The imposter had boasted that he could get into this machine and walk away with it. If so, any damage to Tormana's controls must be reversible. Seizing his tool kit from a side compartment he unscrewed the plates under the panel, looking for anything obviously wrong. As-night fell, he took a flashlight from the box, and taped it to make a pencil-thin beam. No point in advertising what he was doing in here.
Tormana was intensely curious about the man his father had selected as the ideal son All his life, he had utterly failed to please his father. Marrying Hanya was just one of a long string of choices that had somehow disappointed or offended Maximilian. Finally realizing that he could never please the old man, Tormana had quit trying. Yet the question of what Maximilian wanted from him still nagged at the fringes of his mind. And here was the answer in flesh and blood. Mixed with his outrage and the need to kill. Tormana felt a desire to talk a little longer with this man. Not that he was likely to get the chance Shaking his head at his own folly, he went on probing gingerly through the tangled wires inside the control panel.
He'd found nothing to fix when the duplicate's Vindicatorcame striding back down the canyon, headlights sweeping the tumbled black stones. Its interior was dark, like his. It walked up to his paralyzed machine, touched face to face, and the man inside said, ‘There are 21 'Mechs up there. Enough to take the battalion if they catch it sleeping. They wear the insignia of the Crucis Lancers.’
‘No. Davion wouldn't use the Lancers for an assassination. I think these are Sharp's Stompers. They're disguised for some reason.’
‘Of course they are. I'm just telling you what I saw. Most of their 'Mechs are lightweights, faster than yours or mine. They've given up waiting for you and they're headed for Warex Base. I climbed to high ground and tried to tight-beam a warning, but I can't raise the base. It could be the radiation out here, or their receiver could be sabotaged. You know the planet better than I do. Got any suggestions?’
‘Set me free.’ Tormana replied instantly. 'I can get us in front of them, and we'll set up a trap How do I get this Mech moving again?’
‘Open up your instrument deck, and clip all the bundles with green tape.’
Wedging his thin-beamed light into a crevice beneath the panel. Tormana seized his wirecutters and went to work. ‘Don't forget.’ he said. ‘After we take care of these invaders, it's between you and me again.’
‘Of course. But if you win, the Maskirovka will kill you anyway.’
‘Unless I pose as you.’
‘An interesting notion, but you wouldn't last long. Sheila Po will be waiting at the door, with a cold beer if I give her the correct code, and a hot beam if you don't. And there are other agents, and other codes.’
‘I thought so. Maybe you'll tell me the codes, though.’ Cutting the last of the green-taped braids, he set the clippers down and eased quietly into his seat. ‘I'm having trouble getting this last panel off.’ He engaged the leg actuators. ‘That's more like it’ His hand hovered over the right leg keyboard. ‘Just a few more wires.’ He tapped a key.
The black Vindicatoryits knee up and slammed its foot down. It was a maneuver designed to scrape the armor plating off the shin of the other machine's rather delicate leg. The other MechWarrior was ready for it, however. Raising the left knee of his Mech and swiveling the hips, the imposter neatly deflected the attack, at the same time giving Tormana's 'Mech a hard push. Both machines staggered back.
Popping open a compartment in the top of its head, the gray drew out a coiled cable and offered one end of it to the black. It was a fiberoptic link, standard Fusiliers equipment for conditions of radio silence. With some hesitation, the black Vindicatorreached out and took the end of the cable, and plugged it into its own head.
‘Nice try, Tormana.’ The imposter's laughing voice rang out from a speaker in the back of the cockpit. It sounded unnervingly like a man standing just behind him—or like a voice from the back of his own mind. ‘You're a pretty good fighter, but you don't think like a Liao. I do. Anyway, let's agree on a truce until we've taken care of those invaders. We need our full strength for that.’.
‘All right.’ said Tormana. knowing this man's truce was worth the paper it was written on. ‘Follow me. then. I know a short cut. We'll get ahead of them.’
Switching on his low beams, he keyed in a fast walk and led the way south, away from the enemy. The lights on his 'Mech's lower torso swept the ground ahead of him. The lighted area showed up only as sparkles of glass on the black ground. Peering keenly through the port, he suddenly punched his override and took an extra long stride. ‘Watch your step. There's a crevice that's hard to see.’ Glancing at his rearview monitor, he smiled as the other 'Mech smoothly handled the obstacle. Good man. Then, remembering, he wished the other man weren't quite so good.
‘We're going to take the high ground,’ he said. ‘It's very unsafe, even in a jumper 'Mech. But if the base is destroyed, you and I are done for any way. First, though, we have to get far enough away that the enemy won't see our lights when we go above.’
They traveled south in distance-eating strides. The cliffs on either side began to ‘chatter,’ making an almost constant crackling noise, punctuated by an occasional crack or boom and the rattle of a small avalanche. This was what the Fusiliers referred to as ‘Kali's lullaby.’
Jumping over a low spot in a canyon wall, they followed a wider passage. The ground became smoother and seemed to be sloping upward. Smoke drifted across the beams of their lights.
‘Are we headed up a volcano?’ came the voice of the man behind Tormana.
‘A little one. I think this is the cone that broke through the Dragon Wall about a week ago.’
‘Broke through what?’
‘The Dragon Wall. These canyons are a maze. Most of the walls only go a short distance before they stop at a crevice or another canyon, but a few of them twist and turn for kilometers, unbroken. We memorize the shapes so that we can recognize sections of them on our tac screens. Helps us find our way around. The Dragon Wall runs all the way back to Warex Base. I'll know where we need to get on and off, to save time. There aren't many straightaways on the heading they've taken.’
A few minutes later, they stopped near the crest of the young volcano, some 90 meters higher than the canyon floor around them. About 14 meters down from where the two Mechs stood, the top of the nearest canyon wall twinkled faintly against the dead black of new lava.
There was still no response from Warex Base on the tight beam. This area was not radioactive, and so Tormana knew the problem was at the other end. Whoever had slipped the note under his door had also sabotaged the base radio. There would be 'Mechs on patrol, but in the canyons, they'd be out of contact.
Tormana switched on his searchlight and swept it across the landscape. Twisted ridges flashed into view, glittering snakes that curled and brokeand intertwined across the blackness. He looked for the familiar pattern of the Dragon Wall.
Finally, he thought he recognized it ‘This way.’ he said, heading down the slope toward one of the east-leading ridges. The other Mech followed. It occurred to Tormana that he could lead the imposter into a trap, maneuver him into stepping on a weak overhang or a lava bubble or some other trick of Kali. The man In the gray 'Mech knew the codes to satisfy the Maskirovka, however. Even if he did not need all the help he could get against the invaders, Tormana couldn't kill this man until he got those codes.
The Dragon Wall was 30 meters wide at this point, strewn with the rubble of its own decay. Tormana led the way straight down the middle.
‘You know, I'm very wealthy.’ he said. ‘Besides a third of my mother's estate, I've a bundle in the Capellan stock market.’
‘I know. I've studied your life.’
‘Do you know where the money is?’
‘Most of it's in a ComStar trust. Enough to buy a planet or two. Why do you ask?’
‘It's also enough to, say, finance a nice little army. Think you might need a private army someday? It you and my father ever part company, for example?’