Jack Chalker - Priam's Lens

“I don’t see why it wouldn’t destroy the genhole and the gates as well,” Kat commented.

“It doesn’t. It is drawn to a charged plate as if it was magnetized and goes through the center,” the mentat explained.

“In a sense, the twisted space-time inside a genhole appears to be a natural, or compatible, environment for it.”

“So what is in the security modules below?” Harker asked. “What is it that they need up there?”

“The control codes for the fourteen thousand six hundred and thirty-seven junctions established in this sector before Helena’s fall,” the mentat told them. “With these codes, anyone in the control center can route the string or pulse or whatever it is to any exit point under junction control. I made them all, you know, right here, and I am certain that they will work as designed. You can see why the codes and locations were kept separate, though. It is quite possible that the use of it on, say, Helena, would destroy the planet. Anything is possible. Nobody was sure what happened to the asteroids and small moons used in the early Confederacy tests, but it scared them. There was a sense that this was a weapon that would not only destroy the enemy but would also destroy what you wished to protect. The debate raged even as the Titans closed in. It was agreed that there would be a master code that no one person or family would have. Karas had part of it, Melcouri a second, and the supervising engineer, Doctor Sotoropolis, had the third. All three parts were needed before the station would even accept the coded commands. When the time came, sooner than they thought it would, Melcouri and Karas had no qualms about giving the code, but Sotoropolis balked. His wife pleaded with him to withhold his consent since all that they had in the world, their families, their lives, were here. He vacillated long enough that it was almost too late. He was trying to set up a close-in gate that would intersect Titan ships instead of hitting them after they were down, but when they came, it was too swift. He wasn’t ready, and he died for it.”

N’Gana stopped suddenly, causing an almost comic backup of the others. “Then what in hell’s the use of getting these target codes? We don’t have all three parts of the master code, right? Or is that down there, too?”

For the first time, Harker realized just exactly what had led to all this, and even what had led the Dutchman to the family survivors offworld rather than attempting it with his own crew.

“Sotoropolis gave the code to his wife,” he guessed. “The old diva’s had it all along. All these years she’s been living with the guilt that she stopped her husband from using the weapon. It cost him his life, her adopted world most of its life, and, even now, we have no other way to deal with the Titans.”

“Then why didn’t she just come to your people—the Navy—with the codes?” Kat asked him. “Why all this time, all this misery?”

“Her code was meaningless without the master target code modules,” he pointed out, “and they were down here and believed to be lost. She had the missing part of the master code, but no way to aim the damned weapon. The Dutchman knew where the necessary modules were and probably could have followed up his man’s failure and gotten them, but he wouldn’t have had the master code. Because they argued and agonized as the enemy came, the enemy won. Now they need each other to do what they couldn’t so long ago.”

“Why weren’t the damned targets just programmed in on Hector?” N’Gana grumbled. “Damned amateurs!”

“Probably fear that the Navy would close in and stop them,” Harker guessed. “Or take it over and maybe not use it where Karas and Melcouri were interested in using it. You’re right—it was a tragedy of errors and misjudgments and mistakes, and there’s enough blame to go around. That’s all over and done. It’s past. Enough people have agonized and suffered too long for those mistakes. No use in rehashing it. The important thing is that we may be able to give it a try at last. As the mentat said about Jastrow, if you can’t survive, at least get even.”

Kat wasn’t so sure. “Um, Gene—if they use it here, then it might well shatter the whole damned planet. Might I point out that we are on said planet?”

He nodded. “And we’re gonna be on it for quite a while. You know that as well as I do. I want to live, but I’d rather die and take them with me than live as one of their experimental subjects.”

“But—”

“Let us not refight the arguments of ninety years!” N’Gana snapped at her. “If we can do it, it will be used. Never mind even thinking of revenge. We have nothing else we can do.”

“At least now you can feel for what they were going through when push came to shove back then,” Harker noted. “Imagine having to do it with everybody and everything you hold dear in the balance.”

She sighed. “Well, maybe they won’t even use it on us anyway. We’re kind of a backwater now in the fight.”

“They have to,” Harker pointed out. “If they don’t use it and knock out the Titans here on Helena, then the Titans are going to be quickly turning Hector into a molten mass. Krill and company are in a worse position than we are. It’s possible we can escape and live—if you call it living. They can’t even take a practice shot. The moment they get the codes they have to shoot and shoot straight at us. We’d better damned well think about that angle. Never mind what happens if it doesn’t work. What if it does?”

Although much of the ancient factory seemed intact, the far end was a real mess. Here some of the structure had collapsed.

“It happened when they began to expand the base,” the mentat told them. “The bedrock shifted, then cracked, and there was a general collapse like a small earthquake.”

Not only was there a great deal of rubble, but just beyond was the bank of freight elevators that carried material from one level to another. The giant cages were at the bottom where they’d fallen, and because these were magnetic levitation systems, there were no cables just deep, dark shafts.

“Jastrow actually managed to get down to the bottom level,” the mentat told them. “However, the car itself has been crushed at the bottom, blocking access to the tunnels beyond. I have no sensors in the area, so I could not see or predict what was down there. I know he worked down there, using metal rods and other scavenged items to try and enlarge the hole, to get in there, but after two days he was only bloodied and scratched. He said it was impossible. That only a Pooka had a chance of getting through that.”

“I do not like that term,” Hamille croaked. “I am Quadulan.”

“Very well. But it is a bit late to be offended. The question is, can you get down the shaft?”

The creature slithered over the rubble, then extended tentacles to hold on to what it could and stared down into the shaft. Finally, it pulled back.

“Get down, yes,” it said. “Back up much harder.”

N’Gana studied what he could see of the shaft. “I assume this Jastrow used the service ladder here, which is in this indented area?”

“Yes,” the master computer responded. “It is the emergency service access and exit.”

“How deep is the shaft?”

“One point two kilometers,” the mentat told him. That brought them all up short. “ How deep?”

“One point two kilometers, give or take a few meters. Straight down. There are, of course, many other floors, but the security storage was at the very bottom for obvious reasons.”

Harker whistled. “Well, that lets out dropping cables down, I’d think. Even if we had such cables. So what do we do now?”

“Hamille, with one of us for backup, goes down there and gets the damned modules,” N’Gana replied. “Any volunteers?”