John Rackham (13 page)

"Why
don't you kill me and have done with it7" "Not so easily, songbird. I
could put your brain into my amplifier, think of that. There are many things
worse than death, as you should know. Sing! Chant me one of the gay lilts of
your homeland, and be quick about it. There is
a
ship due soon and I shall be too busy for diversion then. Sing!"

Jack fumed inwardly at the way she drooped as
she made her way back to the middle of the cage floor. Even while her singing
enchanted him, filling the air with sunshine and delight, he swore that,
somehow, he would set her free of that cage, and of Garmel. For a wild moment
he tried to conceive some way of letting her know that help was at hand, but
then he heard Jasar calling him, and replaced the wall-slab quickly,
di
mmin
g
that magic sound.

"We're
through,'' Jasar muttered
. "
Be careful; the edges
are still hot
Now
we'll see what Haldar is
doing." He went first in
a
diving
scramble, and the glowing edges stung Jack's arms and face as he followed. This
was a new and frightening kind of chamber, the air full of the sound of clicks
and cheeps and stutterings, like a vast aviary. There were enormous cabinets in
rows, all glittering and winking with colored life, stretching away on either
side, so many of them that Jack declared, positively:

"No
one man can understand and know so many things as this, Jasar."

"That's
why ifs called
a
brain-room, lad. In these boxes is stored the
skill, wisdom, experiences, and knowledge of many hundreds of generations of
clever men. Machines don't forget"

"But
...
did not Haldar say that he worked
here, to mend and keep all these things in order? How can he know so
much?"

Jasar sighed. "I may be able to explain
it to you, someday, but not now. What we want is a control unit." He was
staring up at the vast boxes as he spoke. "These are storage, by the look.
That one
...
I think. Come on!"
They ran in a slant path across a silver-gray floor and into a canyon between
two cabinets that were hill-high. And now they came out into yet a different
world again. Here the busy noises were muted. Here there were slotted-strip
metal columns by the score, all carrying rows of various colored wires up into
the air. From about head-height upward the reverse sides of those massive
cabinet-blocks were wild webs of finer colored wires, so many and looped in
such apparent confusion that Jack felt dizzy just trying to see them all. Jasar
didn't even give them a glance, but stood well back and stared up, scanning
from side to side.

"There
he is!" he said, all at once.
"Haldar!
Stay where you are; we're coming up there.
Come on,
lad." He ran and laid hold of an upstanding strip and started to climb.
Jack sighed inwardly and followed doggedly. After a while he thought he saw a
kind of pattern to the wilderness of looping strands. At intervals of about six
feet there would be
a
cross-member, like a platform, that seemed to
divide the tangles into blocks. He assumed, hopefully, that each set thus
formed would have some special magic of its own, but beyond that he had no idea
at all. They found Haldar on the ninth level, straining carefully with a spray
of wires

...
they
were all coppery under the colorings,
which had been scraped off the ends
...
fitting them one by one into toothed slots, with many a careful reference to a
spidery diagram on a nearby upright wall. He did not seem overjoyed to see
them approach.

"Keep
away from me!" he muttered, when they were close enough to hear him. 'Tve
had all the trouble I want, from you two."

Jack
would have spoken, but Jasar grabbed his arm to hush him. "Finish what
you're
doing,
Haldar, then we can talk. What are you
doing, by the way?"

"I'm
reinforcing some screens that I had to weaken as part of a ploy of my own. But
for that you'd never have broken in here at all."

"And for that I'm
grateful. Can we help?"

"No. You've done
enough damage as it is!"

Jack
frowned at his little companion, but Jasar made a
sign,
shook his head, and they stood and waited until the last of the wires was
connected. Then, as Haldar stood back and sighed, wiped his hands on his
thighs, Jasar spoke.

"You
never really believed we had broken in, did you? Thought we were escaped
captives from some wreck or other. So let's get that right, to start with. We
are exactly what I told you—invaders.
From outside.
From the Sal-viar Federation.
At least I am, and Jack is
with me in ev-rything. And that was no meteorite that killed the grat or the
proos."

"I
know that!" Haldar snorted angrily. "What matters to me is that
Garmel's precious Milby is dead, and I suffered for it. For that I do not
thank you at all!"

"That's
fair enough. But you heard, as we did, that there are more wrecks coming in.
And Garmel would have found out about those weakened screens then, and you'd
still have been in trouble, so don't blame us for all of it. And what you
haven't realized properly yet is that we came through the screens, in a ship!
And it's still here. With any luck at all—or a bit of expert help—we can get
away again!
Escape!"

"A ship?
Here?" Haldar lost some of his thundercloud.
"Whereabouts?"

"Out on the rim of the station.
I can point to it, if you like." Jasar
touched his wrist, extended his arm, swung it,
paused
.
"That way!"

Haldar
looked unbelieving, squinted along the line of that arm and shook his head
cynically. "If you ever got a ship in here
...
if
...
you'll certainly not get it out again without
rousing every alarm system we have. That's the penalty for killing that damned
pet!"

"Should
I have let it devour me?" Jack demanded, and Haldar snarled at him
savagely.

"What
do you
think
Garmel will do to you, laddie, when he catches you?"
He refreshed his memory along Jasar's arm,
then
grunted. "Come on; let's see just how much water your story will
hold." They followed him up several more levels, to the flat-topped
expanse of the cabinet proper, and then along, across strip-metal bridges, to
another, and then another. This one had saucer-like domes of transparent stuff
bulging up at intervals. Haldar went to one and peered in and down.
And snorted again.
"Either you have something
exceedingly good in the way of a canceling field, Jasar, or you are a
liar!"

"Why
would we
lie
to you, man?" Jasar was patient.
"You asked how
was it that we understood your speech
.
We are both wearing translators.
Helmet-size.
We have
tricks that are not yet known to the Hilax. There's a ship, all right, and
between us and it we carry enough violence to devastate this station, put in
the right place. What is more important to you is that we have room for four
...
if it comes to an escape."

"Escape?
You're forgetting this belt"

"We
ought to be able to get that off, with all the electronics we have here,
surely? How well do you know this brain-complex? Enough to ask it questions,
get information out?"

"Not
that well at all. I'm not electronics, Fm a craftsman in metal. I know the
power-generation systems, the environmental controls, and the sensor-network,
quite well. Those are the aspects that need continual maintenance. Those
Garmel lets me touch. I take care of wear and tear. I replace fusion-focus
crystals as they decay, or I adapt captured ones to fit this crude system. And
stuff like that. I also know how the brains are wired in." His voice grew
thick with emotion. "Garmel likes to have me help with that. He does the
dissections himself, under a microscope. Enjoys it I can show you the results.
But how you use them, how you get information
out, that
I don't know."

He
started back now, across a strip-bridge to another cabinet, over the side and
down. 'This could happen to you, Jasar. You have information in your brain that
could be very valuable to the Hilax system. When Garmel nets you, and probes
you, he will discover that much and you'll wind up
...
here!" He swung aside onto a level where there were rows
of transparent bowl-shapes festooned with wires as fine as hair. He slid one
hand carefully through the wire-work on one, to lift a lid and let them see.
Jack
peered,
saw a mass of pink stuff, like a
double-handful of worms floating in thin broth. "That is a brain,"
Haldar muttered. "It was once a man. It is neither alive nor dead. Not
conscious, not aware of anything. Simply a unit of intelligence linked into
the sensory network and the information circuits. Helping to defeat his own
kind,
did he but know it!"

"That's enough!" Jasar backed away
angrily. "The sooner we blow this place to fragments, the better. I have
the capacity to do that, Haldar. That ship of mine has a cruiser-caliber
drive-unit and I have the remote relays right here in my belt that can snap all
that power into any one spot. If that's what it has to be. I'd say the main
power-plant is the best place. If we have to go up with it, so be it.
So long as it's quick."

Haldar seemed impressed now, seemed to be
getting over the fact that his newfound allies were what they claimed. But Jack
wasn't too happy with this idea of suicidal destruction. He was remembering
that golden-haired songstress, all at once. "Do we have the right to destroy
other people along with ourselves, in this manner?" he wondered, and
Haldar eyed him curiously.

"The
brains, you mean?" He had the cover put back now and was leading the way
back to the rooftop level. "They neither know nor care. I imagine if they
did know they would count it a merciful deliverance!"

"Not
those. Did you know that in the chamber next to this Garmel has another
captive, a girl? And that he makes her sing for him, in a cage?"

"That singing was a
person, then?" Jasar commented.

"I saw her.
A girl.
She looked to be about my age."

"I've
heard some singing," Haldar admitted. "Never took much notice. I
thought it was some pet or other. You say you saw her, this girl?"

"With
my own eyes!"

"You
have my sympathy. So does
she
. But I've been in this
nightmare long enough to get some priorities worked out. A few lives to save
millions.
This way!"
Down he went
again,
seemingly immune to the yawning depths and gaps he
was crossing. Now he led them into a narrow lane between many-level racks and
shelves, and what they held served to distract Jack's concern for the immediate
moment. He put out an uncertain hand to pick up one, a handful of sparkling
fire that was easily the size of a hen's egg and of roughly the same shape, but
cut and polished so that fire glinted from its many facets. About its girth was
an intricate weave of fine gold, from which stood out six straight prongs like
the points of a star.

"Almost
pure crystalline carbon," Haldar told him. "The carefully inset
fractions of impurities are designed to match the system it was made for. Note
the very faint tinge of pink. That tells me it is a Droban gem. Not the best.
Some systems use absolutely pure carbon, like this one." He produced a
handful of blazing fire that made Jack blink. "This is a Shagateel, the
best power-to-mass converter of them all.
But awkward to use
because of the seven-point design of the connectors.
The Dargoon system
...
the whole Hilax system, as far as I
know
...
uses a five-point junction
design. So it is part of my job to take and modify these, so that they can be
used if and when Garmel should run out of standard supplies. That can happen.
But I can't afford to stand talking too long. I have
work
to do, and Garmel will know if I'm not getting on with it." He marched
them through the store of gems and around a comer to another level catwalk.

And
there was power here. Even Jack, the naive innocent, could sense it in the
immediate air, hear it in the low hum and crackle of effort, and feel it on his
skin. "Along this array"—Haldar pointed—"
are
twenty-four fusers.
The first-line bank.
This is
capable of supplying the entire station's load, up to fifty percent emergency
overload. And there are three banks altogether. My
job is to
check-test and replace
any fuser that is fifty percent burned out. Ill
show
you." They paced the catwalk after him. At
four-pace intervals were armored metal boxes, chest-high, each with a
spoked-wheel fastening. Above the wheel was a white-faced dial with a quivering
pointer and two light-eyes, green and red. "This one, see, is in good
order." Haldar indicated the pointer and the glowing green light. "
I’ ll
open the cover. Don't look directly at it!" He
spun the spoked wheel, swung back the heavy cover, and Jack stood hastily back
as a searing glare beamed out, accompanied by a savage growl. The door closed
again, tight, and Haldar paced on, glacing at dials.
And
stopped.