She opened another eye—and did not have enough time to see what lay beyond. She was suddenly swept away in a tidal wave of words and thoughts: dry, emotionless knowledge that tore through her with such force that it left her no strength to think.
She yelled in sudden fright, unable for the moment even to remember her name or purpose, and tried to extend herself around the vastness that carried her along.
Names, hundreds of names, grimworld dates and grimworld money transactions, personal details, embarrassing facts that could twist men to the will of another, crimes of the past, evaluations of the psyche, technical specifications, techniques of industry, construction, history of the fair world, history of the grim world, comparisons and contrasts, projected trends, structure of the stock market, mountains of knowledge on physics and chemistry, biology and geology— She couldn’t see anything; the knowledge was without form. Its cold impersonality numbed her. Its immensity crushed her. She gave one final cry and winked out of existence, conquered by the force she had encountered.
The mind-wisp that was Doc floated up to the first of the attackers in the stairwell. The man looked through him, could not see him.
Doc looked at the man, seeing not a human being but a machine made of meat and blood, carrying more machines and devices designed to make him more powerful, more lethal.
With just a glance, he understood all there was to know about the man’s long gun, the M16, with its monstrous rate of fire and grenade launcher. More grenades in the man’s belt pouch, tear gas and smoke. Ammunition. Body armor. Gas mask hanging unused in its case. Satchel charge in the backpack.
And they all cried to him, begging to be used.
He smiled benignly at them and began granting wishes.
He reached out to the smoke and tear-gas devices, imparting a bit of his strength to them. Then he moved on to the next man up the stairs and granted his blessing again. A third man, more wishes granted—
Behind him, there was a sharp bang as the devices in the first man’s belt went off, flooding him and his immediate surroundings with black smoke and stinging fog. Doc laughed and flew on, touching another half-dozen men before he reached the top of the stairs.
Adonis he left alone. Adonis carried nothing that called to him, no weapon that begged for his attention.
More grenades went off behind him. Men cried out. Doc swept across the hangar, touching the men writhing on the floor; he reached the men standing at the elevators and granted his loving touch to their grenades. Then he floated on to the far stairwell, smiling at the music made by the men behind as their weapons erupted in smoke and pain.
More men on those far stairs, firing down at someone else.
It was getting harder to grant the wishes of the implements of war. Each one he touched took a little out of him. He could barely see his surroundings and knew there was not much more of him to give. Still he swept down the stairs, speaking approving words to the tools of destruction, giving them the power to act. Behind, there were more explosions and cries.
He travelled down a long stretch in which no weapons clamored for his attention. Then he met a new group of men.
He recognized the first of them. Athelstane of the Novimagos Guard. The lieutenant’s weapons, too, begged for his attention, but Doc looked in vain for grenades. It was hard to think, so hard—and then his vision swam and he could see no more.
“Doc, Gaby, is there any word on those additional troops?” Harris felt like an idiot, talking to an unoccupied corner of the room. Not that he hadn’t done it before, dozens of time, in college stage productions and rehearsals—but Ladislas and Welthy, guarding the door, kept smirking at him.
Harris reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the device there. Doc’s device, the new one. Until this morning he’d been carrying a device that masked his signal, the telltale energies that marked him as a grimworlder. This recent replacement did just the opposite: magnified those signals so that anyone with a tracer would read him not as a single grimworlder but as a whole pack of them.
He left it on. Until Doc pronounced the building clear of enemies, Harris got to be the decoy for Duncan Blackletter.
An interesting role. He wondered if he’d get to see the old man again. He wondered what he’d do to the sick son of a bitch.
Then Ladislas’ expression changed to one of surprise. Harris followed the man’s gaze.
There, on the talk-box, Duncan Blackletter smiled benignly out at him.
Harris set the device down. “I don’t have time for you, Duncan.”
“Nor I for you. But I’m delighted to find you are all together.” Duncan turned to the clay man. “Joseph, I really have to insist that you kill Doc and Goodsir Greene here, and any other grimworlders you find. Except Goodlady Donohue. I do need to study her before I have you kill her, too. Oh, yes, and smash everyone who tries to stop you.”
Joseph flexed his fingers. “I will smash you instead.”
“Oh, I forgot. By your making, by your name, I command you to remember your master!”
Joseph shouted and staggered back. Letters of the old script of Cretanis appeared on his forehead. Smoke rose from him as the letters seared themselves into his flesh.
Harris scrambled across bodies and grabbed up his autogun. He fired at Duncan’s face, taking the talk-box to pieces with a stream of lead.
He looked at Joseph.
The clay man was upright again. The letters were charred black on his forehead. He looked stricken. He turned to Harris, his eyes full of dismay.
“Oh, Harris,” he said. “I am so very sorry.”
He advanced, his hands outstretched.
Harris backed away from Joseph. “Please don’t do this.”
“I have no choice.” Joseph’s voice was full of pain. “Kill me, Harris, please. Because I have to kill you.”
Harris bumped up against a table and was suddenly halted. He scrambled sideways to elude Joseph’s grab. He brought up the barrel of his autogun but couldn’t bring himself to fire.
He heard a familiar jackhammer roar and the flesh of Joseph’s side erupted with craters.
Joseph nodded and turned toward his attacker. “Yes, Welthy. Do that again. Only much, much more.” His face twisted with sadness. “Forgive me. I have to smash you now.” He grabbed the corner of a lab table and hefted it as easily as if it were a cardboard box; a fortune in scientific equipment slid off to crash on the floor.
He spun the table through the air. Welthy tried to jump aside, but the corner of the tabletop caught her in the gut. It smashed her into the wall behind. A moment’s agony crossed her features and she fell like a broken thing.
“Ladislas, get out of here!” Harris shouted. “Don’t attack him! Joseph, I’m going to run now.”
“Then I will go to Gaby and take her. I have to, and I know where she is. Stay instead and kill me.”
Harris aimed and fired. He struggled to keep the gun in line as he poured ammunition into the body of his friend.
Joseph staggered. His chest deformed with the damage he took. He kept coming.
Harris heard the higher-pitched crack of a pistol shot. A crater sprouted in Joseph’s forehead. But the flesh there reformed instantly, the burned letters unchanged.
Joseph grabbed another table and flung it at Ladislas. The table took the man in the chest, hurling him back into the wall. Harris saw Ladislas’ brief look of surprise give way to blankness.