To Well And Back (The Deep Dark Well) (17 page)

Watcher dropped down
into the tank, the hatch closing behind him.  With a thought the tank crashed
out of the last ten meters of jungle and slid down the bank of the river, the
other two spreading out to either side.  They entered the river and went under,
their weight sinking them to the bottom, from which they rolled along several
centimeters above the mud on their antigrav lifters.  Something big bumped the
tank Watcher was riding in, followed by several other bumps, and the super
being viewed the huge crocodilians knocking their bodies against the unknown
objects rolling along the bottom of their turf.

This went on for some
minutes, and the tanks were almost all the way across when the crocodilians
gave up.  The tanks rolled up the slope and broke the water while Watcher kept
a close watch on any aircraft that might be entering the valley.  With no sign
of the enemy the tanks rose out of the river and into the jungle beyond.

Watcher checked his map
and decided to angle north, and take advantage of a natural pass that pierced
the mountains while retaining plenty of cover.  He checked the time in his head
and cursed himself once again.  It was not something he could help.  He needed
to get to his woman, but being destroyed along the way would not help either of
them. 
Patience
, he thought, trying to relax back into his commander’s
chair.  He smiled an evil smile, the long dead spirit of
Vengeance
manifesting within him for a moment.  When the time came he would do what he
had to do, and maybe even enjoy it in the moment.

Chapter Sixteen

Never take counsel of your fears.   Stonewall
Jackson

Pandora had never felt
such pain in her life.  Even the induction field that
Vengeance
had used
on her had not caused this much agony.  She knew that was theoretically
impossible.  There should have been no greater pain than direct induction of
pain nerves.  But there had to be a psychological component to seeing the
actual physical damage to your own body.  Pandora knew she could be repaired,
but still, seeing her breasts burned to stubs and one of her hands crippled by
the loss of two fingers, not to mention all the cuts and burns all over her
body, were almost more than she could take.  And laying in her own urine and
feces made her feel degraded like nothing she had ever been through, like she
was a helpless child dependent on others to clean her, and these others had no
interest in that.

Dear Jesus
, she thought as she
watched the Inquisitor pick up another instrument from the nearby table;
give
me the strength to resist. 
She was not sure why she was praying to the
Savior she had rejected so many years ago (or was that so many tens of
thousands of years), the Savior her father had preached.  She still wasn’t sure
she believed in him.  Maybe it was the comfort of tradition, or the belief that
nothing else could save her now.  Not her God, or science, or her lover the
superman.

“All you have to do is
give us the code,” said the Inquisitor, holding up the heat probe where she
could see it.  The tip was glowing with a white heat that she could feel from a
half meter away.  “Just transmit the code through the computer link we have
established with your mind, and we will be done here.”

The link you think you
have established
,
thought Pandi, wanting to smile and gloat at the man, to show him a sign that
she was triumphant here, and knowing that to do so would spoil her plan.  But
she had the connection through her own implants, not through the nanites they
had injected into her brain, the ones her own system had devoured and then
mimicked.

“You can go to hell,
you shit head,” she said, spitting out the last words to keep herself from
crying.

“Very well,” said the
man, moving to where he could look at her genitalia, to the opening of her
vagina.  He put a hand on that delicate flesh, rubbing a finger over her
clitoris, gently, like he was trying to pleasure her.  He looked up at her with
a leering smile, then brought the heat probe into line and pushed it into her
opening.

The extreme pain shot
up Pandora’s nerves before she could react.  She tried to clamp down with
nanite nerve blocks, also realizing that to show less than great pain would tip
her torturers off.  But even cutting thirty percent off the pain transmission
was not enough.  Her bladder and bowels loosened again, and snot clogged her
nose while her muscles arched.  The smell of burning skin reached beyond the
mucous that clogged her olfactory apparatus, sending waves of nausea rolling
through her as she recognized that it was her own tender flesh that had been
melted away by the heat. 
Please stop
, she thought, while her mind sent
the signal that opened the defenses of the station and its subsidiary works
without her consent, her subconscious doing for her what she would not allow
herself to do consciously.  And then blackness folded over her, unconsciousness
taking hold.

*     *     *

“We have the code, my
Lord,” called the Chief Inquisitor over the com link.  “The computer is
verifying it as we speak.”

“And we will only know
for sure when we have tried it out,” said the Admiral, looking at a view of the
pyramid on the main viewer.

“What shall I do with
the interogee?’ asked the Inquisitor, a smile on his face.

“Continue the
questioning,” said the Admiral, grimacing as he looked at the body of the woman
on the transmission.  “Get everything you can out of her.  But do not do
anything that will end her until we make sure this code will open the doors we
want opened.”

The Inquisitor nodded
his head on the repeater screen, then it went blank.

So the woman out of
time really has run out of time
, thought the Admiral. 
To have come from
tens of thousands of years in the past, from the time before the ancestors left
the system, before the homeworld was destroyed.  To have rejected the God of
her fathers, only to fall to those who worship the same God, as he would have
wanted to be worshipped.
  The Admiral shook his head as he walked over to
the Com Officer’s station.

“We have the pyramid on
the screen, Admiral,” said the Lieutenant, looking at the ancient object
centered in the viewer.

“Send the signal, and
let’s see what happens,” said the Admiral, grasping the back of the officer’s
seat with his hand.

The Com Officer nodded
and pushed the lit tabs of the touch display.  “It’s on its way,” said the man,
the tension displayed in the set of his eyes.

Who can blame him
, thought the Admiral,
his own hands tensing on the back of the chair. 
This could be the wipe them
all out signal.

“Something’s
happening,” said the tech, staring at the screen.

The Admiral watched as
the view zoomed in to an area of the pyramid that was clear of the vines and
lianas that draped the rest of the structure.  Something was appearing there. 
Something that looked like a shadow against the sun dappled surface of the
structure.  It grew, and it took a moment for the Admiral to realize what it
was.  “The door is opening,” he whispered while watching the entrance to the
pyramid revealed.  For generations his own people had tried to open the
pyramids on the worlds they occupied, with no success.  And here one was
opening, and with it a possible link to the
Donut.

“Get me Commodore
Tisher,” ordered the Admiral, looking over at another com tech.  Eight more
ships had arrived from home.  The Nation of Humanity was risking all on this
venture, putting all of their starships in the Supersystem.  Home was protected
by less capable interplanetary vessels and orbital fortresses.  It was a roll
of the dice, but one Gerasi approved of.

“Admiral,” came the
voice of the younger officer as his face appeared on the viewer.

“Tisher,” said Gerasi,
walking over to look at the man eye to eye on the viewer.  “I want all of your
marines at that pyramid as soon as possible, along with as many naval techs as
you can spare.”

“I saw the thing
opening,” said the now wide eyed flag officer.  “What are my men to do?”

“We have an opportunity
to take the
Donut
,” said the Admiral, pointing at the pyramid on the other
viewer.  “Get your men down there, and tell them to jump through whatever open
wormhole they find.  If there is more than one, then send recon parties through
them all, but the primary target is that station.  Understood?”

“The
Donut
,”
stammered the man, his face paling.  “Do we dare send an invasion force there? 
What about the Abomination?”

“Fool,” said Gerasi,
glaring at the man.  “I dared to invade the station, and look at the benefits
of technology that we reaped.  And the Abomination is not on the station, but
is on this very world.  We have his woman, and he has come to rescue her.  If
we strike now we can own that station.  So send your men, and keep a com link
open with them.”

“Yes, sir,” said the
Commodore, saluting his superior.  “The men will not like it.”

“Whether they like it
or not is not my concern,” growled the Admiral.  “As long as they do their
duty.  And I am sure they will like it more when we reap the rewards of that
station, and they are given a share.  Gerasi out.

“Get me Midas on the
another link,” he said to the com tech, then waited a minute for the face of
his old flag captain and task force commander to come on the screen. 
“Vilaris.  I want you to take a task force of five ships and head for the
Donut
with all speed.  You are to contact the marines from Task Force Tisher when you
get there.”

“You’ve gotten the
code?” said the other officer, a smile breaking across his face.

“Yes, we have, old
friend,” said the Admiral, feeling his kinship with the other officer who saw
advantage before risk.  “And I want our ships there to complete the claim.  Get
under way as soon as possible.”

“Will do, Admiral,”
said the Commodore. 

The screen blanked and
Gerasi walked back to his chair.  He had set in motion that which he had wanted
to do for the last couple of years.  Now he would only have to wait.  And maybe
his men on the planet could capture the Abomination, and gain access to the
store of information he contained.

*     *     *

Watcher sat up in his
chair and stared into space as the computer alerted him to the opening of this
planet’s pyramid. 
What have those primitives done?
was his first
thought. 
They won’t know how to handle that technology
.  Visions of a
Galaxy at war, with the fanatical warriors of the Nation of Humanity destroying
all opposition with technology thousands of years ahead of their enemies.  Of
human polities, ones which may have grown to lead the Galaxy in peaceful
expansion and reconsolidation, going down in defeat with their cities
destroyed, their worlds laid to waste.  Of alien races hunted down, the last
member destroyed, no longer contributing their distinctive cultures to the
Galactic community.

And then he thought of
Pandora.  One of the strongest people he had ever known.  And the probable
source of the code transmission they had just used to open the pyramid.  And a
cold chill ran up his spine as he thought of what must have been done to get
that code out of her. 
Is she already dead?
he thought, the image of her
smiling face in the forefront of his mind.  He thought that a distinct
possibility, but not one he accepted at this time.

I should go back to the
pyramid
,
he thought, imagining the hordes of the enemy going through the wormhole and
invading the
Donut
.  He could change the codes, but not on remote.  He
would actually have to stand in one of the control chambers and access the
station computer in person, where it could verify who he was and that he was
not under duress.  And since the computer couldn’t order the taking of life on
its own, except when it was directly threatened, a sentient was needed to
initiate the defenses that would repel the invaders.

He should turn back, so
that he could get to the station and accomplish what needed to be done to keep
it from the hands of fanatical killers.  That would be the smart play, the one
an intelligent creature would make.  For what was any one person in comparison
to the Galaxy? He had been created to be the ultimate rational being.

The image of the woman
danced through his mind, and memories of their times together.  Making love in
one of the arboretums.  His explaining how something worked that her science
could not imagine.  His laughing at one of her silly colloquialisms.  Her
laugh, her touch, her scent, all things that he treasured.

I am in love with her
, he thought, images of
her bent and broken from torture running through his brain. 
I was created
to be the ultimate rational creature, but I still have feelings.  I still am a
man, a human, with wants and needs.  And Dammit, I want and need her.
  His
mind made up, Watcher ordered his tanks forward. 
I’m cut off from the Donut
by that portal.  So I’ll just have to use another one.

The river was not near
as wide as the monster he had crossed earlier.  He stopped his vehicles at the
edge, ten meters in, while he scanned the river with pizzos and microsats. 
There was a pair of patrol boats out there, fast lean shapes with turreted guns
and missile launchers to both sides of the cockpit.  From their configuration
he estimated a crew of five each.  Two fighters were also in the sky overhead,
as well as a troop carrier further up the waterway.  He thought again of his
woman in the clutches of the fanatics, and realized he didn’t have time for any
tricks like the one that had gotten him across the huge river.  Straightforward
violence would have to do. 

He prioritized the
targets and assigned them to the robotic brains of the tanks, waiting a moment
to make sure the enemy was doing what he wanted, patrolling in a predictable
pattern.  “Attack,” he ordered, manning the command and control center, ready
to change the orders in an instant to suit the situation.

The tanks to his left
and right both moved forward, their turrets traversing to acquire targets as
they sped onto the surface of the river, floating on their grabbers.  Their
kinetic cannons spoke as one, sending one kilogram projectiles down the
acceleration tubes and out on flat trajectories at twenty thousand meters per
second.  Both watercraft were within a kilometer of the tanks.  The rounds
struck faster than human minds could process, and both boats were obliterated
in fiery explosions that sent debris out for kilometers in every direction. 
The men were dead before they even realized they had been fired upon, and the
first threats were eliminated.