Pirates of the Thunder (9 page)

“A good point,” Hawks agreed. “I’m afraid we might have to face the transmitter 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 son, 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 sported 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.”