"What about fire control?"
"Can you take some men and handle it?"'
"You're getting predictable."
Abruptly the firing ceased.
"Wha-"
The lanteres had stopped firing, and at the same time, men were also lowering their weapons. They were backing away from the mouth of the tunnel.
"What the hell is going on?"
A light appeared in the tunnel, white and brilliant, and murmuring among the humans. Hark was one of the last to feel it, and Renchett the first to realize what it was.
"A Therem. A goddamn Therem. Right here."
Hark's MEW was very heavy in his hands. He wanted to put it down. His legs felt weak, and a warm languor was spreading all through his body. He knew that he should be angry, that he should do something, but he couldn't force his mind to focus. He was staring through his visor at the weapon in his gloved hands. Even reality was wavering. What the hell was this thing that he was holding? He wanted to lie down and sleep. All around him, men and women stood and stared as if they were in a trance. Even the attacking aliens were rooted to the spot.
"Mindlock."
A tiny surge of anger managed to break free, but it was almost immediately smothered. He searched for another, but the influence of the Therem was like a warm smothering blanket. Resentment still smoldered, but he couldn't reach it and bring it to violent life. The whole escape was coming to pieces, and there's wasn't a damn thing he could do about it.
They came out of the tunnel. Two of the familiar red spheres flanked a third, larger One of a kind that Hark had never seen before. This was the source of the white light. It was hard to even guess at the material from which it was constructed. The light didn't seem to come from inside the sphere but to halo around it like an aura. The surface of the sphere was even more of a puzzle. It constantly changed. At one moment it was a polished, reflective mirror, and the next it would be pale opaline, with faint rainbows drifting across its surface. The only thing about which there was no doubt at all was that this sphere contained one of the beings that had been the Masters of humanity for countless generations. There was a Therem inside the sphere. Perhaps this was the ultimate irony. This human rebellion was finally being subdued by an actual Therem, but the poor forsaken humans weren't being allowed to so much as see it before they died. "Nooooo!"
The scream rang through the gallery. "Nooooo!"
As if out of nowhere, red fire was pouring at the underside of the sphere. Hark was only dimly aware that the fire was coming from his own weapon. The front of his mind simply couldn't accept it, but some intensely human and profoundly deep part of his unconcious had broken the mindlock, raised his arms, and set his fingers on the triggers. The sphere seemed to be caught in the fire, unable to move. It simply hung in the air, vibrating with increasing violence. The smothering blanket was slowly lifting. Hark found that he could use his voice again.
"Help me! I'm holding it, but I can't destroy it. Everybody fire at the thing."
The weapons were coming up, but the men were still moving sluggishly. The Therem was trying to reestablish control but not quite making it. Sporadic fire was now being directed at the sphere, which was glowing brighter.
"It's a shield. The bastard's got its own miniature shield. Keep firing and it'll burn out."
Rance's voice joined Hark's. "Watch the lanteres, though. They may come alive again."
Fire was hitting the sphere from every side. The halo turned a blinding white, although it radiated no heat despite the energy that it was absorbing. It seemed to be trying to rise in the air, but it managed only about a half meter before it fell back to its original position.
"Keep going. I think we got it!"
Something was happening to the shape inside the halo. It appeared to be collapsing on itself. The outer skin wrinkled and sagged. Suddenly Hark had a vision of the sphere's occupant. It was preparing to die, and it was letting him see. Few creatures had ever killed a Therem, and he was being allowed to witness what he'd done. The shock almost paralyzed him. It was such a tiny thing, a thing of air and filaments. Its only strength was in its mind and its millions of years of culture. The Therem was a little spherical puffball held in stasis at the very center of the sphere that was its armor. It was so small that a man could enfold it in the palm of his hand. Humanity had been enslaved by something that even a child could crush in its fist. There was a terrible absurdity here. The sphere started to melt. Large molten drops formed on the underside.
"Get out from under that stuff! Don't let it touch you."
A drop about the size of a man's head detached from the sphere and fell to the deck. Where it touched, the deck plate bubbled and smoked.
"It's finished!"
The halo vanished as if it had never been. The two red spheres vanished with it. The Therem was gone. Hark knew that he had killed a God. The white sphere, which was now just a blob of gray molten material, burst on the deck in a spray of acrid smoke and acid foam. The lanteres were starting to crawl ponderously forward. They didn't seem to have recovered sufficiently from the Therem mindlock to start shooting.
"Finish those things and let's get out of here."
The people with weapons tore into the lanteres while the others hurried down the umbilicals. Rance turned to the three longtimers.
"Let's go put their guns out of action. We need to go up a level."
Renchett shook his head. "What did I tell you guys?" Rance grinned. "What did you expect?" They rode up in a small elevator to the rear of the gallery.
"Don't take any chances. The Therem effect may not have reached up here."
"What are you telling us? This is another suicide mission?"
"What's it ever been?"
Seventeen
The Anah 5 had entered orbit. The planet hung above them, a huge blue-green orb almost totally swathed in cloud. There were twenty or so humans standing under the observation dome. They stared in silence at their new home. In half a standard, the shuttles and the converted e-vacs would drop from the big ship, carrying the people and the equipment down to what would become the first human colony. The aliens would then take the Anah 5 on to whatever strange destiny they had planned for it. When the small ships made planetfall, a whole new struggle would start. The planet would prove a stubborn, inhospitable host. Its terraforming was in an early stage; there was only a basic grounding of flora and fauna. The early days were going to be rugged, and the colonists' only consolation was that it couldn't be too much worse than what had gone before. The anticipation of the hard times to come made it all the more of a luxury to simply stand and stare.
"I wish we could see more of the surface," Hark commented.
"I'd like to think of it as a mystery for a while longer. 293
I'm sure we're going to be all too bloody familiar with it before very long," Dyrkin said.
Dry kin, Renchett, and Hark stood by themselves. Since the destruction of the asteroid's fire control and their spectacular dash to board the last shuttle, the three of them had become something of a legend among the human escapees, and although they wouldn't admit it, they felt a little awkward around people. There was even talk that they might be the fulfillment of Mystic Heda's prophecy. Renchett had taken to growling whenever the subject came up.
"No asshole ever prophesied me."
Rance and Conchela walked over to join them. These five, plus some six or seven others who had distinguished themselves during the liberation, had been informally appointed as a basic steering committee until they were down on the planet and a more structured government could be devised. Rance and Conchela seemed to be spending a good deal of time in each other's company. Hark, on the other hand, still felt a little awkward around Conchela. He hated the way in which their ages had been distorted, and he stiffened a little when she spoke to him.