Return - Book III of the Five Worlds Trilogy (14 page)

“You don’t sound too fond of your old boss.”

“He was a … strange man. In many ways I liked him, and he taught me a lot. But look at what Prime Cornelian did with the things Sam-Sei built.”

“He does what weapons builders have always done. The only difference is if you work for the good guys or bad guys.”

“Yes …”

 Seeing her so pensive, Benel said, “Cheer up! Maybe the Irregulator will work and the Martians won’t come!”

In the light of the tableau of two worlds and three comets, Visid nodded, but not in assent.

“They’ll come eventually,” she said, getting up to brighten the lights in the lab and go back to work.

A
nd then Visid’s satellite links told her that something had happened. There had been a mass landing on the other side of the planet.

At first she was sure it was the Martians, even though the Screen images they received from Mars still showed Martians going about their business, even with the weight of three huge daylight comets hanging over them. There was even a photograph of the Irregulator shown—a massive cylinder topped with a gleaming dish—which led Visid to believe that perhaps the Machine Master could effect his salvation of Mars after all.

But that still left open the possibility that Martians had landed in force on Venus. Prime Cornelian was capable of anything, at any time, and an advance landing would make perfect sense. The fact that the small armada of ships had made use of one of Sam-Sei’s cloaking devices all but confirmed her suspicions.

But she was wrong.

She learned through intercepted Martian Marine transmissions in the valley below that it was not a fleet from Mars that had landed in Bucus Terra—but rather survivors from Earth, Dalin Shar’s army.

“I thought the Puppet Death wiped them out!” Benel said in disbelief.

“I’m sure that’s what Prime Cornelian thought, too,” Visid replied.

“Cornelian won’t let them last an hour on Venus, now that he knows they’re here!”

“No, he won’t. That’s why we have to get to them first.”

“What—” Benel began, but his arms were already being loaded with devices by Visid, who also filled her own arms before fingering a kangaroo, which enclosed the two of them in a faint counterclockwise swirl of energy before making them vanish.

I
n three jumps they were in the grassy plains of Bucus Terra, and after another short jump they were in the precise spot where the landing had taken place.

There was no one to be found.

“I’m dizzy!” Benel said, trying not to Swoon.

“I’ve got to increase the range on this ’roo,” Visid noted, laying down her armful of equipment and selecting a thin, round instrument something like a wafer. There was a wind, and the tall grass around them bent to it, making a loud moan. In the near west was a dark bank of tall clouds, signaling rain; in the midst of them a jagged lance of lightning flashed.

Visid activated the wafer, making a slow circle with it before her; nothing happened.

“They have to be here!” she shouted above the moan of the wind.

“Well, you’d better find them soon or we’ll be under water!” Benel shouted back; as if to confirm his forecast, a few fat drops began to splatter around them, hissing in the grasses.

Thunder sounded, a loud boom.

Visid retrieved another device and turned it on, again making a circle.

“Where are they?” she wondered. “That cloaking device should have shown up with one of these scanners!”

When she turned to Benel, he was gone.

“You idiot!” she shouted into the wind, thinking the physicist had activated his kangaroo to escape the storm, which now grew large around her; the dark clouds drove away the remains of sunlight like a pulled shade, and the splatters of rain joined in the beginnings of a downpour.

Again thunder boomed; and lightning cracked in the near distance, ripping the air open with sound and the smell of ozone.

Thinking to try to find the Earthlings when the storm had passed, she gathered her devices back into her arms and prepared to finger her kangaroo.

She felt a hand on her, and turned to confront Benel “You id—”

But it was only a hand and part of an arm that she saw before being yanked from where she was to somewhere else.

G
aining orientation, Visid sought to engage her kangaroo, but it was knocked from her hands by an angry-looking man in a mustard yellow and drab uniform; beside him was a woman, similarly dressed and equally serious-looking, with a raser rifle pointed at her middle.

Nearby, Benel, protesting weakly, was being searched by two other soldiers, who checked over each device as they removed it from him.

Visid examined the vehicle they were in, a whisper-quiet ground transport that was approaching a landed shuttlecraft’s open cargo hold. Through the transport’s windows she could see, beyond a bubble of opaque light, the storm raging around them, yet it was silent in the craft.

Interesting
… she thought.

The ground transport entered the cargo hold, which shut behind them. The transport’s door unlocked, opening like butterfly wings.

“Out,” the female soldier ordered.

Visid complied, followed by Benel, and found herself faced with a huge bearded man with his hands on his hips who looked vaguely familiar. Beside him was a scowling young man with a prominent diagonal facial scar.

“Wow! Shatz Abel!” Benel cried.

The pirate narrowed his eyes at Benel, then turned his attention to Visid. “And who are you two?”

Visid was still eying her surroundings. “How did you modify Sam-Sei’s cloak to use for ground camouflage?”

The pirate looked amused. “We managed. And what business is it of yours?”

Visid answered, “I may be able to better it. Make it more mobile. I’ll bet the range isn’t what you wish it was. And you’ll wish it was real soon, since a squadron of Prime Cornelian’s Martian Marines is heading this way.”

Shatz Abel’s amusement turned to suspicion. “Who are you?”

Benel stepped forward and explained. During the physicist’s story, Shatz Abel’s eyes began to widen.

“I don’t trust them,” Yar Pent said gruffly.

“Do we have a choice?” a new voice uttered; and into the cargo hold stepped Dalin Shar. To Shatz Abel he said, “Our scanners confirm what the girl says. And with or without this cloak, we’ll be sitting ducks once they get here.”

“They’ll be able to scan you,” Visid said. “But not if you’re not here.”

The angry-looking soldier in uniform stood nearby with a handful of Visid’s devices; when she stepped forward to take her kangaroo from him, he looked menacing and stepped back. In frustration, Visid pointed to the gadget. “With that, I can move you out of their scanning range, while you’re still camouflaged, and keep moving you short distances until they give up searching for you.”

“Give it to her,” the king ordered.

“Sire!” Shatz Abel protested. “The physicist claims she worked for Sam-Sei, Machine Master of Mars! What’s to say she doesn’t work for him now? She may have been an advanced scout sent out by the Martians to find us!”

Dalin studied the girl, who returned his even stare.

In a quiet voice, the king said, “If she lies, we’re done for. Without her help, we’re done for anyway. If the Martian Marines find us, we can battle it out for a while, but sooner or later they’ll beat us with their better weapons. They’ll move a plasma soldier generator into orbit overhead and beam down light soldiers at us.”

Still locking stares with the king, Visid said, “Benel and I can beat light soldiers, too. And I have plenty of other devices to help you with. I was born on Venus; my father was murdered by Prime Cornelian and I don’t want my world to fall into his hands.”

Yar Pent turned to confer with a soldier who had entered the hold; the soldier left and Yar Pent reported, “The Martian Marines will arrive in ten minutes.”

After another moment, Dalin ordered, “Give her the device.”

“Dalin! Reconsider!” Shatz Abel cried.

The king turned to face him. “If this girl tells the truth, we might be able to not only fight but win a war with Prime Cornelian.”

Dalin turned back to the girl, who now bore her ’roo, and he was startled to see her kneel on one knee before him, the weapon held up above her bowed head.

“There’s no need—” Dalin began.

“From this day forward,” Visid said, “I pledge my service to you, King Shar, and will do everything in my power to help you defeat Prime Cornelian. I pledge this for my father, for my world, and for all the people who may one day make Venus the planet it was always meant to be. And from this day forward,” she continued, lifting her solemn gaze to once again meet the king’s eyes, “I will do everything I can to give you the power to make these things happen, so that you may one day know me as the Machine Master of Venus.”

Chapter 19

O
n the Screen, the High Leader, for all that must be enraging him, appeared decidedly cairn.

“The new carapace has been moved to Tabrel Kris’s room?” Cornelian inquired.

“As you so ordered,” Sam-Sei replied.

“I know that it won’t be … needed for some time yet, but I wanted her to get used to its sight.”

Ignoring the High Leader’s comments, Sam-Sei said, “You realize that there are other matters pertaining to this … process that must be discussed. Also, there are matters pertaining to the Irregulator--”

“Of course. We will discuss these matters in person. I will be down shortly.”

Faintly surprised, the Machine Master said, “As you wish.”

T
he High Leader swept in, unattended, a short while later.  Still his mood seemed serene, but the Machine Master was well aware that Prime Cornelian often masked his true thoughts.

“Two visits within a month! Remarkable!” the High Leader commented, making his way past the Machine Master to one of the corners of the chamber. “I take it you’re happy since I removed the Red Police from your presence?”

Following, the Machine Master said nothing.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve … viewed it,” Cornelian said. He stopped before a long, wide cabinet covered with a tarp, which the Machine Master, gaining his side, removed.

Within the cabinet was the faint outline of a body, in murky light.

“Let us see,” the High Leader commanded.

The Machine Master ran his hand over the side of the cabinet, and the murky light brightened to a somber green glow.

“Ah, yes …” the High Leader said in a flat tone.

Within the cabinet, suspended in a thick liquid, the twisted form of a human body caught in the throes of Puppet Death was revealed. The skin had been pulled into folds like taffy, the legs and arms bent into unnatural positions, the torso curled back away from itself, the neck twisted sideways. The face was contorted with arrested pain, the mouth open in a long oval silent scream, the eye sockets deep, the eyes within pale, like those of a nocturnal animal. The scalp of the head, nearly hairless and horribly wrinkled, which had been cut away from the skull in a precise circular line, floated free of the rest of the body, attached by a thin strip of knotted flesh.

“It still brings back … memories,” the High Leader said.

“Of pain.”

“Yes.”

“And you fully understand that you must endure it again, if you wish to go forward with this procedure.”

“For what Tabrel Kris will provide me with, I will endure it. It will only be temporary. The senator’s daughter doesn’t yet realize what she is giving to Mars—but perhaps one day she will.”

“Then she will not cooperate freely.”

“No.”

“It is … unfortunate for her that her genetic makeup is the only one … suitable.”

“The Puppet Death was a harsh mistress in many ways, Sam-Sei. The … donors were greatly restricted. She was by far the most suitable. Would you have me breed monsters? And dead ones at that?”

The question was rhetorical, though pregnant with meanings. The Machine Master chose silence.

Something like a sigh escaped the High Leader’s carapace.

“Cornelian Secimdus … . With me, after me, he will rule …”

“You realize,” the Machine Master said, his own voice flat and as toneless as he could make it, “that the progeny will be afflicted with Puppet Death also.”

The High Leader’s quartz eyes were irised wide on the floating body within the cabinet; his voice seemed to come from a place far away within his carapace, a hollow place. “Yes. It will endure as I endured. Again, it will only be temporary.”

“We will be able to make the change after the first week of birth.”

“Then that is how it will be.”

Turning away from the green glow of the cabinet, the Machine Master activated another light with his hand; a whiter, harsher glow illuminated the Irregulator, standing open and empty against a chamber wall.

After a long moment, Sam-Sei said, “You have not returned Visid Sneaden to me. There is less than a week before the Three Comets arrive. I will need her to finish the Irregulator in time.”

The High Leader stared at the long, deformed body in the tank and said nothing. His blue-black quartz eyes were unblinking.

“High Leader—”

“I heard you. I have not found the girl, but that is irrelevant now.” He rotated his head to face the Machine Master. “We won’t need the irregulator, Sam-Sei.”

The longest moment that ever passed between them passed. Finally, in a flat, quiet voice, Sam-Sei said, “All along, you did not want Mars to be saved.”

“That is true.”

“You will allow it to be destroyed.”

The High Leader’s insect head nodded slowly. “Even now, Sam-Sei, Screen broadcasts are going out all over the planet, giving instructions for evacuation. We will use our ships, we will use what few of your transportation devices we have. All of Mars will move to Venus. In a week, when the comets strike, the planet will be empty”

“I could have saved Mars.”

“Perhaps. But Mars is a dying planet. It always has been, Sam-Sei. This is what we Martians have never been willing to admit. In the end, two hundred years ago, it was why Earth was willing to give us our independence.”