Jack Chalker - Priam's Lens

“I think it’s possible, yes. I know how to do it, although that’s with modem tools and the like. From scratch it’ll take a lot longer, but it’s possible. If the grid’s down and the Titans are run off, at least nobody will want to stop us, and maybe we can have a straw hut and a fire and all the rest. That’s if we survive the next few days, anyway.”

“It’s worth a try. I’d like to try,” she told him. “I keep being afraid that we’ve already been somewhat reprogrammed.”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“The general program for all survivors. The one they transmit constantly over the grid, and which transfers itself to us via that nightly special rain. I’ve been thinking about it and about us and how we changed even in so short a time. We should be dead. Instead, we’ve become more like Littlefeet and Spotty. Think about it. After the first couple of days, did any of us think of doing the absolutely normal thing and finding some kind of cover or shelter from that storm? No. Even though we knew that it was ruining our stuff, we started walking right out into it. That’s the first directive. Be sure you can get the message. Maybe even the chemical bath. We’re already part of their experiment. Everything in the world, this world, gets bathed like that. We eat it, drink it, wash in it. Even if the grid collapsed, I think it will continue, at least for a while. And yet I want that boat, Gene. I really do want to ride inthat boat.”

It may have been hours, it may have been a day, but suddenly there was a sound from the shaft. Slowly, an exhausted Hamille oozed out onto the rubble and collapsed, breathing very hard. They rushed over to the Quadulan expectantly. “Where’s the colonel?” Kat asked.

“Did you get it?” Harker wanted to know.

“Go down and help the colonel,” the alien croaked, each word a heaving breath. “He is not that far but he is in trouble.”

Harker sprang to the shaft, saw the jump to the ladder, made it, and quickly started down, his old ship’s reflexes giving him total confidence.

He found N’Gana mostly by the moans and gasps, perhaps seventy meters down, sitting on the platform and holding on to the ladder.

“Colonel! Can you make it? Come on! I’ll help you!”

“No,” N’Gana gasped. “I will make it on my own. You can’t carry me up there, you can’t pull me up, and if you follow and I fall, I’ll take you with me.” He fumbled for something, then handed a small box to Harker. “Take them and go back on up! I’ll follow you if and when I can! Go! Without those, it’s all meaningless!”

Gene Harker understood, and grasping the box firmly, he went back up the ladder toward the light above.

The three others waited anxiously at the top, and Kat’s eyebrows went up when she saw that he was alone.

“He’ll make it on willpower,” he assured her. “I can tell you, a man like that’s not going to check out by falling down an elevator shaft.”

They looked at the box. It was a plain box of artificial wood, and it had a golden Greek cross on the top and a pure gold clasp. Harker slipped the tiny gold pin over and down, and opened the box. Inside, resting in a soft feltlike lining, each wrapped with a protective bubble seal, were the code modules.

“Oh, my God!” Kat Socolov breathed. For the first time she realized that they had not only gotten what was needed, but that it was almost certain to be used.

About fifteen minutes later, an ashen N’Gana crawled out of the shaft and tumbled down the pile of debris. They rushed to him; he was in awful shape. He was covered with perspiration, and not just his face but his whole body seemed a dull, almost dark gray. Still, after a while, he managed to sit up and look around. When he spied the box, he looked extremely satisfied.

“We did it,” he sighed.

“We did nothing until we can blow the hell out of that satanic fairyland out there,” Harker replied. “We have to feed these in to the mentat and get out of here.”

“Go feed ’em in,” N’Gana gasped. “Then we’ll talk.”

The women tried to make him as comfortable as they could, but it was pretty clear to them and to the others as well that Colonel N’Gana would not be going anywhere anytime soon.

The mentat directed Harker to an old, dust-covered terminal far on the other side of the great factory floor. It didn’t look operational, but carefully he unwrapped each module and, one by one, he inserted them into the slot.

“I have the data. I have no idea what it means, but my counterpart on Hector certainly does. These mathematical algorithms will combine with what is already up there to give precise switching and firing instructions to any and all of the active genhole gates.”

“How soon can you transmit?” Harker asked it.

“I can transmit now. I will not, however. Not without giving you a chance.”

Harker walked back over to them and put the box back on the floor. “Too bad that’s all made of high-tech state-of-the-art synthetics,” he sighed. “Otherwise we could take the extras with us.”

Kat sighed. “Yeah. Where’s Father Chicanis’s communion set when we really need it?”

“I will get the message out,” the computer assured them. “I am not anxious to create the act nor am I looking forward to my own cessation of existence, but you must go, and quickly. Every moment now risks some sort of discovery. I want you well away from here.”

N’Gana shook his head. “I think I’ll just stay and keep you company,” he told the mentat. “It’s important that a commanding officer ensure that the mission is completed.”

“It is not necessary,” the mentat responded, unable to catch subtlety or monitor the physical condition of the colonel.

“Yes, it is. I’m dying anyway. Everybody knows that, even me. If I’m going to go, then I’m damned well going to go in action. The rest of you, get out of here! Now! I have an idea I want to discuss with our new friend here. One that’ll let us do this in style.”

“You’re sure?” Kat asked him.

“Doc, I’ve never been more certain of anything. And I want it quick, since I don’t know how long I’m going to be able to animate this corpse and I’m hungry and thirsty and there’s nothing here for even a lousy last meal, understand?”

“Colonel—” She felt tears welling up inside her.

“Get the hell out of here, Doc. And the rest of you! Few men in my profession get to plot their own glorious demise! Besides,” he added a bit more softly, “I would go absolutely insane stuck here for the next ten years or so. This is one of the dullest worlds I’ve ever known!”

Harker brought himself to attention and saluted. The colonel, reflexively, returned it.

“I, too, am going to remain, with Colonel’s permission,” Hamille croaked, still breathing hard. “I am too tired to go on, and there is nothing for me in this world. I, too, am fighter. My family, my young, are already in the next universe thanks to Titans. I would like to join them.”

N’Gana looked over at the Quadulan. “I’ll be glad for the company, but you might just get picked up.”

“To go where? Not like human people. Very few worlds are Quadulan.”

Harker leaned over and half whispered to Kat, “Let’s get out of here before we all go down in a suicide pact.”

She nodded. There wasn’t much more to say, and she realized that the strange alien who’d done the job the humans could not had never intended a different fate.

The mentat had no comment on the other two, but did step in now. “Mister Harker, you and the two women should leave at once. The boy must stay.”

They all froze. “What?” Kat asked in an acid tone. “What the hell do you mean by that?”