The chief Superior opened a clear door in the side of the oval shell and stepped onto the black platform, moving to the middle.
Blade walked to the Superior’s right side.
Hickok, the three mutants, and their escort of Superiors all came onto the platform.
Blade craned his neck, staring upward. A tremendous shaft or tunnel reared aloft. The vertical tube seemed to be endless, and its dimensions, Blade realized, corresponded to the size of the platform.
The last Superior stepped aboard and closed the door.
“Brace yourself,” the Superior in charge said to Blade. “Your human musculature will experience extreme strain.”
“Strain from what?” Blade wanted to know.
He found out.
Without any advance warning, the platform unexpectedly shot upward at an incredible speed. The floor vibrated slightly as the entire platform was propelled up the vertical shaft at a mercurial pace.
Blade nearly lost his footing. The platform accelerated so swiftly, going from being completely motionless to a quick-as-lightning rate instantaneously, he felt like huge hands were bearing down on his shoulders, striving to flatten him on the floor. The enigmatic force did not appear to affect the Superiors; they stood with an almost casual indifference as the platform leaped upward. Blade saw Hickok fall to his knees, as did Gremlin, but Lynx and Ferret retained their balance, although Ferret tottered several feet.
“The Prime Complex is two hundred ninety-nine stories tall,” the Superior disclosed. “The McCammon Null Tube is the only practical means of vertical ascension for the upper floors. The elevators only reach the hundredth floor.”
The platform came to an abrupt, yet amazingly smooth, halt, seemingly decelerating in the space of several seconds. One moment the platform was hurtling upward, and the next it was at rest on the top floor.
“Disembark,” the head Superior directed.
Another Superior opened the door, and they exited the platform one by one.
The hallway Blade found himself in was equally as lavish as the lobby, with green carpet and gleaming silver walls.
“We will escort you to the audience chamber,” the Superior said to Blade.
Hickok, standing behind his strapping companion, overheard the remark. “Shouldn’t we put on our fancy duds for this shindig?”
The Superior glanced at the gunman. “Has anyone ever told you that you employ an eccentric vocabulary?”
“Practically everybody,” Hickok admitted.
The Superior slowly shook his head. “I will never, ever, comprehend biological organisms.”
“Aren’t you a biological organism?” Blade interjected.
“I am not,” the Superior stated with a trace of indignation. “Follow me.” He began walking, proceeding down the corridor to the left of the platform.
Blade mused as they strolled toward the audience chamber. What were the Superiors? he asked himself. He recalled the one he’d stabbed in the chest. He had even chopped off its left hand, and the Superior had reacted as if nothing had happened, with a detached air, unruffled, emotionlessly.
Come to think of it, the Superiors rarely exhibited any emotion. Why?
The corridor ended at a pair of large gold doors. A Superior stood in front of each door, and both were armed, each with a Gaskell Laser in a leather holster on the right hip.
The Superior in charge of the prisoners nodded at the silver giant near the right-hand gold door. “Inform Primator that the Warriors and the three foreign mutants are here.”
The giant guarding the door nodded, wheeled, opened the right-hand gold door, and vanished inside.
“You are receiving a great honor,” the chief Superior said to Blade. “An audience with Primator is not a common occurrence.”
“I was just born lucky, I guess,” Blade rejoined sarcastically.
“You must treat Primator with due respect,” the Superior advised.
“You don’t need to worry none about that,” Hickok chimed in. “I intend to give Primator all the respect I owe him.”
“Have a care, human,” the Superior warned. “Primator is not to be trifled with.”
“Wouldn’t think of it,” Hickok rejoined, smirking.
The Superior stared at Blade. “You would do well to accept your fate.
Don’t compound your stupidity by causing more trouble. I know you are a biological organism, and you can’t help being the way you are, but exercising self-control would minimize the risk of your being terminated.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Blade said.
“Heed my advice, human,” the Superior stated. “You will be better off if you do.”
The guard emerged from the audience chamber. He nodded and stepped aside. “Primator will see them now.”
“Heed my advice,” the Superior reiterated, and motioned for Blade to enter the gold doors.
Blade cautiously advanced past the right-hand gold door, Hickok and the mutants right behind him.
The Superiors, suprisingly, stayed outside.
“Hey!” Lynx exclaimed. “The silver dorks ain’t comin’!”
“What is this, yes?” Gremlin asked. “This is not the audience chamber, no.”
They were in a small room, not more than 20 feet by 30 feet, with gold walls and a gold ceiling. The carpet was brown.
“This must be an antechamber,” Blade commented. He pointed at another pair of gold doors on the other side of the room. “The audience chamber must be through there.”
“Gremlin is worried, yes,” Gremlin mentioned. “This Primator might have us killed, no?”
“If the bastard tries messin’ with us,” Lynx said, “I’ll cut him to ribbons.”
“Maybe he can hear us talking right now,” Ferret remarked.
“Who cares?” Lynx retorted. “I don’t care if the bozo is listening. I’m not scared of him!”
“You don’t have the brains to be scared,” Hickok quipped.
“Are you scared?” Lynx queried the gunman.
“Of course not,” Hickok replied resentfully.
“Cut the chatter,” Blade ordered. “Let’s get this over with.” He crossed the antechamber to the second set of gold doors. Tentatively, he raised his right hand to the gold latch.
“If this Primator does try to rack us,” Lynx said, “we’ve got to be sure one of us wastes the sucker first.”
“You can go for the balls,” Ferret suggested. “They’re your speciality anyway.”
“Quiet!” Blade commanded. He twisted the latch and slowly pulled the door open.
“Will you look at that!” Ferret exclaimed, peering under Blade’s right arm.
The audience chamber was the biggest room any of them had ever seen, immense beyond belief, enormous in the extreme. The walls and floor were solid gold, adorned with thousands upon thousands of scintillating gems: rubies, sapphires, opals, diamonds, emeralds, topaz, and many others in abundance. The ceiling was lost far overhead in a diffuse golden glow.
Blade vigilantly entered the audience chamber, his eyes darting right and left, seeking Primator.
Most of the audience chamber, approximately two-thirds, was occupied by a gargantuan, symmetrical, electronic machine or apparatus. The contrivance was square at the foundation, but tapered into a shining, opaque sphere. Innumerable digital displays, dials, knobs, buttons, toggle switches, and blinking and steady lights covered the face of its green surface. In the center of the machine was a wide screen, 50 feet by 50 feet.
Smaller screens extended in two rows on either side of the larger one. All of the screens displayed constantly shifting scenes; some were of humans engaged in various jobs, others of mutants, still others of humans and mutants, and there were dozens more showing silver giants involved with varied tasks. But the huge screen was the focus of attention for the two Warriors and the mutants.