The Forever Hero (62 page)

The taller general looked over his shoulder. Three silver triangles glittered on his shoulder boards. Otherwise, his khaki uniform tunic was unadorned.

“Are you sure it's secure?”

“Nothing is secure now. With the communications links down, we're operating on emergency power, and we don't have the energy for sonic screens. I doubt anyone else on Byzania has the energy for peepers.”

“Gwarara, summarize.”

Colonel Gwarara squared his shoulders and faced the three generals.

“Generals, the situation is as follows. First, Ser Corson, whoever he is, dropped a trap program into the comm-link system. It was an expanding and replicating program. Furthermore, it ordered a printout of the program itself from every hard-copy printer on Byzania that linked into the net before we shut down the power grid.”

“Shut down the power grid? The entire grid?” That was General Somozes, Chief for Atmospheric Defense, blond, stocky, clean-shaven, and square-chinned.

“Every minute that the system remained operational, another two hundred to one thousand vidterms were locked in. We estimate that it will take between twelve and thirty-six hours to scrub the entire system. That's if we can use all available personnel. We will have to return power in sections. If we miss one link, it could repeat the original lock.”

“What did this devilish program do?” asked the other general, the short, thin one named Taliseo who headed the marines.

“General, it was a simple program. All it did was link together terminal after terminal, and leave the connections open. That did several things.” Gwarara paused, took a deep breath before continuing. He wanted to wipe his damp forehead. The bunker was getting warmer with each passing minute.

“First, no comm system actually stays on line all the time with all terminals. The actual link times are pulsed, compressed if you will. Corson removed the pulse feature and made all the contacts continuous. Enormous increase in the power requirements.”

“Is that what caused the blinking lights and the power fluctuations?”

“Before we shut the grid down? Yes.”

“What else?” asked the tallest general, Guiteres, the Chief of Staff.

“Second, as I mentioned earlier, this was a replicating program. Each connection transferred the program to the new terminal and left it displayed there, as well as printing it wherever possible.”

“You mean, there are hundreds copies of this…this monstrosity printed all over Byzania?”

“More like thousands, but the distribution would be very uneven. When we shut the grid down, the penetration of Conuno was close to ninety percent. Probably only about seventy percent for Conduo, and less than twenty-five percent for Contrio. Most of the terminals don't have power-fail memories. By killing the power we automatically destroyed close to ninety percent of the vidterm duplicates.”

“What about hard copy?” asked the Chief of Staff.

Colonel Gwarara frowned. “A rough estimate would be close to fifty percent of all hard-copy facilities with power-fail memories.”

“But every dwelling in Illyam has a hard-copy capability. That's more than two million.”

“It would be less than that, General,” corrected the colonel. “The access was only to vidterms with on-line printers, not backup units.”

“The point is the same,” sighed General Guiteres. “There are more than enough copies available that anyone who wanted to repeat the program could.”

“No, ser. We can shield against this program being used again by anyone.”

Guiteres stared at the colonel. “You can shield against this particular program. Can you shield against another that has a different introduction? Or a different mechanism? Can you hide the basic concept?”

Gwarara looked at the hard and gray plastic of the bunker floor. “No, General.”

“Gentlemen,” Guiteres said softly, “the revolution is over. And we have lost.”

“What?”

“Are you insane?”

The Chief of Staff waited until the shock silenced the other two generals. The colonel said nothing.

“I do not propose admitting this publicly. Nor have we lost the immediate control of the situation. But the society we have today is doomed, no matter what we do. We have been able to maintain control because we held all communications, because the distribution of
food, information, and transportation was monitored and regulated through the communications network.

“Ser Corson, whoever he really is, has handed those who oppose us both the format and concept of shutting down those communications channels. How many blockages can we take before the entire fabric unwinds? Three…five…a dozen?

“He has also destroyed orbit control, somehow. We do not have the resources to replace it, nor can we purchase a replacement if Byzania is quarantined, which seems likely. Further, without the satellite control links, our access to the relay monitors is limited to line of sight. That will give the savages more time to act and to avoid our patrols. To keep the communications relays operating will require maintenance from the shuttle port, which is expensive and energy intensive.”

“So…?” asked Taliseo. “So it costs us more. So it requires a stepped-up patrol effort to keep the savages in line. So what?”

“Don't you see?” responded Guiteres. “To maintain control under our present system will require more troops, more force. More overt use of force will create more resentment and unrest, which will generate other blockages, requiring greater force.”

He stopped and looked around the bunker, wiping his own forehead with the back of his left hand.

“Assuming you are correct, and I have some considerable doubts, what do you suggest?” asked Taliseo.

Somozes frowned as he watched the two senior generals debate.

“In general terms,” answered the Chief of Staff, “the answer is clear. We have to build a more decentralized system and society, using the existing political framework and economic structure, and we have to begin before the savages and the other opportunists understand the real situation.”

“I disagree,” interjected Somozes. “Why should we give anything away? We've given them prosperity, eliminated most crimes, and a pretty honest government.”

“How many dissidents have vanished? How many radical friends of students have taken ‘trips' and never returned? Do you think that a prosperous people ever considers the hardships that otherwise might have been?”

“That doesn't matter. We still hold the power.”

“How many personnel in the armed forces?”

“Three hundred thousand.”

“How many people on Byzania?”

“Thirty million.”

“How many spacecraft?”

“One cruiser, one light cruiser, ten corvettes, ten scouts, and five freighters. Plus the orbit patrollers.”

“And how many savages in the outer forests? How many student dissidents we know nothing about?”

Somozes shrugged, as if to indicate that he didn't know and could have cared less.

“More than four thousand, on all three continents,” answered Taliseo. “That's not counting the underground within the cities.”

“Half our armed forces is required to keep the forest groups in check. Half! Do you not understand?” Guiteres glared at Somozes, who seemed to ignore the look. “With our credit account system, we could isolate individuals. Does Miguel order more food than a family of three needs? We knew. Who does he call? We knew. What electronic components are produced and shipped? To whom? For what? We knew, and we could cross-check. Now, it is only a matter of time before the dissidents discover that they can destroy that tracking and control system. Even a single blockage will allow uncounted tons of material to be diverted.”

Guiteres raked the three others with brown eyes that radiated contempt.

“Because we controlled the education, we could keep track of those who had the training on comm systems. We perpetuated the myth that great education was necessary to understand and engineer and program them. In one stroke, Ser Corson has begun the destruction of that myth. How soon will we see the students trying to duplicate his efforts?

“I do not know, but I doubt it will be long. And what will you do to them? If you can find them?”

“I doubt it is that grim,” answered Taliseo. “Why do you think that?”

“For one thing, the Imperial offices have already been evacuated, and their ship lifted as we met, possibly leaving to recommend quarantine.”

Taliseo frowned as the implications sank in.

Somozes frowned also, muttering under his breath, asking a different question entirely. “But what did we do to Corson? What did we do to him?”

Gwarara looked from one general to the next, then to the floor, as he wiped his streaming forehead with the back of his sleeve.

Guiteres shook his head slowly as he surveyed the three other of
ficers and the emergency communications board behind Gwarara, an expanse of unlit screens and lights, totally lifeless.

Three quick taps on the controls, and the figures reeled onto the data screen.

Gerswin had enough power for two more liftoffs and touchdowns—that plus boost out to jump point.

Two clearings had proved fruitless, merely burned-over ashpits long since deserted by the elusive rebels or the pursuing armed forces.

The one toward which the
Caroljoy
, operating as private yacht
Breakerton
, now settled was the most isolated he had been able to find, which seemed to meet the theoretical parameters outlined years ago by Hylerion.

“Any luck?”

Despite her recent ordeal, Constanza's voice came from the cabin with remarkable lilt and cheer.

“Know shortly.”

The open space in the clearing was barely enough for the short touchdown run of the scout. Once down, Gerswin swiveled the craft slowly in order to leave her in position for a quick departure. He also left the screens in place, despite the additional energy requirements.

“Anyone around?”

“Detectors show no heat radiation above background within two hundred meters.”

Gerswin almost snorted. All the rebels had to do was lie in a ditch to avoid heat detection in the warmth of Byzania.

“Let's have a sweep from all the exterior scanners.”

Unburned, the clearing was covered with a ground-hugging blue-and-gold-tinted grass Gerswin had never seen before. The trees were low, lower than the pilot had expected, and wide-trunked, the branches of the tallest reaching less than fifteen meters into the washed-out green-gold of the sky.

The fine dust raised by the scout's landing had already settled, giving the closer grass and trees a gray overtone.

“Freeze on the last image.”

The image he had caught showed a regularity, a hint of an oblong structure, in the right lower corner.

“Expand the right lower corner.”

Gerswin studied the blurred image.

“Constanza? Would you come here?”

“I am here.” The closeness of her voice, right behind his shoulder, jarred him. He started, unsettled that she had managed to move so close without his noticing, then frowned briefly at the thought that his skills might be deteriorating.

“I did not mean to surprise you.”

“What does that look like to you?”

“A dwelling.”

“The scale is wrong. Less than half size. Unless…”

“Unless what, Ser Corson?”

He turned his head to look at her, his eyes moving past the dark blotches on her arms.

“Unless someone is building half-sized houses, or half-sized people,” he temporized, unwilling to voice his own hopes.

“There are rumors…”

“Of what?” he snapped.

She drew back from the intensity in his voice and hawk-yellow eyes.

“You seemed to know already…of houses that grow like trees…of the marines burning them wherever they find them to keep the rebels…the savages…on the run.”

“We'll have to see.” He stood up and stepped away from the control panels.

“Keep full screens in place,” he ordered the AI.

“Full screens in place,” replied the AI impersonally.

“Do you want to come?”

“Certainly. If you think it is safe.”

“Nothing's safe. Not totally. Stay inside the screens. They'll stop any energy weapon, or explosives, or projectile guns.”

He touched the panel by the lock. The inner door opened.

“It's tight,” he observed as she crowded in with him.

As the outer door opened, Gerswin's first impression was of a desert as the flood of hot and dry outside air washed over them.

He bounded down the extended ramp and held out an arm to help the former prime minister's niece.

No sound marred the stillness. No breeze moved a single stalk of the blue and gold ground cover. Only the muffled crunch of the veg
etation under Gerswin's black boots could be heard as he walked toward the rear of the scout to see if he could get a better look at what he hoped was Jaime Hylerion's house tree growing behind two older trees.

Gerswin stopped a meter inside the twinkling and faint blue pulsation that marked the screen line and peered through the first line of trees.

He frowned, bit at his lower lip.

The second line of trees obscured his view, but a regularity existed behind the trees. Whether it was man-made or a house tree was another question.

Whhrrrr
.

“Corson!”

He ducked and turned, but not quickly enough, he realized as he felt the sharpness bite into his right arm. He glanced down at the stubby arrow imbedded there, shaking his head at his slowness, and his stupidity at not having kept himself in fighting order.

Without hesitating, he moved, grabbing the light-boned woman in his left hand and forcing himself up the ramp and into the lock.

“An arrow, for Hades' sake…,” he muttered.

He blinked once, twice, as he stumbled into the control area, releasing Constanza as he felt his knees turning to jelly.

“So dark…”

The night struck him down with the suddenness of lightning from a landspout.