Friends (2013) - Adams, Robert

Weary of transferring from one body to another, jealous of the High Lord, Milo Morai, and all others blessed with natural longevity, hating everything built by Dr. Stemheimer, the Judge had projected his mind into an artificially developed body. The good news was that the experiment worked, in that the transfer was complete, and that the body did not age . . . exactly. The bad news was that he couldn’t get out of the horribly changing, ever more freakish shell. He’d bought himself a ticket to hell.

When Davidson saw the results of the experiment, he made the mistake of saying: “You are a great man, Doctor. Unwilling to settle for the status quo, you took a self-critical approach, the glory of our scientific method! Despite a few unexpected side effects, with this experiment you open the door to a renaissance. Surely the time has come to share this good news with everyone!” Davidson might have said more had he not been strangled on the spot. The new body was strong, at least. It was the death of the Doctor and the birth of the Judge.

Under the circumstances, he decided to make the best of his lot. One thing he had learned was that the general population agreed on very little, but an opinion that bound men together, however different their creeds, was: Ganiks are the scum of the earth. Brutish, superstitious, unintelligent, disorganized, disloyal, slavering cannibals . . . what possible use could they be to anyone, themselves included? He decided then and there that they were the folk he needed. His knowledge of their customs made it child’s play to convince them of his divinity. They learned to call him by the name he had given himself: the Judge. He didn’t need many of them at first—just a few bullies and their herds.

On the last mission he had carried out when he still inhabited a human body, he’d stumbled upon an underground base in almost perfect condition. He surmised that the original occupants had suffocated perhaps as far back as the Great Change. It was like finding an Egyptian pyramid with all its relics intact. Naturally he kept the find to himself, never knowing when it might come in handy. Today it was his base. So far as the Center was concerned, he had died in a failed experiment, and taken Davidson with him.

It took .months to put his new home in order. If the equipment had not been protected in a virtual vacuum, he wasn't sure what he would have done. As it was, he restarted the generators, turned the lights on, found some functional weapons in the armory, and even discovered Muzak tapes kept in their own airtight container. He reasoned that men of a thousand years ago must have prized this music very highly; because although the Judge remembered a good bit about the twentieth century, he had forgotten other things.

He had the most fun finding his “children,” scaring them first, recruiting afterward. It was Home Sweet Home.

As he preened in front of the little round mirror, there was no way for the Judge to know that, elsewhere, Dr. Braun and Major Corbett had set off explosive charges at the entrance to caves above a volcano, for motives entirely irrelevant to the actual consequences. So far as the Judge could tell, the earthquake that began to knock down the plateau beneath which resided his base was from natural causes. Then again, on several occasions, he had joked to the witless Ganiks around him (he enjoyed talking to himself) that were the earth to split wide open, he would suspect that the Center was behind it, because “they have the qualifications once required by the Army Corps of Engineers.” At the moment, however, the Judge was shaken as thoroughly as if he were in a Mix-master, and he watched his precious mirror fall to the floor and shatter.

The Judge’s Hold withstood the tremors. It had been built to survive nuclear war . . . and had. Within minutes, a bruised Ganik crawled into his presence, fell at his feet, and using one of the forms of address that his teacher insisted upon, said: “Oh, mighty one who looks down from on high, a dozen men were killed in a cave-in in Sector 8.”

“Is there other damage?”

The Ganik shrugged. Well, that would do for a no.

“How long wili it take to clear the exit?”

“Only a few hours, as you have taught us the engineering ways.”

“You’re a smart one, all right. Give the order to collect the bodies if they can be located. Waste not, want not. And most important of all, report to me on how many mirrors I have left.”

“By Sun, Wind and Steel,” said Von, wiping grit from his eyes. “How many can hear me? Call out, or mindspeak!” “Danger increases,” interrupted the prairiecat Swifteye, mate to Flatear. “We must flee the fires.”

“I can see that, cat-sister,” said Von, “but survivors there may be whom we can save.”

White-hot rocks were still falling, albeit smaller ones than before. The fires ignited by these were rushing together, forming one large curtain of red-and-yellow death. The only direction left was off the plateau, but that way was little better than the fire. The terrain was slowly collapsing about them, and no sure footing was possible.

“Follow me, all who can hear my voice or beaming!” called out the chief. Swifteye sent out farspeak, and everyone else converging on the spot added his or her beacon to the call: “LET ALL WHO SURVIVED COME WITH US.” Every rolling pebble or far-off thunder added to their terror.

Berti the cook had a broken leg and arm and was bleeding from his chest. Terrell’s boot splints had protected his ankles from being cracked; he was now withdrawing these bands of metal and using them as splints for his friend’s bones, while the cook retained his good humor, between racking coughs, by insisting that he was better off than the Moon Maiden beside him, whose wound had been terminal: a broken neck.

When the ragtag group was ready to travel, Von went in the lead, checking out the treacherous incline that dared his every footstep. Swifteye was at his side, sending out messages to Flatear—messages that were not answered. Von was the first to see Blackhoof, a noble warhorse, trapped beneath a mound of earth. Only the head and one hoof protruded, and it was evident from the angle of the hoof that the leg was broken. The horse mindspoke a simple message, all the more eloquent for its simple plea.

As Von started toward the horse, Ethera’s arm reached out for him. He had not known until that moment that she lived. “My chief,” she said, as he touched her lovely face, so wonderfully whole and unmarked, “no one loved Blackhoof more than I, but you risk your life to climb down there. Would it not be best to end his suffering with an arrow?’ ’ She gestured at one good bow and several steel-tipped arrows that had survived.

“My soul flies now that I see you live, dear one. But I will not dispatch yonder steed without a proper farewell. He bore me in battle, and that’s an end to it.”

Blackhoof s eyes were huge in pain, his nostrils flaring; but he beamed an emotion of such pure joy at the coming of a kinsman, and this man in particular, that the danger seemed to recede before such camaraderie. An aftershock surprised everyone, and Von fell, sliding the last ten feet of rock-strewn slope to come up hard against the sweating flank of the horse. Putting out a big hand, he patted the wet, dark neck of his steed. They looked into each other’s eyes, and exchanged something beyond words or mindspeak, before Von cut his friend’s artery.

The chief of the clan didn’t have to make the climb back up alone. Ethera had come to join him, and helped support his large frame, bruised from the sliding.

By some miracle, the survivors made it the rest of the way without further mishap, although Terrell needed extra help with Berti, who was fading in and out of consciousness. Periodically a wild animal would scamper or gallop by them, so close that some of the Kindred could almost touch it. The greater fear drowned all smaller instincts.