The Disinherited (29 page)

Thompson, at the threshold of unconsciousness, managed a smile. "Lady, you are somethin' else!" he breathed.

She went to her knees beside him and fumbled with the access hatch. "Quick!" she called to the Resistance troops that were busily setting up weapons emplacements. "Help me get him out of this powered armor! And get a medic over here!" Her voice was a little unsteady.

Thompson smiled again and let the darkness take him.

The first missile impacts of dawn had been audible even down in the maximum-security level, and Tarlann and Iael had awakened, wide-eyed, to the dull
crumps
and the shouting of the Implementers that had, as time had passed, taken on an unmistakable tone of panic.

It was, Tarlann decided, time.

They had, of course, scanned him thoroughly and taken away anything that could possibly be used as a tool or weapon. But they had left him his clothes, including his shoes. Now, as Iael watched unblinkingly, he twisted off the left heel. Its interior, of what was to any Korvaash scanner exactly the same plastic as the right heel, fell out. He reaffixed the hollow shell of the left heel.

The research laboratories of the conglomerate Varien had left to him were on the leading edge of many new technologies, including electrically active plastics that could be encoded to respond to certain stimuli in certain ways. As Tarlann tapped the heel repeatedly against a pipe, crouching over to shield it from any surveillance pickups, it began to change shape. Iael's eyes got even bigger as it took on the form of a very small knife. Tarlann tested the edge. It wasn't crystalline steel, of course, but it would cut.

"Father . . . ?"

Tarlann gestured him to silence and slipped the plastic blade into a pocket. He gave Iael a long look. "We can only wait," he said noncommitally. The boy's lips tightened and, with a steadiness beyond his years, he nodded.

He is so young,
Tarlann thought.
His youth is only one of the things the Korvaasha have destroyed.

Will anyone ever again have a youth like mine was?

After some interminable time, the door clanged open and three Implementers entered. The leader turned and pressed his thumb to the wall scanner, closing the door behind them. Then he swung around, and Tarlann saw a face burned into his memory as if by corrosive acid.

"Yeah, it's me," Laerav slurred. "Working down here's usually a punishment detail, but I volunteered—me and these boys." He was drunk. Like his subordinates, he had a mag needler slung over his shoulder. He also held a monomolecular-edged knife with which he gestured at one of the other two, who grasped Tarlann's left arm and pulled it painfully up behind him.

Laerav thrust his face within inches of that of Tarlann, who had become the current focus of a lifetime's impacted, festering hate. "The Director wouldn't let us hurt you," he spat. "Just like he wouldn't let us have any fun with your crazy bitch of a wife—she wouldn't've been as much fun as the little cunt anyway. But now everything's turning to shit and noboby's paying attention. I'm gonna cut you up real slow. But first you're gonna watch what Durlien does with your spoiled little prick of a son. He
likes
boys!" Laerav grinned drunkenly. "And then you're gonna watch us cut
him
apart before we start on you! You're gonna pay for . . . for my whole . . . for
everything!
" His voice had risen to a scream, and he was shuddering convulsively. Then he took a deep breath. "Durlien, get started!"

The Implementer holding Tarlann forced him to his knees and pointed him toward the corner where Durlien had trapped Iael and was forcing him to the floor, grinning idiotically. He had laid his mag needler on the floor.

Desperately, Tarlann fumbled for the plastic knife with his free hand while his captor watched Durlien eagerly. His fingers finally closed around the smooth hard coolness of the grip. With all the strength he could muster in this position, he stabbed backward.

With a roar of startlement and pain, the Implementer released Tarlann's arm to clutch with both hands at his stomach, from which the plastic handle protruded. Before Laerav and Durlien could come out of their haze of alcohol and anticipation, Tarlann lurched up and slammed a shoulder into his erstwhile captor, shoving him against Laerav. He cut himself open on the Assault Leader's almost infinitely sharp knife, screaming and lurching in convulsive agony and sending the blade flying out of Laerav's hand.

Durlien started to rise, then glanced back and had time for a split second of horror as he saw that Iael had grabbed his mag needler. The weapon's recoil was small, but it was enough to throw the boy's aim off and send a stream of hypervelocity needles arcing across the chamber. But the tracery of death crossed Durlien's chest, ripping through his heart. Blood squirted from the little holes and gushed from his mouth.

With frantic clumsiness, Laerav started to unsling his own mag needler. But Tarlann, drawing on hysterical strength and quickness, dived for Laerav's dropped knife, scooped it up, swung around and up, and plunged the blade into Laerav's abdomen up to the hilt, slamming the Assault Leader up against the wall.

For an instant, they stood locked together in a silent tableau, with only a small trickle of blood coming from beneath the hilt that pressed tightly against the orange coverall. Laerav's eyes protruded and sweat poured from him. But he didn't move.

"Yes, that's right, don't move," Tarlann whispered. "You know what this blade can do. If you move, you'll just slice yourself on it."

Involuntarily, Laerav moved a little. It brought a gasp of agony and a renewed flow of blood.

Tarlann nodded. "Now, Laerav, I want you to reach over to the thumbprint scanner and open this door. I'll guide your hand. Afterwards, I'll leave you with the knife still in; if you don't move, maybe help will reach you."

Eyes glazing over, Laerav obeyed. The door sensed his living thumbprint and slid grindingly open.

With a quick motion, Tarlann brought the knife down, the one-molecule-wide edge slicing effortlessly through everything it encountered and exiting through Laerav's crotch.

Laerav's eyes popped and he shattered the silence with a horrible, gurgling shriek as he watched his guts bulge out and fall with a plopping sound into a greasy, steaming pile on the floor.

"I lied," Tarlann admitted genially.

Laerav's screaming died down to a kind of agonized rasping as he fell forward. Tarlann turned to Iael.

"Collect their needlers. We'll get others from the Implementers on the levels above while we're freeing the prisoners." Iael sprang to obey while Tarlann stepped ouside the door and studied a schematic of the fortress, its writing in Raehaniv for the benefit of the Implementers.

By the time they departed, Laerav's noise had ceased.

They brought what was left of Dorleann back to the command post.

The Resistance leader had insisted on taking part in the latest futile attack on the ruinous-looking fortress that loomed up tantalizingly ahead. Once again they had been flung back.

"And that's the story," DiFalco concluded, speaking into the ground-to-orbit communicator.
Liberator
was currently over this hemisphere, and he had brought Aelanni up to date. "Our intelligence badly underestimated the defenses of this place. We can't put a dent in those heavy-weapons turrets, and we can't make any headway against them. If we could just reach that fortress, I'm convinced we could take it. But we can't cross the killing ground around it."

"The fighter-configured shuttles . . . ?"

"Our fighters are a spent force. The ones that are left can keep circling over Sarnath indefinitely on grav repulsion, but they've expended all their missiles. Their lasers are attenuated by all this smoke down here—the turrets laugh at them."

Silence fell in the little command post. Raenoli, now in command of the Resistance, sat quietly, face graven with unshed tears. Thompson—DiFalco had ordered the medics to bring him around with stimulants—lay back, left arm encased in Raehaniv instacast spray. He would lose the arm (hypervelocity projectiles inflict no small wounds) but it was only temporary; the Raehaniv could force-grow a cloned replacement and graft it on. And he would live, at least if Naeriy had anything to say about it. She had not left his side, and she was still there.

DiFalco wiped his brow and knuckled his eyes again—he had never realized what a sybaritic luxury that was, for none of their training exercises on Terranova had ever overloaded the air conditioning systems of powered armor suits like the one he had just climbed out of. The suits had ingenious facilitiies for dealing with the body's other wastes, but nobody had ever thought of the sweat that ran down the inaccessible brow into the eyes. All you could do was blink a lot.
Note for future reference: issue tennis headbands to powered-armor troops.

Golovko's voice—he was also in on the hookup—came from the communicator. "Eric, it's no good. You've got to abort the operation."

"
NO!
We've come too far to stop now, damn it! I will not
let
these bastards stop us now!" DiFalco startled himself with his vehemence.

Thompson tried to sit up, and Naeriy grasped his hand protectively. "The Skipper's right," he got out, gasping for breath. "We've paid in blood for this ground! If we cut and run now, a lot of good people will have died for nothing. I don't think we'll ever be able to mount a second assault." He actually grinned. "Hell, Colonel Golovko, we couldn't break off this engagement if we wanted to! Without fighter cover, they'd shoot us out of the air as our assault shuttles lifted from this landing zone!"

"But, Eric," Aelanni asked, voice charged with urgency, "
how
will you get into the fortress?"

DiFalco's head hung for an instant, then he straightened. "You'd better put all the heavy-duty intellects up there to work on that, Aelanni. We're open to suggestions! And," he added quietly, "ask Yakov to mention this problem to God, will you? I think we need a miracle."

"Well, Director," Lugnaath spoke languidly, "despite the failure of your counterattack, you appear to have been as good as your word concerning the invincibility of this fortress."

Gromorgh carefully didn't reveal his relief. He had experienced some bad moments when the counterattack had been stopped—who could have imagined that these
Marines
would be able to stand up to the cyborgs? But it had been merely a disappointment, not a disaster. The fortress was still inviolate.

"Indeed, Third Level Embodiment," he said unctuously. "We can continue smashing these pathetic attacks indefinitely. Nothing can penetrate our defenses here. Nothing!"

Behind him, the scanner lock beeped and the entrance to the command center slid open. Gromorgh turned, annoyed. No one should be entering now . . . .

No! It wasn't possible!

A disarmed Implementer was thrust in, and the ragged human scarecrow behind him pumped a burst of electromagnetically accelerated needles into the nearest Korvaash guard. More freed prisoners crowded in, cutting loose with their captured weapons. And Gromorgh recognized their leader . . . .

The ruling council rose to its feet as one in consternation, just in time to be mown down. Sugvaaz, with an inarticulate cry, raised his arm with its implanted laser mount. An adolescent human male—Gromorgh thought he looked vaguely familiar—fired a long burst from his mag needler, and the Conservator of Correctness staggered backwards, his eye seeming to explode and his brains spattering the wall behind him. Lugnaath was down, bleeding his life out from a dozen little holes, and Gromorgh knew he was next . . . .

"No! Not him!" the leader shouted. He came forward, mag needler in one hand and monomolecular-edged knife in another, walking with a slight limp.

Tarlann made sure the command center was secured and sentries posted before turning to where Gromorgh waited under the mag needlers of two of those whose torments he had decreed.

"Gromorgh," he began, "I won't make any promises that you're too intelligent to believe. But you can prolong your life if you tell me where the power controls are."

The Director of Implementation didn't even reply.

Tarlann smiled and quoted. "I see that you need more incentive."

He turned to one of the fallen security guards and took the neurolash from its belt holder. It was heavy, and designed for Korvaash hands, but he could manage it.

As he approached Gromorgh, he thought he could detect odd motions, almost tics. Was this what Korvaash fear looked like? If so, it answered the question of whether this device affected the Korvaash nervous system.

At the touch of the lash, Gromorgh stiffened convulsively—alarming in a being his size. His pendant was silent, for it didn't translate meaningless noise. But Tarlann could distinctly hear a sound like a distant, very deep foghorn.

Interesting,
he thought with scientific detachment.
The Korvaasha
can
make a noise that's audible in the human range, if it's loud enough and high-pitched enough.

"Well, Gromorgh?" he asked, withdrawing the lash slightly. "And I think you know better than to lie."

Still trembling, Gromorgh pointed to a console. Tarlann rushed to it and depressed a series of Korvaash-scale knobs. The pervasive hum died in a descending whine.

All at once, the command center was illuminated only by the red lights of emergency life-support power. And the din that filled the fortress began to subside as armored turrets ceased to move up and down into their protective pits and high-energy weapons fell silent.

"Colonel! They've ceased firing!"

"I see they have," DiFalco acknowledged the lookout's report. He looked at Raenoli, standing beside him at this forward fire base where they were organizing their next desperate attack. She met his eyes, and no translation was needed.

"It
could
be a trick, you know," DiFalco felt obligated to say. The Raehaniv Marine translated for him, but Raenoli's only reply was to heft her Saelarien rifle.