05. Children of Flux and Anchor (34 page)

She looked surprised. "Why, Bruton."

"O.K., it's you. Can you check yourself over, make sure Chua, here, hasn't left any little traps to go off later?"

Spirit did a check. "I think it's just the binding spell," she told him. "But—Dad, why? You know Suzl wouldn't have harmed me."

"Honey, if we don't beat New Eden we'll all get measured for heels and fancy panty-hose anyway, even Madam Glamor, here. That's first priority. Everything else can wait until then. Now, the only folks who have a shot are these people. I got four months maximum to turn 'em from amateurs into professionals."

"But—where do I go now?"

"Dell and Sondra will meet you when you get out a little ways and explain things. Don't be too shocked by Dell's appearance. He hasn't gotten over it himself, yet. A little gift from our friend, here."

Chua smiled sweetly again. "I
do
hope he tries to untangle that one. Whoever does will be simply
gorgeous
!"

Spirit stared at him. "You're sure?"

"I'm sure. Trust me this time, like you usually do. Go on, now. I've got work to do."

She hesitated a moment more, then kicked her heels in and rode through the shield and off into the void.

"You sound almost as if you
wanted
to do this," Gabaye noted suspiciously.

"There are three factions on this world able to do big things. I represent one of them. You represent another. New Eden is our common enemy in this. Me, I'd rather knock them over than be sitting around one day and suddenly grow big breasts and have an urgent desire to wash the walls."

"You realize, of course, that we can't permit you in here—as you are. I'm afraid it would not only lead to all sorts of problems but also give you a big advantage."

"I figured as much. Suzl, if you're listening in, I'm willing to play ball on your side, but there are a lot of protective spells on me I can't possibly understand and I don't think Chua, here, has figured out either, although she's been trying for five minutes. My form's another matter. I had those spells tripped. I know the score in there."

Chua looked thoughtful. "Let's see. . . . What sort of a girl should you be? Not an Eve, certainly. Perhaps an Ayesha. Really learn how the other half is forced to live."

"You could do it," he agreed, "but if you want me to
lead
this new army and work with them and train them, that body'll be more harm than help. I'll need a more authoritative figure than that. How about Sondra?"

"But I don't
know
your Sondra, darling!"

"Suzl does. What about it, Suzl? Can't you see the imposing figure of Sondra training and leading these troops? Besides, I always thought that if I was a woman I'd want to look like Sondra."

Chua started to open her mouth, but the spell came through the grid and then rose up and engulfed the figure on the horse, although not the horse and saddle itself. When it subsided, the big man was gone, but in his place was the equally imposing visage of his older daughter, in black stringer outfit including hat and boots, dark skin, silver hair. Only Matson's pistols remained as they were, and the gunbelt now hung a bit too much on the hips. Unhesitatingly, the new Matson urged the big black horse forward and crossed to the Fluxland.

"Now, that wasn't bad at all," said Matson in a new, low, almost sultry feminine voice that still contained the same Matson accent and tonalities. "Lead on!" the new woman said. "And along the way I'll want the answers to some big questions."

13

COMMON AND UNCOMMON ENEMIES

When the familiar figure came into view, Morgaine could only think,
My God! They caught Sondra!
She started to rush up to her, but something stopped her. Something here was not quite right. Sondra was clearly no prisoner, although she looked herself and not like one of Suzl's wizards, and there was something slightly wrong in the carriage and the mannerisms. Besides, when did Sondra take up smoking cigars?

She wondered if this were some sort of trick. Were they perhaps creating a duplicate Sondra to replace the real one?

Chua Gabaye pointed, and she and "Sondra" walked towards and then into Suzl's main tent. Although they had the power here to build castles and cities, they had not done so. Suzl didn't want the people to get too comfortable too quickly, and she also knew that they would eventually have to move.

Matson was genuinely shocked with the primitiveness of it all, and even more shocked to see poor Suzl. She looked
a lot like Morgaine had, of course, but the blindness, an affliction only seen in strictly closed Anchors before, was evident. Suzl also looked very tired, and not at all the voluptuous vision she was supposed to be. The electronic voice, which always shocked everybody, made the scene if anything even more unreal.

"Hello, Matson."

"Suzl. Thanks for the use of Sondra's form." The voice was a bit lower than Sondra's and definitely had a different edge to it. It sounded, in fact, like Matson's voice, only one half-octave up. Still, to those who hadn't known him, the figure seemed more like one of feminine strength than masculine transformed. This figure moved like a woman, sat like a woman, and seemed quite comfortable with the form. The figure was commanding, but unless you knew the facts you would swear that Matson had been born that way.

"I'm glad you came in, but I'm very sorry it had to be Spirit who was the lure. She was crazy to have tried that. She could have died."

"We all have to take risks on occasion for what we believe. The fact is, while I'm glad to have her out of this, I think this was inevitable anyway. As I told Chua Gabaye, we have a common enemy to defeat before we can even start arguing about the winners." There was a pause. "Chua Gabaye! And Ming Tokiabi, too! You sure got in bed with some strange partners!"

"That was set up before I even came on board," Suzl told Matson. "Even so, we needed them. We needed their experience and their technology base."

"You trust 'em?"

"No. But I believe they are as committed to the overthrow of New Eden as we are. New Eden is as much a threat to them as to us. After? I don't know."

"I think I do. They want the projectors. They want New Eden out of the way, and then the projectors in their hands to keep the Guild at bay. When New Eden goes, I wouldn't trust them one second more."

"I've tried to guard as much as I can. The wizards here are bound, by spells I myself put on, not to betray me. Also, I make everyone carry these radios so I can contact them and they can contact each other. I can listen in if need be."

"I'll have to keep that in mind." Definitely. If Suzl could activate anybody's radio and eavesdrop on them, it would be good not to make any comments that might sound threatening to Suzl or the group. Stringers were well-versed in electronic eavesdropping techniques—and fooling them.

Suzl seemed lost in thought for a moment, then asked, "Why did you come in? You surely knew I would never harm Spirit. I couldn't."

"I know. That's why I didn't bring Jeff along. I didn't want you to have to face your own son. Dell was a good help, although I'm afraid Chua embarrassed him all to hell."

"You're avoiding the question."

Matson sighed. "I'm here because I think I know how to win. No guarantees, but if my ideas work out then it's possible. It's another big challenge. It's what I do best. And, of course, I don't relish the idea of becoming a Fluxwife myself. Those programs will be like the old ones—indiscriminate. And even if I got out of it, there's a lot of folks close to me I wouldn't like to see that way. I saw what they did to Sondra and Jeff—and to Cass and you, too. So, here I am."

"How is Cass?"

"Doing well. She's a hell of a horse breeder and she worked hard and finally got her vet's degree. She doesn't dare travel much, because we can't fix her in Flux if anything happens, but she's been all over anyway and done everything. The twins keep house and act somewhat as her bodyguards in a Flux environment. It's not a bad life."

"But it's not your life."

"Yeah, it is. I'd like to get back to it when this is done, if I can, and if we all survive. It's a nice way to spend the time between crises."

Suzl gave an eerie electronic chuckle. "And so here we are again. You realize I don't intend to stop with New Eden."

"Yeah, well, that's somebody else's problem, not mine. My people have worked out accommodations with the damndest sets of people. Me, I'm old military. My ancestor was the first general of the Signal Corps. It's a tradition. I leave all the politics to others. My job starts when the politics fails."

"Do you really think you can beat them? I mean, really beat them?"

"If you mean can I destroy New Eden utterly and break their system for good, the answer's probably 'no.' If you mean can we win this battle and force them into an accommodation to our liking, the answer is 'maybe.' " Quickly Matson sketched in the geography and demographics of the problem.

"Winning the battle will depend on some tests we're gonna run with your projector as soon as we can, and you being able to scare up enough wizards and ground troops to make a difference," the stringer told her. "Winning the war is going to depend on your unpleasant friends. I'll know more after we make those tests."

For the first time, Suzl had hope. The depression she'd been in when talking to Morgaine seemed far away. Still. Matson was as much or even more of a threat than the old wizard allies. Anyone who could fight off alien invaders and thought nothing of taking on New Eden wasn't going to leave out of planning how to keep Suzl's dreams from being realized as well.

"Matson—you were the last true man I had inside. Want to test out that body and get the favor returned?"

The stringer sighed. "Not now. And not with you, Suzl, although I feel the genuineness of the offer. You're a wizard—and a strong one—locked in a body of passions. I'm at the mercy of that power. If I feel the need and have time, I
might
try some recreation with somebody, if only for the novelty of the experience, but it won't be with a wizard. You understand? It's just too important not to screw up."

Suzl was disappointed, but she understood the problem. One-sided wizard powers in the heat of passion could do strange things to the other partner, some positive, others very negative, that would be hell to fix or sort out. As much as she wanted, and feared, Matson, she wanted that mind just the way it was.

"All right. Oh! I guess we better warn Morgaine who you are. I'll have Gill get you settled in, and then I'll arrange a meeting between you and the top staff here. Then you can go to work."

"Sounds all right to me. Some wizard's gonna have to find me fresh clothing and the basics, anyway. Funny, too. I've only had this form for a few hours but I really feel like I need a bath."

Suzl sat on the active projector, listening, as the entire staff of wizards and military commanders sat watching. It was, however, Matson's show.

"Up to now," the stringer told them, "it's been impossible to move around World using the grid no matter what your power. That went for goods, too. We could create things through energy-to matter transfers, but the network couldn't carry and transmit a complex person or thing and reassemble it to our command elsewhere. Part of that was because of the relative signal from the wizard to the computer, and part was the nature of the switching network from one master computer to another that limited such things to line of sight, or maybe fifty kilometers, and only for inanimate objects. Last night, Suzl, Morgaine, and I, along with our two allies, worked out a different approach using the projector. The computer interaction point is always with the wizard, not the objective. The wizard establishes a spell, or program, checks it for errors and problems with the computer, then sends it. The computer then runs the spell. The old methods didn't work, because to work the wizard would have to be in two places at the same time—transmit point and receive point.

"With the projector, this is possible. It is possible to initiate a matter-to-energy conversion program, or spell, at the transmit point, and then a complementary receive spell at the desired location. That's the theory. I didn't come up with it. I had it handed to me as a theory by the Guild. Now we can test it out."

"At a predetermined location fifty kilometers south of here," Suzl told them, "are several target objects. I have them located with no problem. One by one, I am going to issue commands at the remote site and if this theory is correct they should appear in the grassy field over there. Let's do it!"

They all watched, unable to really follow the projector's actions but waiting, all eyes on the field. Suddenly, there was a saddle there. Then a tree appeared next to it. Finally, a brown horse appeared, looking somewhat confused but otherwise in fine shape. There was some applause. Matson walked over, checked the horse, and nodded, then walked away.

Suzl waited for radio confirmation. "They all vanished just like I was there on the spot, then reappeared here. I converted them, placed them in files, then read the files out to these coordinates. The elapsed time seems to be about twenty seconds."

"We'll have to cut that way down," Matson told her. "We'll have to cut it further than you think it
can
be cut. This is only the first stage. I want every wizard here to do it—again and again. Practice and train on it. When you've got it down, then we'll try for objects without a predetermined location. You'll have to find them, mark them, and do it. When that time is down as far as it can be pushed, then we'll do the tough stuff. Random
moving
objects to be located, trapped, filed, and read out here. Finally, we'll try those random moving objects with some wizards aboard expecting the attack."

There was muttering among the wizards, and the word "impossible" was heard more than once.

"Listen," Matson said sternly, "this is
your
fight. It is
not
impossible because we
must
have it! Everything depends on it, and not just on it being done. It depends on it being done very fast and
instinctively,
without even taking the time to think. Without this, you can't win. All the power and all the troops we might get won't make one damned bit of difference. There's no time for doubting or slacking off. If we just once are forced to go on the defensive, we're through, and we might all just as well get our numbers on our asses and start keeping house for big men in black leather uniforms. This not only has to work, it has to work the
first
time and
every
time. They're not dumb down there. They may not have thought of this trick yet, but once they get victimized by it, it won't take them long to figure it out. If they get to withdraw their own projectors and equipment back into Anchor and then wait until they have the trick themselves and work out a defense against it—and there is
always
a defense against
anything
— we've had it."