She is already hearing. Soon she will speak, and soon she will accomplish great things. M-26A reached out its wing panels, and enclosed Gudrun Meissner within them. The luminous eyes stared into hers. After half a minute her trembling body quietened.
Now we are ready, said the voice inside Blaine Ridley’s head. Open the ceiling.
It was done with a single touch of Ridley’s finger on the control panel. The dark dome of the Assembly Hall cleared to an absolute transparency. A hundred faces peered upward, and saw against the starry background a hexagon of glowing blue. At its heart lay a concave star of moldering darkness, a shrunken and crude travesty of a Martin Link chamber.
If we cannot make use of the solar system’s active stellar Link points, we must accept that fact. But this is Sargasso, where all things may be found.
M-26A drifted down from the platform, still holding Gudrun Meissner.
The Mattin Link was long in development, and it did not come at once to its present perfection. Behold one of the original units. It has been floating in the Dump for five hundred years, it is primitive, it is inactive, it is deemed without value. Yet, like other things judged valueless, it may work again to fulfill its destiny.
Suits closed!
That reflex lived on, even in the most damaged guard. Helmets were lifted into position and locked closed.
Follow me. And we will show the universe how much can be done with little.
M-26A itself needed no suit. The Construct, holding Gudrun Meissner protectively to its silver-blue body, led the procession. A hundred guards marched proudly behind M-26A to the master airlock, and drifted on through it.
They held formation all the way; all the way through open space, to where the obsolete hulk of the Mattin link unit, derelict and neglected, floated far above them.
Chapter 33
It was late when Luther and Godiva came home to their living quarters on the ninety-fourth level of Ceres. They were both tired. He had taken her on a long-postponed sight-seeing tour, pausing at the high-mag viewing ports of the outer shell so mat he could point out the many worlds of the solar system, and far beyond them the scattered stars of the Stellar Group.
It was all old hat to Luther. He could not remember a time when he was not familiar with everything that they saw. It was a shock to find that Godiva, raised in the dark subterranean runs of the Gallimaufries, had only the vaguest idea of planets, moons, and stars. She didn’t know the difference between them. She had never heard of Oberon Station, or Cobweb Station, or even the Vulcan Nexus. She seemed to believe that all the asteroids were as developed and cosmopolitan as Ceres. Most startling of all, she had no idea of distance; to Godiva, the Oort Harvester was as near (or as far) as the remote Angel world of Sellora.
She had laughed at Brachis’s astonishment and disapproval. “What does it matter, Luther. Who cares how far away any of them are, when you can get to all of them in nothing flat using the Martin Link.’
“Well, yes, that’s true. But the distance …” Brachis stopped. Godiva was uniquely Godiva. Time and space meant nothing to her. And when he thought about it, he was not sure that she was wrong. “Close” points were really ones that could be reached quickly through a series of Mattin Links. “Distant” points were all others. Luther allowed Godiva to take his hand and they went on, drifting through the endless outer corridors of the planetoid. The original one-hour tour continued through a long and pleasurable day and evening. The corridor was deserted when Brachis paused at their apartment door and made his usual thorough inspection of the settings. All the seals were unbroken, and there had been no callers. He carefully slid back the heavy door and they went on through into the hallway.
The advent of Godiva had changed Luther’s life completely. Before she came up from Earth he had lived in a sparsely furnished single room. That had been abandoned in favor of a luxury apartment. The main living-room, dining area and kitchen were off the hall to the left, the bedroom, bathroom and study to the right.
“Hungry?”
Godiva shook her head. She yawned, stretched, and slipped off her light wrap. She gave Luther a smile of sleepy suggestion, dropped her bag onto the hall table, and went through the bedroom to the bathroom.
He took off his uniform, sat on the broad bed, and pulled off his boots. Naked, he walked through to the study and sat down at the communications terminal. He was tired, but as always he had to make his evening check for messages.
He switched on. As he did so there was a sudden high-pitched hissing sound. An intense pain like a hornet’s sting burned his left cheek. Brachis saw a little puff of vaporized blood blossom out from below his eye. He shouted at the pain and jerked upright. As he did so there was a second sting by his right nostril, and another sudden puff of bright red.
He jumped to his feet. His first thought was that there had been some sort of short circuit in the communications terminal, showering him with specks of hot metal. The hiss that went with each blow seemed to come from the top of the display unit. As Brachis looked that way three more jolts hit him, one on the chin and two above his right eyebrow. He lifted his hand to his face, and saw them: four miniature figures, crouched behind the front lip of the display. Each manikin was no more than an inch and a half tall. Each carried a weapon pointed at Luther’s face.
They were after his eyes! He covered his face with his left forearm, in time to block three more shots.
Adestis simulacra — at the maximum size permitted, and hunting him.
Luther swept his right arm across the top of the display, knocking the minisims to the floor. As he completed the movement a hail of shots from behind made him shout with pain and spin around. On the desk at the far side of the room, half-hidden behind a jumble of data cubes, stood another group of tiny figures. At the same moment a rattle of shots came from a new direction, over to his left. Explosive projectiles riddled his left arm and hip with thumbnail-sized craters.
Brachis roared with pain and ran across the room. He had both arms in front of him to shield his eyes — if they blinded him he was finished. Halfway to the door he felt another hail of shots in his groin and belly. The simulacra in ambush by the exit had chosen a different target.
He stopped and spun around again. The attack was obviously well-organized. They had planned for his natural reaction, to run for the door. They would expect him to cover his eyes, and now his genitals. If they knew his habits at all, they had known that he would walk through naked to check the communicator. While he hesitated in the middle of the room, another half dozen projectiles stung his face and neck. They were flaying him, systematically ripping the flesh from his body with a hail of tiny shells.
He needed time to think. Luther dived to the left, rolled across the floor, and came upright close to the wall. He smashed his hand at the lighting panel. With the door to the bedroom closed, the study was plunged at once into darkness. The hiss of shots went on, out the attacking simulacra no longer had a target.
Brachis dropped to the floor again, and went shuffling on hands and knees across the room. He had a brief advantage now. He could track the minisims by the uvarovite-garnet glint of their crystalline green eyes, glowing in the dark. They were moving about in confusion. He knew it could only be a temporary respite. The attackers must have allowed for darkness, too.
He felt his way back to the display and slapped the Emergency switch on the communications panel. That would bring help — but far too late. Another half minute of those explosions on his skin, and the rescuers would find him a sightless, skinless eunuch. He was filled with a new and terrifying thought; Suppose that Godiva came out of the bathroom and wandered through into the study to look for him? A shout to keep her out might have exactly the wrong effect.