03. Masters of Flux and Anchor (45 page)

"I don't like it," he said to Sligh. "Something's not right. I can feel it in my bones. First Champion's cut in two, then those two crack soldier boys are found, one shot with his own gun, the other strangled, with no sign of the old man or his girl. Just some blood."

"Have a little confidence!" Sligh admonished the other. "You were never one to fail under pressure before. What if they did escape to Nantzee or Mareh? Here we stand on the verge of reuniting World with the universe, and you worry about a couple of mere humans."

"Not mere," Haldayne pointed out. "The old boy's one smart, tough cookie, and I once went head-to-head with that broad of his in Flux and damn near didn't escape with my life. Uh-uh. Too much funny business. She was once crazy over that stringer Matson, and he's here, too, and now we found out that the girl that got Champion was his daughter. Matson nailed Coydt and wound up with Tilghman's daughters. You tell me it isn't all connected."

Sligh shrugged. "What if it is? We will be all-powerful if the ancient message is fulfilled. We will be in control of New Eden, its army, and an unlimited supply of Flux if nobody arrives. If some of our own kind show up, we'll be here with our story first and we'll be the ones they trust."

"And if it's the Enemy after all?" Haldayne asked nervously.

"Getting cold feet at a time like this? If it's the Enemy, then we'll need our army and the Tilghmans, Cassies, Matsons. and the rest, won't we? You can't back out now, anyway. That's why we all agreed that once our remotes were installed and tested we'd all be here, in New Caanan. so we couldn't go back at the last minute."

"All but Ivan. I wonder what happened to him, too?"

"There was a faulty signal from one of the northern remotes. He went up there to fix it. There is no more faulty signal, so he evidently did. Time works against his being back, and I'm not going to hold everything up until he gets here. Wherever he is, I'm positive he's no threat to us right now."

Haldayne shrugged off his unease and reported. "The Judges that wouldn't go along are taken care of, and the army's been pretty well pulled back to defensive positions. I've notified all commands that we have discovered a plot to open the Hellgates and that it might not be stopped. They're going to bring every available man and every piece of heavy equipment we've got, and we're organizing in five battle groups. I'm going to miss that bridge Tilghman blew, though. It could make us short some heavy guns we might wish we had. I assume Ivan's notified all those that the remains of the Nine couldn't and our people didn't. As we figured, the stringers have taken over operational com¬mand of the combined armies, so I think we can feel reasonably safe that nobody's going to be too trigger-happy."

The Seven were no fools. They understood that they were taking a gamble; a gamble they might well lose. They had as much percentage in a strong military force at each Hellgate as did the rest of World, if only for insurance.

Sligh chuckled, and Haldayne looked quizzically at him. "What's the joke? I'd swear you aren't any more human than those damned computers of yours."

"I was just thinking. Here we finally have a way to open the Gates, and insure our own survival against a double-cross. Yet six of us stand here at this one Gate for that very reason. Suppose they only sent one ship? Or two? Suppose they don't land at this Gate?"

"Now's a fine time to think about that!"

"Oh, don't worry. When the Gates open, all access to the Gates from Anchor will be shut down. Then there will be a purging but very controlled rush of Flux from the other side. This will destroy our cables and receivers, by the way, but don't worry. Once open, all they'll do is reset the regulators, not blow them up. Then whatever is out there can come in—apparently into this depression, and the others. Then the Gates will close once more, and they will once again be locked, to prevent two objects from occupying the same space. Whatever comes in must either move out or leave the same way it came before something else can come in. All our forefathers did was essentially tie in a bomb with a numerical code to the regulator and then reset the Gate for outgoing, as if something were here. We will key in the code to deactivate the bombs and then throw the switch, as it were, from outgoing to incoming. If nothing comes in this Gate, there is no purge, and we are still in communication from this end. But I think some¬thing will come, if they're still out there. This was one of the three Gates in which the message was received."

Haldayne looked at his watch. "It's eleven forty now. When will you throw the switch?"

"I think we want a look at this in daylight, but I want to give the forces as much time as possible. Four hours of light should be sufficient. I would think. Fourteen hundred on the nose, then."

"Fair enough. I'll notify the others and the commands. I still feel something's not quite right, though."

"After all these centuries, it is as right as it will ever be."

"The computer's been tuned in to Haldayne and Sligh." Suzl told them. "We've got a little more than two hours. Fourteen hundred, they said. They also said that the Gates will be purged, then whatever comes comes, then it all locks and switches back to normal."

Matson nodded. "Then that's when we have to move. Fast. Notify all commanders, and get the word to whatever wizards with forces are at the Anchor capitals. As soon as they get word that something's in the dish, get in there and pack it solid."

Sondra shook her head. "You really think it'll work? I mean, nobody's been able to dent the walls of this place with anything we've got. If something's built to travel in Flux that thick. . . ."

"We don't need to dent it, if I've guessed right. Look, you and Jeff are both strong wizards. You've had military training and can tie into the communications system like I can't." He turned to Candy and Crystal. "Girls, neither of you have had any military training in your lives, but you sure as hell can tie in like those two and send what I tell you. Are you willing?"

"We'd like to have sons and daughters and grandchildren, too," they responded. "We said we'd love, honor, and obey. Just tell us what to do."

He kissed each of them and said, "This time don't get mixed up as to which one you are, huh?" He looked around. "As big as this family is. I still should'a had either two more daughters or two more wives. We can only cover four Gates with direct broadcasts to the wizards."

"Don't worry so much," Spirit responded. "There are very good people at all the sites and they know what you're up to. The orbital scanning satellites all decayed and burned fifteen hundred years ago, but through the transmissions I think I can get a general picture of each Hellgate on the screens. I—"

She stopped as she saw Cassie come out of the doorway between two screens. It led to a bathroom they still hadn't completely figured out and had a series of bunk beds and a very small dining area. Apparently at the start this com¬plex was staffed around the clock, and managed the com¬ings and goings at the Gate. Food was simple. You just said what you wanted and Suzl used a small device in the dining area to create it out of Flux. It also, to her and Matson's delight, materialized beer and cigars.

They all rushed over to Cassie, concerned. She had apparently washed herself off, but she looked weary. "I'm all right," she assured them. "I'm all right. I heard every¬one yelling in here and wondered what had happened and whether I could be of any help."

"You sure you're O.K.?" Suzl pressed.

She nodded. "I know he's dead. I can accept that now. What of the children, though. Suzl?"

"They're O.K. A couple of Fluxwives up top took 'em in. I've been checking on them when I could, but they're in no more danger than we are, which is quite a lot."

"You—you're running this place?"

Quickly Suzl told her all the details to date. She nodded and sighed.

"You sure you're feeling all right?"

"I'm tired, angry, frightened to death, and on top of that I'm horny as hell."

"Join the club, then," Sondra called from her command chair.

"We're all about to break down and have a real cry, but we can't afford to," Suzl toJd her. "God! I just wish they'd throw the damned switches and get it over with!"

Spirit eased over to Matson and whispered. "Look at them! Even Suzl! They're still just a mass of emotions, wants, and desires."

Matson thought it over. "Yeah, it's the bodies, the hormones, the glands, all that. But I'm not worried about it. It may sound crazy, but I wish I had Fluxgirls with guts in every control when the Enemy comes."

She stared at him. "Why?"

"Suzl's power came from you, remember. I heard about it when we were here trying to take this place back. Cass only held her own against Haldayne until she saw me fall. Don't you see? The key to drawing full strength from that machine is emotion, not reason. You've been there yourself. It might just pay for you to get a little of that passion back yourself. You seem to have lost it the moment you stepped in here."

"I lost my innocence," she responded. "I admit I'm keyed up and more than a little scared, but you have to remember—I saw them all before they were like this. I don't like what's become of them."

"Save your hate for the Enemy," Matson told her. "There's far too much hate in this world for the less important things now. Besides, as of now they're only that way because that's how they've been for a while and there's an emergency. What they decide on after this is over will be what shapes their lives."

"Perhaps you're right. You seem fairly confident that we will get through this."

"I'm always confident in a battle. It doesn't make any practical sense to be otherwise until you lose. I think they'll be sons of bitches, but I'm not sure the threat hasn't been overblown. We've been held hostage and kept down on World for twenty-seven centuries because of them. I think we either free ourselves or we'll live forever under this."

"You sound like one of the Seven," she said.

"They're no better or worse than Mervyn and the Nine or a hundred Fluxlords, not really. They're the only truly free people on World. Still, any enemy that can hold a grudge for all this time is something else again. Me, I'd prefer some enemy to our own people."

"What!"

"Sure. I don't think our relatives out there are gonna be all that happy to meet us."

"How can you say that?"

"Twenty-seven hundred years ago, on some other planet called Earth which is all Anchor, they discovered Flux and how to use it, and they had their machines to make it jump through hoops. So instead of using it, they established at least fourteen colonies so far away that even they didn't know where they all were. Why bother?"

"Exploration? Crowding?"

"Nope. There's more profit in tyranny than in all this, and by number fourteen you're colonizing, not exploring. Now, I read Haller's journal and it's pretty clear that the folks of his time had no idea that people and machines could get mixed up together. They used Flux only by machine—to get from there to here, to do the cooking, that kind of thing. Their aim was to turn this whole planet into Anchor, not use the Flux to do anything but make it Anchor. Why import farmers and shepherds and machin¬ists when Flux would make what they wanted?"

"You tell me," Spirit said wryly.

"I think Flux is probably the most dangerous thing they ever had to deal with. My guess is there was some really nasty accident in the early days that frightened them to death."

"There's nothing in the computer memory on it."

"There wouldn't be, necessarily. Now they wanted what Flux could give 'em, which was the power of a billion wizards, but they didn't want it done close to home. The profits from it in an Anchor society would be tremendous, far more than the cost, but you don't set up a colony and spend all that much to do it and have 'em sit here and make Flux teacups and steaks or even buildings. You want it to do the big stuff, the stuff that costs more to do the hard way no matter what the set-up costs here. And you don't make big stuff with the Flux we got on World. You make it out of the stuff you see out there, beyond the Hellgate."

"O.K.—but what happened?"

"Maybe too much Flux was allowed onto World. Maybe they had new kinds of computers they never used before. Who knows? But all the defensive systems, which are impressive, are Anchor systems. There's really no consid¬eration for Flux power. There's no sign that they used their Flux amplifiers to work individual spells, or programs, or whatever you want to call them. They were intended to work with the stuff in the modules that the computers furnished. They were both frightened and amazed when they discovered that human beings could manipulate Flux through those machines without another machine. It scared the shit out of the army, who went to a great deal of trouble to create those independent programs, the Soul Riders and the Guardians, to limit access to what the big computers had, and to keep the computers from running them. Even there they got it wrong through ignorance. The big programs developed independent identities, became thinking beings, because the Soul Riders lived inside humans. They became humans—vicariously, anyway."

"But the Guardians didn't."

"No, but they poked into every Anchorite with Flux power because they knew they'd need one when push came to shove. They were limited by their programs, but they also started taking independent action above and beyond their own needs. The Soul Riders only knew that they were to keep the Gates closed, so they went after the Seven. The Guardian, too, got involved in human affairs when it helped us. More than we know, I think. The Guardian couldn't exactly use the computer, but it had to keep the thing repaired—so it learned a lot and got a lot of information which it fed to the Soul Riders when and if needed. They needed humans to get the information, so the Guardian talked to the Soul Riders and the Soul Riders used the hosts."

Spirit nodded. "My Soul Rider was always convinced that it had an unseen master in Anchor. The master was the Guardian, then. It tapped the computer, sent the infor¬mation needed to the Soul Rider, who then used it. The computers, you see, are nothing more than a collection of data in mathematical form. The Guardian and the Soul Rider are both required to actually get and use it, unless it's in a program module. What you're saying is that it was done that way to keep wizards from accessing the whole thing unaided."