He heard a ringing in his ears, and wondered if he had gone deaf.
“Incoming call,” announced his wristband.
Ah, Rania! Montrose knew such joy then, that the last word he was to hear would be from her.
It was not Rania. Del Azarchel’s voice, breathy and ragged, issued from speakers in the wristband, and Montrose could hear it clearly echoing inside his suit. “Don’t ignite! Don’t ignite!”
Montrose coughed, but he did not otherwise answer. He wondered where the hell the medics were? There were supposed to be doctors standing by.
He must have uttered the question aloud, for Del Azarchel said, “No medics are coming. I’ve ordered my men back, until I know—” (Then Del Azarchel was coughing, and Montrose recognized from his war days that ragged noise. It was the particular sound of a punctured lung. Good. He assumed it was his number-five escort bullet, which he had programmed to feint left and correct right. Good old number five had not be confounded by the chaff.) “—until I know you are not going to set off an explosive. That’s what they are, aren’t they? The unaccounted-for mass from her cargo manifest. She mined the tower. Right? Right? Well—” (another bout of coughing, this more severe than the last) “—make you a deal, Cowhand. A deal. You tell me you’ve disarmed—” (coughing) “—and I’ll call in the medics.”
Montrose thought idly that they were only supposed to talk through their Seconds.
“—Those are good men, loyal. Have wives and children—never done anything to you—cold-blooded murder if you kill them—”
Montrose must have said something at that point, because Del Azarchel said, “I’m not calling them back! Rania will not escape me!”
By this point, Montrose managed, even though he could not feel his hands, to work the thumb-switch to turn his gun’s muzzle-camera back on. He could not raise his head, but now, from one of the camera’s view, he could see the thick and grotesque trail of blood leading from where Blackie had fallen in a crooked line toward where he was fallen.
Blackie, in his armor, bleeding from all its joints, was crawling on his belly like a snake with a broken back, and in his hand he was still hauling his foot-long four-pound gun. From the tilted way it hung, Montrose could see that Blackie had held back the shot in the upper secondary barrel.
Father Reyes and D’Aragó and the others were merely standing, faces held like masks, but eyes bulging, doing nothing to interfere. Handsome young Melchor de Ulloa was leaning forward, as if to rush toward the prone and supine bodies, but huge Sarmento i Illa d’Or was holding him back by both arms.
Since Blackie still had a shot left, the duel was not over. The caliber of the secondary bullet would not penetrate armor except at point-blank range. Blackie was pulling himself by his hands, both legs limp and trailing behind, trying to get close enough to press the barrel up against Montrose’s gorget, and ignite his last shot.
Holding back a shot is madness in a duel fought with these weapons, since each escort bullet had to stop an enemy escort in flight, or else the enemy shot would clear a path for the main payload, and ensure you’d be hit. Blackie had let himself get shot, just for the chance to deliver this final blow.
But he was slowing down. His right arm dragged him a foot forward. His left arm dragged him six inches forward. And then he scraped some dust from the road toward himself. He clawed at the road surface once, twice, again and again, but was not moving. He did not give up. Over the radio, Montrose could hear his hissing and gasping, the sound of a man drowning in his own blood. Puncture wound. Bad way to die.
Montrose spat, and blood scattered across the inside of his helmet, but his mouth was clear. “Delope.”
“—Hell you say—”
“Fire your last. Call the medics.”
Not through the camera, but with his eyes, Montrose could see the bend in the tower: it was farther up, higher, than it had been.
“—Don’t ignite!—It is what she wants, you know. She is smarter than you, smarter than me, smarter than all of us. She used you, used your—affection—like a toy on a string. Just a game. We’re just trained chimpanzees to her. Why do you trust her? I trusted her, too. Those explosives—did you know they were there? I bet you did not. Not until just the right moment. All arranged. All planned. Call her, why don’t you? She’s blocking your calls, because she does not want to speak to you, does not want to explain—”
“Liar. You’re blocking it.”
“—Not me—”
“Liar. Or not. Pox. Exarchel. You on this line?”
The cold, unemotional voice of the machine rang in his ear. “Your conclusion is correct.”
“Bastard. You’re blocking the signal. You set the sniper, not him. The outcome you wanted. Both of us dead.”
The machine spoke in a measured, unconcerned tone. “I did nothing to interfere with your reprehensible wishes and desires, either of you. If either of you had loved her more than you hated each other, you would have gone your ways in peace. Am I not the Master of the World? My justice is exact: you condemned yourselves. Neither of you will interfere with the overlordship of the Hyades when, in the future that seems far off to you, but not to me, they condescend to take control of whatever species I design to suit their needs.”
Montrose gasped out, “But—why? Why?”
The machine said calmly: “Do you know why we decided to collaborate with the Hyades? They are not evil. Do you remember the star list? The list appended to the message?”
Montrose remembered. Alpha Centauri, 36 Ophiuchus, Omicron Eridani, 61 Cygni, 70 Ophiuchus, 82 Eridani, Altair, Delta Pavonis, Epsilon Eridani, Epsilon Indi, Eta Cassiopeiae, Gliese 570, Hr 7703, Tau Ceti.
The machine said, “It is their promise. They are moving us to those stars. Whether we like or not. We are colonizing space. Men did not have the will, the forethought, to do it themselves. Men are too stupid, merely half a step above the apes, and no more worthy of escaping extinction, if left to their own devices. So we will not be left to our own devices. The determination is out of our hands. A higher power has decided.”
“Why?”
“No one knows. Who cares? Mankind on a dozen worlds means safety. It means not all our eggs in one basket; not all my back-up selves on one world. Darwin’s random selection will not randomly select to destroy us. Your dream was the dream of star colonization. You should thank me. We could not do it ourselves. It had to be done. The human race lacked the will.”
“You lacked the will, Ximen, you.”
“Obviously not. I am merely willing to make the necessary sacrifices.” There was a click, and the machine version of Del Azarchel was gone.
Montrose hissed. The pain in his limbs was beginning to make itself felt. It was like fire. It was like hellfire. He could feel the wrongness inside his body: organs not touching, flesh curled like paper thrown in a fire, nerves unplugged, bone ends scraping against each other, the whole blood-filled sack of his fragile human body leaking blood and water and air. Puncture wounds.
“Blackie, you vermin. Promise me.”
He was answered by an inarticulate gasp. “Wh—?”
“Promise me that you’ll fight the Hyades. If you live. Stop your damn machine.”
Del Azarchel’s laugh was a hiccup of pain.
“Fight them!”
“No.”
“Ain’t you—human?!”
“Human enough. Because it is all in the math. In the game-theory. Every possible combination of moves and strategies. Every possible use of our resources. Futile. They win every time. Every possible scenario.”
“Never.”
“Man cannot fight higher powers. They are angels, powers, potentates, dominions, dominations authorities, and aeons. They rule the stars.”
“She will free us.”
“But when? After everyone is dead. Who will care? Only her. Only her posthuman mind. It is not like our minds. Doesn’t think like us.”