The last thing Titus heard before the sound from the speakers was lost in vacuum was the muffled timbre of Abbot’s voice saying, “. three of them in the second crawler, and one’s the alien. The alien’s in the second crawler!”
Inea pulled herself back up onto the canted driver’s seat, helmet in place. Titus breathed a sigh that was almost a sob. She’s all right! He pushed himself up. “There’s a jack here somewhere, to connect a suitphone.”
While Titus searched, Inea crawled onto the console where H’lim lay curled. “Maybe he’s already dead.” She tried to straighten the huddled form. He jerked away.
Titus got the phone jack into place just in time to hear the commander’s voice say, “. no wild stories! Now I don’t believe-” He broke off, and his voice was muffled as he asked, “What? They did? There are? You mean he’s legit?” Then more clearly, he ordered, “Ben, Roger, peel off and take a look at those crawlers. If that monster’s there, get him. Rendezvous over the station. Go!”
Power was flickering on and off. Titus couldn’t tell what the seven bombers were doing. He helped Inea straighten H’lim out, muttering encouraging words in the luren language. Then as Titus watched H’lim’s skin turned pink. He rolled the stiff body up in his arms and climbed back into darkness, scrambling awkwardly over the loose junk that had gathered at the lower end of the cabin.
He wedged the luren back into the cubby he’d chosen for a refuge, then built up the pile of junk again as best he could at the high end of the slope. “Better?” he asked as H’lim began to stir.
“Yes. I’m sorry.”
“Nonsense,” cut in Inea. “You saved my life. I could never have reached my helmet.”
Titus patted a last cylinder into the pile, to make a natural looking mess that searchers could pick at without exposing H’lim. Clumsy amateurs. Amazing we survived this long. He turned to find Inea stuffing small oxygen cylinders into the arms and legs cf a spare vacuum suit. It was the untailored sort with adjustable everything. God forbid you should have to do anything in it.
“Don’t just gawk! Help me.”
He held it while she strapped. “What’s this for?”
“They don’t know H’lim can’t get out even in a suit. They’ll count three of us going for the hut, and they’ll follow. When they find an empty suit, they’ll never believe Abbot again! Come on. We’ve got to hurry! Abbot’s already got the Array in motion, and it doesn’t have far to go!”
“Titus,” whispered H’lim through dry lips, not a scrap of Influence around him. “Listen to me. There are higher instinctive loyalties than to a First Father. To save us all, our planet, Earth, all of us-you can win if you know you must.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll get him, or die trying.”
“”Bout time you realized that,“ grunted Inea.
“Yes.” They tore a cushion from one of the seats for the torso and left the helmet empty. Draped over Titus’s shoulders in a fireman’s carry, the suit did look occupied.
By the time Inea and Titus emerged, two bombers were circling the Array’s landing field dropping small bombs, testing for booby traps. Laden with the extra mass of the stuffed suit, Titus veritably flew down the rest of the hill. He caught stride and let momentum carry him, knowing exactly how hard he’d impact the hut and refusing to think about it.
At the last minute, when he was out of sight of the bombers, he hurled the suit against the hut wall as a kind of “breaking jet” and turned so his shoulder hit first. Even so, he almost blacked out. Inea smacked into the hut right beside him, gasping, and slid to the ground.
Titus rolled sideways and rounded the doorjamb in a crouch, looking for Abbot.
The interior was a study in black and white, laced across with dazzling cones of light. The panel readouts had been carefully designed for use in vacuum, through suit helmets, but by human eyes. There was the oppressive inaudible thrum of high gauss fields which Titus had never identified before meeting H’lim. And parts of the machinery casings glowed with infrared colors that filtered through his faceplate, his glasses, and his contacts. Or is it my skin that’s “seeing”?
Bent low, he circled left, keeping behind consoles and housings, focused on locating the distinctive tang of Abbot’s Influence. He was half hoping his father had been permanently crippled by H’lim’s efforts.
There!
Abbot, his back to Titus, bent over a console nested in a nearly complete sphere of display screens. The console desk was made of two semicircles with an operator’s chair in the center that could pivot to bring each segment into reach. Abbot, outside the circle, leaned awkwardly to consult the screens. There was a chair behind him, and others around the desk facing inward, a sloping control board in front of each. A team of five could operate the entire Array manually, debug and test, evaluate and correct anything that could go wrong.
Parts of the console were lit, and some screens showed data shifting as the antennas rotated to point clear of Earth. One set of screens showed exteriors of the two crashed Toyotas and of the landing field, the two bombers still making cautious passes testing for mines or traps. A black cable tethered Abbot’s suit to the console.
Titus dug his boot toes into the floor and charged, leaping onto a console and pushing off in a flying tackle, ignoring the anticipatory twinge in his bruised shoulder.
He hit, and the two of them tumbled, bounced, and rolled in the narrow space between screens and desk. Titus tried one of Suzy Langton’s low-grav moves, and marveled when he ended up on top. Abbot grunted, heaved, and sent Titus flying over the round desk. Arms flailing, he crashed into a display panel, which cracked behind him.
He got to his knees, searching for the black casing of the transmitter amid the glittering electronics. That was his target, not Abbot. He spotted it, nested inside a cavity in the desk where the panel had been removed to expose the works behind the keyboards. Titus figured that had to be the board connected to the console back in the observatory, which meant it was the masterboard that could control everything here.
Then Abbot’s Influence engulfed him like a clenched fist. His muscles locked, leaving him half crouched.
Getting to his feet with an air of utter finality, Abbot plugged in his black cable again, and resumed settling the transmitter into place, suitgloves making him fumble. At the edge of Titus’s field of view, the screens showed the landing field, where the bombers were now settling down amid clouds of dust and small rocks.
Titus gathered his power tightly about himself. I’ve got to move. I’ve got to break this. He recalled the moment in the lavatory on Goddard when he’d turned his hand over despite Abbot’s will. Fixing on the black lump of the transmitter now just barely visible, he strained forward against the force that held him. The barrier’s in my own mind. It’s human to suffer divided will.
He summoned the image of Earth overrun, humans taken away to slavery under Tourist Influence, used the way Mirelle had been used. A blast furnace deep within his soul opened and his will fed on outrage.
“They’ll never buy it,” he said, his voice rusty.
Abbot jerked around then fiddled with his suit frequency. He hadn’t heard the comment, but only felt the crack in his control of Titus. Now that Abbot was on Titus’s frequency, Titus could hear the distant chatter of the blockaders Abbot was monitoring through the suitjack.
“. convoy! It’ll get too damn close. Let’s go!”
Titus’s arms knotted with strain, and he thought he felt movement. To distract Abbot further, he grated out words. “You can’t sell humans as slaves to the galaxy.”
Again, Abbot seemed startled. “So you got into Mirelle’s calculator. Such a son to be proud of if only. Well, no matter. It’s too late, Titus. I’ve won.”