“Like the Blight on Thyker,” said Theor in a dull voice.
They rose to the edge of the escarpment and looked over it, hills and gentle valleys, tufted forests, all in shades of darkest gray. Away to their left lay Bubble Lake, a rising cloud of prismed color. Closer was the New Forest, looming and shadowed. Canyons and rivers, dunes and caverns, the marvelous landscapes of Hobbs Land spread beneath them. To the west was a flicker, a scarlet shimmer in the darkness.
“There,” said Theor. “Something came through there.”
Sam dropped the flier to the tops of the trees and wove down the valleys toward the sparkle.
Above, to their left, another sparkle, brighter, falling, leaving a trail of fire.
“They’re sending through scouts in an array,” said Emun. “Still trying for the range. They haven’t figured out the surface yet.”
“Array?”
“A cube, a lattice of scouts. When they arrive, they pulse back through the still-open Door. They pulse if they destruct, from coming out in rock, or if they fall, from coming out in air, or if they have no weight, from coming out in space. Some of them will end up on or near a surface, and those pulses accumulate into a description of the surface. Then you send in a beacon array to mark the surface, and then the rest of the soldiers. The beacon array moves with the planet surface. It feeds back, keeping the Door open. One way, of course.”
“That one we just saw?”
“Became a meteor.” Emun pointed upward. “There’s another. If we were on the surface, you could feel the shock waves from the ones detonating underground. This is a very broad, rather scattered array. Whoever’s doing it has never done it before.”
Theor nodded in agreement. “Whoever’s doing it knows the theory but not the practice. Wasteful as all Hell, of course, which is why they use cheap scouts to start with. I don’t suppose they amount to much except a fire-arm and a back-pulse.”
“Do you need to see anything more to know this is happening for sure?” Sam asked in a tight voice, his mind far from this place. This was happening, here, but the reasons were far away, in time, in space. “Have you seen enough to warn the settlements?”
“They’ve straddled the escarpment,” said Emun. “Look below.” They looked down to see sparkles in the air and on the ground of the plains. “They’ve come out along the edge of the escarpment and some of them are caught there, in crevices of the rock. The first mistake they’ll make is to rotate ninety degrees and try to bring their scouts out along the wall. That’s the only surface they’re sure of.”
The three watched in wonder as the sparkles grew thick upon the wall, falling in long streaks, like burning wax from a candle, then stopped. There was a long time of darkness. Then the lights began again, this time all of them on the plain below.
“They’ve figured it out,” said Emun.
“Have you seen enough?” Sam asked again.
“Enough to go warn the settlements,” said Theor Close. “We can start evacuation through the Combat Door.”
“And lose twenty percent of our people?” Sam cried, suddenly concentrated once more upon the immediacy of the problem. “No! Get them up onto the escarpment, up at the memorial park. Have them take food enough for a long stay. Medical supplies, whatever they think they’ll need. Get off the plain.” He thought, letting his mind seek the answers, letting the words come. “If the soldiers are coming out down there, the prophets will be behind them.” He knew this was true. He could see it. Oh, yes. “Sending an army here is sheer vindictiveness. The old man is getting even with Saturday for singing there in Ahabar. And with me, just for being with her, or for being Maire’s son, or because despite everything he feels guilt and must crush it with more violence yet against any who make him uncomfortable! He will come, to see the end of us, and the others will not stay behind. Even if they did not want to be here, he would bring them along.”
“It’ll take them time to reach the settlements, won’t it, Emun?” asked Theor.
“Not as long as you might think.”
Sam thought, concentrating every cell upon the problem. “The important thing is to get our people out of the way, get our fliers out of range. The prophets will come through behind the army. We must prepare to attack them from behind and capture some of them.”
“I don’t understand?” said Theor in a puzzled voice.
“Some of them will know the passwords. The ones we’ll need to change the programming! If they know them, then our God can find them out. Maybe. Meantime, we’re alerting everyone possible; maybe someone can use that Final Command.”
“We can get the closer settlements moved first, without baggage, and the further ones moved next.”
“Then I’m going to drop off down there, in front of their lines somewhere, and have you fly this thing back.”
“Sam!” protested Theor Close. “Why?”
Emun quavered, “You wouldn’t have a chance, Sam Girat.”
“It’s something I need to do,” he said, turning the flier in a sharp arc and speeding away toward the southeast. “Something only I can do. There is an unfinished matter here, one which has weighed upon me. It needs to be done with. Whatever happens.”
“At least, let us take time to rig you up with a transmitter,” Theor Close begged. “We need to know what happens to you, Sam.”
Sam shook his head, almost amused. “Haven’t you figured it out yet, Theor? You will know whatever I know. If not you, then Saturday, or Jep. The God knows what I know. Ask it.”
• In the reception bay at Enforcement, the Awateh shifted in impatience. He had soon tired of watching the soldiers marching into the Door. They were small soldiers mostly. There were no large landscapes on Authority in which large soldiers could maneuver. He much preferred the unequivocal horror of the monsters waiting to be sent to Hobbs Land.
“We have a surface, Holy One,” said Ornil.
The prophet gestured his permission to proceed. Ornil bowed. Faros bowed. They spoke certain commands, a barrier rolled aside, the soldiers came into the bay and began marching or rolling or hopping through the Door to Hobbs Land. They went past in seemingly endless files. When the last of them had gone through, including one carrying a smaller Door that would allow persons to return, the prophet summoned his followers with a word and strode after the soldiers, his lined faced eager with anticipation. Behind him the others marched or swaggered, their coup markers glimmering in the dimly lighted bay.
Ornil and Faros looked after them. The cavernous space was quiet. The last soldier had gone to Authority. The last of the Faithful had gone to Hobbs Land. The Doors stood open, all of them, and Ornil and Faros stared into the curtains of pale and empty fire.
“Two generations, almost three,” muttered Faros, turning his eyes away. Staring into the Doors made his head ache. “How many years? To get us here? To get this thing done? And now what?” He leaned his forehead against the console. His hand rested upon the control of the Hobbs Land Door. So easy to shut it down. If it was shut down, the Door the prophets had with them would be useless. So easy to keep the prophets from coming back. He didn’t move his hand. If he moved his hand, Ornil would kill him. He considered whether, for Silene’s sake, he should allow himself to be killed.
“The Awateh will punish those who merit punishment,” said Ornil as he also turned away from the aching shimmer. “He will return here to send the army to Phansure, and Thyker, and Ahabar. When all have been killed except our people, we will settle where we will.” He said it without joy, flatly.
“Do you suppose he’ll give us a choice?” Faros closed his eyes, concentrating. If he went back through the Door to Ninfadel, Silene and the children might be there. On the other hand, they could still be in Ahabar. Which place should he go first? And how escape from Ornil?
He decided he would go to Ahabar. He would kill Ornil, and then go to Ahabar. Faros had no sooner made the decision than he smelled something. The smell was terrible, but his first thought was some
thing wrong on the console, and he stared at it for several moments before he looked over his shoulder and saw what was behind him. There were many of them, sliming out of the Door from Ninfadel, pouring into the Door to Authority, a few wandering out of the line and toward the place he stood, moving very fast. By the time he understood what he saw and opened his mouth to shout a warning, it was too late for Ornil, too late for himself. As the Porsa swallowed Faros, his hand on the lever was dragged down, closing the way to Hobbs Land.
• Notadamdirabong Cringh was awakened in the middle of Authority’s “night” by Lurilile’s shaking him.
“Get up,” she said. “Damn it, Notadam, get up.”
“What … ?” he managed, his mind full of a dream in which he had been young again, young enough, at least.
“Notable Scholar, wake up or I’ll dump cold water on you,” threatened his Abishag. “There’s a great badness afoot here on Authority.”
“Badness?” he quavered. “What?”
“Machines. Killing machines. Loose in the corridors. Loose in the environments. Wandering about thundering at people. We have to get away.”
“Get away?” he said stupidly.
“Abandon ship,” she shouted at him. “Yield moon.”
He sat up, suddenly clearheaded. “The Doors from the arrival and departure center will be jammed.”
“Since that’s the way the things came in, it’s unlikely they’ll be jammed with people.”
“There are other Doors, down in Supply,” he said, his mind clicking away like a machine.
They were interrupted by the door chime. Lurilile opened it, finding Rasiel Plum leaning upon the door.
“We’re under attack,” he breathed heavily, holding his chest. “Under attack.”
“So the stage said,” replied Lurilile. “I was sitting up late, seeing an old drama, something from Manhome times, something like this, an attack at night. I saw the warning. The Notable Scholar was just suggesting …”
“Just suggesting we try to get down to Supply,” said Cringh, coming to the bedroom door with his robe half-fastened. “The general access Doors will be full of these monsters.”
Rasiel sighed, a very old sigh. “I was thinking more in terms of the Final Command, Cringh.”
“Which would be what?”
“The words that will shut off the army.”
“Is there such a thing?”
“There is. As one of the Actual Members, I know what it is. So do you!”
Cringh furrowed his brow. “Oh. Well, yes. I was told about that, wasn’t I? Presumably there are nineteen other people, many of them younger than we, who also know what it is.”
“Not here,” sighed Rasiel. “I did a quick inventory while I was getting here to you. Half the Actual Members have gone to that gala on Ahabar, the dedication of the tomb of Stenta Thilion. Most of those who didn’t go weren’t able to go, too old, too tired. There may be three or four younger than we on Authority who know the phrase. You’ll recall that the phrase is, ‘A key for the last lock.’ I’m reminding you because I may not live to use it, and somebody has to.”
“Where do we say it? Where do we transmit the order from? I’m not sure I ever knew.”
“From the robing room behind the Authority Chambers, except that when I asked for a view of the robing room, all I saw was metal monsters thundering around. As I recall, there’s two or three other places on Authority, including one where you were going, in Supply. Half a day’s foot journey from here, in good times.”
“I’ll get your medicine,” said Lurilile to Cringh. “We’ll start out at once.” She went into his room, burrowed among his things, filling her pockets, murmuring to herself, “A key for the last lock. A key for the last lock.”
As they were about to go out into the wide passageway which connected the urban residential suites used by upper-level Authoritarians, heads of advisories, heads of panels, and a few of the Actual Members, they heard a monstrous rumbling from one end of it, an approaching roar.
“Back inside,” hissed Lurilile, pulling at Notadamdirabong Cringh’s robe. “Back.”
As the door slid closed before them, they caught a glimpse of a treaded and armed monster entering the passageway at the far end and a bolt of lightning seared their vision, melting droplets from the door.
“God,” breathed Rasiel Plum.
“Devil,” spat Cringh. “Who in hell has set those loose?”
“Thyker?” suggested Rasiel.
“No,” Cringh said angrily. “I would have known. They wouldn’t have done that without telling me. And there’s no reason to. Authority hasn’t even suggested retaliation against Thyker for the raid on Hobbs Land.”
“There’s only one other group it could be,” said Lurilile. “The ones who left Voorstod.”
“God,” breathed Rasiel Plum once more.
“There’s the supply chutes,” suggested Lurilile, feeling an approaching rumble. The two old men followed her through the services door into the central services area. A hatchway gave access to a system of ducts, complete with ladders.
“In,” she said. “In and down.”
Gravity was light. Rasiel began the climb, Cringh close behind him, Lurilile remaining behind long enough to pull the hatch tightly closed. The ducts had their own lighting system, their own scurrying little telltales, running up and down tracks let into one wall of the ducts. Twice they scrunched tight to the opposite wall as a supply pod raced past on the tracks.
“If we knew where those supplies were going, we could piggy back,” panted Cringh.
“You’d be whipped off at the first corner,” Lurilile commented. “We’re down two levels. You two stay put. I’m going to reconnoiter.” She thrust open a hatch and slithered out, like a lizard.
“Where’d you get her?” Rasiel asked.
“I think she’s a spy, assigned to me,” Cringh murmured. “Undoubtedly from Ahabar. I’ve enjoyed giving her all kinds of misinformation mixed up with truths that took me a lifetime to learn. She’s been so kind. I didn’t want her to get the information and leave me.”
“A spy? Why you?”
“As a member of the Religion Advisory, I suppose I was spyable,” he replied. “Ahabar was pretty annoyed with the Advisory. Can’t say I blamed them.”
Lurilile came squirming back. “This level is empty. There’s a tube car vestibule down the main hall. I suggest we get to it.”
“Why is this level empty,” whispered Cringh.
“Because it’s a storage level,” she replied. “There wouldn’t be anyone here in the middle of the night, would there?”
The moon Authority was small enough and enclosed enough that it found it expedient to celebrate nighttime simultaneously throughout. What was “night” for Notadamdirabong Cringh was night for everyone else, as well.
They crept quietly along the wide corridor, past bays heaped with supplies and equipment, past immobile handling machines, past brightly painted ducts bearing enigmatic labels: Wet cargo, Waste direct, Waste indirect.
The vestibule was pale green, as all transport facilities were, making them easy to locate. Inside, they found a six-man pod, ready in the tube.
“Supply area directory,” whispered Lurilile.
The listing swam onto the stage. Arrival Stage. Main Sorting Units. Noxious Waste. Temporary Work Crews. Permanent Supply …
“Location of Doors in supply area,” she whispered.
The listing shortened itself abruptly. Arrival Stage. Noxious Waste. Temporary Work Crews.
“Two-way Doors only,” she said again. Arrival stage was for incoming supplies. Noxious waste led to the center of Big Sun, and nowhere else.
There was only one remaining location. Temporary work crews.
“Temporary work crews,” Lurilile tapped into the destination pad. The top of the pod sealed around them with a hiss.
“Implement,” Lurilile tapped.
“Remarkable how efficient she is for an office–home aide,
isn’t it?” said Rasiel. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think she might be an Ahabarian secret service operative.” “Pretend she is,” said Lurilile. “It will make you feel better about doing what she tells you to do.”
The hissing drone of the transport tube, combined with the featureless walls—which blurred by like blown fabric, shimmering—were hypnotic. Rasiel shut his eyes. “I have a family here, you know. On the other side. In the lake environment.”
“If we’re lucky, we’ll stop the soldiers before extensive damage is done,” said Lurilile.
“The Ahabarian secret service does not want Authority dismembered then?”
“The Ahabarian secret service doesn’t really care what happens to Authority,” she answered. “But neither does it have any desire to see senseless destruction and mayhem among the relatively innocent.”
“Relatively innocent?” asked Rasiel.
“Almost everyone on Authority knew about the bribes being taken by Theology Panel. No one did anything about it.”
“Relatively innocent,” agreed Cringh.
“Everyone was content with not rocking the boat,” said Lurilile. “Which seems to be Authority’s style. Who cares if it goes on existing or not? It doesn’t do anything useful. You’re all mere artifacts. You should be in a museum!”
The hiss dropped to a lower register, becoming a hum. The pod slowed. They slipped into a vestibule and the lid opened automatically. Lurilile’s fingers were poised over the destination pad, ready to send them elsewhere if needed, but the vestibule was empty, soundless.
“Out,” she whispered.
They crept into the chill, boxlike space, into the lock, out of the lock into the area used by temporary work crews. A dining area. Dormitories. A recreation area. And at last, a Door.
“I want you two gone,” said Lurilile. “I want you two down on a planet somewhere, alerting everyone. I want a dozen agents up here as soon as possible, to help me. Where’s the army command module, Rasiel?”
He shrugged. “I was told once. Years ago. Down here, somewhere. All I can remember is that it’s in the supply area. Do you remember, Notadam? It would be red, wouldn’t it?”