George Martin: Aces High

"It's larger than it needs to be because I built it with primitive electronics," Jube told him. He spread his hands, three thick fingers and blunt curved thumb. "And these hands are incapable of delicate work. The device at the Cloisters would have lit up had it ever been powered." He looked at Red. "How did the Worshipful Master plan to accomplish that?"

Red shook his head. "I can't tell you. Sure, and you're a prince to save my sweet red ass, but you're still a first-degree prince, if you get my meaning."

"Could a first-degree initiate construct a Shakti machine?" Jube asked him. "How many degrees had you passed before they even told you the device existed?" He shook his head. "Never mind, I know the punch line. How many jokers does it take to turn on a light bulb? One, as long as his nose is AC. The Astronomer was going to power the machine himself."

The look on Red's face was all the confirmation Jube needed. "Kafka's Shakti was supposed to give the order dominion over the Earth," the Mason said.

"Yeah," Jube said. The Shining Brother in the wood gave the secret to Cagliostro, and told him to keep it safe, to hand it down from generation to generation until the coming of the Dark Sister. Probably the Shining Brother had given Cagliostro other artifacts; without a doubt he had given him a power source, there being no way the Takisian wild card could have been anticipated two centuries ago:

"Clever," Jube said aloud, "yeah, but still a man of his times. Primitive, superstitious, greedy. He used the things he had been given for selfish personal gain."

"Who?" Red asked, confused.

"Balsamo," Jube replied. Balsamo had invented the rest himself, the Egyptian mythos, the degrees, the rituals. He took the things he had been told and twisted them to his own use. "The Shining Brother was a Ly'bahr," he announced.

"What?" Red said.

"A Ly'bahr," Jube told him. "They're cyborgs, Red, more machine than flesh, awesomely powerful. The jokers of space, no two look alike, but you wouldn't want to meet one in the alley. Some of my best friends are Ly'bahr." He was babbling, he realized, but he was helpless to stop. "Oh, yeah, it could have been some other species, maybe a Kreg, or even one of my people in a liquid-metal spacesuit. But I think it was a Ly'bahr. Do you know why? TIAMAT"

Red just stared at him.

"TIAMAT," Jhubben repeated, the newsboy gone from his voice and manner, speaking as a Network scientist might speak. "An Assyrian deity. I looked that up. Yet why call the Dark Sister by that name? Why not Baal, or Dagon, or one of the other nightmarish godlings you humans have invented? Why is the ultimate power word Assyrian when the rest of the mythology Cagliostro chose was Egyptian?"

"I don't know," Red said.

"I do. Because TIAMAT sounds vaguely like something the Shining Brother said. Thyat M'hruh. Darkness-for-therace. The Ly'bahr term for the Swarm." Jube laughed. He had been telling jokes for thirty-odd years, but no one had ever heard his real laugh before. It sounded like the bark of a seal. "The Master Trader would never have given you world dominion. We don't give anything away for free. But we would have sold it to you. You would have been an elite of high priests, with `gods' who actually listened and produced miracles on demand."

"You -are crazy, pal o' mine," Red said with forced jocularity. "The Shakti device was going to-"

"Shakti just means power," Jhubben said. "It's a tachyon transmitter, and that's all it ever was." He rose from the couch and thumped over to stand by the machine. "Setekh saw it and spared me. He thought I was a stray, a leftover from some offshoot branch. Probably he felt it would be wise to keep me around in case anything happened to Kafka. He'd be here now, but when TIAMAT headed back toward the stars, the Shakti device must have seemed somewhat irrelevant."

"Sure, and isn't it?"

"No. The transmitter has been calibrated. If I send the call, it will be heard on the nearest Network outpost in a matter of weeks. A few months later, the Opportunity will come."

"What opportunity is that, brother?" Red asked.

"The Shining Brother will come," Jhubben told him. "His chariot is the size of Manhattan Island, and armies of angels and demons and gods fight at his beck and call. They had better. They've got binding contracts, all of them."

Red's eyes narrowed in a squint. "You're telling me it's not over," he said. "It can still happen, even without the Dark Sister."

"It could, but it won't," Jube said. "Why not?"

"I don't intend to send the call." He wanted to make Red understand. "I thought we were the cavalry. The Takisians used your race as experimental animals. I thought we were better than that. We're not. Don't you see, Red? We knew she was coming. But there would have been no profit if she never arrived, and the Network gives nothing away for free."

"I think I'm getting it," Red said. He picked up the bottle, but the rum was gone. "I need another drink," he said. "How about you?"

"No," Jube said.

Red went into the kitchen. Jube heard him opening and closing drawers. When he came out, he had a large carving knife in his hands. "Send the message," he said.

"I went to see the Dodgers once," Jube told him. He was tired and disappointed. "Three strikes and you're out at the old ball game, isn't that what they say? The Takisians, my own culture, and now humanity. Is there anyone who cares for anything beyond themselves?"

"I'm not kidding, Walrus," Red said. "Don't want to do this, pal o' mine, but us Irish are a stubborn bunch of cusses. Hey, the cops are hunting us down out there. What kind of life is that for me and Kim Toy, I ask you? If it's a choice between eating out of garbage cans and ruling the world, I'll take the world every time." He waved the carving knife. "Send the message. Then I'll put this away and we can order up a pizza and swap a few jokes, okay? You can have rotten meat on your half."

Jube reached under his shirt and produced a pistol. It was a deep translucent red-black, its lines smooth and sensual yet somehow disquieting, its barrel pencil-thin. Points of light flickered deep inside it, and it fit Jube's hand perfectly. "Stop it, Red," he said. "It won't be you ruling the world. It will be the Astronomer, and Demise, or guys just like them. They're bastards, you told me so yourself "

"We're all bastards," Red told him. "And the Irish aren't as thick as they say: That's a toy ray-gun, pal o' mine."

"I gave it to the boy upstairs for Christmas," Jube said. "His guardian gave it back. It wouldn't break, you see, but the metal was so hard that Doughboy was breaking everything else in the house when he played with it. I put the power cell back in, and wore the harness whenever I went to the Cloisters. It made me feel a little braver."

"I don't want to do this," Red said. "Neither do I," Jhubben replied. Red took a step forward.

The phone rang a long time. Finally someone picked it up at the other end. "Hello?"

"Croyd," Jube said, "sorry to bother you. It's about this body.. ."