down a hand projector, set it for wide beam and slid it into the sheath on his chest. He strung four light-diffraction bombs around his waist, and put a pair of binocular goggles on his forehead. The controls for the personal screen went on last — a small flat rectangle which attached to the adhesion surface over his heart and was linked to the power-receiving pack on his back. The entire rig tapped into his shipboard power, giving him unlimited energy for his weapon and a high-density local screen capable of deflecting most laser weapons. The screen would not hold back the concentrated fire of ground installations, but no one would bring such power to bear on a single individual. In any case, he would not be fighting with his army; the screen and hand weapon were merely a precaution, so that he would not be vulnerable when he activated the tripod.

“
You’re dressing for show
,” his father said from deep within him.

I will command
, he answered silently as he picked up the tripod, folded its legs and carried it out into the passage. The door of the weapons hold closed behind him and he continued toward the control room. He entered and saw that the screen still showed the smudged, colorless images of the hunter ships. The distortions made it seem as if a monstrous wind were raging in the pale world outside; in a moment the starships would roll toward the hill and smash against the bowl of the canopy.

Gorgias turned from the screen and carried the tripod out to the side lock. He stepped down to the ground and looked up at the house. It was brightly lit now. The canopy seemed darker with the coming of twilight outside.

He climbed the hill carefully, wondering again if the cylinder would work. He saw broken skeletons tumbling out — skulls, thigh bones and shattered pelvises emerging from a cornucopia of death. Kurbi was laughing at him, but there was regret in the tall Earthman’s eyes.

He pities me
, Gorgias realized as he entered the house.

Myraa was still sitting in the main room. Gorgias snapped open the tripod and set it down in the middle of the floor.

“They won’t expect to be hit when they lift the canopy,” he said. “They think I’m going to make a run for it in the ship. They’re ready for a chase, not a fight.”

Myraa was silent, staring into the obscurity of the east window. She seemed to be talking to someone or something.

He picked up the tripod. Its legs closed and he carried it out the front door. There was no use in talking to Myrra; only results would move her. He looked around as the door slid shut behind him. It seemed to be growing even darker under the canopy.

He went to the slope of the hill and opened the tripod. Setting it down, he opened the black box and removed the cylinder. Carefully, he plugged it into the round opening below the power switch. He touched the switch point and the panel lit up. The assembly was drawing power from the ship.

Gorgias stepped back and took a deep breath.

He started to pace back and forth on the grass, waiting for the canopy to lift. The grass looked black in the gloom. He looked up. The force field seemed to be pressing in around the hill, growing smaller. He stopped suddenly and peered at the perimeter at the bottom of the hill, wondering if they could reduce the size of the canopy to crush the hill and house.

He was about to go back through the house to check the ship’s position when the barrier blinked out of existence. The plain below was suddenly a deep blue-green. The three starships were the heads of giants buried in the ground; their floodlights were eyes watching him.

He stepped to the tripod and touched the distance settings, so that the beam would strike beyond the ships, where the grassland rose again into gently sloping hills. His army would be recalled to life on high ground, and would sweep from there toward him and the hill.

He turned on his screen, cutting off the sound of wind and insects. The moment when the enemy might still have destroyed him and the cylinder was past, and they would never know it.

Kurbi peered at the house on the screen.

“What’s he doing up there?” Poincaré said.

“What can he do?” Kurbi touched the controls and the magnification increased until the figure of Gorgias filled the screen.

“What is that thing next to him?” Poincaré asked. “And look at that harness he’s wearing.”

“I don’t know.”

“Look there.” Julian pointed. “The grass around him is flattened — he’s wearing a personal screen!”

“We’ve got to get him away from the hill,” Kurbi said.

“He’s drawing power from the ship.”

“Look!” Kurbi shouted as a bright yellow beam reached out from the tripod and passed overhead. The screen was blind for a moment. The beam moved from right to left across the sky and disappeared.

“Commander Kurbi,” a voice said over the three-ship link, “there is movement on the slopes in back of us.”

“Give us a view.”

The screen switched from Gorgias to darkness.

The floodlights rushed across the grass and up the slopes, searching, pushing back the darkness.

Kurbi saw the front ranks of an army — row after row of troops waiting in attack formation, as if they were toys newly taken from a box.

“No wonder he was so cocky,” Julian said.

Kurbi’s heart raced. He staggered over to his command station and sat down. There was a rushing in his ears, a monstrous whispering which threatened to turn into laughter.

“Where, Julian?”

“I don’t know — but if we can’t hold them, we’ll have to flee, and then we’ll never find out. I wonder how well equipped they are.”

“Does he have any ships?”
Whisper Ships
, Kurbi thought,
a whole fleet
.
He’ll destroy us completely
.

Gorgias touched the switch point and released the carrier beam. His screen went down as the yellow finger reached out, touched the faraway hills and swept from left to right. He dropped his binoculars over his eyes and watched as the wide beam painted the dark hills. Human figures flickered into existence as energy flowed across the bridge of light, instilling life into the bloodless templates of the ancient Herculean army.

Suddenly it was over; the force stood ready. The beam winked out and darkness hid the division.

The starships turned their lights toward the hills and discovered the force, ten thousand strong, armed with everything from hand weapons to heavy artillery, waiting for his command.

“Report!” Gorgias shouted into the communicator on the tripod.

There was a sputtering of static.

“… General Petro Crusus here … where are we … what are the objectives?”

“Stand by,” Gorgias said.

“How goes the war, Commander? I did not receive your name.”

“The war is ours to win. Take the ships in front of you.”

“I see them, Commander, but what is to prevent them from lifting? Are they disabled?”

“Move on the ships!” Gorgias shouted.

“Are they Federation ships?”

“Open fire with heavy weapons. If the ships lift, track and destroy.”

“Very well.”

Gorgias felt a pang of sympathy for the general. Suddenly the man was active again. The Empire was still a reality for him, a night’s sleep away; he had never known defeat.