Down on Mars within Olympus Mons, Toll Seven oversaw the secret installation of a mass cyborg-converter. Most of the equipment had come down the past weeks in heavy orbital shuttles under General Fromm’s command. During the massive shuttle flights between the warships and the cargo-carrying vessels from Earth, the converter equipment had been carefully ferried from several battle pods and to the Alger Hiss. The entirety of that crew was finally jacked into Web-Mind. Their chaotic minds had been systematically reprogrammed to the extent free bio-forms could retain such programming.
Toll Seven paced along the length of the converter. It was in a vast garage, deep inside the volcano, near the bottom. Heaters labored to raise the temperature to an even 90 degrees Fahrenheit. Conversion demanded a warm environment. Cyborgs worked like ants over the garage-sized machine, using drills, sonic screwdrivers, laser-welders and micro computing-cubes. It created a bedlam of electronic whirls, air-compressor hisses, clacks and metallic clangs.
Toll Seven had already rerouted the magnetic lifts that led to this garage. No one could enter the area without a complex code-sequence given at cyborg speeds.
The working cyborgs never looked up to watch him or each other. Each was controlled by preprogramming inserted by Web-Mind. They moved fast and with cyborg precision, and still this was taking too long.
Toll Seven used a visual-imaging handscanner, checking the calibration of delicate machinery. He needed more cyborgs, and he needed them now. Drop assaulting the volcano had damaged far too many prime units. He hadn’t even recovered all of them yet. OD12 was still missing and so was KR3. Reviewing Web-Mind, he suspected that KR3 might have committed self-destruction. It was irritating to realize, but such anomalies happened.
Toll Seven used inner nanonics to dump chemicals into his brain’s irritation centers. The bio-chemicals struggled to dampen his unhappiness. He needed clean concentration more than ever. The great enemy came: the Highborn, the genetic super-soldiers. They moved three of the hated Doom Stars toward Mars. The giant spacecraft were the ultimate in warship design and construction. Web-Mind had calculated for two, but had accepted the possibility of three.
This was the delicate moment. Web-Mind still needed Social Unity, or more precisely, Social Unity’s fleet. It wasn’t possible to suborn the rest of the Battlefleet in time. The Highborn came on too quickly and he hadn’t brought enough neck-jacks nor set up a facility yet to make new ones. It would have been so much easier if they could have reached the Earth System and landed amongst the Homo sapiens. With PHC eager for help, it would have been simplicity to set up a processing center in one of the vast cities. In several months, hundreds of thousands and maybe even millions of cyborgs could have emerged from that city and swarmed the Eden planet.
This was the critical juncture. He had a foothold on Mars, but he lacked a large populace to convert. He would have to visit the Olympus Mons prisoners again and weed out the culls, those too damaged to convert. Once the Highborn threat had been dealt with, however, then it would be time to assist Social Unity re-conquering the Martian underground cities. Web-Mind would choose a city and begin turning the masses into cyborgs.
Toll Seven studied the handscanner. He turned around and took several steps back. He adjusted the scanner. The skin-chopper with its many blades that removed human epidermis—ah, he saw the problem. He had misplaced a decimal in his configurations. He adjusted and reread the scanner. Then he continued down the line.
He needed cyborgs down here and he needed them in space, ready to implement the stealth-attack tactic that would win them the Battle for Mars. If only there was some manner to speed up converter construction—but there wasn’t now. Later—
His inner nanonics dumped more chemicals, keeping stress out of his system. He needed to send a message to Earth soon, to Chief Yezhov of Political Harmony Corps. That particular Homo sapien had been invaluable with his warning. The original ploy to assassinate James Hawthorne had not only failed, but had also alerted the general to the real danger. If not for Yezhov’s timely lightguide message—
Toll Seven halted and his silver eyeballs swiveled in their plastic sockets. Reminiscing would not improve his efficiency. He must concentrate and extract every ounce of effort from himself during these critical weeks.
Against the Highborn—
Toll Seven longed to plug into Web-Mind and reconfigure the statistics one more time. He would have to use the half-cyborgs, the ones converted in his command pod. It was yet another risk in this daring stab for Solar System-wide conquest. With three Doom Stars approaching, the odds were 62.34 percent in cyborg favor.
Those odds would fall fifteen points, however, if the bio-forms of the Battlefleet discovered that key Homo sapiens had been jacked into the Web-Mind. If only he could capture Commissar Kursk or even better, Commodore Blackstone. The time might come, but so far, they had each proved too cautious by training or by instinct. They would soon make an error, however, for that was the way of free bio-forms. Once he gained control over those two, the odds for space-battle victory would increase another 3.22 percentage points.
-4-
Marten Kluge felt trapped and was depressed, as if he had never escaped out of the punishment tube in Sydney, Australian Sector. It felt as if the blue water still gushed over his head as he pumped and pumped the red handle.
He had lived as a meaningless cipher in an underground megalopolis on Earth. Now he lived again in a sprawling subterranean city, but this time on Mars. Only this time the city was a titanic slum compared to Sydney.
A little over three weeks ago, they had skimmed from Olympus Mons and had made it to New Tijuana, 343 kilometers away. That was much too near the giant volcano, too near the terrifying nest of cyborgs.
Marten tightened his back muscles so they wouldn’t quiver. He and Omi were in an underground firing-range, practicing with genuine Gauss needlers. Others of his commando troop practiced here. Secretary-General Chavez had given him permanent command of them.
Marten hefted what Major Diaz had called ‘a combat needler.’ It was bulky, but light. He suspected it would prove useless against cyborgs or against battle-armored drop-troops. Marten settled a pair of goggles over his eyes, lifted the needler and sighted the human-shaped target one hundred feet away. He fired a burst, listening to the cracks of noise and listening to all the other cracks from the other compartmentalized lanes. The hit area glowed red, showing dots on the target’s forehead.
“Let me try,” Omi said.
With his thumb, Marten flicked the safety, set down the weapon and stepped back. Omi picked it up and fired burst after burst. The glows showed in the head, the chest and in the genital area. When the needler clicked empty, Omi slammed in another clip and methodically emptied it, too. He picked up a third clip.
“That will do for now,” Marten said, putting a hand on Omi’s shoulder.
Omi whirled around, and there was something dangerous in his dark eyes. That something settled down as Omi seemed to realize who touched him and where he was.
“It’s getting to you, too, eh?” Marten asked.
Omi took a deeper breath than normal and gave a minimal shrug. “Is this why we escaped the Highborn?”
“Meaning?”
“To die on Mars?” Omi asked. “It’s only a matter of time before they unleash those cyborgs on us.”
“Right,” Marten said. It was as if Omi’s words had flipped a switch in him. Marten knew what he had to do. He’d been playing the long shot for a long time now. Until they were free of the Inner Planets, there was no sense in trying to play it safe.