Return - Book III of the Five Worlds Trilogy (20 page)

There was no answer, and Wrath-Pie turned back to the mirror.

“Why can’t the implants be now?” he complained.

“As you know,” Lawrence said, as data streamed across his visor, “it would take six months to a year for the required genetic growths to be complete.”

“Damn! Damn-damn-damn!” Wrath-Pei drew his forearm across the vanity table, sweeping the makeup tubes to the floor. There was a compartment at the table’s back, under the mirror, and he fumbled to open it, drawing out the silver tube that rested within.

“Let’s resort to Plan B, then!”

Quickly he unscrewed the flask’s top, upended it over his lipless mouth, and let two fat drops fall into this throat.

Warmness flowed out from his center, pushed out to his fingertips and toes.

He fumbled the flask closed, slipped it into a slim breast pocket, and shut his eyes tightly.

“Quog
…”

The Warmness intensified, almost to the point of fire, but then settled upon him like a dreamy swoon.

He opened his eyes, looked into the mirror, and gasped.

The face he beheld was his own as it had been: his beautiful silver mane of hair drawn back from his noble forehead, his sculpted cheeks and Roman visage, his commanding eyes and muscled, tight body dressed in tight black leather.

“Kamath Clan was right after all …” he whispered, looking for any flaw, drawing closer to the mirror—but it was him—him! No trace of bizarre coloring, or mutilation, only the perfection of body that had been Wrath-Pei!

“Quog!” he shouted. “You old devil!” And, laughing, he added, “Lawrence! Back to work!”

Lawrence bowed slightly and activated the gyro-chair; it drew smoothly away from the vanity and in a moment was positioned back at the operating table.

“I feel … wonderful!” Wrath-Pei shouted.

He drew out his shears, giggling intermittently while addressing the form on the table.

“And so, Trel Clan, dear boy …”

Snip.

“… you can see my dilemma, where you’re concerned…”

Snip.

“… because, in all ways, you remind me of a young Prime Cornelian…”

Snip.

“… and, frankly, if I’d had Cornelian in this position under these circumstances …”

Snip.

“I would have …”

Snip.

“done exactly …”

Snip.
Snip.

“the same …”

The door opened behind Wrath-Pei, and general Orn Quet, in full dress uniform of black leather, entered, saluting; his vision of the operating table was blocked by the gyro-chair and Wrath-Pei’s working form.

“Wrath-Pei, the troops are ready—”

“thing!”

Snip.

With a flourish, Wrath-Pei drew his shears, dripping red, aside; he signaled for Lawrence to wheel the gyro-chair around to face Orn Quet, and Lawrence did so, opening the view of what lay on the operating table—the pile of internal organs, fingers, toes, what had been a human head—to the general, who gagged and turned away.

“What’s the matter, Quet—never seen nothing before?” Wrath-Pei laughed, and, as he passed the general in his gyro-chair on the way to the door, he slapped Quet smartly on the back. “Have someone clean the mess up, Quet—come on, Lawrence, let’s have a look at the troops!”

T
he second secret architectural feat that the followers of Faran Clan had accomplished in the bowls of Io was an underground storage facility of staggering proportions. Twice the height of the Temple of Faran Clan and seven times its width, it hid the makings of an armada—cruisers, fighters, battle-freighters--which Wrath-Pei had packed it with before the Half-Day War decimated Titan.

Halfway up one glossy yellow wall stood the platform from which Wrath-Pei surveyed his fleet. From the floor far below he looked like an ant; from where Wrath-Pei floated in his chair, he beheld ten thousand ants working on a thousand sleek space machines. The banks of lights fifty meters below the roof threw a harsh glare on the work below; above the lights floated a yellowish fog, as if clouds of sulfur had formed—which, in fact, they had: the heat of the lamps had excited wall particles into mist.

A recovered General Quet joined Wrath-Pei on the platform; his discomfort seemed to have vanished, replaced by pride at what he beheld below.

“So, Quet, how are we doing?” Wrath-Pei asked, suppressing a chuckle.

The general, trying not to look directly at Wrath-Pei’s ruined, painted, and altogether mad-looking face, replied, “On schedule, Your Grace.”

“Then we’re ready to sail?” Wrath-Pei’s lipless grin widened.

“Yes.”

“Splendid! Simply splendid! And the men understand their mission?”

“The … disembowelings convinced the doubters, your Grace.”

“Ha ha! And you? Do you understand the mission, Quet?”

Clearing his throat, the general said, “I do, Your Grace.”

“Then what are we waiting for? Proceed!”

The general nodded and gave a signal to a lieutenant in the tunnel behind him; the signal was relayed down through a chain of command until it reached a black-clad private whose finger hovered over a switch.

Finger activated switch, and the cavern was filled with an ear-splitting blare; immediately the lights brightened and, far below the platform, there was a scramble of men into ships.

The blare continued; and now there was an lo-shaking??? roar, subsumed by an even deeper one. Ships began to rise; and, above, the massive doors of the hidden cavern began to open, instantly sucking the sulfur clouds above the lights out into space, which now showed itself in a widening band of stars.

Bouncing with excitement in his chair, Wrath-Pei shouted, “How long will the air last in here?”

The general, looking concerned, peered over the edge of the platform as he answered, “Three minutes, at most; by then we were to be—ah, here it is now!”

Occluding the rising armada before them, a monstrous black shape hove into view, a wedge a thousand meters long, moving with stately grace toward the platform; as it approached, a bay door opened in its side, letting out a blurt of light from within.

Above the growing roar, Wrath-Pei laughed again and said, “My old ship! How simply delightful! And Tabrel Kris is safely stowed away?”

“Yes, Your Grace!” general Orn Quet shouted; the bay now synced neatly with the platform, making a flat entrance for Wrath-Pei, who signaled for Lawrence to bring them aboard.

They were followed by General Quet, and then the bay doors began to close, the ship pulling gently away from the platform.

“Hold it!” Wrath-Pei said; and the ship immediately stopped, the doors half closed, twenty meters from the platform. The Gyro-chair, with the general standing beside it, now stood at a ledge with a thousand-meter drop below.

“Your Grace, the air will be gone in a matter of moments!” Orn Quet shouted. “We must shut the bay doors!”

“In a moment, Quet!” Wrath-Pei answered.

Wrath-Pei leaned out over his gyro-chair and studied the floor far below.

Suddenly he pointed. “Look! Someone is down there!”

The general leaned over to look, and now Wrath-Pei gave him a shove, sending him tumbling out of the bay and into nothingness. A few moments later he bit the floor below.

“There is someone down there—you!” Wrath-Pei hooted, and now Lawrence drew the gyro-chair into the bay as the door slid closed completely.

And Wrath-Pei, laughing, stopped only to draw the silver tube in his breast pocket out, unscrew it, and let two drops fall onto his tongue. He put the vial away, clapped his hands, and said, “Proceed!”

Chapter 26

“T
hey’re getting closer,” Visid Sneaden, Machine Master of Venus, reported.

Dalin Shar did not need Visid’s report; he could see with his own eyes the Martian Marines nearly ringing their position in Visid’s Arabia Terra mountain stronghold.

“How are they attempting to track us?” Dalin asked.

Standing beside the king before her lab’s “picture window,” Visid replied, “They’re doing a frequency scan, trying to pick up our devices. I’ve been able to avoid them by changing frequencies or alternating our satellite links, turning one off while we used the other, and vice versa. But they’ve already crossed us enough times to narrow their search down, and sooner or later they’ll pinpoint us.”

“Is there anything we can do?” Dalin asked.

“Only two choices, Sire. Turn everything off and wait for them to burrow in here after us, or do what I told you three days ago—”

“A preemptive strike.”

Visid nodded. “Take out as many of their plasma soldier generators as we can.”

“That would mean uncloaking Shatz Abel’s fleet,” Dalin Shar commented unhappily. “And putting all our eggs in one basket.”

Visid bowed her head. “I’m sorry that basket is so small, Sire. I wish I could have done better.”

Dalin brightened. “Nonsense! If we could have gotten you the parts, you could have built a thousand weapons against the plasma soldiers, instead of the fifty we have. We can’t help it that the Martians learned our little tricks and started consolidating their equipment and food supplies and guarding them more closely.” He put his hand on Visid’s shoulder. “You’ve done well.”

Looking out at the Martians in the mountain passes below them, Visid said, “We’ll be able to disrupt the plasma soldier generators orbiting our positions here for a while; if Shatz Abel can destroy most of the others, we can fight the ones in front of us without worrying about more being moved into position.” Suddenly she became angry. “If only I had more time! I could have built more ’roos, more everything!”

“We don’t have more time,” Dalin said. “I’m going to give the order to Shatz Abel.”

Visid added tentatively, “There’s something else, Sire…”

“What is it?”

“Something… I’m not sure about. It’s bothered me for quite a while… “ She stared off into the distance, out the generated picture window, toward the far horizon.

“Tell me, Visid.”

“It’s Carter Frolich.”

Dalin nearly laughed. “Frolich is dead! Are you becoming like Shatz Abel now, afraid of ghosts and goblins?”

“It’s what he may have left behind that worries me.” Dalin’s face clouded as Visid continued:

“When I dragged Benel to the Piton in Sacajawea Patera, it was to look into what Carter Frolich had been doing before his death. From what Benel told me about him, it occurred to me that Carter Frolich may have had something in mind for Venus.”

“Something like what?”

“I’m not sure. I monitored some Martian broadcasts later that convinced me that Frolich was up to something. The Martians apparently found some sabotage and neutralized it. But I can’t believe that Frolich would have made it easy for them.”

“You mean what the Martians found may have been only the first level of sabotage?”

Visid nodded slowly.

Dalin began to shake his head. “That isn’t something we can worry about now—”

“But I think we have to. My scans are showing a slight change in Venus’s atmosphere.”

“A slight change? Couldn’t that be due to all the Martian activity?”

Visid looked at the king and shook her head. “The feeder stations, all of them, are cycling down.”

“Can we do anything about it?”

Visid shook her head. “Not while Cornelian controls the Piton. I’m sure that’s where Frolich’s secret is.”

“Is this atmospheric change dangerous?”

“If it continues, it will be. It means that Carter Frolich planned to turn Venus back into a dead planet.”

S
hatz Abel did nothing but pace.

“They’ve got to make a decision now!” he shouted at no one in particular, though the scarred Yar Pent stood nearby. The two of them occupied the perimeter of their invisible fleet operations center; the gelid lines of force that made them invisible curled up nearby into an overhead dome, making the Venusian valley in which they had settled, a clearing between two lush forest areas, wavering and translucent.

There was a thin scream high overhead; Shatz Abel stopped to watch a high-flying Martian search shuttle, needle-nosed and bright orange against the blue sky.

“If nothing happens, we’ll have to use that kangaroo again soon—I’m tired of moving!” the pirate yelled.

“Then stand still,” Yar Pent said, studying his nails. “We’ll fight soon enough.”

“Not soon enough for me!”

A uniformed soldier appeared, saluted Yar Pent and Shatz Abel.

“The order’s come,” the soldier said. “We go in two hours. We’re to get into position immediately.”

“Ha!” Shatz Abel shouted happily, as the soldier saluted again and withdrew. “Did you hear that, Yar? Finally, we go!”

Continuing to study his nails, Yar Pent nodded slowly. “I heard.” He looked up, a smile spreading the scar on his face. “And by damn I’m ready to go, too!”

“N
ow, remember my orders,” Shatz Abel said into the huge Screen mounted amidships; it was split into twelve boxes, giving him eye contact with his twelve squadron commanders. “We’ll rise under cloak and stay under it until the last minute. Then we fly out like needles and go for our individual targets.”

There were nods of agreement from eleven of the commanders; Yar Pent studied his nails and yawned. “Yar, did you hear me?” Shatz Abel growled.

Yar Pent’s face split into a grin again. “I heard you, Shatz. And I bet I take out two generators to your one.”

“You’re on,” Shatz Abel replied. To all of them he added, “Now go to it!”

There was a lurch as Shatz Abel’s ship lifted and turned up toward orbit.

“Take it easy up there, Weens, will you?” the pirate called up into the pilot’s cabin.

“Aye, I’ll do that!” Captain Weens cackled; but this was immediately transformed into an oath as he turned on his two robots, one piloting and one navigating. “Ye blasted heaps o’ rust! Keep it smooth!”

Shatz Abel wandered into the cabin to see Weens striking the chrome navigator with the flat of his hand. “Quick!” he said in mock need, turning his one good eye to regard Shatz Abel. “Get me a can opener!”