Fall of Colossus (23 page)

She soon realized that the man/dog relationship went a lot deeper than she had at first imagined. If disobedient, Voulia got kicked—if within range—but again, without malice. The dog was an extension of Barchek, who expected as much obedience from it as from his own limbs. The dog had better sight and sense of smell, and if Voulia sensed something, it was the dog that led, not Barchek. Cleo perceived a curious, impressive dignity in the relationship. The only time Barchek had really beaten the hell out of her was when she forgot to feed the dog.

So she saw that to be “treated like a dog” was not necessarily as bad as it sounded. Man and dog were inseparable; Barchek clearly had the same idea of the man/woman relationship. He had expected her to resist his training and did not resent it. It was natural; she was a woman, and her understanding was neither to be expected—nor necessary—at that stage. She would learn that she was now part of him and that, where her woman’s skills were better than his, he would obey her.

Barchek never consciously thought this out. He didn’t have to; it was the natural order—what was there to think about? They were not two people, but one unit. Soon they would be a family.

Even if Barchek didn’t think all this, Cleo did, and beyond Of course, it was all wildly wrong and impossible. She was a modern married woman, a mother, and a professional scientist with an IQ that left most people behind. All the same, it was a shocking revelation to her to see that there was something in this primitive way of life. She knew, beyond doubt, Barchek would die for her. Charles might, too, but he’d have to gear himself up for the heroics. Not Barchek; he’d go ahead and die without a second’s hesitation, if he thought it necessary.

Archaic, yes, but his way of life had an intensity, a fire, quite unknown to modern couples. She could see that in this ordered, structured life one modern disease, loneliness, could hardly exist.

Superiority, equality were meaningless abstractions to Barchek. Now she no longer resisted him, he could be every bit as tender as Charles.

Cleo shook her head in the darkness. That was hellish disloyalty to Charles. This Noble Savage stuff was nonsense; she must retain her sense of balance.

Although awake, her speed of reaction was hardly up to Barchek’s. Voulia, sleeping at the foot of the bed, growled. It was a deep-throated, but soft sound, intended for Barchek’s ears, not to warn the enemy. Sheep dogs who bark do not intend attacking, and Voulia, a very good dog, was keeping his options open.

But that low growl was enough. Barchek was awake in an instant, still, listening. Cleo could only hear the monotonous crash of the surf and the incessant stridulation of the cicadas, but Voulia, standing up, nose twitching as he sampled the air, knew better.

Barchek slid out of bed. Cleo heard the soft slither of blade on leather as he drew his knife. He was standing in the doorway beside Voulia, a black, naked figure against the bright starlight, man and dog still, listening.

If he spoke, Cleo did not hear, but both slipped silently out into the night. She sat up in bed, not alarmed, only puzzled. Who could possibly want anything with them at this time? She hoped it was Torgan, and that Voulia would “accidentally” bite him.

One thing Cleo and the dog agreed upon was their joint detestation of the Controller. She saw lights, heard the sound of an electric truck humming along the sand. The light grew, the truck stopped. The gate was being unlocked.

A voice spoke, the sharp, rattling Croatian of Barchek’s native tongue. Barchek gave a cry, hoarse and bewildered. The voice spoke again. Barchek’s shouted answer, whatever it was, contained no bewilderment. He was wild with rage.

Cleo waited no longer. She got up, ran to the door. The compound entrance was flooded with light. She saw three strange figures, the assistant controller and two guards—and Barchek. He was standing, legs apart, slightly hunched forward, the light gleaming on his powerful shoulders, his knife ready. Voulia had slunk to one side, watching.

The Croatian-speaking guard said something sharp and to the point, raising his gun. Cleo was frozen with alarm.

Barchek’s reply was even sharper, a great hoarse-shouted single word that could only be “No!” At the same instant, he threw himself at the assistant.

He was dead before he had taken two steps, hit in a half dozen places, but even in death, crouched as if against a storm, he reached the assistant, who jumped back, barely avoiding Barchek’s last thrust.

The gun stopped suddenly; there was a shrill scream that ended in a dreadful bubbling sound. Voulia had torn the gunner’s throat out. The other guard fired again and again. Voulia’s body rolled over and over, legs kicking in death.

The assistant controller, pale and trembling, skirted the dead Barchek and ran to Cleo.

“Its all right, Mrs. Forbin—you’re free!”

But Cleo ran past him and knelt, cradling Barchek’s head, weeping.

Chapter Eighteen

Half the world away, still in daylight, Forbin, coaxed, taunted, and encouraged by Blake, gradually got back into coherent thought. Just about the time that Barchek died, Forbin said, “Okay, Ted, you can stop the therapy. I have your message. I agree, I have to snap out of it.” To show that he could, he got up and looked out of the window. “Yes, you’re right.” He was trying as hard as he could. In these fantastic circumstances, what should he do? “Yes. I suppose someone had better tell the UN.” As he spoke he grasped the significance of what he had said. “Yes, by God! I’d better do that right now!” He walked across to his desk, watched by the silent Blake who remained seated.

Forbin was far too set on his purpose to worry about that small matter. He reached across to press Angela’s intercom button. Blake’s hand covered it. Forbin looked at him in puzzled surprise.

“No, Charles.” His voice was quiet, but held the unmistakable ring of authority. He looked steadily at Forbin. “I suggest you sit down. We will talk before you do anything.” His hand remained over the button; his voice was still gentle as he repeated, “Sit down, Charles.”

Forbin stared back briefly; then he looked away, shrugged as if it was a matter of no importance, walked back, and sat down. Both men knew there had been a battle, and who had won. Forbin leaned back, shut his eyes. For him, events had all the dreadful inevitability of a Greek tragedy.

“Very well, Blake, talk!”

Blake took his time, and when he spoke, there was no trace of his tough, slangy manner.

“First, however annoying you may find my repetition, you’ve got to take it easy! I mean that—really. I’ve told you I know all this is tough for you. I know that, more than anyone.” He paused to light his cigar, studying the silent figure in the armchair. “Let’s start with you. You’re a brilliant man—maybe the best applied scientist for the last two hundred years—and that’s saying a great deal! Your place in history, come what may, is assured, but…

He shrugged.

Forbin opened his eyes, regarding Blake thoughtfully. “I thought a but was overdue. But what?”

“But this: you’ve proved yourself an outstanding man in your field! Yes; in your field. Outside that,” Blake shook his head, “frankly, I rate you a very ordinary man. Nothing personal, mind you, but that’s my view. Also, I think that your unsought, yet all the same, exalted position has done nothing for your understanding of human problems.”

Forbin, remembering his recent trip, accepted that there was some truth in this statement, and remained silent.

Blake waved an expansive hand at their surroundings. “This, all this, has been your ivory tower! Here, you’ve been cushioned, insulated, isolated. Here, you’ve been out of touch for a long time.” He leaned forward, taking the cigar from his mouth, speaking very softly. “Now, Charles, it’s all gone. Colossus is dead. It’s all gone—and your role with it. Do you understand what I’m trying to tell you?”

“You are telling me, as tactfully as you can, that I’m all washed up!”

“As the stooge of Colossus, yes—but then, why worry about that? Colossus is totally washed up; humanity is back in control of its destiny, but that does not mean you vanish with the tyrant! Humanity has had the most almighty lesson, and believe me, humanity is going to profit from that lesson! But this fundamental change in affairs does not mean the end of you. You are—rightly—world-famous, an irreplaceable figurehead. In the new world you can play a very important part.”

Forbin was getting restive. “Oh, come on, Ted! Don’t fool around—it doesn’t suit you! What are you getting at?”

Blake nodded slowly. “Okay, here it is straight. We—humanity, that is—saw where the old rule got us! We finished up in the hands of a bloody computer!” He was not holding back now; his voice rose in anger.”And you want to ‘inform the UN’—that bunch of third-rate comedians!” His waving cigar scattered ashes across the desk. “D’you really think, for one single moment, that the Fellowship have risked—and sometimes lost—their necks, just to go back?” He jammed his cigar back in his mouth and champed on it. “Jesus-no! The old system was punk, outworn, outdated, and it got what it deserved: Colossus! No, Charles. We don’t aim to go back!” He blew a large cloud of blue smoke at the ceiling and regarded Forbin with genuine interest. “You can’t really imagine that we few, who did this thing, are going to tamely hand it all over to a bunch of totally unbaked politicians—as soon as they have the nerve to crawl out of the woodwork?”

Forbin stared in amazement, his mouth opened, but Blake raised one hand.

“Let me finish. Sure, the UN can have the front office; they can make resolutions, issue orders—but they’ll do it on our say-so!”

“But you can’t! It’s crazy! How can you?”

Blake’s confident grin cut him short. “In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king!”

“What d’you mean?”

But Blake, who had lived on a knife-edge for far longer than his chief, was relaxing. He wanted to taste every moment of this wonderful, fantastic moment of victory. He wasn’t going to splurge the whole lot in one sentence.

“It means that if you’ve one eye, and all the rest are blind, you, brother, have got the edge!”

Forbin’s evident exasperation was sufficient payment.

“Okay, Charles.” Blake’s amusement showed, but his voice was hard. “If you want me to spell it out, it means this.” He pointed to the window. “Go take a look. Yes, I mean it! Go and look. Tell me if you notice anything!”

Briefly, they stared at each other, but Forbin, having lost the first and most important battle, could not win this one. He got up, trying to appear disinterested, casual, and crossed to the large window.

Outside was the landing place. There was some sort of commotion down there, figures running, but that was surely trivial stuff. Forbin looked at the empty, sunlit sea, the distant hills, the sky. As far as he could see, it looked, apart from that small disorder in the foreground, very much as it had always looked. He said so.

“You are not,” said Blake reprovingly, “using your eyes, Charles. I suggest you look again.”

It was not a suggestion, but a command, and Forbin, with a shrug, did as he was bid. Once more he scanned the sea, land, and sky, then shook his head.

“It’s no good, Blake. Apart from that disturbance among the visitors, there’s nothing to see.” He looked around. “You don’t mean you find any serious significance in that small riot?”

“None, as far as I know. Maybe some of the angry faithful are killing Galin and a few of his buddies! I sure don’t mean that!”

“Stop playing, Blake,” snapped Forbin with some of his lost authority. “I’m too tired, too old, for games!”

“You see nothing strange about the sea?”

“No,” replied Forbin, “nothing. It’s calm, hardly anything in sight… .”

His voice wandered off into silence; he realized there was one change since he last looked with a relatively sane eye.

The fleet had gone.

He swung around to face Blake; his startled expression said it all.

“D’you mean the fleet?”

Blake nodded, holding himself in. This was the big moment that would really show Forbin his true caliber.

Forbin was looking again at the empty sea, as if not crediting what he saw. Forbin turned back to Blake.

“You know, Blake”—he tried to sound normal, but the slight shake in his voice belied his conversational manner—”I realize that neither you nor I are, right now, quite normal. Frankly, I begin to think I am a lot more normal than you are, despite your repeated injunctions for me to take it easy!”

Blake nodded approvingly. “Good stuff, Charles! Back in Harvard—Princeton it’d flatten ‘em! But not me—I know what I’m doing. Right now, I’m gauging your reaction, surprise. That way I get an idea what sort of surprise it will be to other, lesser men!”

Forbin kept hold of his temper. “You grow tiresome, Blake!”

“Sorry—Prof!”

Forbin felt the sting of that demotion, but his expression remained unaltered.

Blake resumed. “A little earlier I mentioned that the one-eyed man was king. I—we,” he amended quickly, “are the king—kings. Just think, Charles! Colossus scrapped war and all the implements of war, retaining only the power of total annihilation for himself to keep us in line. Apart from that—what? A few ancient automatics, rifles, mostly in police or Sect hands—and that’s the lot! You just think of that, Charles; at one end of the scale, total destruction now locked up in the dead Colossus, and at the other, a few popguns!”

Forbin did not answer. Blake had to be mad, unhinged by events.

“Like I told you, outside your own field, you’re a very ordinary guy! You still don’t see what I’m driving at! Between those two extremes there’s one source of military power—the War Game fleets!”

Now Forbin was sure Blake was mad; his thoughts showed in his expression.

Blake laughed and shook his head. “No, I’m not crazy, very far from it! Okay, we lost out by losing control of the security police to the Sect, and it’s been a mighty close—fought tussle in communications, but—and I’m very glad to be able to say it—they, devoted to the Master, never saw the potential of the fleets if Colossus fell! Even now,” he said, pointing an accusing finger, “you don’t see it!”