TW07 The Argonaut Affair NEW (24 page)

Later, if the team concerned survived and the tactic was found to be unnecessary, they could exercise the option of beating him to death.

Three/six: Three seconds in, six seconds out. Three seconds during which to act in real time, six seconds spent in temporal limbo. Zero-three-six initiation: the moment all three team members were "staged," fugue sequence programming locked in, zero-three-six designated the initiation of the sequence for all three of them. On the command,
"Time,"
the zero-designated team member would start the sequence with three seconds in real time, zero initiation gap. The three-designated team member would start the sequence with three seconds in temporal limbo, clocking in to real time the second after the zero-designated team member clocked out of real time for six seconds in limbo. The six-designated team member would begin the fugue with six seconds spent in temporal limbo, clocking in to real time the second after the three-designated team member clocked out, three seconds after the zero-designated team member had clocked out with three seconds left to spend in limbo.

The staggered fugue sequence was designed to eliminate the possibility of any two of them materializing simultaneously in the same location and once it was locked in for a set time corresponding to a given sequence order, it was irreversible for that length of time, completely automatic. It left each team member with three seconds in real time during which to fight, but those three seconds were a slim margin in real time combat situations, where remaining in the same place could easily prove fatal. Constant movement in real time was essential.

As Steiger began the sequence by clocking in approximately sixteen yards behind the soldiers, he aimed his bow quickly and fired, drawing another arrow and nocking it as he ran quickly to his right. He vanished into temporal limbo before taking two steps and Andre clocked in, shot her arrow, drew and nocked while moving and likewise disappeared. Delaney clocked in and followed the same procedure, clocking out as Steiger materialized already running. A quick halt, an arrow flight and the procedure was repeated.

It was an exhausting, taxing strategy, leaving no room for error and almost no time in which to aim, but the result was that the soldiers of Kovalos were confronted with three archers who appeared in lightning sequence out of thin air, shot, killed, and disappeared, only to reappear elsewhere and shoot again. Their first response was one of confusion, then came disbelief, then the realization that they were under attack by what seemed to be a phantom army of bowmen, which led quickly to blind panic. Every three seconds, a soldier fell dead, killed by what seemed to be ghosts shooting very real arrows. After what they had already witnessed on the beach below them, this was too much for the soldiers. They broke and ran, screaming with terror, posing an immediate danger for the three temporal agents.

Andre clocked in, her bow held ready, only to find a fleeing cavalry soldier bearing down upon her. She threw herself to her left and the horse missed her by inches. Delaney clocked in a fraction of a second before a galloping horse would have crossed the same time-space and only his forward momentum saved him from being trampled. The horse caught him a glancing blow and he fell spinning to the ground, vanishing from sight the instant that he fell. Steiger clocked in two inches in front of a running archer, who slammed into him at full speed. Both men fell to the ground, stunned, but only one of them remained there.

The archer was not as badly stunned as Steiger and he started to get back to his feet almost at once, looking all about him to see what he had run into and seeing nothing. Thinking he had been felled by an invisible opponent, he drew his sword and swung it all around him, then promptly tripped and fell as Steiger's prone body materialized between his legs. The archer screamed, dropped his sword and came as close as a man could come to breaking light speed.

Hercules ran hard, heedless of the arrows raining down upon him. He reached the
Argo,
flung the golden fleece on board one-armed and then unceremoniously hoisted Medea up over his head and tossed her into the waiting arms of Argus. He tossed her a bit too hard and Argus suddenly found himself flat on his back upon the deck, pinned down by an hysterical female. He dislodged her and dragged her to her feet and shook her, but she kept right on screaming. Unable to think of what else to do, Argus gave her a stinging slap across the face. The screams stopped instantly and for a moment her eyes went out of focus, then they went wide with shock and outrage.

"How
dare
you!" she cried, forgetting everything else in her fury as she hauled off and smashed her right fist into the shipwright's face. Argus staggered backward, momentarily stunned, as Medea cried out with pain and clutched at her right hand, then she remembered where she was and what was happening and started screaming once again.

"If one needs any proof of the capricious nature of the gods," muttered Argus, "one need only look at women." He drew back his fist and slammed it right into her jaw. She fell to the deck like a stone. "Do something with her!" Argus said to Hylas, then ran back to the tiller as the boy started to drag her unconscious body across the deck, out of the way.

Having disposed of Medea and the golden fleece, Hercules ran back to join the battle. The corpse soldiers were not as quick in their movements as were the Argonauts, but they were relentless. The Argonauts ran them through again and again, but still they kept on coming. A number of the corpses were riddled with arrows shot by several of the Argonauts, but they were undeterred and they continued pressing their frightening assault, moving forward slowly in a jerking manner and slashing spasmodically with their swords. Several of the Argonauts had fallen. Even more of the corpses had fallen, but they still kept on, dragging themselves across the sand. Only those that had their skulls split or their heads knocked off lay still, but the Argonauts were steadily being pressed back toward the sea. Hercules didn't even bother to draw his sword. He plunged into the battle, swinging both fists like bludgeons and rallying the Argonauts as heads popped off the necks of corpses with each blow. Belatedly realizing the effectiveness of the technique, the Argonauts aimed for the heads of the dead bodies and the tide of the battle began to turn. The beach around them resembled an explosion in a pathology lab. Argus had succeeded in pushing the ship away from shore and he now shouted to the remaining Argonauts to get on board. A number of them felled their lifeless opponents and turned to sprint across the beach and into the water, striking out for the ship.

Steiger felt as if he had slammed into a tree. He shook his head and tried to get his eyes to focus. They focused on Kovalos, crouching over him, and on the business end of a plasma pistol pointed directly at his face. Still groggy, Steiger counted three seconds. When he didn't dematerialize, he realized the fugue program had run its course. He also realized that he was in serious trouble.

"Drop the bows or your partner's had it!" said Kovalos, speaking in English. "And keep your hands away from those bracelets!"

Andre and Finn hesitated, then dropped their bows down on the ground.

"The quivers, too," Kovalos said. "And then the swords."

"Special Operations Group, I take it," Steiger said.

"Just lie very still, friend," said Kovalos. "I've still got your two partners to deliver to Interrogation. I don't really need you. You so much as twitch an eyebrow and you're dead."

"And so are you," said Steiger.

"Like hell," Kovalos said. "If you people had any serious weapons, you would've used them. You got screwed by your own cover. You think your friends can pick up their bows and fit their arrows faster than I can squeeze this trigger?"

"Man's got a point," Delaney said. "Okay, Mister, it's your move. What's the deal?"

"Deal?" said Kovalos. "You have to be kidding. The only deal you people get is staying alive unless you try something stupid. You've got nothing to deal with."

"What makes you so sure?" Delaney said. "I thought your people were pretty anxious about Project Infiltrator and its director."

"The psych teams will get everything they need out of you," Kovalos said.

"I don't doubt that," Delaney said. "Only by then, it'll be too late for the information to do them any good.

And it won't get you any points. What's your rank? Lieutenant? Captain? There'd be a nice promotion and a commendation in it for you if you turned up information that could lead your adjustment team to your missing Infiltrator Project."

"That's your offer?" said Kovalos. "You'd sell out your own people?"

"No," Delaney said. "My people haven't got it. It's probably right under your noses and you don't know to look in the right place. Believe me, I'd rather the Special Operations Group had it back than leave it in the hands of the man who's got it now."

"That's a poor stall, friend, and it won't work," said Kovalos.

"Pity," said Drakov, from behind him, "he's telling the truth, you know."

Kovalos spun around, but he wasn't quick enough. Drakov fired point-blank into his chest and Kovalos screamed as the plasma enveloped him in an aura of blue flame. Steiger scrambled for the weapon that Kovalos had dropped. "I wouldn't," Drakov said, aiming his pistol at Steiger. Steiger held Kovalos' pistol pointed at Drakov. "One of us won't make it," he said.

Both Finn and Andre had recovered their bows and they held them drawn, aimed directly at Drakov.

"Arrows are just as effective as a plasma pistol at this distance," said Delaney.

"True," said Drakov, "but before you demonstrate that point, you might wish to take a glance behind you."

"Give it up, Drakov," said Delaney. "That one's as old as-"

"Finn ..." said Steiger, his gaze fixed on a point behind and above them.

Delaney saw the expression on his face and looked behind him. His gaze slowly traveled up until his head was back as far as it would go.

"Finn?" said Andre, still covering Drakov with her bow, not taking her eyes off him for an instant. "What is it?"

"You don't want to know," Delaney said.

Staring down at him was a huge, impassive metal face. The bronze colossus towered above them like a skyscraper, the chiseled features beneath the war helmet expressionless, the solid bronze orbs that were the eyes motionless, fixed upon him by the forward inclination of the head. The bronze shield was about twenty-five feet in diameter and the bronze sword was large enough to demolish a small building with one stroke.

"I could not resist the final touch," said Drakov. "What is the myth of Jason and the Argonauts without Talos, the bronze giant?"

Steiger threw down the pistol in disgust. "Man," he said, "this just is
not
my day."

"I'm disappointed in you, Mr. Delaney," Drakov said, mockingly. "Here I am helping you complete your mission and you were going to sell me out."

"Some help," Delaney said.

Andre was staring up at the immobile bronze giant.
"You
made this?" she said.

"I thought you'd be impressed," said Drakov. "Actually, an old friend directed the construction process. The laborers who performed the bulk of the less sophisticated tasks thought they were working for Hephaestus, the Greek god of the fire and the forge. Santos found it all very amusing, being a god."

"Santos Benedetto?" asked Steiger.

"The last of the Timekeepers," Drakov said, "except for myself, of course. If you care to wave hello, he's sitting up there in the helmet, at the controls of what I believe is the largest robot ever built. As I told you once before, the game continues. And we are still a long way from the endgame. The problem is what to do about you in the meantime."

Drakov glanced out over the water at the
Argo,
receding in the distance. "I'm afraid you've missed your ship. No doubt they think you died here on the beach. Pity. That will make it difficult to explain your reappearance."

He looked sharply at Andre. "Please, Miss Cross, leave your hands exactly where they are. If you make one more move toward your warp disc, I shall have to kill you and I would prefer it if you stayed alive awhile longer."

"Why? "she said.

"Because a quick death for you would provide me with little satisfaction. I have far more interesting plans for your demise. You can imagine how alarmed I was when I realized that the Special Operations Group was about to cheat me of my revenge. Interesting how they used the hominoids as preprogrammed zombies. Very creative. It never occurred to me that their cybernetic augmentation could allow them some limited function after their organic life processes had ceased."

"We thought you were responsible," said Steiger.

"An understandable mistake," said Drakov. He looked down at what was left of Kovalos. "Clever fellow, whoever he was. Apparently, he decided that since you were using the myth to create your disruption, he'd also use it to eliminate the threat. The idea might well have worked, only he underestimated the Argonauts. They didn't panic. An admirable man, that Theseus. Utterly fearless. Now, Miss Cross, if you would be so kind, please raise your left hand high overhead and remain completely motionless."

He gestured at her with the plasma pistol and she complied. A huge shadow fell over them as the bronze robot slowly bent at the waist, reaching down with a huge hand that closed around Andre's body so only her head and shoulders and her raised left arm, with the warp disc bracelet on her wrist, were free.

"Now if you gentlemen will each hold out your hands," said Drakov, "I will relieve you of your warp discs. If either of you attempts any heroics, Santos will close the fist completely and Miss Cross will experience a most unpleasant death."

They did as they were told and Drakov carefully removed each of their warp discs, then stepped back.

He looked up at Benedetto, out of sight inside the robot, and nodded. The giant fist opened, releasing Andre. "Now, Miss Cross, carefully remove your own disc and toss it here. Don't try to clock out or you will force me to kill your friends."