STAR EAGLE HAD BEEN AS ACCOMMODATING AS possible under the circumstances. The ship had a host of maintenance robots, most of which were quite specialized and of no practical use to the current crew, but a few could be turned into convenience mechanisms in a pinch. One, a spindly thing with a clamp and tray, was most useful: It was able to bring some blankets and other such luxuries from the remains of the old ship, as well as some more important items. An old casing with a medium-sized hole in the top became a portable toilet; it was smelly and not really built for human comfort and convenience, but it worked for now—if their little robot took it out at least every twelve hours or so to clean and sanitize it.
Water was no problem; the huge holding tanks on the ship contained all that was needed and could create more out of by-products if need be, all distilled pure. Food was much more critical; Star Eagle had to improvise with what was handy, and the result was a large cube of sickly green with the consistency of cake icing and a taste that was a cross between dead grass and library paste. It went down, however, did not upset, and provided the minimum necessary to sustain them. Later they could have more amenities; now they had to move, which meant that Star Eagle had to learn how to drive the ship. The information was there, but it was far more complicated than what a computer programmed and designed to run an interplanetary freighter was used to. The sheer bulk of data was the problem. All, even Star Eagle, knew their clock was ticking, however. Even now Master System would be closing in on them with heavily armed ships that knew exactly what they were up against.
The big ship was hardly defenseless; it had an enormous range of real and potential weapons at its disposal, suggesting that in the old days Master System was not at all confident of what it would find out in the farther reaches of space even though it knew where it was going and had scouted the routes. Had there been resistance? Had there been opposing interstellar civilizations? There was no way to know.
It took more than three days to power up the systems and check them out as best the computer could. Communication with the computer pilot was still awkward, however. It could flash a message on the bridge screens to let the humans know that it wanted to talk, but only the helmet radios allowed good two-way conversation. Still, it was now confident that it could at least get them out of there—but to where?
“Initially it doesn’t matter,” Hawks told it. “Just—away. Far away, and off the beaten track, as it were.”
“The fact that the existing star charts are nine centuries old doesn’t matter much,” Reba Koll assured them. “There is some shift, but not a lot and nothing that can’t easily be allowed for.” She worked with Star Eagle, who had figured out how to put star charts and grids up on the bridge screens without much trouble.
“I ain’t got time to explain how this drive works,” she told them, “if, of course, I knew how it did anyways. Best idea I can give you is if you take this here piece of cloth and make it hump up—curve. That’s how space is, really. Shortest distance ain’t across the top but straight through. You punch a hole here and you come out there. Course there’s lotsa other shit involved. There’s black holes and gravity curvatures and all the rest. Don’t look at me that way—I only fly ’em, I don’t hav’ta understand ’em. Net result is you tell it you wanta go there and if figures the route and trajectory and gets you there in days or weeks instead of years or centuries like it would the usual way. You let the pilot do the figures and time the jumps and energy and speed. Now, I suggested some routes to Star Eagle, but he’s got reservations.”
“The region she suggests is not well charted,” the pilot explained. “Oh, the stars are charted well enough, but there’s no detail. It was not part of the pattern of resettlement. Also, to get there we will have to make a large number of punches and this will intersect for the first half of the journey with the routings to and from the remote colonies. We must cross known shipping lanes.”
“Bah! That’s no worry!” Koll snorted. “The odds of actually hitting within sensor range of any ship is practically nil, but even if we did we could deal with those freighters and supply ships. There’s little or no armament on them. What’s to fight when you’re in Master System’s territory?”
“I was thinking more of monitors and navigational stations,” Star Eagle responded. “They could chart us without us even knowing about it. We could be traced. This interstellar punching is all straight-line routing. To change direction, course, or speed you have to come out, readjust, then punch in again. The amount of energy expended on the punch determines how far you go before you come out again. Just measure the energy level at the punch and note the course, direction, and speed, and it wouldn’t take a computer to figure the destination.”
“You’re not devious enough, pilot!” Koll told it. “I’ll explain misdirection to you. A series of small punches whenever we’re in a dangerous area. Each small punch increases the number of possible courses, directions, and speeds. Not even Master System has the resources to track down that many variables.”
“That will take time, though,” the computer pointed out. “There will be frequent recharges necessary. If we took a more or less direct route to the region you suggest it would take twenty-seven standard days. To do as you suggest would take three to five times as long.”
“But we’d get there,” she noted. “And we’d get there unknown and undetected. Maybe we’ll even have this stinkhole livable by then. Plot your course with the minimum number of exponential variables to get us there and get any possible snoopers hopelessly lost and confused. If we don’t get away clean, what difference did all this make?”
They took a vote—Sabatini excepted—and all agreed to her plan.
“My energy is sufficient,” Star Eagle told them. “Let’s do it.”
The vibrations, which had been growing throughout their tenure on the big vessel, grew much stronger now, more intense. The throbbing and pulsing sensation that at first had been difficult to get used to but had become merely background noise was in the background no longer.
“Everybody just lie on the floor as comfortably as you can and grab hold of something solid—a chair or something like that,” Koll instructed. “Once we’re completely up to speed and out we’ll be able to regain some movement.”
Forty thousand kilometers away and on station, Arnold Nagy jumped in his seat and then sat up straight. “She’s moving, Doc! They’re underway!”
“Strap in!” Clayben shouted back from below. “Punch in the codes and maintain distance and monitoring! We don’t want to lose them!”
The great ship came to life on the outside, as well. Red and green lights flashed on along the length and breadth of the ship, and in the rear huge engines flared into brilliance.
Quite slowly at first, but very clearly, the big ship turned and began to pull away from its siblings in orbit around Jupiter. On the bridge, loose objects floated toward the back wall and the vibration grew intense, joined now by yet another strange sound.
“Thunder,” Cloud Dancer whispered. “It sounds like the approach of a great storm across the prairie. This is truly a mighty ship. Does it have a name?”
“None that means anything anymore, I suspect,” her husband replied.
“Then it should be the Thunder,” she said. “That is the awe that it inspires, and that is its sound and being, its soul.”
“What about it, everyone? Star Eagle? Shall this ship henceforth be the Thunder?”
“It is an appropriate and mighty name,” China responded.
“And easy to remember,” Chow Dai added.
The computer was agreeable. “Then we are the Thunder. I think it is a good name.”
“I think I’m gonna puke,” Carlo Sabatini said.
For something so huge, the ship’s acceleration rate was startling. Within two hours it had cleared the grip of mighty Jupiter and was heading in a great arc that would take it first away, then back toward the mighty giant at tremendous speed. It would use this combination of speed and the gravity of the mighty planet to build up massive acceleration very quickly.
As the speed grew, the more pronounced the sounds of thunder became, as if just outside and all around them raged a great storm.
For those on the bridge, the long hours of getting underway and the limitations it placed on them was simultaneously exciting, somewhat frightening, and extremely boring. Finally, however, the rate smoothed out, and they could move about easily again. But some of the vibration and noise remained, giving them a constant feeling of motion, even though inside the ship all was calm and still.
“We’re being followed,” Star Eagle reported. “A single ship. Small. Unfamiliar design. I have searched all database patterns and can find nothing close to it. Great power. It might well be interstellar capable.”
Reba Roll frowned. “Master System? A Val?”
“It is somewhat like their ships, but it is not one of them. Besides, my sensors show a life-support system activated aboard it. Not certain, but it is probably a rogue ship, like us.”
China thought that over. “It’s possible that Melchior had something in reserve. Those fighters it tried to use against us were pretty impressive overall and also of a unique design. They were using a sister ship of our old ship to give chase. Star of Islam, I believe. Could the Star have carried it?”
“Not inside,” the pilot told her, “but piggybacked on the exterior it would be no problem at all. It contains weapons systems that might be close to what their fighters had, but those fighters were not manned. Any action recommended?”
China talked it over with Reba Koll and the others. “No,” she finally replied. “If we hail it, they’ll know we know about them and possibly make it harder for us to keep track of them. If we slow to bring them in range of our weapons it will also cause great delay in us getting out of here, which is the first priority. Are you certain there is only one? No more?”
“Yes. One.”
“Then let it follow. If it gets within weapons range, hail it and order it to stand down and be boarded or destroy it. If it attacks, defend. Otherwise, do nothing until we are well away from this stellar system. Even if they are of Melchior they are in an illegal ship engaged in prohibited activity. My guess is that they did not think we could do what we have done, but now that we have they want what we want but for themselves. We will deal with them when we can.”
“Acknowledged. I am now receiving faint stop orders on both superspace and subspace command frequencies. Master System knows about the Thunder.”
“To be expected,” Raven commented. “We’re hotter than a burial fire right now. What’s the odds of us being intercepted by any force that could do us any real harm?”
“Very slim. Negligible. They might get a ship in before I can make the punch but nothing that could handle these systems. They really don’t make weapons ships like that. A Val ship would have the most firepower, and that would be little more than that of the fighters Melchior sent against us. The security computer informs me that this ship is able to take virtually any known system of its own day, and they were far more heavily armed then than now. Our worst enemy would be another ship like this one, and it is unlikely that such would be set against us. Too easy to avoid. Security believes it most likely that Master System will order ships constructed specifically to exploit our weaknesses and take us out, but that will take considerable time. If we can get lost the first time, and if we are careful, it is unlikely even they will find us when they can surprise us and take us.”
“Then they won’t try to take us aboard,” Raven surmised. “We’re no real threat or problem cooped up in this monster. If they can’t trace us now, they’ll put out all the alarms and wait for us to move.”
Hawks sighed. “Yeah. If we know where three of the rings are, good old Master System knows where all of them are, I bet, and has a pretty good eye out for them. Unlike those bastards from Melchior back there, it doesn’t really have to chase us. It just has to wait, and we must come to them.”
“Infinite patience is one of the hallmarks of computers,” China noted darkly.
Hawks scratched his chin. “Don’t get too downcast. Maybe it is impossible. So is what we have done so far.”
A few hours later the pilot reported, “I have attained sufficient speed for a punch and we are sufficiently clear of Jupiter’s gravitational pull that I can compensate for it. There should not be any untoward effects, but I cannot predict for certain, never having done it before.”
“Won’t be nothin’,” Reba Koll assured them. “Might sound like the whole ship’s breakin’ apart, but don’t let that worry you none. Once it’s done, it’ll be still and quiet as death until we come out the other side. You might get some funny feelings inside or even some hallucinations, but they’ll only last a real short while, and it’s a good idea to sit or lie down ’cause most everybody gets a little dizzy, but it all passes pretty fast and each time you do it the effects will be less and less. Just relax and don’t let it scare you.”
They waited, nervous in spite of Koll’s assurances, and the punch came.
First there was tremendous vibration that continued to build with a supporting roaring sound until it seemed to engulf them. At that moment the lights blinked and the sound seemed to fade as if swallowed up in some huge drain; the vibration, too, settled down to a level far lower than that produced by the regular space drive. There was a wave of dizziness, and some nausea, and each one of them found his or her attention fixed on something—an object, a reflection, even another person—unable to tear away that gaze. Even China, who could see nothing, appeared to be staring at something specific in her world of darkness.
Hawks stared involuntarily at the blind girl and she seemed to shimmer, taking on a wraithlike appearance of stunning beauty. She seemed to float up and come toward him, then change again into a horrible, skeletal monster, jaws open, coming for him—
He screamed, and suddenly everything was back to normal. He found himself sweating and shaken, breathing hard, and it took a few moments for him to get hold of himself and look around and reaffirm reality. The others had varying degrees of reaction, but all of them clearly had seen something, something uniquely their own. Sabatini looked scared to death, and the Chows were shivering. Sooner or later, Hawks decided, he would find out what each had seen, but for now he just noted the differences. Of them all, Raven and Warlock looked the least affected and the least concerned.
The thunder was quiet now; there was nothing but a very low steady vibration through the deck and walls, quite distant. None of them, except perhaps Koll, understood what had just happened, but Hawks grasped at least the basics. Somehow, they were no longer in the universe at all. Somehow, now, they were in another medium, somewhere else, traveling across a ripple in space-time by the shortest available route.
It was a frightening, awesome concept, yet it meant one thing above all.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Raven commented aloud to no one in particular. “We actually got away.”
Spanning hundreds, perhaps thousands, of light-years by the punch method was incredible, but it still took time.
Some of that time was spent in attaining a more livable, civilized environment. Star Eagle now had a reasonable command of the ship’s systems and how they worked. The maintenance computer subsystem was employed creating and then using an army of spindly robots that were able to turn chambers in the bow of the Thunder into reasonably private rooms. Much of the old ship was dismantled, its essential parts modified and duplicated by the Thunder’s transmuters. A square meter of passenger-lounge carpeting was sufficient for the transmuters to create a carpeted floor for the new rooms and for the bridge. The old ship’s toilets were modified and duplicated, as well, and tied into new piping using the vast support system of the Thunder. The old ship’s transmuter-driven automated galley was reinstalled with some modifications, allowing the old menus to be used. The bridge chairs were replaced with copies of the more practical and comfortable passenger lounge chairs. Since the Thunder wasted nothing and recycled everything, even a shower chamber was possible, although in the zero gravity it had to be a more or less sealed system and strictly a one-at-a-time affair.
Of equal importance were the interfaces that had to be designed and installed between the passengers and the pilot and master of the Thunder, a central amplifier and communications system that might eventually extend to the whole of the ship; a way of specifying human-supplied designs for the transmuters to work with, to create things like furnishings for the new cabins and some basic clothing. The women chose robes with soft linings and rope ties; the men got flimsy versions of Sabatini’s usual shirt and pants. Only Manka Warlock broke the pattern by insisting on the shirt and pants for herself.
China and Reba Koll worked on installing the interface helmets on the bridge. China was anxious to see if they would work here as on the old, smaller ship. The idea of interfacing with Star Eagle and becoming one with this ship excited her.
Some tubular lighting was arranged, but it was still kept low and indirect. In normal space there was no power problem, but during a punch the ship was the only reality; there was nothing at all outside, according to the pilot. Nothing. That meant that all transmuting—all power consumption—was accomplished using materials within the ship, and particularly with all the modifications and construction going on it was a drain. There was a consensus not to start cannibalizing the ship for luxuries until they knew their limits and understood their new environment.
They also began exploring the ship.
There were over twenty thousand pods in the transport bay. There had been a hundred ships like this one, and an Earth population of possibly six billion, when the grand project had begun. That meant that each ship had made hundreds of round trips over the two or more centuries of interstellar colonization. The time frame was not clear in the records, but the evidence here was clear enough. The Thunder was a veteran indeed.
Slave ship, Hawks couldn’t help thinking.
“How many worlds are charted as being part of the settlement?” he asked Star Eagle.
“Four hundred and forty-seven,” was the reply. “But it might not be complete. The region spans over forty thousand light-years.”
He tried doing some quick math in his head. That was only about thirteen or fourteen million a world!
“The initial populations were not large,” the computer agreed. “Nor was Mars, the prototype, if you remember. There are almost two hundred million Martians now, and they have a relatively slow birth rate. You forget that Earth was limited in its reproductive rates and carefully regulated, but that this does not necessarily hold true for these worlds. It is entirely possible that we could find planets with billions on them—or planets with few, if any, survivors. How would we know?”
“Four hundred forty-seven,” Raven commented. “Minimum. Good thing we know where three of the rings are.”
“Ever the optimist,” Hawks retorted. “We know the worlds where they are, but nothing about those worlds and nothing about how many possible leaders could have them. And that leaves us with just four hundred and forty-four other worlds in which to find the last ring. Perhaps our grandchildren or great-grandchildren might find it.”
“Don’t you worry, Chief. We’ll find it. We didn’t come this far to fail in that. Stealin’ it, and the others, will be the tough job.”
“Please pardon the intrusion,” Chow Dai put in, “but might I be permitted to ask why, if this Master System knows that we know, it will not just collect or hide all four, perhaps all five, from us before we can even try for them?”
It was a good question. “There’s no easy answer to that,” Hawks told her. “It remains a possibility, but I think not for several reasons. First, those rings are the only avenue to us. It knows we’re going after them, and so it will be waiting for us. Second, there’s something very odd going on here. There’s more than just us in this. Maybe you should ask Raven about that.”
The Crow’s eyebrows went up. “Don’t know what you mean, Chief. I told you the straight stuff. Chen’s the only one I know behind all this. Word of honor.”
Hawks privately doubted that Raven’s honor was worth very much, but he knew it was fruitless to press the point. It was even possible that the former security man was telling the truth. Why would Chen select this crew—particularly this group—and think they had a snowball’s chance in hell of succeeding? He’d asked himself that a thousand times and had no answer, yet Chen was a wily, even brilliant man. Did Chen, and perhaps Raven, know something that might explain it, and might also explain how they had been able in the first place to pull this off under a system that had some cracks but no chasms? They had walked through the Grand Canyon of cracks in Master System’s rule, and they should not have been able to do so.
In many ways, the Thunder proved something of a disappointment in that beyond its transport bays and incredible lengths of corridors and catwalks there was little else with any use for humans. In spite of the mysteries of the bridge and its interfaces, the ship had never been built with humans in mind for anything except cargo. Much of the romance engendered by the mere sight and thought of such a ship was gone in the sterile metals and plastics of the reality. Star Eagle could show them more than they could see themselves on the screens of the bridge—another anomaly. If the ship was run by a remote computer brain directly connected to service and security subbrains and to the mobile machines they controlled, why were there viewing screens on the bridge?
The star drive was actually forward and well shielded against any type of prying. It appeared that “punch” was indeed as good a word as any for what it did; it appeared to focus forward, open up some sort of hole in space-time, and allow the ship through, encased somewhat in an energy field to protect it from whatever forces were out there now. The massive rear drives were strictly for in-system movement and docking, and were not used in interstellar flight at all.
The top of the ship, as oriented from the bridge, consisted of massive tanks of gases, fuels, and all else needed both to sustain the human cargo and to provide whatever was necessary to the ship’s systems. If the Thunder had a weak point, this was it, but the tanks were armored to an amazing degree and atop them were complexes of defensive weapons. If a potential attacker somehow got past the fourteen small automated fighters that provided the ship’s primary defense, there would still be no easy taking of the main ship.
Below were the four massive cargo bays, in one of which sat the remains of the interplanetary ship that had brought them from Melchior. Each of the bays had extensive equipment for moving and reaching almost any point in the cavities, and independent medium-sized transmuters.
“One thing I haven’t figured out,” Raven said, “is how they got all those people in here and back out again. There’s no docking piers for support ships.”
“This ship could never land anywhere,” China explained. “The transmuter is the heart of Master System’s whole scheme. It is the heart of everything that also makes the rest possible. Some are used simply to manufacture spare parts, repairs, and to recycle everything that can no longer be used. The corps of robots Star Eagle is using were nothing but plans in the ship’s data banks, fed to transmuters along with something of necessary mass—exhaust gases, waste products, debris, garbage. The mass is transformed into energy and then reformed as whatever solid matter the ship might need. There are transmuters in the bow which can literally scoop up space debris—rock, dust, gases—and feed them into the storage tanks above us in compressed form. When we’re inside a punch, as now, the ship uses this stored material to keep itself and everything else going. These were very low when we moved out, but in the transit of Jupiter the ship picked up enough to fill those holding tanks.”
“Yeah, but—people?”
“In the same way that the things can change one form of matter or energy into another, it can also maintain a specific object. All of it is catalogued when it is picked up, so if necessary it could be reformed as itself. We could put you in a transmuter, reduce you to energy, then beam that energy to a receiving transmuter along with that pattern. You would then be converted back into yourself. The process would take only as long as light required to travel the distance.”
“Space travel without spaceships,” Hawks commented. “Incredible.”
“But very limited. First, there must be a matching transmuter at the destination. Second, the signal must be very powerful to retain its full consistency from station to station, which limits its range. Third, it is strictly line of sight, and conditions must be perfect. In the old days, initial setup ships must have been sent to all the new worlds and transmuter receiving stations established at various points on each planet’s surface. Then, when the passengers came along, they could be beamed serially—one at a time—to the receiving stations. What you send from here is precisely what you get down there. There is a mobile transmuter system in the main cargo area that seems almost like a gun; it is designed to move along guides on the catwalks and line up to each cargo cavity. It is connected to the external system, so we know that the people were put to sleep on Earth, then beamed up to here and inserted sequentially into the holding modules. Upon arrival at the new world, the process was reversed. They probably never even knew about all this. They went to sleep on Earth and woke up on a strange world.”
“But not necessarily the way they left,” Raven noted. “I saw a Martian once. They came from human stock but there’s no way they’re human like us.”
China nodded. “That was the primary function of the missing fourth module in the core. It was preprogrammed with certain necessary biological information. The cargo bay mobile transmuter made a new pass after all were aboard and the ship was underway. Each human occupant was once more dissolved to energy and then reformed as something else—a human able to live and survive on the target world. Otherwise, it would have taken thousands of years to change those worlds into places fit for human habitation. The transmuting of individual humans must be extremely precise and exacting, requiring a second core module and probably supporting data banks to get it right. Many human beings certainly died each time a new form was attempted before the computers got it right. Then they sent a small colony to the new world to see if they could and would survive there. Only then did mass transmutations and movements of large numbers of people begin. It was the only logical way such a plan could be carried out, but the cost in lives must have been quite high.”
“Even when they got there,” Hawks put in, a bit awed and more than a little frightened by all this, “this would change the body, but not the mind, a mind used to thinking in human terms, to seeing things according to human standards, even themselves. They had to learn to be alien creatures. Many would be unable to do so. Many more would go mad.”
“That’s true,” she agreed. “Although I suspect that the mindprinters were used to minimize it. Take data and information from the early colonists who survived and adapted, and feed it to the newcomers when they come down. The mindprinter taught most of us the English we are using, and made some of this possible. It could teach the basics.”
Hawks had a sudden, uneasy thought. “You say it takes a receiving station to work as a transport mechanism? Then how will we get to wherever it is Koll is taking us? How will we get down there? And, when we go after the rings, how will we get to the target planet? Assuming the stations on the planets are still operational, we can’t use them. It would be like a thief walking up to the front door, knocking, and announcing himself to the intended victim.”
“Getting to the surface of a world not in the system should be possible,” she told him. “Star Eagle assures me he can duplicate the necessary receiving station and get it down using one of the fighters, although I suspect it’s more complex than that. Getting into the other worlds will be much tougher. For one thing, the Thunder is going to be rather obvious in a stellar system controlled by Master System. We will have to work on that.”
“Bah!” Raven snorted. “We are like children in this! The technology is so beyond us that we are no less ignorant than Cloud Dancer! We might as well be villagers faced with great magic!”
“So?” China responded. “What difference does that make? Back at the Center where you lived and worked, did you really understand why and how the light came on when you touched the wall switch? Did you understand the process by which your food arrived, or did you just take it for granted and eat it? The same for the heating and the air conditioning and all the rest. I can fly a skimmer, but I have only a vague idea of how it works. I can use powerful computers, yet I do not truly understand how they think and the intricacies of their work. One does not have to know how something works to use it. Many people have been killed by guns wielded by gunmen who have not the slightest idea of the physics involved. Even Star Eagle does not understand some of that which he is doing. He was never intended to run a ship of this type and complexity. He does, however, have access to the operating instructions and can run them.”
“Point taken,” Hawks replied. “All right, so we savages can manage this thing. I think the time has come to have a council meeting and decide just what the hell we are really going to do.”
They sat in a circle on the bridge, relaxed but interested, not all of them understanding what this more formal meeting was for.
“I called this meeting, but that may be a temporary usurpation of authority,” Hawks began. “Among my people, this would be a tribal council convened to create rules, objectives, and policies for all. We come from different places and different backgrounds. We think in different tongues, and some of us have less in common with one another than even we might think. However, we come here with a common bond. We are all fugitives. We all live under a death sentence or even worse. We also share a secret, of sorts. We know that there is a way to beat Master System. We know that there is a way to totally destroy the dictatorship of the machine. We are all here, together, with no others to share our bond, and we are, in a sense, stuck with each other, like it or not. We are all escaping now, but not to a specific place or a specific set of objectives. Before we can discuss the future and set those objectives, we must have someone in charge, not as dictator or chief but as chairman, as it were, of a collective.”
“You’re doin’ fine, Chief,” Raven said. “I’m content to let you chair the meetings and bang the drums. Some of us know about the different parts of humanity and some of us know a lot about machines but you’re the one person here with the education to see the big picture. Any objections?”
There were some nervous glances from side to side, but nobody seemed to be unhappy with that.
“Very well, I assume the leadership, but when a majority of you is dissatisfied with it, I will step down. I will appoint our China, here, second in command and with full authority. I think the two of us are better at planning than in direct action. Very well. We then proceed to the first really important item on the agenda. Captain Koll, just where are we heading?”
“In the bush, sir. A region two punches off any known interstellar routes. It was crudely scouted in the old days by Master System and there were some early experiments on some planets there, but none proved out. There are several stellar systems there that show some promise and might possibly sustain a land base with the support of the Thunder. We can’t be expected to live in this can indefinitely. It’s not healthy and it’s a sitting duck. If we’re tied to it absolutely we’ll just have to accept a life of constantly being on the run, or heading this thing out and just punching until we’re so far away even we couldn’t find our way back. If we’re gonna stay close enough to Master System to do some damage, then we can’t ever have all our eggs in one basket. Somebody’s gotta survive, with the information on the rings and the story of all this.”
“I find the ship more than adequate,” China responded. “It can be modified to support many more of us, and it gives us mobility. We do not seem a likely group for survival on a hostile world.”
There were several nods, but Hawks understood what Koll was saying.
“This is not and cannot be a passive vessel,” he told them. “We are going to have to get what we cannot make for ourselves. The interstellar shipping system is totally automated and runs that way. Right now it is vulnerable, perhaps wide open to us. We need smaller, more practical interstellar vessels. We need backups to our systems. We will also need information channels, and that will mean direct contact with freebooters and the like, those who live outside the system. We will need to pillage and plunder, as it were, and also to reconnoiter our target systems without advertising our presence to Master System. Everyone, even the freebooters themselves, might be our enemy. The captain is correct. If we are to be pirates, we must have a place to study and bury our loot. We will eventually require more people, perhaps as allies. And, finally, these confines are no place to raise children, and we will have children, won’t we, China?”
She nodded somberly. “Yes. Star Eagle was checking out the transmuter system and eventually required a human. It—tickles. All over. Nothing more. You are not even aware that it is done until it is over. In so doing, he also had to make a molecule-by-molecule memory map of me in order to reconstruct me. I was aware that a transmuter was used upon me by Clayben’s staff on Melchior. I was not aware until now of the extent.” Her voice was dry, hollow, as if that tough exterior was about to fragment into a million pieces.
Star Eagle broke in. “She has been thoroughly transmuted,” the computer pilot reported, “although the changes are not so obvious. I had hoped to be able to restore her to some semblance of normalcy with my devices, but that is impossible. Perhaps Master System could restore her, but I cannot. There is a certain—instability—inherent in a full transmutation. I knew that just from the small transmuters on the old ship. There are some minor losses each time something is actually changed—no loss if absolutely reconstructed. That was why a separate core was needed to transmute the human cargo of this ship. There is literally no tolerance for errors. The losses she suffered at the hands of Melchior are negligible, but to do it again would compound those losses. Reassembly might well kill or cripple her. There is some indication that this is actually built into the system when dealing with complex organic life forms. Master System wanted to make certain that none of those it created could change themselves back. It wanted permanency, and it designed it into the system.”
“I was—am—a genetic experiment,” China explained. “My father worked to create me. My extreme beauty—I am not saying that to be egotistical—and my very high intelligence were part of it. I was part of a larger project to breed a race of superior intellects, intellects that might do more than simply cheat on the system. I was but stage one, however; that race was to be bred, and it was my purpose to be one of those who would bear the next generation that might be the rebels. It was to escape this life as a breeding factory that I fled. I saw my father as unfeeling, as even evil, and I ran into the hands of Clayben, who was far more unfeeling and evil than my father ever dreamed of being. Melchior was Clayben’s playpen, possibly the only place in the known universe where such vast knowledge and power could be wielded without restraint by human beings. He examined me, discovered my background, and decided my father was correct.”
“But you escaped from him, as well,” Chow Dai noted.
“Not soon enough. They analyzed what my father’s geneticists and biochemists had done and made improvements on it in computer models, but as you know such modifications would not be inheritable if induced, unlike my father’s more direct approach with laboratory eggs and sperm. They were also aware of all that I had accomplished in escaping my father, Center, and even Earth. They wanted my mind and my body—in that, at least, their ideas were better than my father’s—but they wanted me secure, particularly if I was to work with their best computers and data bases. Melchior was originally established as a research station by Master System to create the Martians. It has a small but very workable transmuter. They use it for many experiments. Captain Koll’s tail is a good example.”
“I’m more familiar with it than you know, dearie,” Koll said enigmatically.
“At any rate, they modified me. All of me. Incorporated their genetic changes to be inheritable, building on my father’s work. Star Eagle can tell you the rest.”
“They wanted to make certain she couldn’t pull a fast one on them,” the pilot told them. “That was how they hit on the blindness. She is not merely blind—she does not even have the processing inputs for visual images. The entire interconnection system simply isn’t there as it is in you. This is not a genetic modification; her children will see. There may be devices that bypass all of that that might just work, but I have no knowledge of them. She is also what might only be called a baby factory. Brain and body chemistry is set up for that. Her natural and normal condition is pregnancy. When she is not pregnant she will have almost no self-control. She will become increasingly frenzied until that condition is restored, after which she will again be as she is now. The combination of genetic work and Melchior’s modifications is astonishing. She is resistant to much of what afflicts others. She will age very slowly and heal very quickly. Her defensive and regenerative powers are enormous and automatic. She could very easily remain youthful and sexually functional for sixty or seventy years.”
That got them all. Sixty or seventy years with pregnancy a natural condition . . .
“Even in my day there was ways to beat that,” Reba Koll noted. “Fool the body into thinkin’ it’s pregnant, or, hell, take out the equipment if you can’t shut it off.”
“Not here. Her body would treat any control method I might be able to come up with as if it were a disease and destroy it or render it ineffective. The same would go for psychochemicals. Surgical alteration would be repaired and healed quickly by the body and in the interim she would still be possessed of the lust and frenzy, which is induced by chemicals made in her own body. They knew she had used mindprinters before to her advantage, along with psychochemical alterations, and they wanted to be certain she could not do so again. To remove her reproductive organs would be far worse. It would drive her horribly and irreparably mad. A bullet in the brain would be kinder, and quicker. No, they fed her mindprint into their computers and their computers came up with an absolute system. I am not certain what Clayben intended—breed his own super race, perhaps. In the meantime, so long as she was pregnant, he had the complete services of her mind and abilities.”
That stunned those who hadn’t already known about it, but Hawks had a different point to this information. “Understand this well, then. We need her mind and her skills; therefore, she will receive what she needs when she requires it. If we are to have a substantial second generation, then it might fall to them eventually to get the last of the rings. We require a colony.”
“There’s darker stuff here, Chief,” Raven put in. “More than that problem. I been listenin’ to all this and, as you know, I followed it when we was still researching the whole thing, and when I first heard about these transmuters I figured our problem on getting into our target world was solved. We could change ourselves into what was needed. Now I see that’s not gonna happen. For one thing, old Star Eagle don’t have the codes and genetic shit to do it to any of us. For another, even if he did, it’s a one-way trip. There’s no way I’m gonna be changed into a monster for good, or, even if it was something I didn’t mind bein’, wind up bein’ left forever on some world while somebody else sticks them rings in Master System’s ass.”
“A good point,” Hawks agreed. “I’m afraid we might have to face the transmuter to accomplish our goals, at least at the start, but while that sacrifice might have to be made by some or even all of us, I could not ask anyone to place him- or herself in the position of having to remain behind. I am personally prepared to make any sacrifice, including death or mutilation, to end the tyranny, but only if it means something. I would not shed an eyelash if it meant that an Isaac Clayben or a Lazlo Chen, who is much the same sort, would wind up our masters. I know enough history to understand that achieving a revolution is not the same as winning it. I am as dedicated to our revolution as I can be, but I am equally dedicated to not replacing Master System with a human monster.”
“I’m afraid I shall have to insist on a planetary base,” Star Eagle interjected. “I will need time to convert this ship into something more practical, and I will require independence and mobility.”
“All right, so we’re agreed that far,” Raven said. “So we go out there and we build a base, more than a colony. Then what?”
“As I said, piracy. We need mobility. We have the only active colony ship in the known universe. We need another ship, preferably more than one. Their data banks alone might tell us of other targets worth hitting and the schedules we need. We outfit them. Either Star Eagle converts them to our side or we learn to fly them without a core. Outfit them. Weapons. Sensors. Our own communications and codes. Then it will be time for some of us to make contact with the freebooters. By that time we’ll have something of a mysterious reputation. We need information. We need to know about these worlds we’re going to be going to. Who are the people there? What’s the culture, the language, the physical and biological problems? Who’s in charge and who runs what? Which leader wears a large gold ring with a design in it? Does anyone know of another that we do not? Step by step, a bit at a time, with infinite patience and dedication.”
“It sounds impossible,” China commented.
“It’s not. Difficult, yes. Dangerous, yes. Certain? By no means. I would say the odds are against us overwhelmingly. But impossible it certainly is not. I have thought it through and thought it through until my head burst, but I think I have it now. What Raven and Warlock, there, and Chen as well, knew from the start.” He looked at the Crow and the Jamaican beauty. “It can’t be impossible, can it? It is required to be at least possible.”
The Crow grinned. “You got it, Chief. You’re smarter than I thought. I would have explained it, sooner or later, but why bother now?”
“I do not understand this,” Cloud Dancer commented. “Pardon my ignorance, but I must have much of this explained. The evil lord I understand, and his great power, and the use of the talismans to break his power, but—required?”
“Don’t feel bad,” China said. “They just lost me, too.”
“Think about the story,” Hawks urged them. “Master System is incredibly powerful, but it is a computer. A computer designed by humans. All this, all this subjugation of humanity, the reduction of Earth to primitivism, the diaspora that scattered and somewhat dehumanized the vast bulk of humanity, all was simply an interpretation by that computer of its creators’ command. Think about that. Command. It was commanded to find a way so that humanity could never destroy itself completely. It was commanded to find a way so humanity could never use its terrible weapons of mass destruction nor spread them. It was a classic deal-with-a-demon fable. Out of fear, or desperation, or whatever, those people raised a great demon and they offered it absolute power over them and their dominions in exchange for safety. They tried as best they could to build into their wish every safeguard, to close every loophole, but the demon, being a demon, was far too clever for even the most brilliant of mere mortals and found the loopholes anyway. It granted their wish—and took away the souls of their children and grandchildren unto the last generation and swept away all their works. But we’re safe—from everything except the demon.”
“But they must still have suspected or they wouldn’t have created the rings in the first place,” China pointed out.
“Indeed. I think, perhaps, it was simply part of the bargain. The demon, as all great legends have it, must fulfill the wishes as stated. It is compelled to do so. One safeguard was the rings—the magic talismans, as my wife referred to them—and what went with them. A guarantee of some access. The rings must be in human hands—humans with authority. If any are lost or destroyed, duplicates must be made and provided to said leaders. The other part of the bargain must be a guarantee of access. We have a right to go after the rings, to gather them together, and to make our way with them to Master System and use them. A right, guaranteed as part of the bargain—the core program of Master System itself, a core that could not be altered. Another part of the bargain.”
China nodded, and even Cloud Dancer, Reba Koll, and the Chows seemed to get the idea. Sabatini sulked off in a corner in silence, and Silent Woman was as impassive as ever.
“It could scatter them among the stars, because there were now humans out there with authority of sorts,” China said in wonder. “It could try to stamp out all knowledge of the rings and their purpose and use. But it could not violate the basics. It just made it damned near impossible for anybody to actually do it.”
“Perhaps not as impossible as you think,” Raven responded. “We never really thought it was an accident that the data on the rings survived all these centuries, or that it was discovered now. See, there’s a real indication that Master System is gonna radically change people, even on Earth. Wipe out civilization and knowledge, push us back to the start, make us little better than apes with clubs. But, see, that really would make it impossible. Old Master System slipped up. By merely making that decision it forced itself into a vulnerable position. Ten to one it’s pulled back now from doing that, thanks to us, because otherwise it might make a lot more teams like us ’cause it has to. But before it fully understood what it was doing, we got out—and maybe others. We might not be the only ones who know and got away, you know. We might not even be the only ones Chen arranged for. There’s that ship that was following us, for example.”
That was a sobering thought.
“In the light of first things first, what should we do about that ship?” Hawks asked them.
“Blow ’em out of the skies,” Reba Koll replied. “You can’t give any quarter in this and expect to succeed.”
“That would solve the problem,” Hawks admitted, “but I don’t see any reason right now to do so. If we must, we must, but I just can’t see any direct purpose to indiscriminate killing. If it was a Val ship, it’s be different, but it’s definitely got humans on board.”
“You got the question wrong, Chief,” Raven interjected. “It’s why is it following us? It can’t take us; but it’s taking a big risk that we’ll take it. If they wanted to join up, they’d have called us by now. If it was Master System, there wouldn’t be people on board for any reason. They’d just get in the way. Figure it’s this Nagy fellow and maybe others from Melchior. They know about the rings thanks to the mindprints they took from you, but they don’t know where to look. We could really use that ship but we have to destroy it or lose it unless they give it to us. They’re just on our tail ’cause they don’t know where to go and they’re otherwise as lost as we are. I say we try to lose ’em. Can you shake them, Star Eagle?”
“The problem would be in the energy required for quick punches in and out,” the computer reported. “Yes, I could lose them. It is not that difficult, but it would leave us without punch power for quite some time and exposed while we’re still in the shipping lanes. There is a low, but definite, probability that we might be sensed or spotted by Master System.”
Hawks sighed. “All right, then. When we punch out, we’ll give them one chance and a warning. If nothing else, it might reveal just who they are and whether they are acting alone. If we can’t cut a deal and they won’t talk to us, then we will take some sort of drastic action. Before I will kill or expose us to needless risk, though, I would like to know who it is I am killing and why.”
“Ship still back there, Star Eagle?”
“Yes. It has dropped back but is still within range.”
Hawks sighed. “Open up communications and patch me through, then.”
“Channels are open. You are on the three most common frequencies. I will narrow it when and if they reply. We are exposed in this position although I sense nothing nearby or in range. Even so, I would rather not make broad-band broadcasts. The signals will travel, and it might be one more way of being traced.”
“This is Jon Nighthawk aboard the Thunder to the ship in our wake. Respond, please.”
There was no reply.
“This is Hawks aboard the Thunder. I would rather talk but I cannot risk this sort of broadcast for long, If I receive no response from you I will have no choice but to determine you a hostile ship and order fighters to launch and commence action against you. You have one minute.”
He paused, then said, “Fifty seconds,” and counted down every ten seconds. He was not bluffing, but if he launched he would have to recover those fighters, as well, and that would be needless delay in the middle of a shipping lane. “Ten . . . nine . . . eight . . . seven . . . ”
“All right, damn it! We’re here,” came a gruff male voice through the speakers. “I suppose this was inevitable anyway.”
“You are following us,” Hawks noted, “not the other way around. You must have thought it through—that if you were close enough to keep us on your sensors the reverse was also true.”
“We assumed nothing of the sort. Who would have believed you could attain mastery of a ship like that in so short a time? Very well, let’s talk. You’re in trouble, and so are we.”
“We are not nearly in the same predicament as you are. If we are all on the same side here, why follow? Why not hail us and join us?”
There was a pause. “Because it would be my death at the least if I were to fall into your hands, and a very unpleasant one, that’s why.”
“I’d know that voice anywhere,” Reba Koll muttered. “That’s Clayben! Shoot him, damn it! Rip his guts out!”
Hawks was startled by the outburst, but ignored it. “I can see your point from the reaction here, Doctor. Captain Koll considers just your existence in my sights to be sufficient grounds to blow you to hell.”
“That is not Captain Koll. Koll’s dead, been dead almost two years now. That is an inhuman, terrifying monstrosity, a horror. It’s the thing that killed Koll and assumed her identity. I should know. I created the damned thing.”
“Stand by,” Hawks said. That uneasy chill he felt only when danger lurked close at hand was creeping into him. He turned and looked at Koll. “Isn’t it about time you explained this, or should I ask him?”
“He told you true,” she admitted unhesitatingly. “At least about the fact I ain’t Koll and that I’m not human and that he’s responsible for it. I kinda object to the horror and monstrosity parts, though. I ain’t such a bad sort. I only kill at all ’cause he made it so I have to. I got choices, though. I got a conscience. I don’t kill none who don’t deserve it unless it’s them or me. You gotta believe that.”
Hawks felt his throat going dry, and he licked his lips nervously. “We were depending on you to take us someplace safe. If you’re not Koll, then even if the rest of what you say is true, how am I to trust you?”
“’Cause I got all of Koll’s memories, you idiot! I’m a damned near perfect imitation—absolutely perfect when I wanna be!”
“Doctor? You want to explain all this?”
There was a pause on the radio. “It was a grand experiment,” Clayben said finally. “Melchior, all of it, was devoted to just one ultimate goal: Beating the system. Cheating it. Eventually, hopefully, destroying it. I was taking up the work of my predecessors, that’s all. We—our computers and our experts in security and biology—thought we had a part of the answer. A weapon, as it were, in human form. A being who could beat the system at will. Become anyone it wished. Sail through security ports, passing every test—memory, retinal prints, even blood and tissue samples. Gain the full knowledge of whomever it imitated and therefore have full access to anyplace human beings could go. The first of a race, an army, that would collapse the whole control system. We used the transmuter for the final prototype. It worked, but it worked too well. The—thing—saw no difference between humans and computers. It hated us all. It killed half the station before we found a way to incapacitate it and stabilize it. We could have killed it—absolute incineration or transmutation to gas or energy would have done it—but we could not. It was so close. It almost worked. We kept it—stabilized. In human form. With the chemical compounds we used, it would remain stable for two, three years. Then it would have to have another template, another form. We used prisoners for whom we had no other use.”
“Like Koll.”
“Like Koll. But the next time it—feeds—and changes, there won’t be any compound. No chemicals. It will be free to do it at will. It will kill all of you and absorb your knowledge, your memories. It wants the rings for itself. God will be an insane monster!”
Hawks stared at the frail-looking Reba Koll.
“Bullshit,” she said. “I don’t know what sane is, but I sure as hell ain’t hankerin’ to eat the lot of you. It’s true what he says—right at the start I was nothin’ much but an animal, a killer, but the more people I become, the more memories I got, the more ways I had to behave, the more human, I guess, I got. I got all them memories, all that knowledge up here in my head and all over my body, I guess. I don’t even know how it works. The only thing I don’t have is who I was to start with. Only he knows that. You think I liked killin’ Koll, or the others? I didn’t pick ’em—he did. Just to keep me alive so he could study and figure out how to make a ton more of me he could control. His own Vals, in spades. I want the rings, sure, but not alone. Nobody should have that power alone, not even me. You need me to get ’em, Chief. I can go down to them worlds no matter how much they’re monsters there, and I can become one of ’em and know all the rules right off, and I can waltz right in and take them rings off the fingers or whatever them leaders have. You can’t.”
“I doubt if it will be that easy, even for you,” Clayben replied. “But you see why this is as close as I can approach. You haven’t the power to keep her from me, Hawks, and I would fight to the death before I would allow that.”
Hawks stared at Reba Koll. He had expected to have to make some very tough decisions as the leader but he hadn’t expected something like this at all, and certainly not right off.
“All right, Captain, or whatever you are. You really have the biggest problem. I can’t stop you from killing us all, but you can’t take this ship and run it and you know it. It’s Star Eagle’s ship. But whether you are friend or foe, and whether I have to die, along with others here, making certain our mission fails at the start, depends on you. It’s Clayben—or a shot at the rings. China?”
“The gods who might be, if any, know that I have only hatred and contempt for this man, yet if it is the choice of the rings or him, I will kneel to him and lick his behind before I would throw away the rings.”
“This ain’t fair!” Koll grumped. “I spent ten years dreamin’ of nothin’ but gettin’ that bastard in a position where I could torture him to death real slow. I wouldn’t eat him. I wouldn’t want to be him, and I wouldn’t never be in the position of understanding him. Now you got him and you’re tellin’ me to kiss and make up.”
Hawks was beginning to see the larger picture in all this. He just wished he knew who was drawing it. “It’s why you’re here, Koll, or whatever you are. It’s the reason you’re here and not back on Melchior with Master System in control of it and you. You say you can take anyone. I have no reason to doubt you on that, but can you become a Val? A computer?”
“Of course not, idiot!”
“Master System wouldn’t care how many people you killed. It would study you and analyze you and then melt you down for the final analysis, and it would be perfectly willing to incinerate all life forms on Melchior if it thought it needed to dispose of you. You’re not here by accident. Your name was on Raven’s list. You’re here because you can do what you say—go down and get very close to those who have the rings without penalty. But it’s still a group effort. You think it over. You’re no use to me if you have no self-control.” Hawks turned back to the communications set.
“Clayben, I don’t like you very much, and I don’t trust you at all, but I’m willing to deal you in if you have something to offer me. I can really use that ship of yours, but I don’t require it. Nobody here will shed a tear if I order you blown to bits. You are a problem and a luxury for me. Tell me why I can afford you.”
“My knowledge, my skill, my experience,” the scientist replied. “You have computer people and security people there but not one good experimental scientist. I have aboard this ship the backup copies of all the essentials of two decades plus of research done on Melchior. The data is unique and priceless. It is also coded only to me. Then there is the ship, as you mentioned, and Mr. Nagy’s not inconsiderable background and contacts. He’s been out here before. He knows the freebooters—who can be trusted and who can’t. I don’t think you can afford to pass us up, sir, or I wouldn’t have chased you.”
Hawks turned to the others. “Mute the communications link for a moment, Star Eagle.”
“Muted. We are here far too long, Hawks. We should move.”
“The risk might be worth it. It isn’t the worst we’ve taken and it won’t be the worst we take in the future. Now, listen, all of you. I want to hear it from everyone. Clayben’s right. He has the data we need, and Nagy the contacts. They have a ship we could use that we don’t have to convert from Master System control. Can we trust men like this? No. Their record speaks for itself. They aren’t so much demonic as they are uncaring about human beings or anything except themselves. They’ll be trouble. Raven?”
“Bring ’em on, Chief. We’ll take care of them if they get out of line. I kinda think they’ll be real cooperative, real team players, until push comes to shove. Besides, it’s a great way to get the ship. If they get nasty later we can always eliminate them.”
Warlock snickered. “We are of Security, Hawks. This is our job and we are good at it. We can handle them.”
“Chows?”
“They are no worse than any of the others we have always faced. If they can do us some good, then it is about time they served someone else,” Chow Dai said. Her twin nodded.
“Cloud Dancer?”
“Whatever you decide I will accept,” she replied. “I am not certain that such evil men can ever be turned to a good purpose, but if we lose to them we deserve it.”
“Star Eagle?”
“By all means let them come aboard. My core defenses are extensive and there is nothing they can do aboard the Thunder without my knowledge. In order for Clayben to use his data he will have to interface with my data banks. Anything he decrypts I will also learn.”
Hawks sighed. “It’s up to you, then, Koll. Think of it this way. For once Clayben will be under our authority rather than we under his. He might try something, but if he does I’ll give him to you, no strings attached. The moment he betrays any one of us, he is yours.”
She seemed to have already made up her mind. “All right—but keep him away from the bridge. Quarantine him. On the ground he’ll be on my turf, as it were, and I think I can handle him if he can handle me. But not here. Not on the Thunder.”
“Communications open,” Hawks ordered. “All right, Doctor, you’re invited aboard by unanimous consent, although our one real dissenter here insists that you be kept isolated from the bridge while on this ship. If that is agreeable, approach at moderate speed and prepare for instructions from our pilot. We will punch as soon as we have you securely aboard, so remain in your ship with full life support until we tell you otherwise.”
“Understand. Acknowledge. You won’t regret this.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. But you might,” Hawks muttered under his breath.
It took almost an hour to get the Star into an outer hold, but Star Eagle knew his job and was now fully master of the big ship’s systems.
The pilot didn’t hesitate once all was ready, though. The Thunder’s great engines roared into life, raising the massive sonic storm, and within minutes they punched.
The sensation was still very unpleasant, but this time there were no hallucinations and only relief that they were out of there.
“You handled that right well, Chief,” Raven commented.
“Perhaps. Perhaps I’m handling this on gut instinct, Crow. Instinct and educated hunches. But they’ll be a time bomb once aboard and you know it. I want no quarter given. The slightest wrong move and, well, they are expendable.”
“No!” China said sharply. “Use your head, Hawks. We need them—but on our side. That man has played whatever games he wanted with people at his mercy using mindprinters and transmuters. We have transmuters and when we are finished cannibalizing the old ship we will have a mindprinter.”
“But that one’s too limited to be of real use,” he pointed out.
“Perhaps, but I will wager that Clayben had that ship of his outfitted as a fully equipped fast escape ship from the planning stages on. The fact that all data from the Melchior master computers was automatically transmitted to it in encoded form shows that. I’ll wager that aboard that thing he has a small transmuter and a state-of-the-art mindprinter. Possibly even a psychogenetics minilab. That ship, I will wager, is a one- or two-person Melchior in miniature. By the time Star Eagle’s maintenance robots and probes get through with it, I think we’ll be able to do to the doctor whatever we wish—before he does it to us.”