Then came a voice. Unlike the simple arachnoids this head had jaws which moved as the words were uttered.
And the voice was like the sound of great boulders, smashing each other into splinters.
‘I am the Lord Korok,’ the metal head said, ‘I am very pleased by your fighting spirit. You have given me great sport. I have of course been fully aware of all your plans despite your childish efforts at subterfuge but I needed you to stabilise the flight of this vessel. That is now done.
‘But I must move on now to new challenges. And I must now kill you.’
No-one moved. Totally awed they simply looked up at the metal monstrosity that was about to kill them.
Then Jon shook off the fear that this thing had engendered. He remembered all that had happened on the Hill under Korok’s rule. He remembered the horrific death of Jarz51.
And hatred replaced fear.
‘Korok!’ he cried, ‘you have not won and you cannot win. Shev and I found the code that creates your self-awareness, your consciousness, the emulation of the original Korok. And we firewalled it off from the basic part of the ship’s operating system. Now you’ve downloaded your mind into this machine the version of you that is in there is the only one with volition. The original of you is imprisoned in the Control Computer, in solitary confinement, unable to act. Only observe.
‘And when this copy is deleted – so are you.’
The Korok machine was silent and motionless for a few moments.
Jon knew that he was trying to communicate with the original version of himself in the Control Computer.
But there would be no reply – he and Shev had seen to that.
Suddenly the thing lurched forward with arms outstretched.
‘Clever. But the cowardly way of the Degenerate – I had expected better. Now die like a Degenerate.’
Together the entire group fired their automatic weapons in a single thunderous fusillade at their terrible enemy. Every bullet found its mark: the head, the torso, the arms; Korok shuddered and swayed under that relentless storm of impacts but still he came on. Spent bullets ricocheted in all directions, rebounding from the walls, plunging into the hissing electrical arcs to be volatilised.
Towering over Jon, Korok flicked his gun away as if it were a matchstick and picked him up with sharp metal fingers. He held him dangling there for some moments so Jon was forced to stare into hellish crimson eyes and then Korok flung him against a wall. Jon felt the lower part of his left leg snap an instant before his lacerated body crashed to the floor.
Korok whirled around to face the others and made two steps towards them. Where he lay Jon could see the two Shanas, Shev and Jarm through the swirling blue-grey smoke, looking like helpless mannequins below the metal monstrosity. Jorl was nowhere to be seen.
Korok lifted one leg to step over a mass of disintegrated arachnoids.
And Jarm and the Shanas acted as one and leapt for that leg as the creature was momentarily unbalanced.
Korok was flung backwards, lost his balance completely and in a whirling pirouette he went down – into the most massive of the crackling, darting electric arcs. It encased his entire form in blue, leaping discharges, sending black smoke curling upwards from his joints.
And also convulsed and charred the body of one of the Shanas whom he had grabbed as he fell.
No! Jon screamed inwardly, Shana! Which Shana were you!
After it was finally certain that Korok would move no more, they came to Jon and using two of the automatic rifles they splinted his broken leg. They could do nothing for the cuts but transhumans heal quickly.
Shana stood over him and kissed him.
Who are you? he thought, who are you!
They took him to the charred body of the other Shana and he looked down on the carbonised thing, still with little wisps of grey smoke rising from it. Surely no-one had ever faced a situation like this before, grieving for his lost love when, perhaps, she was standing next to him, alive, vibrant, triumphant.
Who are you ! he thought to himself, who are you?
They soon found a way of discharging the contents of the cylinders into space and did that for the first four. The others could wait.
Thus the substances which could have been made into new bodies for Gang Jianguo, Rocha, Maroun and Korok became insignificant components of the interplanetary medium.
They then took Jon back to the Control Room, passing hordes of arachnoids toiling to heal the Fatal Scimitar, and Jon began his own healing.
But one question kept burning in his mind.
EPILOGUE
Jon and Shana stood side by side on the hillside looking out over the domes of the new settlement.
Time had not touched them very severely as yet, even though it had taken eight wearisome years of shuttling back and forth between the giant planets before sufficient velocity had been shed in order for them to establish a stable orbit around the system’s one terrestrial planet.
At that thought, Jon looked up into the darkening purple sky. There he saw, as he had known he would, a small point of light moving slowly against the real stars.
The Fatal Scimitar still faithfully circling their new home, still following the same endless path after all these years. They could have renamed it of course, from the name Korok had given it but what would have been the point? – it would never travel between the stars again.
They stood there as the sky gradually darkened and the purple began to shade slowly into black. No more would they see monochrome crimson or viridian skies – for their new home had many features similar to distant Earth and its skies were full of endless variety: swelling cumulus clouds; wispy cirrus; towering cumulonimbus, rain, hail, lightning but also many days of gentle blue skies and kindly warm breezes.
No more would they wield sharp swords in strong hands and bring evil creatures their just rewards.
Shana glanced at Jon. He had aged but only in the slow, forgiving way that transhumans did. His muscles had lost some of their tone and his centre of gravity had moved slightly downward. But he was still Jon.
Jon glanced at Shana. Thin vertical lines had started to form on her upper lip and her mass of amber-gold hair held one pure white hair. But her bosom was still reasonably horizontal – no mean feat given that their new home’s gravity was almost twice that of Earth’s. The children had adapted well and showed no conditions which could be traced to this world’s heavier pull.
Many of the sleepers in the stasis pods had not survived the close passage of the star but enough had so that they were a population large enough to form a viable society and, finally purged of Korok’s conditioning, those survivors had disembarked from the circling starship. And had begun the Herculean task of moulding an alien world to be a fit home for their kind.
But Jon still found that once in a while his thoughts turned from those great endeavours to a question much closer to his immediate concerns.
Jon was reasonably sure which of the two Shanas stood by his side, her hand in his.
He had never asked the questions which would have put the matter beyond doubt and Shana had never offered to answer them.
‘If you love me then you would never ask,’ she had said once.
And so he never had.
But he still went on an annual pilgrimage up into the higher hills to stand before a small cairn. The largest stone in the front of the cairn bore the single word: SHANA.
There was much to do; this world was not Earth and was still hostile in many ways. The Protectorate’s hopes had been unfulfilled: the planet had not borne an alien civilisation ripe for conquest and enslavement. Indeed it had been completely lifeless until the settlers had descended from the starship.