‘They’re hooked into the net, my leader.’
A.A. Catto smiled.
‘Good. Start to move them out. Once they’re under way I want to inspect the lizard installation.’
She issued a fast series of orders. The advisers’ fingers flew over the touch panels on the desk in front of each of them.
‘Check guidance system.’
‘Checked, my leader.’
‘Bring up the task force on the big board.’
A yellow arrow glowed into life beside the symbol that represented Quahal.
‘Activate scanner on forward craft.’
One of the smaller screens flickered into life. It showed the view of the river from the leading assault craft. A.A. Catto looked satisfied.
‘Right, move them out now.’
The advisers’ hands moved across the touch panels. The picture moved as the craft swung into the centre of the river. The yellow arrow began to move very slowly across the big board. A.A. Catto sighed.
‘They’re on their way.’
She looked round at her advisers.
‘Will the air support be ready when we need it?’
The advisers nodded.
‘Yes, our leader.’
She placed her hands flat on the desk and stood up.
‘We’ll move the second wave immediately the men have come off the beam. Now I want to check the lizards. If they fail, we will lose everything.’
The advisers rose and bowed, and then settled back to their work. A.A. Catto, followed, as ever, by Nancy, hurried out of the war room and into the lift. The lift dropped two more levels to the very deepest of the underground structure.
The lift doors opened to reveal six soldiers in black fighting suits and black helmets guarding the entrance. As A.A. Catto stepped out of the lift they saluted smartly. Two sets of thick steel doors led to a room almost as large as the war room. The air was thick with the acrid smell of big lizards kept in a confined place. The animal stench contrasted sharply with the gleaming electronic equipment that lined the walls of the room.
As A.A. Catto entered, the dozen or so red-suited aides stopped what they were doing and came to attention. A.A. Catto waved them back to work and walked quickly to the lizards. There were four of them, lying on their sides apparently unconscious. A large number of electrodes were attached to their heads. Wires led away to the various electronic units. A.A. Catto frowned. The animals’ breathing sounded laboured and uneven. She beckoned to one of the aides.
‘Are these animals alright?’
The aide nodded.
‘They are as healthy as can be expected.’
‘What about their breathing?’
The aide pointed to the feeder tubes that were embedded in the beasts’ shoulders.
‘They are being fed with a mixture of nutrients, tranquillizers and cyclatrol. The cyclatrol heightens their wayfinding ability, but the combination of the drugs does appear to impair their breathing a little.’
A.A. Catto looked at the lizards doubtfully. They were the cornerstone of her entire existence. They had an instinctive grasp of the relationship between different places in the damaged world. They could find the way from one point to another. They knew where they were, and humans didn’t.
All, that is, except a very few random freaks who were born with the power of wayfinding. They were, as a rule, difficult and unmanageable. Lizards were much safer.
The electrodes in the lizards’ heads fed their brain patterns into the computer complex. There they were analysed and finally fed to A.A. Catto’s armies as they moved through the nothings in the form of detailed course instructions. It was a crude set-up but incredibly effective. It meant that A.A. Catto could wage war across the nothings. It meant her armies could descend on target cities with a certainty of absolute surprise. It was vital that nothing should go wrong with the system. A.A. Catto glanced sharply at the aide.
‘What happens if one of the lizards dies?’
‘If the signals from one lizard fade, the system switches instantly to one of the other animals. We only use one at a time. In addition we have a herd of prepared beasts. We can change lizards in a matter of minutes.’
A.A. Catto still wasn’t satisfied.
‘If we broke contact for even a few seconds it would be a disaster. My armies would be lost in the nothings. What happens if all four should die at the same time?’
‘The advisers have calculated, my leader, that the probability of that occurring is 1 in 278 unless, of course, Quahal itself is under attack.’
A.A. Catto looked hard at the aide.
‘There must be no failure. You’d suffer horribly before you died.’
The aide bowed.
‘There will be no failure, my leader.’
A.A. Catto snapped her fingers at Nancy.
‘It has started. There is nothing else I can do until the army reaches Feld and is ready to attack. I shall go to my suite. You can come with me.’
Nancy took a deep breath and smoothed down her already form fitting white suit.
‘I’m coming, sweetie.’
***
The teacher raised his head. It was a silent signal that the period of meditation was over. The line of black-robed monks who sat facing him, cross-legged on their rush mats, also looked up. The silence seemed to deepen as they waited for him to speak. A mass of candles flickered in the big multiple candelabra. They threw a soft fitful light on the bare stone walls of the brotherhood meeting room. The teacher took a deep breath.
‘We face a very grave situation.’
The monks’ faces showed no emotion. There was a certain uniformity about their features. They all had the same prominent cheekbones, slightly flattened noses and large dark eyes. Their straight black hair was trimmed just above their shoulders. The teacher, however, was a very different figure. He wore the same black robe, but his whole appearance was frail and ancient. His skin was pink and soft like a baby’s. It was terribly wrinkled, and totally without hair. Only his eyes seemed to be still young. They had the same purposeful calm as the rest of the brothers.
‘It is so grave that the very survival of what is left of the world is threatened.’
One of the monks controlled himself with a supreme effort of will. Every fibre of his being wanted to shift uncomfortably, but he managed to remain motionless. It was only appropriate for a brotherhood executive. His name was Jeb Stuart Ho. He sat about halfway down the row of monks. He was aware that part of the gravity of the situation was his direct responsibility.
Over the centuries since the natural laws had ceased to be consistent and human life had clung to areas where artificial stasis could be generated, the brothers had worked single-mindedly on their never ending task. They observed and recorded the smallest event in the hundred thousand communities that had survived in the grey nothings. Everything that happened was recorded in their graphs, from the major to the insignificant. The graphs charted the passage of past events. They were fed to the huge bio-cybernetic brain. From them, the brain projected the course of the future. When disaster appeared to threaten, the brotherhood made adjustments. This was the role of the executives.
Jeb Stuart Ho had been given such a task. His assignment had been the elimination of A.A. Catto. Her killing would have been a surgical operation to avoid a catastrophe, but Jeb Stuart Ho had failed. When he returned to the brotherhood temple with his mission uncompleted he had expected some kind of punishment. Nothing had happened. No one even referred to the matter. It didn’t take Jeb Stuart Ho very long to realize that his own guilt and self-reproach were the worst punishment.
‘I have called thirty of you together because we must complete the task that lies in front of us. If we should not succeed, the disaster would prove almost total.’
The teacher’s expression didn’t change, but Jeb Stuart Ho felt the urge to squirm increase.