They moved briskly through the park. The green trees, leafy and rustling with the passage of the wind, the grass as green as a finely woven carpet, the flowers multi-hued and full-bloomed, all belied the horror transpiring in the streets beyond, denied the death and pain Buronto had perpetrated in their midst only moments before.
The ship was where they had left it, almost invisible, half submerged in a large pond, the other half well-hidden by thick masses of Spanish moss strung from the trees like beards. They slopped through the water, activated the portal, and entered the last free ship on Hope.
“Now do you understand?” Sam asked, staring the giant down.
The lights on the control console flashed, pulsated, flooded the room with weird currents of color. Coro sat bent over the monitoring devices, occasionally rubbing a hand across dry lips. The time had come. Almost. Very near. Blessed be the time. Frightening too. Lotus sat beside Coro, a hand on his arm, pointing now and then to different dials and scopes.
“I understand,” Buronto growled.
“No indiscriminate killing. We have to sneak in. If we’re confronted with the choice of killing a guard or sneaking past him — we sneak.”
“I don’t like it.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Or you either?” Buronto said, laughing slyly.
“It’s a matter of necessity,” Sam said wearily. They had been through it ten times now. He could think of no blunter, more forceful manner of putting it. “If you start killing everything that moves, the Central Being will have us pegged and dead before we’re anywhere near It. It’ll blow your head off the first moment It knows you’re in Raceship. It’ll win, Buronto. And you’ll be real dead.”
“Okay, okay. I got it well enough. Play it pansy. Gentility is the byword. No rough stuff until we bump off the big boy. But then, mister, I am going to have myself a lot of fun with the slugs.”
“And you’ll have earned it.”
“You too, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“And you’ll be twice as bloody about it, I’ll bet.”
“Most likely,” Sam said, leering false-heartedly. “Twice as bloody.” He wondered how he would handle Buronto after the mission was completed — if it was completed. It was going to be a tight situation. A kill-crazy giant running amok with a laser rifle. How could he control him? If he refused to kill after the Central Being was disposed of, then Buronto would realize his masochism was a front, a trick. What would the giant’s reaction be to that? Or, rather, not what would it be — but how fast would it come? Well, that was a problem he would have to think about later. Later, when he was driven to the wall.
“They seem settled for the duration, Sam,” Coro said, turning from the controls. “Raceship hasn’t moved since we’ve been monitoring it. But the battle is raging beyond belief. Millions of people have died. I wish we hadn’t waited for dark.”
“But it is dark now,” Sam answered, standing, stretching. “And we have a much better chance with darkness as a cover.”
Buronto went to get their weapons and a laser hand-torch.
“Look, Sam,” Coro said, moving close and whispering. “He frightens me. And—”
“Me too.”
Coro hesitated. “Yeah. I see. He may be hideous, but he’s the best-looking chance we have. But do you really think he can kill this Central Being that easily?”
“No.”
“No?”
“Our God was weak and easy to dispatch because Breadloaf’s Shield had drained Him of His strength over the centuries. This God has not been drained.”
“Then why the devil—”
“He doesn’t have to kill God,” Sam said, pulling the black hood of the nightsuit over his head.
“What? I don’t understand this at all.”
“Oh, he may kill God. He just might. But it isn’t necessary. If we can get him in there and let God kill him, I think—”
But Buronto had returned with a rifle for each of them and a cutting torch. “Let’s go,” he said.
The two of them stepped quietly through the portal into the black blanket of night…
XV
Raceship had settled in the vast wild game reserve that stretched forty-seven miles on a side behind the Congressional Archives. It took a great deal of space to park a boat that big, and as he and Buronto stood among the still forms of oak trees looking at the vessel, Sam wondered how many animals had been crushed by its descent. And how many tourists.
“They came in that?” Buronto asked.
Sam grinned. It was a difficult thing to do under the circumstances of the moment. “Scare you?” Delicately, delicately lead on the brute…
“Nah! But, Mother, how big!”
The black hull loomed so high overhead that it was difficult to tell just where it ended and the night began. Trees had been snapped off around its base and were jutting outward like splintered toothpicks. The earth had settled under the tremendous weight, and the ship now rested in a pit of its own making.
“Put these in your ears,” Sam said, handing two plugs to the giant.
“What for?”
“There’s an hypnotic command constantly played in the ship. You go in there without earplugs and you’ll be blubbering like a helpless idiot in seconds.”
“But how do we talk?”
“There’s a micro-miniature receiver, transmitter, and amplifier in the tip. It touches the bones of your ear, picks up the vibrations of your own voice from your jaw, and transmits them to me. Mine does the same. Just whisper, and I’ll hear you. Of course, we won’t hear anything else.”
Hesitantly, the big man followed suit, inserting the tight-fitting plugs.
“Now hold your head here,” Sam said, producing a small tin.
“Why? What’s that?”
“Sound-proofing jelly.”
“I’ll put it in myself.”
“Very well.” Sam dipped his fingers into the thick goo, smeared it over the back of the plug and the rest of his ears, handed the tin to Buronto.
“Remember,” Sam said, “when we get inside, no useless—”
“Killing,” Buronto finished. “Don’t worry. Just lead me in.”
“Just to the Ship’s Core,” Sam said. “I’ll take you there, but you won’t catch me fighting this thing.”
“I’m not scared!” Buronto snapped, a child being tested.
“Let’s go.”
They moved from the oaks, crouched and running, darting from one patch of growth to another. They reached the ship without incident. Fifteen minutes later, the laser torch had burned through all the layers of the hull… And the snout of a laser rifle punched through the hole, aimed directly between Sam’s eyes.
There was a blue blast. Sam was falling before he realized he had not been shot. Buronto had burned the alien down. The slug leaned out, hanging for a moment on the edge of the ragged hole, its flesh tearing on the shards of metal poking like fingers from the rim of the crudely cut aperture. The rifle dangled in its pseudopod, trembled almost as a living thing itself, then fell out onto the grass. The slug gurgled, swayed, tore itself further on the metal, then toppled out also, sprawling full-length at their feet. There was a yard-long gash on its side. Things spewed from it, wet and orange.
“Okay that I killed it?” Buronto asked snidely.
Sam coughed, got up. “Yes. Fine. Very good.”
Buronto laughed, half at Sam’s embarrassment, half at the pile of gore he had made.
“It seems to have been a solitary guard,” Sam said, peering into the dimly lighted corridor. “But let’s hurry just the same.” He pulled himself over the sill, disappeared into the ship.