“Under what code?”
“Triple Star.”
The officer saluted. “Pass.”
Dwyr went down the corridor. It echoed a little to his footfalls. When he reached the anteroom, he heard the buzz of work in the offices beyond; but he stood alone at the door of the vault. He had never seen this place. However, the layout was no secret and had been easy to obtain.
The door itself, though—He approached with immense care, every sensor at full amplification. The scanners saw he was not authorized to go by, and might trigger an alarm. No. Nothing. After all, people did use this route on certain errands. He removed the false glove on his robot arm and extended tendrils to the plates.
They reacted. By induction, his artificial neurones felt how signals moved into a comparison unit and were rejected. So now he must feed in pulses which would be interpreted as the right eye and hand patterns. Slowly … slowly, micro-metric exactitude, growing into the assembly, feeling with it, calling forth the response he wanted, a seduction which stirred instincts until his machine heart and lungs moved rapidly and he was lost to the exterior world … there!
The door opened, ponderous and silent. He trod through. It closed behind him. In a black chamber, he confronted a thing which shone like opal.
Except for possessing a recognition trigger of its own, the molecular file was no different from numerous others he had seen. Still full of oneness with the flow of electrons and inter-meshed fields, still half in a dream, he activated it. The operation code was unknown to him, but he detected that not much information was stored here. Stood to reason, the thought trickled at the back of his awareness. No individual could single-handedly steer an empire. The secrets which Brechdan reserved for himself and his three comrades must be few, however tremendous. He, Dwyr the Hook, need not carry on a lengthy random search before he got the notes on Starkad.
Eidhafor: Report on another Hand who often opposed Brechdan in Council; data which could be used, at need, to break him.
Maxwell Crawford: Ha, the Terran Emperor’s governor of the Arachnean System was in Merseian pay. A sleeper, kept in reserve.
Therayn: So that was what preoccupied Brechdan’s friends. Abrams was evidently right; Hauksberg was being delayed so as to be present, influenceable, when the news broke.
Starkad!
Onto the screen flashed a set of numbers. 0.17847, 3°14' 22''.591, 1818h.3264 … Dwyr memorized them automatically, while he stood rigid with shock. Something had happened in the file. An impulse had passed. Its transient radiation had given his nerves a split second’s wispy shiver. Might be nothing. But better finish up and get out fast!
The screen blanked. Dwyr’s fingers moved with blurring speed. The numbers returned. Why—they were the whole secret. They were what Starkad was about. And he didn’t know what they meant.
Let Abrams solve this riddle. Dwyr’s task was done. Almost.
He went toward the door. It opened and he stepped into the antechamber. The door behind, to the main offices, was agape. A guard waited, blaster poised. Two more were hurrying toward him. Desk workers scuttled from their path.
“What is the matter?” Dwyr rapped. Because he could not feel terror or dismay, a blue flame of wrath sheeted through him.
Sweat glistened on the guard’s forehead and ran down over the brow ridges. “You were in his secretorium,” he whispered.
So terrible is the magic in those numbers that the machine has had one extra geas laid upon it. When they are brought forth, it calls for help.
“I am authorized,” Dwyr said. “How else do you think I could enter?”
He did not really believe his burglary could long remain unknown. Too many had seen. But he might gain a few hours. His voice belled. “No one is to speak of this to anyone else whatsoever, not even among yourselves. The business is sealed under a code which the officer of the night knows. He can explain its significance to you. Let me pass.”
“No.” The blaster trembled.
“Do you wish to be charged with insubordination?”
“I … I must take that risk, foreseer. We all must. You are under arrest until the Hand clears you in person.”
Dwyr’s motors snarled. He drew his own gun as he flung himself aside. Fire and thunder broke free. The Merseian collapsed in a seared heap. But he had shot first. Dwyr’s living arm was blasted off.
He did not go into shock. He was not that alive. Pain flooded him, he staggered for a moment in blindness. Then the homeostats in his prostheses reacted. Chemical stimulation poured from tubes into veins. Electronic impulses at the control of a microcomputer joined the nerve currents, damped out agony, forced the flesh to stop bleeding. Dwyr whirled and ran.
The others came behind him. Guns crashed anew. He staggered from their impact. Looking down, he saw a hole drilled in him from back to breast. The energy beam must have wrecked some part of the mechanism which kept his brain alive. What part, he didn’t know. Not the circulation, for he continued moving. The filtration system, the purifier, the osmotic balancer? He’d find out soon enough. Crash! His left leg went immobile. He fell. The clatter was loud in the corridor. Why hadn’t he remembered his impeller? He willed the negagravity field to go on. Still he lay like a stone. The Merseians pounded near, shouting. He flipped the manual switch and rose.
The door to the flange stood shut. At top speed, he tore the panels asunder. A firebolt from a guard rainbowed off his armor. Out … over the verge … down toward shadow!
And shadows were closing in on him. His machinery must indeed have been struck in a vital spot. It would be good to die. No, not yet. He must hang on a while longer. Get by secret ways to the Terran Embassy; Abrams was too far, and effectively a prisoner in any event. Get to the Embassy—don’t faint!—find this Flandry—how it roared in his head—summon the airboat—the fact that his identity was unknown to his pursuers until they called Brechdan would help—try for an escape—if you must faint, hide yourself first, and do not die, do not die—perhaps Flandry can save you. If nothing else, you will have revenged yourself a little if you find him. Darkness and great rushing waters …
Dwyr the Hook fled alone over the night city.
13
That afternoon, Abrams had entered the office where Flandry was at work. He closed the door and said, “All right, son, you can knock off.”
“Glad to,” Flandry said. Preparing a series of transcribed interviews for the computer was not his idea of sport, especially when the chance of anything worthwhile being buried in them hovered near zero. He shoved the papers across his desk, leaned back, and tensed cramped muscles against each other. “How come?”
“Lord Hauksberg’s valet just called the majordomo here. They’re returning tomorrow morning. Figure to arrive about Period Four, which’d be fourteen or fifteen hundred Thursday, Terran Prime Meridian.”
Flandry sucked in a breath, wheeled his chair about, and stared up at his chief. “Tonight—?”
“Uh-huh,” Abrams nodded. “I won’t be around. For reasons you don’t need to know, except that I want attention focused my way, I’m going to wangle me an invite to a local Pooh-Bah.”
“And a partial alibi, if events go sour.” Flandry spoke with only the top half of his mind engaged. The rest strove to check pulse, lungs, perspiration, tension. It had been one thing to dash impulsively against a Merseian watercraft. It would be quite another to play against incalculable risks, under rules that would change minute by minute, in cold blood, for x many hours.