Piers Anthony - Total Recall

“Make a move,” said Richter. “ Please .”

Quaid’s eyes burned into the man with hatred. But he was helpless. Benny’s betrayal had wiped out both the Resistance and Quaid’s hope.

Quaid and Melina were roughly shackled and thrown into a mole for transport. “I’m sorry,” he told her, over the roar of the engine. “If it hadn’t been for me, Benny wouldn’t have gotten to Kuato.”

“I brought you in!” she said. “I thought—feared—”

“That I was the traitor,” he finished for her. “I know. I don’t remember much of what we were to each other before, but I think for me it was supposed to be business. When I fell into the pit, I realized that I loved you. That’s why that memory kept coming back to me. It was the last I had seen of you. I guess Cohaagen didn’t know about that, or thought the memory implant would wipe it out. It did wipe out all the other memories, but not the love.”

“I couldn’t forget you,” she said. “I didn’t know whether I could trust you, but somehow…”

“I guess we were destined for each other, corny as that sounds. But you know, there was more I found down there, before they—I guess they captured me. I don’t remember that, but I remember the alien message.”

“The what?”

“The No’ui. An alien trading species. They set this up for us, when we came of age. If we qualified. Which I guess we don’t. But—” He paused, remembering something else. “Do you know anything about hydrazoic acid?”

She concentrated, as they bumped along in the mole. “It’s a colorless, poisonous, highly explosive liquid. I sniffed some once. It was vile!”

“What would it be like on a planetary scale? I mean, thousands of tons of it?”

“Like hell, I think! Why?”

“The aliens—they were going to use it to make air. I mean, with water. They were going to melt the ice, and combine—I don’t know, I’m no chemist. Does it make sense?”

“I’m no chemist either, but I think it could make sense only to an alien!”

“But with advanced alien technology, would it be possible? I mean, to break apart hydrazoic acid and water, and recombine them into air, and use the extra for a nuclear reactor to power the whole thing?”

She shook her head. “I’d have to ask someone who knew more about it than I do! But it sounds crazy to me.”

He sighed. Maybe it was crazy. But it was also in his mind. He hoped the aliens did know what they were doing.

The mole ground on, carrying them to Cohaagen. Quaid did not expect to enjoy the encounter.

The next morning, still shackled, uncomfortable, but not actually mistreated (to Quaid’s surprise), they were hauled into Cohaagen’s fancy office. He had assumed that Richter would beat on him even if forbidden to kill him, and that Melina would be fair game for the goons, as a beautiful and helpless (because bound) woman. But they had been given food and a chance to use sanitary facilities, and left alone (but monitored) to sleep. Naturally they had not talked, knowing that their every word could be examined for evidence against the Rebels. So it had been uncomfortable but not bad.

Now he knew it was going to get bad. They had been saved for Cohaagen’s direct interrogation, and Quaid knew that the man would do whatever he thought was required to achieve his ends. Richter was a thug, brutal but without the imagination to generate real mischief. Cohaagen, in contrast, was a white-collar criminal, less violent in manner but ten times as dangerous overall.

Go tell your species…

Tell Cohaagen? Not likely! The man did not have the interest of the species in mind, let alone the interest of the galaxy. He wanted only what was good for the Mars Colony, as defined by himself: in short, power for Vilos Cohaagen. The No’ui science represented power beyond that known by man; it must not fall into the hands of this petty dictator.

In fact, Quaid expected to suffer horrible torture, rather than yield that information. Cohaagen did not know about the alien message center; it had been hidden amidst the tangle of twisting paths, so that only a person with a special curiosity and persistence would find it. Hauser had been assigned by the Resistance to discover the meaning of the riddle of the alien artifact, so he had been motivated; otherwise he would not have been so persistent. Also, fresh in the realization of his love for Melina, he had done it for her, to make her trust him, and love him back. No, he would not give the No’ui message here!

Make it understand that the choice is upon it. For mankind had either to ignore the artifact, as it had done so far, or to invoke it and use it positively, as the No’ui intended. If man tried to use it negatively, it would be destroyed. That was what the nova symbol meant: a nova was a flaring star, in effect an explosion, destroying what was around it. The alien complex would explode, perhaps by setting off that hydrazoic acid buried beneath the subterranean glacier, taking itself and the local human colony with it. That was the choice: to use it or lose it. But Cohaagen would only pretend to use it properly; he would instead make a scientific monopoly of it, using that power to make himself the dictator not only of Mars but of the entire human species. That was what the aliens hadn’t counted on, being unfamiliar with duplicity. To them a thing either was or was not; they could not grasp even the relatively innocuous concept of “figurative.” They were literal-minded creatures, hatched with their knowledge genetically encoded, their values set.

We put the matter in your hands. That was the essence of their conclusion. They had given their message to one person—the one who happened to come to their message center—and trusted him to do what was right. They had made him their emissary, and he intended to honor the trust they had extended. He wanted mankind to become a trader, one of the significant species of the galaxy. So he was going to keep the secret from Cohaagen, letting the alien complex be destroyed rather than perverted. He was prepared to give his life and Melina’s to that end. He knew she would want it that way. He had told her nothing so that she could not give away the secret herself.

Melina! Suppose Cohaagen had her tortured in Quaid’s presence? Surely Cohaagen would, if he thought that would be effective. Could Quaid hold out against that?

There was only one answer: he had to.

Maybe they would be lucky, and Cohaagen wouldn’t know what Quaid had discovered. After all, it seemed he hadn’t known before, when he set up the memory implant and sent Quaid to Earth. The traitor Benny hadn’t caught on, otherwise he wouldn’t have killed Kuato. He had thought the only secret was that the alien artifact made atmosphere, and how to turn it on. That was the least of it!

Quaid’s thoughts were interrupted by men tramping into the office, carrying a body. They dumped it onto the conference table. It was Kuato, the shriveled head growing from George’s chest.

Cohaagen stared down at it. “So this is the great man!”

Richter and Benny, standing guard over Quaid and Melina, chuckled. They were pleased with their accomplishment. They had unriddled the mystery of the leader of the Mars Liberation Front, and destroyed him and his organization.

Quaid saw Melina wince. She still blamed herself for the colossal mistake of bringing Benny into the inner sanctum. Yet how could she have known? Benny had been on her side, helping her cause, helping them escape pursuit. Benny had been a pro; that said it all. It would be better to blame Quaid, or his Hauser-aspect, for not recognizing another pro when he saw him.