Jack Williamson - Eldren 01, page 23
“Toward the bridge.”
“Too late, señor.” His arms spread and fell. “El fuego—the fire comes too fast.”
“All these people? Why didn’t they go? While they could?”
“Señor, we could not.” A hopeless shrug. “Somos pobres. Many were ill. We had no wheels. No food, because the Synfare stopped. We had nada—ninguna—nowhere to go.”
Coughing to a gust of bitter smoke, Quin slogged on through pools of filthy mud and the reek of human excrement. Blistering heat radiated across every intersection. A woman’s shriek above him, cut off when her body crunched and flattened redly on the sidewalk. Frantic refugees streamed into the street, cursing or praying or dully silent, milling in aimless confusion.
Pushing on through human chaos and suffocating smoke, he came to the bridge. Fugitives jammed it, swarming over stalled vehicles, over bloodied bodies. He plunged in among them. Guns thudded behind him. Shouts and screams and the conflagration bellowing. The human river swept him across.
On the bank beyond, he climbed aside to glance back. The dark war machine came lumbering out of roiling smoke. It roared onto the bridge. People ahead of it climbed on the railings, fell into the river, slid under its tracks.
He saw sudden yellow flame bloom beneath it. New smoke exploded. A heavy concussion jarred him. Beyond the river, a blazing tower toppled. A long section of the bridge exploded under the tank. It toppled and teetered, climbed out of the wreckage, came grinding on.
When the seeker struck Point Vermillion, Venerable Sire had been on his way to relieve his fellow Andromedan, Sagacious Sage, as research chief. Near enough to observe the attack, he escaped the queen by letting his supply craft drift cold. When she had flown on starward, he turned back home to alert the Elderhood.
Cluster One had the shape of a midget galaxy. Its core was the dwelling of the Eldermost, a heavy little asteroid born near some early star and rich in elements rare in the halo. Its spirals were mirror-shielded iceballs, gathered into orbit by the member peoples of the Elderhood to hold their missions and legations.
Arriving at the Andromedan residency, Venerable Sire found the news there ahead of him. The queen had flown far faster than he. Elderhood craft had seen her feeding on objects nearer the corestar.
He asked his minister what action had been taken.
“None,” the minister replied. “Though I understand one of the Newlings wants the Council to schedule the matter for discussion.”
“Discussion? I urge that we must act.”
“What action is possible?”
“I don’t know.” His voice flickered and dimmed. “But I’ve seen the seeker. I watched her destroy a rash young Newling who ventured too near. I saw her swallow our observatory. I urge that something must be done.”
“It’s a matter for the Eldermost.”
He asked the minister to request an audience.
“Not much chance of that.” An indigo scowl. “The Eldermost seldom talks to anybody except a few old cronies and the Seniors of the Council.”
When he insisted, the minister radiated his request. He was allowed to call. Nervous at first, because he had never spoken to the Eldermost, he began describing the invader. He/She/It interrupted to ask what had happened to the instruments and records at Point Vermillion.
“Your Ripeness, they were totally destroyed.”
“They must be replaced.”
“Your Ripeness, the seeker—”
“Forget the invader.” The Eldermost hushed him. “Your own duties are more urgent. You will act at once to replace the equipment we lost at Point Vermillion and proceed without delay to establish a new observatory out on the halo fringe to watch for the returning Black Companion.”
Revelator. Self-styled Prophet of the Triplex God. A white-bearded mystic, living in hiding and appearing only in illicit holo broadcasts, he revised ancient texts to produce The People’s Revelation. He led a holy jihad against “the demon-bred” Tycoons of the House of Kwan, promising eternal joy in the People’s Eden for all who died for the holy cause. His appearances began in Sun Year 88, ceased with the skyweb’s fall.
19
QUIN TOOK COVER IN THE CHARRED RUBBLE BEHIND the broken foundation walls of a building demolished by some stray scrap of the falling skyweb. Crouching in the frosty dusk, he watched the war machine lurching toward him off the bridge. A few of the fugitives ran from it, but most stood defiantly staring.
It rumbled past him to stop a few hundred meters away. A square shape rose behind the gun turret and suddenly shone. A holo tank. The flag of the Kwans rippled in it, fading into a speaking head. Far-off as it was, he knew the golden beard, the flowing moustache, the Romanoff nose.
“Fellow Earthfolk—”
The amplified voice took a moment to reach him, roaring through the ruins, rolling back from the burning walls beyond the river. In spite of distortion, it rang with the old hypnotic power.
“Fellow citizens of Earth, I speak to you, wherever you are, from Azteca Sun Country. I am Jason Kwan, Admiral of the Halo. We are just back home from the war in space. We have witnessed frightful terrors and unspeakable disasters, but we are not defeated.
“I myself have suffered grievous loss. You may not have heard the dreadful news, because the censor tried to suppress it, but my own dear father, Tycoon Fernando, has been murdered.
“That dire crime will be avenged. Sun Security has now at last identified his killers. Two men were involved. A Holyfolk terrorist, Benito Barranca, was found dead at the scene—killed by my father in his own defense. The accomplice is still at large.
“This second assassin is a native of the halo named Quin Dain. His motives are obscure and his whereabouts unknown. Security suspects that he got downside in time to survive. His description will be broadcast, and rewards will be offered.
“The killer of my father!” A quaver of seeming emotion. “I beg each of you to help us apprehend him. And I implore every one of you to help us cope with the most desperate emergency of all human history.
“Dear, dear brother Earthmen, I know what you have suffered from the single alien attacker that crept past our Fleet in space while we fought the monster swarms. My heart brims with feeling for all your own pain and loss, but I rejoice to be back among you.
“I beg to share my hopes and my high resolution with you. The space aliens have wounded us severely, but they are not invincible. We have beaten them in space, but we discover now that we have greater enemies here on Earth.
“Among them are the Chens!
“Would-be tyrants, traitors in the House of Kwan, they have betrayed mankind. They tried to deny that we had enemies in space. They infiltrated the Fleet and Security to destroy all the evidence of the planned space attack. With their mad ambition—with their treason!—they weakened our means to defend you.
“Yet, in spite of their black-minded arrogance, we have won the war in space. Our laser fire knocked that cowardly attacker into the Pacific Ocean. We doubt that others will dare come so near.
“Now, my dear brother Earthmen, we must join together to repair what the aliens and the Chens have done. My heart aches for each of you. But, my brother men, I have come to bring you a new age of human greatness. The skywires are lost. Our world’s heart has ceased to beat. Communication has been interrupted. Transportation is stalled. Synfare factories are still. Even our limited existing stocks of natural foods are in danger of spoilage. We face famine. Suffering. Social chaos.
“Appalling news, my friends. I suffer with you. Yet this disaster is not the end. Let us make it instead a proof of our shining destiny.
“Join me, friends! With your faith and toil and courage, we can rebuild our shattered world. We can end the looting. We can find energy to make you safe again, to let our cities live again, to make food and move it. The skywires have fallen, but not the House of Kwan. My great father is dead, but I shall take the reins of life and peace. Begging your loyalty, I promise victory.
“Yet, even here on our wounded Earth, we face another foe. An enemy more evil than the Chens and more dreadful than anything in space. The sinister monster who calls himself the Revelator!
“I know most of you have heard him. Some of you may have been deluded by the sanctimony of a white-bearded face and a lying voice that speaks from nowhere.
“Listen, fellow Earthman! I have no quarrel with those who call themselves the Holyfolk. I do have a revelation of my own—one that may shock you.
“There is no Revelator!
“His holocasts have been a monstrous hoax. On the trail of my father’s killer, Sun Security has penetrated the terrorist underground. What they discovered has stunned us all. The self-proclaimed Revelator—that screeching rogue who claims to speak for his Triplex God—the Revelator is a computer simulation!
“The assassins—”
Hoots and jeers drowned Jason’s booming.
“Mentiroso!” haggard men were howling. “Liar! Liar!”
The long gun tipped and swung to menace them. Most of them ignored it, closing in around the war machine, hurling rocks. The holo screen darkened and crumpled. The machine roared out of the mob and stopped again.
“—Fleet units still safe in orbit,” Jason’s voice rang out again. “Our Security forces all over the planet are restoring contact. As my father’s rightful heir, I have assumed command.
“And I have means to feed you. The fall of the skyweb is a cruel loss, but I can promise power to keep our world alive—energy from a new and better source.
“Fusion—”
Dim forms had followed the machine, hurling missiles through the smoky gloom to crash and clatter on its armor. The long gun spat sudden flame, its projectile screaming toward the burning city. The jeering shadows darted closer. Rocks hailed on the machine. It roared suddenly away.
Quin lay shivering for a time in the rubble, pondering what he had heard. If Jason had recaptured Thorsen and recovered the reactor, he could hope for nothing.
But if Thorsen was still free—
Nerved again by that narrow chance, he climbed back over the shattered foundation wall. Keeping out of the mob, keeping the murky glare of the city behind him, he found a road that should lead toward Ciudad Barranca.
The smoky dusk was closing in. He limped on as long as he could see the wreckage and debris on the pavement. Blundering at last into an empty vehicle, he crawled inside and tried to start it. A feeble light came on to show the hole where a bullet must have come through the windshield and dark blood dried on the seat, but the power cells were too dead to move it.
Huddled there, too cold and tired and hungry to sleep, he tried to imagine what might happen in Jason’s war with the Revelator. He could see no winner.
Though Jason had boasted of Fleet units in space, all their bases and supply facilities must have come down with the skyweb. The surviving Security forces on Earth were surely too few to crush the Holyfolk now, when the Tycoons had failed in almost a hundred years of trying.
Yet he could see no victory for the centurions and soldiers of the Triplex God. Perhaps they were elated, with all the Revelator’s predictions of doom so miraculously fulfilled, but food and warmth for the Earthbound billions could hardly come so magically.
His own odds looked no better. Desperate men would be hunting him now, hungry for Jason’s reward.
He slept at last, fitfully, through nightmares in which he and Mindi were in panic flight across the dying Earth, hiding from strange-winged monsters diving from the sky.
A hoarse yell woke him. Something banged on the broken windshield. Lying still, he heard boots tramping away. He dozed again, until a dismal dawn. The smoky sky had lowered, and a biting north wind swirled a few sooty snowflakes.
He drank the rest of his water and climbed out of the cab. A delivery van, he now discovered, lettered Panaderia Eldorado. The looters had left him not even a crust of bread.
Lightheaded with hunger, he plodded stiffly on. The roadside was cluttered with things thrown away. A naked doll, toy spacecraft, clocks and pictures and holo receivers, books and tapes and wind-scattered letters. Never anything he could eat.
He came to a wide avenue with a blank wall beyond it. An endless barrier of gray concrete, three meters high, topped with sharp-spiked wire strung on insulators. It was hung with yellow-lettered signs.
SUN COMPANY CONCESSION AZTECA TERMINAL POWER AUTHORITY
ADMISSION RESTRICTED BY THE TYCOON’S COMMAND
He limped south outside the wall. A few kilometers down the road he came to a gate, a huddle of people outside. An ugly black war machine blocked the gate, Sun banner flying, long gun leveled. A loudspeaker crashed above the mutter of the mob.
“Warning! Stand away! Admission is restricted to Sun citizens and Company employees, registered and identified … Warning! Stand away—”
The crowd was growing. Men with red armbands harangued it. Most carried wooden staves; a few had laser guns.
“Fat cat cabrones!”
A yellow-haired man bellowing at the mob.
“Muerte! Muerte a todos los demonios! They’ve got food—hoards of food inside the fence. Hoards of everything. All for us when we take it. Amigos, join the holy jihad! If we die, the Triplex God rewards us.”
Skirting the crowd, he limped on south. The streets grew emptier. He crossed a wide park whose trees were bare. The buildings beyond it looked newer and taller, not yet touched by the fire. The roiling smoke was far behind him now, and no space debris had fallen here.
A silent car raced around the corner to stop in front of him. A green globe on top of it flashed Guardias Barrancas. The driver was a green-capped black.
“Señor! Qué tiene en Ciudad Barranca?”
“I want—” Reeling with exhaustion, he fumbled for sanity. “I want to see Claudio Barranca.”
“Sorry, mister. You ain’t the only one. We’re full up with refugees.”
“Let me—let me talk to him.”
“El Cacique?” A sardonic hoot. “You think he’d talk to a filthy rat?”
“Tell him—” He groped for words that might win him food and warmth and some shred of hope. “Tell him I’m Quin Dain. From the halo. The stepson of Dr. Olaf Thorsen.”
The driver looked at his companion.
“Could be, mister.” The other man shrugged and stared back at him. “What’s it to el Cacique?”
“Tell him I know his niece. Mindi Zinn.”
“Quién?”
“Tell him—” Quin shivered in the icy wind. “I knew his son. Benito Barranca.”
“El Señor Benito?” The driver scowled, perhaps impressed. “Verdad?”
He had to take a chance. “Tell him I saw Benito Barranca dying.”
“Dying?” The driver leaned to squint into his face. “Adonde?”
“In Coto—Coto High.” His teeth chattered. “When the Tycoon was killed.”
“Wait, mister.” The men nodded at each other. “We’ll call.”
The car window slid shut. The driver reached for a microphone. Huddled against the wind, he waited a long time.
“Okay, señor.” The driver eyed him with a wary respect. “They want you at la quinta.”
They locked him into a metal cage in the rear of the car, let him out again on a drive before a row of tall white columns. Two more green-clad blacks escorted him into the building and up to a bedroom.
“El Cacique receives you as a guest.” They stayed on guard at the door, as if he were a dangerous prisoner. “He’ll see you when he can.”
They let him shower. The steaming spray was sheer delight. They brought him a clean blue shipsuit that fitted so well he thought it must have been Benito’s. A tray of hot food left him wearily content. He was sprawled on the bed, half asleep in spite of himself, when they called him.
“Come, señor. El Cacique wants you now.”
Trying groggily to rouse himself, he followed them into an elevator and out into a long corner room rich with relics of the dying past. Deep carpets, carved marble, antique books, heavy-framed paintings dark with age. No holo tanks anywhere.
Massive chairs were drawn around a massive table, but he saw nobody. Heavier snow was swirling beyond the huge windows now, hiding everything outside. For a moment, the place became an island of refuge from the sea of terror and death he had crossed.
“Señor?” A gesture from his escort. “You may go in.”
In a smaller room beyond an archway, Claudio Barranca pushed a hooded holophone aside and rose behind a barrier of computer consoles. A lean, compact man with a hard, dark face, his eyes the dead-black color of carbonaceous meteors.
“You say you’re the Tycoon killer?”
Those cold black eyes and the coldly brittle voice shattered his brief illusion of escape. The chill still in him, he felt exhausted and inadequate, felt half sick with fear of some stupid blunder that might betray this last narrow hope.
“I’m Quin Dain.” He felt too numb and dull to invent any clever deception. “Accused in the Tycoon’s killing.”
An expressionless nod. “I heard the admiral’s holocast.”
“I was there.” Wondering how much to say, he tried not to shrink from those merciless eyes. “I saw the actual killer—dying.” His voice caught. “It was Benito.”
“My son.” That dark mask had hardly changed, but savagery flared in the narrowed eyes. “A hero of la causa.”
Quin couldn’t help recoiling.
“Sir—” He tried to steady his voice. “I’ve come looking for Dr. Olaf Thorsen. My dead mother’s—”
“Tell me how you got here.” Barranca cut him off. “How you got out of Coto.”
“I was lucky.” He wondered what could warm Barranca’s deadly stare. “Slipping in, Benito had left an elevator blocked open. I rode that to Thorsen’s lab. When Coto came down, I escaped in the spaceplane he was building for Benito.”
“Benito’s plane?” A tremor of surprise. “Where is it now?”
“Where I left it.” He nerved himself to face that probing stare. “Sir, I’m here from Janoort. I came hoping for Thorsen’s help. Out in the halo, we need his engines to keep us alive—”
