03. Masters of Flux and Anchor (46 page)

"That's about it. So, think about it a while. They still got it wrong. The machines still used people—but within limits. Now they're a part of you, and Suzl, and fifty-four other people we don't know, and the process is complete. You're not human, Spirit. Nobody in this room is really human, not even me. We're all part human and part machine. If you got the power, or know somebody that does, you can be ageless, nearly immortal, just about never get sick, grow back lost limbs, even, under certain circumstances, be brought back from the dead. We—all of us in the top five or ten percent—are the masters of Flux and Anchor. For most of history the people of Anchor were terrified of Flux and its people. Even after all these centuries, I bet our relatives still will be."

"I—" Spirit stopped suddenly. "My God! It's nearly time!" She turned to the others. "Places, everybody! This is it!"

On the screens overhead there appeared huge pictures. They weren't true pictures, but rather computer reconstruc¬tions of what was happening from its sensing abilities, but they looked real and were for all intents and purposes. Each showed an aerial view of a Hellgate, seven in all, with a small superimposed map of each cluster below with the pictured Gate flashing. All had substantial forces at or near the Gates, although the bulk would still be on the way. There was no way, short of asking specific questions, of telling the nature of those forces, or their origins.

The women were now in chairs and at their posts. Suzl lit a cigar and examined the screens, although with her direct computer link she had far more information at her disposal than they showed. Matson withdrew towards the center of the round room to get an easy view of all screens. Spirit stood silent, eyes half-closed, as if in a trance; Suzl walked back and forth, chomping nervously on the cigar.

Matson called to her. "You set upstairs?"

"Yeah. I rang every damned communicator in the An¬chor and told them just what do do—and I used Sligh's voice for it. They're bringing the stuff in now. I've got myself tied in to every damned wizard around the Gate including most of the Seven, would you believe? And I've got beauties and the beast here linked in with the district commanders in clusters three, four, six, and seven, and I can shift them if necessary."

A tremendous sound suddenly filled the chamber, caus¬ing all but Spirit and Suzl to jump. None had ever heard a klaxon horn before. It sounded three long blasts, blasts also sounded by the regulator at the Hellgates.

"MASTER GATE LOCK SEQUENCE KEYED," an¬nounced an eerie, unfamiliar female voice at a level that was almost as loud as the horn. "AUTOTRIP INTER¬LOCK TO INCOMING."

"That's just the Gate computer altering the control room here," Spirit assured them. "It's the next message that'll be the story."

"INCOMING, GATES TWO, FOUR, SIX," announced the voice. "VERIFYING GATES CLEAR."

"Three of them!" Suzl yelled. "It's not all seven!"

"BLOCKAGE ON GATE FOUR. SAFETY CHECK. SAFETY CHECK COMPLETED. STAND BY TO PURGE. ALL PERSONNEL STAND CLEAR OF GATE AREAS.'"

There was a second blast of the klaxon, this time one long and three short, which was repeated after a few seconds.

"Get the word out that it's north and south only!" Matson shouted. "Shift any between-cluster forces north, but keep everybody else on the other Gates. This may only be the welcoming committee, not the main force. Shift Sondra to Gate Two, Jeff to Gate Six. Candy, Crystal— you stand by!"

"VERIFY INCOMING GATES CLEAR OF PERSON¬NEL. STAND BY FOR PURGE. PURGING. GATES PURGED. INCOMING IN TWO MINUTES, REPEAT, TWO MINUTES. RECEPTION AND SERVICE CREWS STAND BY."

Out at the Hellgate, the enormous crowd had moved back at the ghostly warning and watched as the Hellgate turned from its emerald green color to a brightness that was impossible to look at. The cable leading down glowed briefly, then faded into nothingness all the way to the edge of the Anchor apron.

Sligh breathed a sigh of relief. "I guessed right in the connections after all. It didn't blow."

Gifford Haldayne turned and stared at him. "You guessed?"

"INCOMING, GATES TWO, FOUR. AND SIX, IN ONE MINUTE."

"Here we go," Matson said in a whisper. He suddenly cursed, seeing that he'd bit clean through his cigar.

"STAND BY GATE TWO. INCOMING IN TEN SEC¬ONDS . . . NINE . . . EIGHT . . . SEVEN ... SIX ... FIVE . . . FOUR . . . THREE . . . TWO . . . ONE . . . ACTIVATE MAIN REGULATOR. NOTE SHIP HAS PROPER RECOGNITION CODES BUT IS OF TYPE NOT IN MEMORY. LOGGED IN. TIME IN 14:01:41."

On the screen and at the Gate they watched as the great bowl-shaped depression that was the total Hellgate pulsed and throbbed with light and shook the ground nearby with regular vibrations in time to the pulsing.

A fountain of pure Flux came out of the hole and rose high into the afternoon sky, perhaps twenty meters above the ground level. It steadied, then put forth streamers of energy that formed a skeletal framework, as if some giant hand were drawing a detailed blueprint in Flux. This was pure Flux, and could be seen by all, whether or not they had the power, and the sight was awesome.

"It's a program," Suzl said wonderingly. "They change the whole damned thing into a Flux program, like the Guardian or the Soul Rider, then squirt themselves through on the strings! When it gets here, enough Flux is drawn out of the Gate to reform it into solids just like it was."

"Then our computers must be working that program!" Matson shouted. "Tell 'em to turn it off!"

"We tried that seconds ago," Suzl told him, tense and excited now, as if "seconds" meant "years." "It doesn't work. It's an overriding command, strictly automatic, as a safety feature!"

The four equatorial Gates remained quiet, but at the two Gates to the north the scene in their own cluster was being repeated before an equally awed and extremely frightened horde who didn't have the benefits of computer speed or access.

The process was completing itself now, and in the three Gate bowls sat solid-looking objects of enormous size. To everyone they looked like metal versions of a child's spinning top, although they had a bottom curving to more or less fit the bowl. As large as they were, though, it was clear that they had not been designed for these receiving depressions; the ships were angled and off-center, and had slowly pitched forward to rest on one rounded side a good five meters below the top of the depression, while rising five on the opposite side.

"BERTHING COMPLETED. GATE RESET TO OUT¬GOING. GROUND CREWS STAND BY TO ASSIST PASSENGERS AND CREW."

"Well, they have smaller ships than we did," Spirit sighed.

"Yeah, well, that's a fact," Matson responded, "but it don't mean anything. If they're the size of cockroaches there could be a million of them."

"They're not. They're all in box-like containers. We saw it as the thing formed, and were able to count them."

"How many?"

"Each box is a hundred and fifty-two point four centime¬ters long, ninety centimeters high, and ninety-two point seven centimeters across. There's a space between each one, and fifty percent is cargo and machinery for the ship. The computer estimates that there are two thousand three hundred and forty-two such boxes, each containing a liv¬ing organism."

"Well, that's something," he said. "The others the same?"

"Exactly the same," she responded, eyes shut.

"O.K., we outnumber them but probably don't outgun them. That means that either they think they have all the power they need or they're only the first wave."

"The external area is being computer scanned in ex¬treme detail," she told him. "The nature and language of the scan are incomprehensible, but the actions are clear and deliberate."

"How far?"

"Apparently to the horizon. The computer says that the top section is a separate machine with its own power source and can be detached. Because of its shape, it almost certainly flies. Our own scans indicate a capacity of no more than four box occupants."

"Scouting, then, not troop transport. That means the initial group is there to secure the landing site and scout out the terrain. They're the leading wave, and that's bad. Keep those forces at the equator. Is it safe for our boys to move?"

"We've energized the two forward sections of the tunnel. The rest is safe."

"The temple access gates are open," Suzl added. "Get 'em started, I'd say. Nothing remotely alive as we know it is going to get down that tunnel from the ship right now."

"They'll be alive as we know it," Matson assured her. "Otherwise they wouldn't be here."

"Power's on in the ships." Spirit announced. "We detected a slight trembling. It's Flux power—they're step¬ping down to normal Flux levels and drawing a string from the Gate itself. Harmless to humans, but enough for them. The computer believes that it is recharging its energy cells."

"That figures. We must have done it the same way, and Haller and his people came back down through the tunnel and over to here."

"The computers agree. There is a ring of power collec¬tors around a hatch of some directed at the tunnel. Because their ships weren't designed for our Gates, but because it seems you have to do it just this way or it doesn't work, they've sacrificed stability inside their ship to keep their collector over that tunnel entrance. The computer now agrees entirely with your speculation, you might like to know, except that they have a way to store it before use. Just cutting power won't stop them."

"Sure it will, and they'll know it. It'll get 'em out in the open."

"Sligh is trying a broadcast on every frequency known to him," she told him. "The usual welcome and assur¬ances of peace and friendship and all that. So far no response."

"Whoa!" Suzl called out, almost falling down. "There was a sudden big power surge there!"

Out at the Gate, a huge and partly visible wall sprang up, looking like a giant inverted glass bowl. It covered the area around the Gate for a distance of more than five kilometers, trapping the welcoming committee and all nearby forces inside.

"It's a shield!" Cassie shouted. "It's a wizard's shield in Anchor!"

"In Anchor, yes, but its source is Flux from the Gate itself," Spirit told them.

"They are the demons of Hell come now to keep us from finding the true path," Cassie whispered so low that none of the others clearly heard.

"The shield's a good one," Suzl reported. "About the only thing getting through it is air."

"Where's its power coming from, though? The ship or the Gate?" Matson asked her.

"Definitely the ship."

"That's a hell of a lot of power to drain. Any way to find out just how much of a drain it is?"

"We can figure the power required to maintain it, and it's very close to the amount of power coming in from the Gate. We don't know their storage capacity, though."

"Any attempt at communications on our part?"

"The Commander's been trying, but so far nothing. Nothing for Sligh, either, by the way. They don't like the fact that they're trapped, and they're trying to put as good a light on it as they can. They sure didn't expect this, though."

Spirit was grimmer, yet firm. "The probilities are great that they know about us—where we are and what we have if not who we are. They haven't even tried to use the tunnel. The Commander's made her decision. She is now transmitting what is essentially an ultimatum. If they do not immediately open contact, she will act upon them as a hostile force."

"Good girl. Can you give me an estimate on whether or not we have sufficient force to move that thing?"

"We don't know its exact composition so we don't know its weight. If it's greater than a million tons, no. If it's somewhere around there, it depends on just how far we have to nudge them. It doesn't much matter. If it doesn't work, they will have to make the next move."

"If it doesn't work," Matson responded, "the living may envy the dead before we're through."

20

MISTAKE IN TIMING

The Anchor Luck computer had first become aware of Matson's unorthodox reasoning when he had explained some of his theories to Mervyn and to Adam Tilghman. As defense installations, they were preprogrammed with basic strategies and methods; as self-aware devices, although not in a way humans would understand that term, they were also aware that certainly their standardized methods would probably fail by themselves as they must have in the other colonies. And, as self-aware devices, they were capable of learning even from such a slow-thinker as the stringer colonel, and then following up on his plans. They were basically programmed to defend against hostile human attack; otherwise, they were maintenance computers, estab¬lished primarily to form the new world and keep it stable. Their programming also required that all major decisions must be approved or requested by humans. They could recommend, but needed Spirit and Suzl to act, and they awaited the order of their Commander.

But a message was received from the strange object. It came from the southern ship only, indicating that it was in fact the command ship of the fleet, and it came not at computer speed but in the English of their ancestors.

"We are Samish," it said, although that last word was subject to a great deal of interpretation. It was in no known tongue or inflection. "We wish no fight, no death of your people. Resistance to us is evil. Resistance to us is against the Plan. Those who do what is righteous and what is their destiny will be as gods. Only those who are evil will be destroyed."

"Sounds like the Holy Mother Church," Jeff commented, listening to it with the rest of them.

"Definitely machine-generated speech," Spirit told them. "Doubtful it's a translator. Probabilities are that they can't naturally talk our way."

"Missionaries!" Matson spat. "Missionaries with power. Damn! The worst combination!"

The Commander proceeded cautiously, and on the open voice band they were using, allowing the computer to suggest and guide her comments.

"We also do not wish any loss of life, but we do not comprehend your initial statement. Please clarify."

"It is the order of things," the Enemy replied. "To Samish was given the power. Samish was anointed Lords of Creation. We now are exploring our domain. The First Lord has raised up others to serve Samish. Samish must root out all evil to achieve perfection of the universe. You are not the first of your kind Samish has been guided to by the First Lord. Within the past—year—we have come upon you three times. The first was righteous, and gave over to Samish. The second was evil, and fought Samish. Samish destroyed them and remade them in the image decreed by the First Lord. The third had both good and evil. Samish set the good over the evil. It is the way of things. Samish brings the truth and the power to the under-races."