Star Bridge Part 14

"Where do we go now?" Horn asked.

"To the cap, of course, to turn off the Tubes," Wu said with wide eyes.

Horn glanced at Wendre and remembered that she couldn't hear them. Her eyes were curious; she stepped away from the wall clumsily, but in a few strides she had learned the short, quick steps that kept the heavy suit balanced. Wu hustled to the shortest suit on the wall. It was still too big, and he had a little difficulty in getting into it.

"What about her?" Horn asked.

"You're getting sentimental," Wu said gently. "Helping me up the steps, worrying about a woman. We'll bring her around."

"It isn't going to be easy getting to the cap," Horn said.

"True," Wu said. "But it will be no more difficult getting there than it will be getting anywhere."

"What was the real reason you swung the vote to Duchane?"

"Duchane was a fool. He had the substance, but he had to have the trappings, too. Wendre might have saved the Empire. The slaves fear Duchane worse than death; his term will be b.l.o.o.d.y but brief. Hurry! We've wasted too much time now."

Horn slipped into a suit. He had it locked tight within seconds. By the time he moved away from the wall, Wu had opened another door. Behind it was a second, narrower stairway leading up to a metal ceiling. Wendre was standing in it, half-bent. Wu motioned Horn past him.

Horn turned on the stairs and saw Wu slipping an extra gauntlet carefully between the jamb and the closing door. When the plate above them slipped aside, Horn felt an explosive push and then a diminis.h.i.+ng tug as the air escaped past them into the blackness beyond. Freezing water vapor turned the air white; ice crystals formed around the edge of the horizontal doorway.

The air began to slow; the glittering crystals disappeared. They climbed out carefully-Wendre, Horn, and Wu-onto the gray, metal skin of Eron.

On the gray horizon, at the end of a dim, red, narrowing path, the feeble Ko-type sun hung against the blackness like a fading spark about to be extinguished in a frozen sea. There was no moon, and the unwinking stars gave almost as much light as the sun.

Horn turned slowly, staring out across the unbroken, monotonous grayness, seeing it curve away from him. It was like standing on a giant ball. Horn had the uneasy feeling that it would be easy to start slipping and slide across the smooth, curving metal plain and never stop. There was nothing to see, nothing to stop the slow sweep of the eye.

Horn blinked and s.h.i.+vered. He looked up. That was worse. He felt that he was hanging head downward toward the stars, glued insecurely to a thin, metal disk above.

Beyond one horizon, gold streamers fanned out, diminis.h.i.+ng into the blackness of night. The metal skin reflected them dully. They reminded Horn of the familiar aurora polaris phenomenon, but that was atmospheric and there wasn't any air here. Horn realized, then, that the streamers were the Tubes.

One of the Terminal caps was not too far away, Horn judged, although it was difficult to estimate distance on this featureless plain.

Something was tapping on the arm of Horn's suit. He swung around. It was Wu's hand. Horn reached toward the breastplate of his suit to switch on the intercom, but Wu slapped the gauntlet away. Horn leaned forward, noticing that Wendre's helmet was pressed against Wu's. When Horn's helmet touched theirs, he heard Wu's voice, thin and distorted.

"No phones," Wu said. "Too dangerous. The airless room and stairways below will slow them down. They'll have to find suits, but we can't count on too much time. Duchane's clever. He'll have s.h.i.+ps out within an hour, and there's no place to hide. The sanctuary I was counting on is gone, even if we could reach it."

"My residence," Wendre suggested again. Even filtered and hollow, her voice was low and lovely.

"Duchane will have guards surrounding it," Wu pointed out, "even if he hasn't taken it over by now."

"My guards are faithful," Wendre said firmly.

"Possibly," Wu conceded. "Even so, we need a safe way to get there. Even more immediate, we need a way out of this pitiless exposure and back into Eron. Once there, the best route is the private tubeway, which is basically safe. Duchane can't sabotage it within hours. But where we can reach it-or where we are now, for that matter-I haven't the slightest idea."

Horn pointed toward the golden streamers. "That's north or south."

"North!" Wendre said. "Duchane's residence is close to the north cap."

Wu raised his head and studied the display for a moment. "About sixty kilometers, I'd estimate, from the apparent size of the Tubes. Too far to walk. Wendre? Do you have a suggestion?"

She shook her head bewilderedly.

"The only tube entrance I know," Horn contributed, "is a place called the Pleasure Worlds."

"The Pleasure Worlds," Wu mused. "That sounds familiar. Let's see: Eron is divided three different ways. The longitude has letter designations; the lat.i.tude and level, numbers. The first two describe a truncated, inverted pyramid."

"It's on the top level," Horn interrupted.

"That's right," Wu said, frowning. "Let me remember! The location is-BRU-6713-112. Top level. South of here. If I'm right on my estimate of our present distance, about seven kilometers south. We'll head in that direction and try to think of a way to determine our longitude. Stick together. If one gets separated, we might never be able to find him."

They headed away from the golden streamers. They walked toward an unchanging, unmoving horizon curving gently away from them. There was no impression of getting anywhere. To the southwest, hanging unmoving above the horizon, was Eron's feeble red sun.

They tramped over the endless gray distances, Wu with a skill that soon matched Horn's. But then, Horn thought, Wu had enjoyed the experience of several hundred lifetimes. Occasionally Horn helped Wendre. He found even that metal contact oddly stimulating.

Time was meaningless; the sun was still. Horn wondered if their heavy footsteps were disturbing Eron's n.o.bility below. They weren't, of course. The buffer zone for meteors and the insulation were impervious to sound.

Horn stopped suddenly. Wu, feeling the vibration through his feet, looked back. Horn motioned him to another helmet-to-helmet conference. His lips twisted as he thought how strange it was, their little group huddled together upon this gray world while beneath them humanity teemed like ants in a hill, living, loving, suffering, dying.

"The s.h.i.+ps must have some way of identifying sectors," Horn said, "where to land and so on. Sight would be much too slow. It would have to be radio, and these suits incorporate planet-to-s.h.i.+p frequencies."

Wu nodded. "Everybody quiet."

Horn brushed the switch and tuned to the pts frequency. The inside of the helmet whined; it was an excruciatingly painful sound. Horn turned it off hastily and sighed. "Automatic. It would have to be, of course."

"Has anyone been looking down?" Wu asked. They stared at each other blankly; the unchanging horizon had a way of seducing the eye upward in the futile hope of seeing something different. "I thought not," Wu said. "Just before you stopped, I noticed something to the left."

In a few moments they were looking down at three letters painted beside a broad, golden stripe running north and south: BRT.

"Repairmen and working crews would need guides like these," Wu said exultantly. "And we're off less than one seventeen-thousandth of the circ.u.mference. At this lat.i.tude, that's about twenty-two meters. Which way do they letter? Oh, my poor, abused head!"

"West," Wendre said.

They headed west. In a few minutes they were standing over another golden line. This one was lettered: BRU. They had been marching south between the two lines.

They followed the stripe south until another stripe crossed it at right angles. It was numbered: 67.

"Sixty-seven kilometers from the pole," Wu sighed. "If my memory hasn't played tricks on me, the Pleasure Worlds is only one hundred and thirty meters south."

It was only when they began to look closely that they noticed the small figures painted regularly beside the stripe they followed. Gradually the figures climbed from "1" to "12" and then "13."

"Here!" Wu said. "Let it be here! We can't have much more time before the s.h.i.+ps are out in force."

They scattered to search for a trap door. Wendre came running back toward them, almost falling, and led them toward a plate recessed into the gray metal. Painted across it clearly was the designation: BRU-6713-112.

"You try the door itself," Wu told Horn, "while Wendre and I stamp around the outer edge. There must be some way to open this from the outside."

They never learned the exact location of the latch. While they were doing their strange dance, the door suddenly started sliding under Horn's thundering feet. He leaped to safety beside Wendre. Starlight revealed an upper step. Horn started down.

The stairway seemed identical with the one at Duchane's. An outstretched hand touched metal. Wendre pressed close behind him. Back of her was Wu, bending painfully below the door level.

Wendre's helmet pressed against Horn's. It had the intimacy of a caress. "Matal says there will be a latch disk beside the door. Cover it with your hand."

Horn's hands were already working their way around both sides of the door. Unexpectedly, the darkness deepened and became impenetrable night. The trap door had closed overhead. Why didn't the door open in front?

It was the air, of course. The room was an air lock, and air had to be released into the little stairwell before the door in front could open. It opened, and Horn still couldn't see. Water vapor had condensed and frozen on their helmets. Horn brushed away some of the frost with his gauntlet and stepped into the lighted room. As the frost gathered again, the light sparkled and blurred and then the frost began to melt and trickle down the plastic.

Horn backed into an empty wall rack and braced himself against it as he stripped off his gauntlets and gingerly touched the helmet clamps. They were cold but not dangerous. In a moment he was out of his suit and helping the others.

They found their way down long stairs and finally into the yellow hall that Horn remembered. This time it was silent. They met no one. The whole place seemed deserted.

"The Pleasure Worlds," Wendre said. "What is it?"

"Here, for a price," Wu said, "men can indulge their pa.s.sions, some strange and some not so strange."

"Oh," she said. Her golden face darkened.

"This is it," Horn said. The door had a pale blue disk.

Wu brushed it. The door didn't open. Wu knelt in front of the door and pressed his forehead against it. Horn glanced down curiously. Wu's eyebrows were moving like tiny snakes. They worked into the crack beside the door. The infinitely useful Lil.

The door swung in. Wu stood up and looked back. His eyebrows were back in place; his face was the face of Matal. They walked into the blue world.

Wendre glanced around the room and drew her cloak tight around her. "I don't like it."

Horn palmed the blue sun. A few seconds later, the wall swung outward. The lighted interior of the tube car was in front of them. They had reached-if not safety-at least the way to safety.

Wendre started to step into the car, but Wu held her back. He pressed his hand against the door jamb. The colored disks appeared palely against the front panel. Wu leaned into the car and covered the gold disk. Suddenly there were voices.

"... hold her there. Matal, too, if he is with her. Or, if there is a chance you might lose them, shoot...."

"Duchane!" Horn said softly.

"I understand, sir. You can depend on me."

The voices went on, but Wendre obviously didn't hear them. Her eyes were wide; her face was incredulous. "But that-" she began. "But that's-"

"Yes?" Wu said.

"That's my steward. He's been with me since I was little. I'd trust him with my life."

"That, it seems, would be unwise," Wu said gently. "All things can be bought if the price is right. Safety doesn't lie there. The question is: where can we go?"

Horn studied the pulse that was beating at the base of Wendre's throat and wondered if they had reached the end of the long flight.

THE HISTORY.

Golden blood....

They called it the Great Mutation. Roy Kellon was the father, legend said, and his son was the first of the Golden Folk.

Supermen. Fit to conquer and rule the universe. In everything, the golden blood was superior: intelligence, courage, stamina. And only the pure golden blood could make and control the Tubes.

Was that the secret? If so, it was not well kept. Eron let the rumor spread unchecked. Conquered hearts sank lower.

Hail the superman!

It was a most remarkable mutation. Almost unbelievable when one considers the millions of successive steps needed to create something as complicated as the human eye-and the millions of blunders that were automatically destroyed. The Golden Folk. Cut them, if you dare. They bleed red.

It was also said that only the Directors knew the secret of the Tubes. Take your choice. It could not be both ways.

Perhaps there was another secret-a secret even the Directors did not know....

14.

THE MASTER SWITCH.

"What's wrong with him, Matal?" Wendre said dazedly. "He wants to kill us all."

"Power," Wu said somberly, stepping back from the car, "is a vision that drives men mad."

"We've got to stop him," Wendre said, drawing a deep breath. "We must kill him first. He'll shatter the Empire."

"We can't get near him now," Horn said.

"The slaves would take care of him for us," Wu pointed out, "if we could keep him from bringing in reinforcements."

Wendre stared at Wu. "Cut off the Tubes? All right. Let's go to the main control room in the north cap."

A frown slipped across Horn's face and was gone. Wu was using Wendre. He had maneuvered her, very cleverly, into suggesting that the Tubes be cut off. It wouldn't have surprised Horn to learn that Wu had arranged for that apparent conversation between Duchane and Wendre's steward.

They all wanted Duchane destroyed but for different reasons. To Wendre it seemed to be the only way to preserve the Empire. Horn wanted the Empire shattered; he knew that this would do it. Once let Duchane fall, and no new ruler could ever put the pieces together again. The myth of empire would be broken.

Horn wondered what Wu wanted. Amus.e.m.e.nt, relief from boredom? Or did he have deeper, more valid reasons?

"You two-get in that car," Wu said. "I'll follow in another as soon as you've gone."

"Both of us?" Wendre exclaimed.

"You two are young and slim," Wu sighed, "and I am old and fat."

"But-" Wendre began, glancing at Horn.