For the first time ever, his lack of knowledge caused him pain. He had no data to apply to his problem. He knew no precedents and had nothing to relate it to. He had to struggle to stop his body revealing the frustration. The only thing that stood out in his mind were the figures.
It had happened some ten work periods previously. He had been in his work cubicle, scanning the printouts and instinctively hitting the keys on his console, when his eye had stopped at a single line of figures. He had broken out in a sweat, and something had knotted in his stomach. He didn’t know how or why, but there seemed to be something terribly wrong with them. He had to make a considerable effort to go on punching out the corresponding figure. It had all felt so out of place. It was after that his disturbances had started.
CYN 256 felt helpless. It was inconceivable that the Computer had made an error. It had to be he, and yet he didn’t feel defective. He could think of no reason why he should react strangely to a set of figures. That thought took him full circle. If it was the figures that had affected him, then the error must be in the Computer, and it was inconceivable that the Computer could make an error.
Before he could go any further, there was a soft hissing sound. The sleep gas was being pumped into the room. CYN 256 lay down and prepared for unconsciousness.
***
A.A. Catto paced one of the high terraces of the ziggurat. It was a restless, stiff legged pacing. She bounced slightly on the balls of her feet, giving off waves of impatient energy. Every few steps she would clench her fists, digging her silver nails into the palms of her hands. She still looked about fourteen years old with a slim, hardly developed body. For a long period she had maintained the appearance of a twelve year old, but then, for a while, she had stopped using the growth retarder, and her body had matured slightly.
It was only her face that gave away the fact that she had seen and done far more than any fourteen year old. The large eyes had a cold liquidity that seemed capable of anything. Her mouth, too, had a fullness that was at the same time cruel and sensual.
She halted and snapped her fingers at Lame Nancy.
‘Cheroot.’
Nancy silently handed A.A. Catto a thin black cheroot and then lit it for her. Nancy had been standing quietly by while A.A. Catto performed her caged animal pacing. Nancy was almost as thin as A.A. Catto, but she looked her natural age. Her hair was bleached white and cropped very close to her head. She wore a white, skin tight, one piece fighting suit. A.A. Catto was dressed in exactly the same garment, except that hers was black with a discreet gold trim. Nancy’s left leg was withered. It was supported by a black steel brace decorated with damascened curlicue patterns.
Nancy had been a successful madame in the city of Litz until she joined A.A. Catto’s headlong band wagon. Now she was A.A. Catto’s confidante, companion, lover and servant. She was consort to A.A. Catto’s absolute ruler.
A.A. Catto exhaled sharply.
‘Why does it have to take so long?’
Nancy shrugged.
‘Preparations always take time.’
A.A. Catto stared across the broad valley that was dominated by the ziggurat. A wide sluggish river meandered through the valley. Its banks were lined with squat, dark green, amphibious assault craft. Lines of fighting men in black suits and helmets moved slowly towards them like dark tributaries. Soon, however, they would all be crowded aboard the waiting boats, and like a grim armada the fleet would move out towards the nothings.
The nothings were the grey drifting areas of unstable matter. Since the breakdown most of the world had been like that. In the nothings the natural laws of energy, motion and gravity had ceased to exist. The huge stasis generators were the only thing that maintained a tenuous normality. They provided human beings with a few small areas on which they could live.
Quahal was one of these areas. A.A. Catto had come to it as a fugitive seeking sanctuary, but had overthrown its previous rulers and altered it to suit her own tastes and desires. In this redesigned Quahal, where her every whim had become brutal and inflexible law, she had found the environment to nurture her ultimate dream. Now she stood on top of the high black ziggurat and watched as her dream became reality.
A.A. Catto was about to conquer an unsuspecting world.
Nancy moistened her lips, hesitated and then spoke.
‘Shouldn’t we go down to the bunker? The assault craft will be moving off soon.’
A.A. Catto dropped her cheroot and ground it out with her foot.
‘In a moment.’
She turned and stared out once again at the men beneath her. The huge multiple stuff receivers had been rigged on the plain beside the ziggurat. They crackled softly as the fighting men of A.A. Catto’s custom built army came down the beam.
Each of them was bio-tailored to A.A. Catto’s specific design. She had been surprised that Stuff Central had delivered quite such a vast order for men and equipment, but the Computer had started delivering without comment, and had continued to do so ever since. Very soon A.A. Catto would command the largest army that had ever existed in the damaged world.
She turned and looked at the sinister, cloud-covered mountain looming at the end of the valley, then she abruptly turned and walked quickly towards the terrace entrance. Nancy fell in behind her.
Originally the interior of the ziggurat was a black stone warren of passages, ramps and stairs. A.A. Catto had installed a system of high-speed lifts. One waited at the end of a short corridor, A.A. Catto and Nancy stepped into it. Nancy punched out the combination for the bunker, and the lift dropped through the many levels of the ziggurat and continued deep underground.
The lift came to a cushioned stop, and the doors slid silently open. Just outside the lift stood a pair of A.A. Catto’s personal guards. They were two of the wild horsemen who had first aided her to seize power in Quahal. They still wore their traditional winged helmets, fur tunics and armour covering their arms. Instead of lances, however, they were now armed with deadly, full load fuse tubes.
They stepped aside to let A.A. Catto pass. Beyond them a pair of steel doors slid back. She walked through them. Nancy followed. The doors closed behind them, and they were inside the huge underground war room.
Even though she had supervised every detail of its construction, A.A. Catto still experienced a thrill of excitement when she entered the war room. Its floor and high, vaulted roof were made of the same black stone as the rest of the ziggurat. Three of the four walls were taken up by screens that gave instant graphic representation of the state of the war.
The entire room was dominated by the big board that gave an immediate overall picture. It was flanked by smaller screens which gave details of individual campaigns. On the floor, directly in front of the board, sat five rows of red-suited aides hunched over individual monitors and battle control consoles.
Behind the aides, on a raised dais, sat A.A. Catto’s six white-suited advisers. Their totally bald heads and flat expressionless faces were all identical. They were the set of specially cloned superminds whose job it was to make A.A. Catto’s fantasies become reality.
In the middle of the line of advisers were two empty chairs. A.A. Catto walked briskly across the war room, mounted the dais and sat down. Nancy dutifully followed. As A.A. Catto sat down the advisers rose and bowed. Once the formalities were over A.A. Catto’s attitude became businesslike. She turned to the adviser next to her.
‘Is the assault craft force ready to move?’
The adviser nodded.
‘They are loaded, and waiting for the final order.’
‘They’re netted in with the lizards?’
Another clone answered.