The multibarreled lasers constantly swept the area, looking for movement. Sten slithered over the clifftop and snow-crawled forward, thankful, for a change, that he had hired Egan and his Lycee kids.
Sten halted just outside the first sensor's pickup point. He fingered open his pack and slid out a powerdriver and a little metal box with dangling wires and heat clips. Sten dug into the snow and found the plate that guarded the sensor control system from the elements. He hesitated at the screws that held the plate in place and reminded himself of potential boobytraps. He placed the driver's bit into the first screw and flicked the button for reverse. The first screw whirred out smoothly and Sten was alive.
He quickly removed the plate, fused in the heat clips, and then glanced at the nearest sensor guns that were "sniffing" at the night.
It was an illusion, of course. The guns didn't do anything but shoot. However, buried across the landscape were very efficient sensors that ignored the stray rodent but ordered the guns to cremate anything approximating man-size.
Sten turned the dial on the box until it told the sensor he'd just become a small furry creature, not worthy of a killing burst from the guns.
He stood up. And the guns kept searching. Ignoring him for larger game. The Lycee kids were right.
"Come on up, Alex," he said in a perfectly normal voice. He braced himself for the hiss of the guns. Nothing. And he knew again that he was safe.
Alex effortlessly lifted himself over the cliff. "V be takit tea oop here frit sae long?" Then he glanced at the scanning guns. They didn't react even to Alex's body mass. "Aye" was his only comment.
Alex turned to throat-mike the orders down to the rest of the mercenaries.
Kurshayne was the first up with all of Sten's equipment, then Egan and his Lycee crew, who moved out and began permanently defusing the sensor guns. Next came Vosberh and his boyos. As Sten walked toward the curving hump of the Citadel, he consciously shut off any worry about his troops. He had to assume they were professionals. And that everything Sten had in mind would work.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
KHOREA BOWED TO the Citadel Commandant and stepped to the forefront of the podium. He had prepared a speech for this graduating event. But then he felt the movement deep in his mind—a feeling that he knew was the spirit of Talamein.
It could have been described more prosaically as a result of alcohol drunk by a near-teetotaler, adrenaline-response, and egotism. It was, however, doubtful that any Jann psychologist would have had the temerity to do so.
Khorea forgot his prepared speech and began: "We are being tested today. Tested as we, the Jann, have never been tested before."
He looked out at the thousand before him and thought that the officers would be the most important graduates the Citadel ever produced. He also sensed that most of them would be dead in not too many months.
"It is fitting," he continued, "that while we celebrate the Killing and your acceptance as Jann I tell you of the trials that we shall face.
"Trials which we shall only overcome by strength. Our strength, the strength of our arms, our minds, and our Faith in Talamein."
The cadets stirred. The speech was quite different from what they had expected and from what they were accustomed to hearing from their cadre.
"These trials I shall now warn you of. They have been building for time. We know the babblings of the madman Theodomir. And we know how dearly he would love to destroy the flame of truth, so it could be perverted into his own ashes."
More like it. The cadets relaxed, and a few of them even smiled grimly. They were quite used to Theodomir diatribes.
"But the madman has gone beyond ravings. He has determined to try us by force of arms."
Large smiles from some of the cadets—in their final training cycle most of them had participated in raids against the poorly trained, ineffectual levies of Theodomir. Khorea understood their smiles.
"This night you will become Jann. And then you will go out to face the armies of Theodomir. But be warned—these are not the rabble you have known.
"Theodomir has chosen mercenaries. Men who have trained to the peak of killing madness in the gold-souled ranks of the Emperor of the Inner Worlds."
Khorea ceremoniously spat.
"Mercenaries. But a mercenary can fight, regardless that he defends an evil cause. This then is the trial you will face, Jann-to-be.
"At this moment Theodomir, the False Prophet, is raising an army against our peaceful worlds. An army that does not believe. An army that, if it conquers, will ensure that the Truth of Talamein and we. his servants, will cease to exist. If they win, it shall be as if we had never existed.
"Tell me. Jann-to-be—to keep that from occurring... is that not worth the Death? My death, your death—the death of every man in this room?"
Silence. And then one cadet came to his feet. Khorea automatically noted him proudly as the cadet screeched:
"Death! Long live death!"
And the cadets howled, the long, enraged howl of hunting beasts.
Sten whirled the fusion grapnel twice, then cast it straight up. The line coiled at his feet disappeared upward, into the obscuring snow, and then the head of the grapnel hit the outer skin of the Citadel about twenty meters up and instantly melted itself into bond.
Sten gave a tug. Solid contact. He began catwalking his way upward, keeping his body almost ninety degrees out from the curving surface of the Octopus.
When he reached the grapnel's head, he braced himself against it and hurled a second grapnel upward. Even with the crampons, he almost slipped and fell, before the grapnel hit. skidded, and then caught.
Sten leaned back onto the rope then began the next stage of the climb to the roof of the Jann sanctuary.
Below him Alex, Kurshayne, and Ffillips' commandos began swarming up the awesome curve of the Octopus like so many ice flies. Grapnel, gloves, and boots found every protuberance in the smooth surface to keep from coming off.
Sten was the first to reach the weather membrane'. He peered down through its red glow into the chapel below. It was empty. Alex pulled up behind him and tapped Sten's boot.
Sten reached back for the blister-charge, and Alex, panting after the climb, slid it into his gloves. Sten gave one fast look at the charge, thanked the whizkids again, licked the charge, almost freezing his tongue in the process, and slapped the charge to that "breathing" membrane. Then, still in one motion, he slid back down the rope.
The charge fused to the membrane, glowed, and then the whole membrane surface began a slow melt. It peeled back and up, leaving a gaping hole directly into the heart of the Jann Citadel.
Sten took yet another grapnel from Alex, anchored it on the edge of the hole, and then unreeled the line down into the chapel below.
Then he descended, hand over hand, into the Citadel. Alex, Kurshayne, and Ffillips' men and women followed. They landed, then spread out through the chapel, checking for intruders and setting up security.
Sten stood in the middle of the room. It was awesome. Sten could almost feel evil flowing from the walls. In the flickering torchlight, the huge military statues loomed at him like gargoyles, about to leap through the forest of wall-hung regimental banners. It was indeed a temple—a temple for the worship of violent death.
Behind him Sten heard Alex's breath hiss. His friend shivered. "Ah nae hae seen aught's'cold." he whispered. Sten nodded, then looked over at Kurshayne.
"Blow it." he ordered.
The Jann cadets were eating in silence. On the huge stage, the officers were also at their meal. General Khorea nibbled politely at each dish, then pushed it away. He refused when a servant offered to refill his wine glass.