The Zen Gun

7

To Pout, the moving city had been a disappointment. Mo, the city mind, had insisted on bombarding him with boring lectures on subjects he had no interest in. He had found the Mohists themselves irritatingly difficult to have fun with (and, mindful of the ever-watchful Mo, he had refrained from enslaving any of them with his zen gun). Also, he could feel his grip on his own little group weakening. So, calling them together (this had entailed a few electric prods-at-a-distance) he had decided to leave. Sadly he had been unable to find the girl Hesper, and if he had it would not have been much use—she was not yet under his spell.

The best thing, he told himself, was to get off this planet altogether. He toiled along now on the hills above the plain wondering how to find a spaceport. The brothers said there was one to the south somewhere. The kosho would probably know—but Pout had learned already that he couldn’t look to him for information. The warrior ignored all his attempts to converse.

The sun was hot, and Pout, when he glanced up and saw the glint in the sky, took it for a bird or passing aircraft. Then, as it grew like a stone falling with terrible swiftness, he stopped while the others bunched up behind him.

The big metal shape didn’t seem to slow down at all as it fell. It hit the landscape with an audible thump less than half a mile away, sending up a cloud of dust, then squatted undamaged, banging open wedge-like doors our of which poured a yelping pack of about twenty variegated figures—dogs, hyenas and cheetahs in dazzling harness and all shouting in human voices, one or two humans in bulging armour that made them look like shining robots; and, waddling to one side, encased in some sort of cloth of gold, a fat pig that sniffed and looked about him.

The carnivers all raced to and fro in intense excitement, waiting for orders. “Oh no,” quavered the eldest brother behind Pout. “Empire Commando!”

“What?” Pout knew of these much-feared shock troops, and terror struck him. But he pulled himself together. “Don’t worry! You’re safe with me!”

He drew the zen gun. Kill, kill, he thought. Kill, kill, kill.

He was sure the gun could deal with all of them. He pressed the stud that he had learned intensified the electric stitch beam, whether to hurt, maim or kill. He pointed the muzzle and pressed the firing stud.

The wavery stitching was much weaker than he had expected. It probed towards the noisy pack, raked across the body of a dog which howled and squirmed on the ground, firing its weapons at random.

Then it went out!

Pout gaped. He pressed the intensifier stud again, squeezed the firing stud, thought of killing as hard as he could.

Nothing happened. The zen gun was not working!

Had its power pack run out? He had never even considered that it might have an exhaustible power pack. It had seemed so marvellous, so personally his, that he had presumed it would keep functioning as long as he kept functioning.

But now one of the armoured humans, seeing one of the dogs fall, and seeing from where the attack had come, raised an arm and pointed, bellowing a command. The whole commando unit swept forward, fanning out to form a crescent that began to sweep round Pout and his group.

He began to tremble, and his voice rose to a warbling, panicky contralto. “Kosho! Defend me, kosho! I need you!”

Ikematsu had been walking well to the rear, several paces even behind the laggard Sinbiane. When the party came to a halt he had seated himself upon the ground and entered into his customary suspended consciousness, apparently disinterested in the nearby commando landing.

At Pout’s summons he rose, turning slowly to survey the scene. A few strides took him in advance of Pout’s frightened following and there he stood, still in seeming trance, his eyes half closed, his face expressionless.

An astonishing transformation came over his accoutrements. He did not move his hands or raise his arms from his sides. But the rifles he carried in his rack rose of their own volition, hovering around his head and shoulders. Partly they were under his mental control, partly extensions of his nervous system and knowing themselves what they should do.

Selectively, they let loose a barrage of fire. At his waist, his mortar tube began to lob grenades, picking out patches of ground in flashes of green fire.

The commandos opened fire too. The hovering rifles darted this way and that. Every beam and missile, despatched from a variety of weapons, aimed at Pout’s party was intercepted by the defensive umbrella the kosho projected.

Suddenly there was silence. Ikematsu had killed cheetahs; he had killed dogs; he had killed hyenas. He had not killed either of the two humans or the pig; these were high-ranking personages, and they gave the order now for the surviving commandos to withdraw. They were amazed; they had never before seen a rifle that could cancel out the energy beam from another rifle.

Gruwert had scuttled back into the drop pod. He peered round the edge of the door. “Who’s that?” he demanded angrily. “We’re fighting a single man?”

“It looks like a kosho,” Brigadier Carson told him. He still stood on the ground, but had retreated to where it was only a step to safety. “An ancient mystical warrior order. They’re only found on Earth. I’d heard they were pretty remarkable, but this…”

“What? Why didn’t anyone tell me? They might be the weapon!”

“I don’t think so. They are forbidden to take sides in power politics.”

Ruefully Carson surveyed the scene before the pod. He had lost about half his animals. The survivors, having withdrawn to the shadow of the pod, stood tense, noses pointed to the kosho. A word from him or Major Kastrillo, the only other human in the party, and they would bound into action again totally disregardful of their own lives.

He had no intention, however, of expending them needlessly. He was about to order them back into the pod with a view to bombing the Earthites from the air when the kosho came striding towards him. The commando animals growled; he could see them focusing their skullguns. Unperturbed, the kosho stopped a few yards away.

“My principal would request a cessation of hostilities,” he said calmly. “We have no interest in each other.”

“You killed my animals,” Carson retorted hotly.

“You attacked us.”

“You attacked first.”

“True.” the kosho replied equably. “My principal was perturbed at your behaviour, which he believed presaged an assault upon us. That, too, is my impression.”

“What is all this talk?” Gruwert squealed quietly to Carson. “Scan him to dust—No, wait!”

A new thought had struck the pig. Cautiously he descended to the ground. “How would you like to have such fighters in your commando, Brigadier?” he murmured. “These fellows could prove mighty useful.”

“But the cooperation of a kosho is almost impossible to acquire,” Carson reminded him.

“Oh really? But he isn’t a free agent as it is. You just heard him say he’s acting under orders.” Gruwert spoke up and addressed the warrior. “Who is this principal of yours? Point him out to me.”

“He is the manlike chimera who first fired on you.”

“Bring him here,” Gruwert said, peering in Pout’s direction. “We want to talk to him.”

“Under safe conduct?”

Major Carson nodded.

Ikematsu walked back to Pout. “Listen carefully,” he said. “I have defended your life and my obligation to you is over. But I will perform you one more service, for a price.

“These are fighters from Diadem, the centre of the Empire. You would like to leave Earth and go to Diadem, would you not? Yes. 1 know you would. Above our heads is a huge fleet with thousands of men and animals on board. Eventually it will go to Diadem. 1 will talk to the officers from the fleet. I will persuade them that they should take you with them.

“All I want in return is that gun you have.”

“This gun?” Hopefully Pout tendered the scangun he had taken from Hesper Positana.

“No, the other gun.”

Pout’s ears twitched and his eyes widened pitifully. The kosho had approached the strangers without a word to him, leaving him bewildered and frightened. He gazed down at the dead gun in his other hand, then clutched it to his chest.

“No!” he mewled. “My beautiful gun! 1 won’t give up my gun!”

“It does not even work any more.”

“It will work!” Pout spat desperately. “One day it will work!”

“Had I a mind I could kill you here, for the harm and the hatred in you, and take the gun.”

These words frightened Pout and he dodged aside from Ikematsu to run towards the armoured men and the animals standing by the big metal thing. He was less afraid of them, at this moment, than he was of his onetime protector.

Balefully the predators glared at him, but he ignored them and fell to his knees before the two humans. “I am a nice animal!” he gasped. “I love the Empire! Save me from those people!”

A cheery voice came suddenly from inside the pod. “Now now, what’s all this panic?”

The men moved apart. Pout found himself staring into a fat-jowled pig face with twinkling little eyes. “Things are getting confusing,” Gruwert remarked. “Tell me, is it not you who is supposed to be the, er, master of that kosho over there?”

“Yes, yes, I am,” babbled Pout.

“Now there’s an odd thing in itself. He looks pure human to me, and you… well, what are you exactly?”

A hint of pride came into Pout’s voice. “I am a chimera of every primate species, sir.” He spoke respectfully, realising he was in the presence of authority. Indeed, something about the pig’s manner reminded him of the role of Torth Nascimento in the museum…

Gruwert waddled from the pod once more. He raised his snout and sniffed the air with a loud sniffing sound. “Really? Now that is interesting. They say this is the planet we all came from. The old Earth herself, cradle of our biota. Just the place, one might think, to find something unusual, shall we say? Well, citizen—you are a citizen, aren’t you? Of course you are: a citizen of the second class, like myself. Now citizen, we didn’t mean you any harm. We spotted your group from up in space and decided to talk to you, that’s basically it. It seems we gave you a fright—our commandos are a bit rough, I admit! But you see, there has been much wickedness in this sector and it’s our business to deal with it. You wouldn’t believe it, but there are criminals in Escoria who are against the Empire and want to plunge us all back into barbarism. We are looking for one who landed in this region a few days ago. It’s very bare country hereabouts, so maybe you can help us?” Gruwert’s tone hardened. “Where is he?”

“It isn’t a he, it’s a girl!” Pout offered eagerly. “She wore a black and silver suit and came down in an egg! Look, she gave me this scangun.”

Gruwert watched while Major Kastrillo took the weapon from Pout’s grasp, glanced at it, then tossed it through the door of the drop pod. “Yes, that’s the one,” he said slowly. The rebels tracked to Mars had worn the same uniform. “Let’s have her, then.”

“Oh, she’s not here, she’s—”

Pout stopped. He wondered how much bargaining power his knowledge of the girls’ whereabouts gave him—and did he dare try to use it?

He glanced back. The kosho and his young nephew were walking slowly towards him!

His skin prickled. “I am glad to be of service to the Empire.” he said obsequiously. Then, in a voice of panic: “Take me with you and I’ll tell you where she is!”

“You are coming with us anyway,” Gruwert said commandingly. “Now quickly, end this deviousness.”

While Ikematsu and Sinbiane stood silently by, Pout said: “There are some moving cities that roam flat ground over that way.” He waved an arm. “She’s in the nearest of them It’s called Mo.”

“Yes, we saw them. Where in this city?”

Pout shrugged. “They’re not as large as all that.”

“I suppose that will do,” Gruwert said, satisfied. “All right, get inside the pod.”

“Are you really taking the chimera?” Brigadier Carson asked in surprise.

“Yes I am,” Gruwert had dark thoughts about the creature. Though he had spoken to him as though to a child, he suspected there might be considerably more to him than that. Why was the kosho, a proud and highly trained human being—he recalled something about koshos now—apparently his servant? A pan-primate chimera too… it was reminiscent of the pan-mammalian chimera the Whole-Earth-Biotists wanted to install as Emperor Protector.

“We’ll take the kosho, too,” he decided. “Don’t they have special mental training? Heightened psychic flexibility?” He pondered. It was, he supposed, exactly the faculty—heightened imagination—which animals were supposed to be incapable of. “That’s the sort of quality we might need if we’re to investigate that rent in space.”

“Yes, you’re absolutely right,” muttered Carson. Yet looking at the imperturbable warrior,and his array of weapons, he wondered exactly how he was to be “taken”.

Pout was stopped from entering the pod by a dog who came up to him and began sniffing him all over. The beast stood nearly as tall as Pout himself; the chimera cringed but the commando persisted, and eventually its muzzle lunged and came out gripping the zen gun he had put back in his bib.

“He had another gun,” the dog growled between clenched teeth.

“It doesn’t work. It’s my lucky charm.” Pout watched with pleading eyes as Carson took the gun and turned it over. The man grunted in amusement, then pointed it at the horizon and squeezed the trigger. Nothing happened.

“It’s made of wood,” he remarked lightly. “Only an old curio.” Pout timorously extended a paw; he casually handed the gun back to him.

On seeing Pout skulk his way into the pod, tucking the gun in his bib, Ikematsu stepped forward. “If I am to come with you I must keep my weapons,” he said to the Brigadier. “A kosho does not discard his armoury.”

Indignantly Carson looked at him. “We’re not allowing you on one of our ships rigged out like that! You’re a walking war!” He waved Sinbiane back. “And we don’t need you, young man. You stay here.”

“This is my nephew,” Ikematsu informed. “I go nowhere without him.”

Suddenly he made a series of quick movements, disengaging the catches of his harness, at which the rifle rack, the mortar tube and the other weapons fell away, arranging themselves on the ground with surprising neatness.

“See,” he said. “I disarm, contrary to all principle, provided my nephew accompanies me. I ask only that my armoury be stored safely and returned to me eventually.”

“Oh, all right,” Carson agreed. He was relieved that the kosho was being cooperative, not guessing that Ikematsu’s first demand had been no more than a bargaining counter.

He and the major helped the animals drag their dead into the pod for space burial later. Squatting inside the pod, the cheetahs especially cast feral glances at the kosho; but their discipline restrained them from any threatening word or gesture.

The pod lifted off. In the orbiting cruiser they delayed only while the bodies and the prisoners were transferred. Then they dropped, with the other pods Carson ordered, onto Mo.

Five hundred commandos sliced through the moving city with a ferocity its inhabitants could hardly have envisaged. Even so, it was nearly four hours before the fugitive had been located and taken prisoner.

That gave time for the pig Fire Command Officer to learn about the life style of the cities of the plain. He was reminded once again of his conclusions concerning the Oracle’s pronouncements; accordingly, he engineered another small, but personal, triumph. With referring to Admiral Archier, he called his own department and arranged to have the whole plain nuked as they departed.

“Those cities are a social experiment,” he explained to Brigadier Carson as they watched the pinpricks of light blossom on the curve of the planet below them. “An experiment in academics: they spend—spent, rather—their whole time studying—studying history and social philosophy, among other things. Can’t be too careful. No knowing what ideas they were brewing. Could be what Oracle was talking about.”

Carson had misgivings. “The Admiral will be annoyed if he hears about it. He’s supposed to give the order for things like that.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Gruwert said jovially. “He can’t attend to every little detail, can he?”

And some of you humans, the pig added to himself with satisfaction, aren’t so hot when it comes to making decisions.

In Claire de Lune’s command centre Ragshok had synched into the Fleet Manoeuvres Network. On the screens he saw the current dispositions as the last few ships—of a rather depleted fleet since the battle with the Escorians, he noticed—joined formation. He had learned to read some of the codes, too. He had identified, for instance, the code for what he now thought of as his own ship, and had been able to respond to instructions.

Although it was only hours since he had joined the fleet, so far there had been no trouble. He had ignored beamed requests for reports, and as far as he knew no one had tried to come through the intermat, though as it wasn’t working yet it was hard to be sure. Probably they would despatch someone in a boat sooner or later. Things could get tricky.

He called Tengu again. “Well?”

The image of the systems engineer appeared in the air before him. “Not yet. I’m still checking. If there’s a fault, I’ll find it, I swear.”

But Tengu looked worried, and Ragshok cursed. After all their work, this had to happen!

Installing the flux unit from his ship Dare had been no small job for a start. While that was underway he had toured half a dozen worlds, picking up rebel fugitives who had managed to evade pursuit following the battle, privateer gangs like his own, and anyone he could persuade to throw in with him and who could use a weapon.

He had packed nearly three thousand men and women into Claire de Lune. They would be getting restless if he didn’t soon produce what he had promised them.

His whole plan depended on getting the intermat working. Tengu had earlier inspected the transceiver kiosks and announced them undamaged, despite not properly understanding how they functioned. The fact that they would not work within the bounds of the ship had seemed reasonable at the time: they were a ship-to-ship facility, and he had presumed there would be no problems once they came within range of the rest of the fleet.

But how long would the Imperial staff remain incurious about a ship that was supposed to have been abandoned?

“Speed it up, will you,” he grated to Tengu, dismissing him.

“Eh, chief,” said Morgan, messing about at the comdesk. “Look at this.”

Ragshok squinted at the display area as Morgan put up the data Fleet Manoeuvres was putting out. “It’s a general order,” Morgan said. “They’re moving out.”

“Where to?”

Morgan shook his head. “Just somewhere. Nowhere interesting. To the next bit of trouble, I guess.”

“Damn Tengu!” raged Ragshok. “This is his fault! I trusted him!”

“What shall we do?”

“You can get the GDC and everything out of that?”

He was referring to Galactic Directional Coordinates. “Yes, I think so,” Morgan said.

“Then we obey orders.”

Tentatively, for he still was not too expert at handling the Planet Class destroyer, Morgan entered figures on his desk, called the engine room, and began to manoeuvre.

Somehow or other he got into formation. The fleet withdrew from the system, meshing bubbles, and hurtled for the unknown.