Their Master's war

Sixteen

"The suits don't work," Dyrkin told Rance.

"What do you mean the suits don't work?^ 1

"Try one. They go on the way they always did, but once they're on, there's no flexibility. You can't move your arms and legs. Also, they're secreting something that's got everyone close to throwing up."

"What the hell is going on? We're only hours out from the recstar. There's never been a problem with the suits before. Why now?"

Rance followed Dyrkin to the messdeck. The ship had completed its third and final jump, and preparations were under way for the attack. A problem with the suits was little short of a disaster. Rance immediately stripped off his dress tans.

"Somebody throw me a suit."

Hark tossed across one of the shapeless black blobs.

"It's like they know what we're doing and they're refusing to go along with it. It's like they won't go against the Therem."

"That's ridiculous superstition. The suits don't have the brains for anything like that."

Rance placed the suit on the deck and stood on it. The suit began to crawl up his leg, but it moved more slowly than usual. The slowness was easy to interpret as reluctance. When the suit covered his body, he experimentally flexed his arms. The suit resisted. The same happened when he tried to bend his legs.

"See what we mean?"

"We're not going to be able to use them."

"What are we going to do? We can't go into combat without suits."

"We could use radiation armor."

"It's goddamn bulky. It's going to really cut down on our mobility."

"What the hell else can we do?"

"Nothing. We'll have to go with the radiation suits. Dyrkin, scout around and see how many you can come up with."

"What are we going to do with the suits?"

Rance shook his head. "I don't know. I'm going to talk to the aliens and see if they've got a line on any of this."

The meeting with the aliens was brief. They had nothing to contribute as to why the suits should be behaving the way they were. Strangely, they seemed more inclined than Rance to accept the men's idea that the creatures were actually refusing to act against the interests of the Therem.

"Even though it seems at the time to defy logic, an intuitive feeling may be a pointer to the truth." "Sure."

"We don't feel that these things should be allowed to remain loose in the ship. The current loss of function may be only the start of an entire destructive cycle. We have no idea what might be built into their genetic code. We urge you to destroy them."

"The suits are not that easily destroyed," Rance reminded them.

"So simply jettison them into space."

"You want us to do that?"

"It would seem the obvious solution."

"The men aren't going to like this. They've been a long way with those suits. Remember that we and the suits are symbiotic."

"The men would probably like it even less if someone else disposed of the suits."

"You've got a point there."

The men didn't like it. The announcement was received by a hard silence. No one cursed'and no one complained, but also no one moved. Nobody wanted to be the first. Finally Dyrkin broke the deadlock.

"He's right. They're going to have to go. They ain't working with us no more."

"Maybe it's just a delayed-action side effect of the jumps. Maybe they'll come back to normal."

"Damn it, you know that ain't true. They've left us, and we've got to dump them. They could turn on us."

Rance quickly took control before the mood could alter. "Load them on a pallet and let's get it over with. Dyrkin, pick a squad to take care of this."

To his complete surprise, Dyrkin turned on him with something close to a snarl.

"No way, Rance. Each man does his own. As each man gets his radiation armor, he goes to the lock and blows out the old suit."

Rance nodded. "As you want it."

It became a solemn procession. The radiation armor was brought down to the messdecks. It had been hastily sprayed black so those wearing it wouldn't present too obvious a target. Each man in turn received his issue, fitted the suit, and checked the servos. Then he picked up the black blob of dormant suit and started the long walk to the nearest lock. Each would pause for a mo ment as his suit floated into the void, and then he'd turn and make the walk back.

Communications started coming in from the asteroid. The survival of one of the Anah cluster seemed to be causing some degree of excitement. There were constant demands for information. The ship sent a broken, ragged signal of modulated static, as if the communication equipment were much more badly damaged than it really was. A number of shuttle craft came out to meet the Anah 5, but they seemed content to remain at a distance, merely inspecting the disabled newcomer. The asteroid base appeared to be accepting the slowly limping ship on face value. The men moved into the lower drop bay from where they were going to launch their attack. They were very quiet. Rance had worried that the discarding of the suits would have had a dampening effect on the men's spirits, but it seemed to have had quite the opposite result. They were quiet but deadly. They were fighting for themselves, and they weren't going to let anything stop them.

The asteroid was starting to broadcast warnings. They wanted the Anah 5 to stand off in deep space. Shuttles would be sent to take off the crew. This was understandable. Those on the asteroid had no idea of the levels of damage. For all they knew, the ship might be five minutes away from blowing itself to atoms. The Anah 5 ignored the warnings and kept on coming. It went right on broadcasting the unintelligible signal. The messages from the recstar began to sound more than a little spooked. The two bodies were now in visual contact. On the asteroid, they had to be entertaining the idea that the Anah 5 wasn't capable of stopping and was going to run right into them. The warnings started to be a good deal more threatening. There was a first tentative mention of force, although it was actually too late for that. The ship and the asteroid were now so close that neither could damage the other without doing damage to itself. The asteroid population must have been wondering if anybody was left alive on the cluster ship or if it was just a drifting hulk sending an automatic signal. The interpreter seemed to derive a lot of entertainment from imagining the state of mind of what was now being thought of as the enemy. It seemed to take a positive delight in directing the overall operation.

A more serious warning came in.

"Reverse spatial motion or we will be forced to deflect you with our heavy weapons. Please acknowledge."

This was the moment to change signal. A prepared message was sent. The deliberately desperate voice of lantere cut through the storm of jagged static. The fac that it was a lantere sending should have alerted the base to. the fact that things were very wrong on the cluster ship. The big crustaceans were natural engineers, but they never operated ship-to-ship communication.

"We are reducing spatial motion as best we can. W are coming round onto your darkside. It will be a clo dock."

The static took over again, but the Anah 5 did begin to slow as the two bodies came closer and closer. It still looked as if they were going to touch, but then, at the very last moment, the cluster ship started to curv around the asteroid.

"Ground troops stand by."

In the drop bay, the fighting men sealed their armor, concentrating fixedly on the small details rather than speculating about what was to come. The lights went out, and the bay's atmosphere was allowed to whistle into space. The eerie, drawn-out noise scraped on their already stretched nerves. The Anah 5 entered the asteroid's shadow. The bay doors open. Below them was the dark expanse of rock with its clusters of steadily shining lights.

"Let's hit it! By the numbers."

The first troopers launched themselves into the void. They jumped in groups of five, five men clinging to a soft, lozenge-shaped floater. The nulgrav floater compensated for the opposing gravity fields of the ship and the asteroid and sank lightly and silently toward the rec-star's surface. The troopers' one advantage was that the asteroid had no appreciable ground defenses. In normal combat, such a heavily armed installation would have been reduced to red-hot slag before ground forces could hope to set foot on it. The Therem had never planned for piracy. The men of the Anah 5 were able to float down shielded from all sensors by the bulk of the ship. As long as they observed helmet silence, their presence would not be detected until they actually entered the base.

Rance was in the fourth party to drop. Renchett, Dyrkin, and Hark were hanging onto the same floater. Rance was coming to rely on these veterans, and he wanted them beside him on what might conceivably be their last mission. The first three groups touched down without mishap. In the final moments, the ground seemed suddenly to rush up at them. Rance told himself that it was only an illusion and braced himself. They touched with only the slightest of shocks. He detached his armor from the webbing on the floater and looked around. Men were drifting down all around him. Above them, the Anah 5 filled the sky. Using only hand signals, he started moving the men who were already down out of the immediate landing area. One group's floater, when it was only a few meters off the ground, did a sudden flip and came down on its edge. There were muffled curses in everyone's communicator. It was a breach, but Rance hoped that nobody on the asteroid would notice the brief, random noise.

The Anah 5's damaged subbrain had yielded only a partial plan of the recstar. Rance displayed their immedi ate surroundings on his visor. If they'd come down in the right place, there should be a main exhaust vent over on their right. He peered into the darkness. It was only after a minute or so that he spotted the containing wall. It was time to break helmet silence.

"Bearing 351 on dead reckoning. That's our back door; let's go!"

The men moved forward, pulling the weightless floaters behind them. They were forced to traverse giant conduits and other enormous pieces of equipment. Everything on the outside of the asteroid was so huge that the men started to feel like microscopic parasites crawling across the outside of something that they hardly even understood. The containing wall around the vent was a little more human in scale. It was smooth, circular, and maybe fifty meters high. As they approached it, Rance issued another order.

"Grappels forward."

There were three puffs of smoke as grappling hooks were fired up and over the wall. The trailing lines would be used to haul men and floaters up and over the wall. At the top they'd strap on to the floaters again and descend slowly down the vent. Everything went well until they started dropping down the wide shaft. A man lost his hold on his floater and tumbled headlong into the vent. Even in the asteroid's low natural gravity, he was certain to be killed by the fall. As he fell, he screamed. The dragged-out howl echoed blood-chillingly in everyone's helmet. If anyone on the asteroid had spotted them and was monitoring, he'd be scanning the whole area by now.

The schematic didn't show how deep the tunnel went. Rance knew from the previous visit that the human environment was pretty deep inside this particular installation. On the other hand, if he went too low, he'd risk the chance of his whole force being sucked to their deaths at the core. At regular intervals, the vent intersected with smaller lateral tunnels. Rance let five of these go by, and then he decided that they'd gone low enough.

"Steer your floaters into the next tunnel and set down."

The pitch-dark tunnel ran on for what seemed like forever. It had to be some kind of emergency runoff from the power system. There wasn't enough heat in the bone-cold rock to register on their redscopes, and they had to rely on their helmet lights. Not that there was too much to see. The walls were smooth and unbroken rock, and the troopers had walked for some minutes before they came to an inspection port. Rance motioned for the main force to hold back. He waved to Hark to check it out. Hark examined the door and indicated that it was locked from the inside.

"Burn through it, but be careful. There's probably atmosphere on the other side."

Weapons flared in the dark, throwing the men around the door into stark relief. After a few seconds, the door blew back in a rush of pressure.

"They know about us now, for sure. We've got to move fast from now on."

Rance put five troopers through the lock. Escaping air shrieked past them. When they drew no fire, he sent another five through, then he went through himself, followed by Dyrkin, Renchett, and Hark. The ten men had fanned out into a semicircle around the blown port. The lights were on in a perfectly ordinary, if deserted, corridor. The only thing that wasn't strictly normal was the flashing of pressure-drop alarms. The section of corridor had undoubtedly sealed itself, and if nothing else, a repair crew would be on its way.

"Benset, get the rest of the men through into this section." Rance looked at the longtimers. "You three come with me. We've got to find an elevator."

They moved up the corridor at a run. As Rance had expected, they quickly came to a closed emergency door.

Hark grinned. "You want me to get it?" Rance nodded.

Hark took down the inspection cover. "How come I suddenly became the door expert?" "You've got the touch."

There was another rush of escaping pressure as Hark bypassed the automatic safety control. The doors opened on a surprised dauquoi repair crew that took one look at the armed and armored men, turned tail, and wriggled away.

Renchett raised his MEW, but Rance stopped him.

"Let them go."

"There goes the element of surprise."

"They still don't know what we're doing here."

The elevators were three sections on. Rance sent Dyrkin back to bring up the rest of the men while the others waited tensely beside the bank of elevators.

"We can't have too much longer. Somebody's going to be along to investigate any minute."

Men started streaming down the corridor. Rance used the first to arrive as a defensive circle around the elevator banks. Then he left Benset in charge of loading the rest of the men onto elevators and rode down on the first one. No word of the attack had come down to the women's level. As the doors opened, the troopers confronted a small group of women routinely waiting for the elevators. With no major ships docked at the asteroid, it was a quiet period in the recreation area. The women, who were plainly and functionally dressed, stared at the men in amazement.

"What are you supposed to be?"

In all his planning, it hadn't occurred to Rance that he'd actually have to explain himself to the women.

"We've come to take you out of here."

"You're out of your mind. You're only going to get yourselves killed."

"Where did you come from?"

"We need to talk to someone in charge."

"The shores will be here soon enough."

Hark quickly stepped in. "We need to see a Venerable Madame."

Rance glanced at him. "You know about this stuff?"

Hark nodded. The women looked at each other uncertainly. A small crowd had started to gather.

"This is going to end in a lot of trouble," one of the women said.

"This could end with us getting free of the Therem," Hark said.

A second elevator full of men arrived, and then a third. The women's attitude began to change. A plump young woman with short-cropped blond hair stepped up to Hark.

"I'll take you to Conchela."

"Conchela is a Venerable Madame?"

"You know Conchela?"

"I did once."

Hark felt a little sick. He had forgotten about the time distortion. Conchela would be an old woman by now. He wasn't sure how he felt about seeing her. Rance was starting to look anxious. Men were pouring out of the elevators, and they had nowhere to go.

"Can we speed this up?" Rance said.

He and Hark took a squad of men and followed the blond girl. The rest of the troopers took up a position by the elevators. The advance walked between the avenues of closed and empty booths. The quiet, deserted area had a strange effect on the men. They looked around nervously, almost as if they were trespassing. Conchela's home was a good deal larger than the one to which she had taken Hark. Presumably a Venerable Madame had certain privileges. She still crafted jewelery, however. As Hark and Rance came through the entrance, Conchela had her back to them. She was wearing a simple kaftan. She turned and stepped back in shock.

"Have you come to arrest me?"

Hark quickly removed his helmet. "It's me. Har-kaan." She sadly shook her head. "Don't you men ever age.

She wasn't exactly old, maybe in her mid-fifties and well preserved. Her hair was a natural gray, and there was a strength about her face and bearing that spoke of intelligence and authority. Maybe, by becoming a leader of women, Hark thought, she was fulfilling a destiny that had started when she had served in the Lodge of the Spirits.

When Rance had explained the situation, Conchela wasted no time with unnecessary questions or expressions of disbelief.

"So you've come to take us out of here. We've dreamed of this moment all our lives, but when it finally comes… what can I say? It's frightening. It's a huge step into the unknown."

"At least it'll be our unknown."

"Do you think you can really pull this off?"

"I think we have a chance."

"I'll mobilize the women. How do you plan to get off this rock?"

"That's the tricky part. We have to fight our way into the shuttle dock and hold it long enough to get us all off. We also have to neutralize the main fire-control center so they can't shoot us down on the way out."

"You'll be taking on the lanteres."

"I have two hundred men, all armed and as mean as hell. Do you women have any weapons?"

"A few."

"There were explosives the last time I was here."

'That was a long time ago. They clamped down on that, but I expect there's some about. Where do you want the women to assemble?"

"In front of the elevator banks. As soon as you can. Tell them to keep the stuff they bring with them to an absolute minimum. No more than they can easily carry. "

As Rance and Hark left Conchela to start marshaling the women, alarms started to shrill all over the environment.

"Seems like they're on to us." "It took them long enough."

After a full minute of clamor, the alarms were replaced by a full-power authority voice.

"This is addressed to the unauthorized men by the elevators. You will lay down your weapons and prepare to identify yourselves."

Rance, Hark, and the men with them broke into a run. The announcement was repeated once more. There was the sound of shore patrol sirens on the other side of the area. Rance reached the elevators just in front of the shore patrol.

"Hold your fire! Nobody fire unless you have to."

The shore patrol came out of the central avenue. There were six of them in servo suits and maybe a dozen more on foot. When they saw the size of the force from the Anah 5, they stopped in their tracks. Clearly no one had told them what they were up against. Rance gave thanks for the confusion. The leader of the squad dismounted from her servo and walked uncertainly toward the men.

"What the hell is going on here?"

"We're liberating you."

The squad leader halted. "Liberating?"

Rance talked fast. At first the squad leader refused to believe him, but in the end, the obvious evidence of the large force of men was just too overwhelming.

"So, are you with us, or do we all have to start shooting each other?"

The squad leader looked totally confused. "I don't know. I've got to talk to my people."

"No communicators."

"I just want to talk to the people with me."

She walked back to her squad, and they went into a huddle. Rance shook his head.

"I wish they'd hurry it up. Time is not on our side."

At that moment, Conchela emerged from a side corridor with a crowd of women behind her. Quickly she detached herself and hurried over to the shore patrol. There was further discussion, then she and the squad leader came back to Rance together.

"It looks good," Conchela said.

"We'll throw in with you. It may be the only chance that we ever get. I hope you can pull this off, because if you can't, we're all dead."

"We can try," Rance said.

"Well, you better make it fast. We were ordered to investigate a disturbance, but we had no details. Up on the surface they don't know what's happening. A couple of dauquoi called in a seven-twenty, but the lanteres didn't believe them. If we don't report pretty soon, the lanteres will be down to see for themselves."

"Can you stall them?"

"Not for long."

Women began to come out from all over the environment. They came with bags and bundles. Most had followed Rance's instructions, but some were hopelessly loaded down with possessions. Some were even brandishing homemade weapons. Their attitude was one of grim determination, although not without fear. More of the shore patrol came across and joined the breakout. There were even some men from the recstar's permanent complement. The crowd by the elevators grew until it threatened to become a real problem. There were close to three hundred women and further fifty men.

"Is this all of them?" Rance asked.

"All that want to come. The others are either too brainwashed or too frightened. They think we're all going to be killed."

Rance could almost sympathize with them. It was only now that he realized the enormous logistic problem that he'd set himself. Fortunately, Conchela had her own chain of command through the covens that helped to control the situation.

"We should start moving up." Rance looked for the squad leader, who seemed to have assumed the leadership of those members of the shore patrol who had come over to the mutineers' side. "How are we doing with the lanteres?"

"We're faking a communications screwup, but they're getting impatient."

"If they came down here, would they use these elevators."

"With their bulk, they'd be more likely to use the emergency chutes on the other side of the environment."

"Then we'll position a rear guard there."

"My women and a detachment of your men could hold them there for a while. They can only come out of the chutes two at a time. We could bottle them up there."

"What's the fastest way to the shuttle dock?"

"With human atmosphere all the way?"

Rance looked at the crowd of women. None of them had suits. "It'll have to be."

"Okay, you take these elevators to level 1. That's directly under the surface. At the elevator head you take the corridor to the right for two sections. After that, you use the lat tunnel to bypass the lantere atmosphere. Most of level 1 is lantere."

"So we'd have to secure two sections of corridor and the passage."

"As well as the dock itself." "Damn."

"None of it is that well guarded. There's never been an attack from inside. One thing, though, we ought to get as many breathing masks as we can. It's possible for the lanteres to breach the tunnel. That soup they live in could kill the women as effectively as blaster fire."

"Are there masks?"

"Theoretically there should be a mask for every woman in the emergency dispensers. How good they are is another matter. They haven't been used in years."

Rance shouted to Conchela. "Have your people break out all the breathing masks they can find. We may need them."

He turned back to the squad leader.

"One more thing. I need a technician to rig the elevators so they can only be controlled from here."

The squad leader beckoned to one of her women. "Hey, Jacka, get up here. Move it."

With the elevators gimmicked, the great move to the surface began. The armored men went first. The others waited until the route to the shuttles was secured. As he rode up on the first elevator, Rance gave his last-minute instructions.

"While we're in here, were bottled up. If we can't break out immediately, we're dead. There may well be lanteres waiting for us at the top. I want a firing line right inside the door. Directly the doors open, start blasting and move out. The lanteres may be big, but they're slow. That's our main advantage."

The men arranged themselves accordingly. The elevator seemed to be rising painfully slowly. It eased to a halt. The front line tensed. The doors started to roll back. The MEWs opened up. There were lanteres.

Everyone pressed forward. Hark, who was positioned right behind Rance, found himself yet again caught up in the confusion and isolation of combat. No matter how many times he went through it, he never lost the jagged sense of fear and breathless excitement. He was in among the huge crustaceans, pumping his weapon at anything that presented itself. One of them loomed over him, bringing around a posicannon. He ripped the creature with a sustained blast. Its armor smoked as it toppled backward. The deck plates were becoming slick with colorless crustacean blood. There was a constant alien screaming in his communicator.

They were in the right-hand corridor, and for the moment, there was no more opposition. The half dozen lanteres that had been guarding the elevator head had been overcome with no human losses. More men were coming from the elevator cages. Rance moved them forward, leaving detachments at each crucial point along the way. Hark noticed that among the men from the Anah 5 there were also shore patroL and even civilian women wearing facemasks and carrying improvised weapons. Two were lugging one of the heavy posicannons that had been dropped by the dead lanteres.

Hark, along with Renchett and Dyrkin, was in the advance party. They reached the first corridor intersection without incident. There was the sound of firing from behind them. Something was happening back at the elevators. Dyrkin waved the party to a halt.

"If we get too far ahead, we'll be cut off." He spoke into his communicator. "Rance, can you hear me?"

"I hear you."

"What's happening back there?"

"More lanteres, but we're holding the bastards. I'm going to start bringing up the women."

"We're at the first intersection, but we need more men to hold it before we can go on."

"They're on their way."

At that moment, a number of human figures appeared in one of the side corridors. They wore the tabards of field police and carried MEWs.

"Hurry it up, Rance. We got company."

A headhunter voice was in their helmets on the general frequency. "Drop your weapons or we open fire!"

The men of the Anah 5 didn't need an order. Their response was instant and deadly. The burned down the field police with something close to relish. The e-vac fields on. JD4, and the scars that went with them, were still fresh in their memories. Troopers were coining up from behind to reinforce the corridor. The two women with the posicannon were among them. They seemed to be determined to use the thing as makeshift artillery.

"Let's move up."

Again they made the intersection without incident, and once again they had to wait as more troops came up to hold the position. Now there was just the bypass tunnel in front of them. That, too, seemed at first to be unguarded. It was halfway along that all hell broke loose. The lights suddenly went out, and the bolts of red fire were flashing at them and ricocheting off the walls of the tunnel. There were screams and curses.

"Get your redscopes on!"

A heavyweight energy weapon had been set up at the far end of the tunnel behind an improvised barricade. Finally someone was ready for them. Leaving four dead, the advance party quickly retreated to a point where a curve in the tunnel would give them cover.

"What the hell do we do?"

"We can't rush that thing."

Rance was on the communicator. "I'm moving the women up into the corridor."

"You can't do that! We're pinned down in the tunnel by a heavyweight."

"Can you do anything about it?"

"Not a damn thing. We'd have to rush down a straight tunnel. We'd be cut down before we got halfway."

Rance sounded desperate. "I've got to start moving these people up into the corridors. We're being pressed too hard here at the elevators. We're stretched too thin."

"You got any ideas?"

"What's manning the EW?"

"Hold on… Renchett, take a look at what's firing that thing."

"Stick your own goddamn head out." "Don't screw around, man!" "Okay."

Renchett craned forward. Fire burst above his head, and he jerked back. "Dauquoi."

"At least they won't be rushing us in a hurry. They squirm too slow."

"So what's the story, Rance?"

"Wait a minute, we might have something back here." More fire hit the wall. Molten rock spattered their armor.

"You better make it fast."

"I've got six shores here with their servo suits. They figure they could rush this gun nest. They might pull it off. They've got the speed and they've got the armor. They'll be coming at a power-assist run, so don't get in their way."

"We'll be here."

There was a lull in the firing. The dauquoi seemed willing to wait out the humans. After a couple of minutes, the men in the tunnel heard the first metallic crash of power-stepping coming down the tunnel behind them. The servos had their lights flashing and panning from side to side to confuse the dauquoi. They were coming fast, faster, in fact, than most of the men thought a servo suit was capable. Two extra shore patrol clung to the back of each one, firing under its huge arms. The troopers flattened against the wall as the machines thundered past.

"Get in behind them."

The servos' armor seemed to be withstanding all of the dauquoi fire. Then a cascade of sparks fountamed from the leg of the lead machine. It reeled like a drunken man as the operator lost control, staggered a few paces, then fell headlong. The others didn't hesitate, however. They kept on going. A second servo was hit. Smoke streamed from the upper half of its torso. It lurched off course and smashed into the tunnel wall. The remaining three steered around it. They were in among the dauquoi, pumping fire and even stomping down on them with crushing steel feet. Purple slime sprayed the tunnel wall and dripped from the ceiling as the wormlike aliens literally burst apart.

"Rance, we're into the shuttle dock. You can move everyone up."

The troopers practically had to wade through the debris of the dauquoi. The purple slime seemed to be everywhere. Renchett looked genuinely amazed. He scooped up some of it with his fingertips and held it up to his visor. For one horrible moment, it looked as if he were going to taste the stuff.

"Never thought they looked like that on the inside."

"Shut the hell up, Renchett, you're making me sick."

"Somebody bring along that EW. We may need it."

They were in a brightly lit, transparent gallery that ran along the rear of the large shuttle dock, overlooking the individual reaction pads. There were five of the hemispherical craft parked in the dock, and umbilical walkways ran out to their pressure locks. Each one could lift 150 human passengers. There didn't seem to be any further guards of any species.

The surviving shore patrol dismounted from their servos. The advance party walked slowly down the gallery with the same dazed look that always followed combat. Both the men and the women were gazing up through the curved canopy that covered the gallery. The stars were visible where the dock was open to space; it was the first time most of the women had seen the stars since they had been taken from their own worlds. Then the Anah 5 came around on its orbit and blotted out everything else.

One of the shore patrol looked at Hark. "Is that your ship?"

"That's her."

"Then it looks like we really made it."

"When the pilots get up here."

Dyrkin broke the spell. "Some of you secure that far entrance. Take the EW. I don't want anything coming through there."

"We still have to knock out the main fire control. It's just above here."

Renchett scowled at Hark. "And guess who'll do the knocking."

"We'll wait until Rance gets up here and see what he wants."

Rance wasn't long in coming. There was the sound of firing and the sight of flashing in the dark of the tunnel. Women started to pour into the gallery. Dyrkin remained in control. He started to direct the women down the um-bilicals.

"Keep on going! Down into the ships. You'll be safer there."

The troopers were now backing out of the tunnel, firing as they retreated. A large force of lanteres was pressing them hard.

"You men! Get back there and help them out! We've got to keep those suckers back… Rance? Where are you?"

"Over here!"

Dyrkin spotted the topman backing out of the middle of the fighting. There were four men with him in blue flight suits and helmets.

"Are those the pilots?"

"That's them," Rance said. "I've been watching over them like a mother."

"Better get them down into the ships. It'll take time to get those shuttles powered up."

"They're on their way."

Firing started at the far end of the gallery. The EW opened up. A second force of lanteres was attacking from that direction. Rance looked quickly around. The situation could actually have been a lot worse. For the moment, the humans were holding both entrances. In the tunnel, the lanteres were pinned down in the same way that Dyrkin and his men had been just minutes earlier. At the other entrance, they had yet to mass in sufficient force to be able to overrun the EW. Rance, having taken stock of the situation, moved up next to Dyrkin.

"I think we got them stopped. We should start pulling back into the umbilicals."

"What about fire control?"

"Can you take some men and handle it?"'

"You're getting predictable."

Abruptly the firing ceased.

"Wha-"

The lanteres had stopped firing, and at the same time, men were also lowering their weapons. They were backing away from the mouth of the tunnel.

"What the hell is going on?"

A light appeared in the tunnel, white and brilliant, and murmuring among the humans. Hark was one of the last to feel it, and Renchett the first to realize what it was.

"A Therem. A goddamn Therem. Right here."

Hark's MEW was very heavy in his hands. He wanted to put it down. His legs felt weak, and a warm languor was spreading all through his body. He knew that he should be angry, that he should do something, but he couldn't force his mind to focus. He was staring through his visor at the weapon in his gloved hands. Even reality was wavering. What the hell was this thing that he was holding? He wanted to lie down and sleep. All around him, men and women stood and stared as if they were in a trance. Even the attacking aliens were rooted to the spot.

"Mindlock."

A tiny surge of anger managed to break free, but it was almost immediately smothered. He searched for another, but the influence of the Therem was like a warm smothering blanket. Resentment still smoldered, but he couldn't reach it and bring it to violent life. The whole escape was coming to pieces, and there's wasn't a damn thing he could do about it.

They came out of the tunnel. Two of the familiar red spheres flanked a third, larger One of a kind that Hark had never seen before. This was the source of the white light. It was hard to even guess at the material from which it was constructed. The light didn't seem to come from inside the sphere but to halo around it like an aura. The surface of the sphere was even more of a puzzle. It constantly changed. At one moment it was a polished, reflective mirror, and the next it would be pale opaline, with faint rainbows drifting across its surface. The only thing about which there was no doubt at all was that this sphere contained one of the beings that had been the Masters of humanity for countless generations. There was a Therem inside the sphere. Perhaps this was the ultimate irony. This human rebellion was finally being subdued by an actual Therem, but the poor forsaken humans weren't being allowed to so much as see it before they died. "Nooooo!"

The scream rang through the gallery. "Nooooo!"

As if out of nowhere, red fire was pouring at the underside of the sphere. Hark was only dimly aware that the fire was coming from his own weapon. The front of his mind simply couldn't accept it, but some intensely human and profoundly deep part of his unconcious had broken the mindlock, raised his arms, and set his fingers on the triggers. The sphere seemed to be caught in the fire, unable to move. It simply hung in the air, vibrating with increasing violence. The smothering blanket was slowly lifting. Hark found that he could use his voice again.

"Help me! I'm holding it, but I can't destroy it. Everybody fire at the thing."

The weapons were coming up, but the men were still moving sluggishly. The Therem was trying to reestablish control but not quite making it. Sporadic fire was now being directed at the sphere, which was glowing brighter.

"It's a shield. The bastard's got its own miniature shield. Keep firing and it'll burn out."

Rance's voice joined Hark's. "Watch the lanteres, though. They may come alive again."

Fire was hitting the sphere from every side. The halo turned a blinding white, although it radiated no heat despite the energy that it was absorbing. It seemed to be trying to rise in the air, but it managed only about a half meter before it fell back to its original position.

"Keep going. I think we got it!"

Something was happening to the shape inside the halo. It appeared to be collapsing on itself. The outer skin wrinkled and sagged. Suddenly Hark had a vision of the sphere's occupant. It was preparing to die, and it was letting him see. Few creatures had ever killed a Therem, and he was being allowed to witness what he'd done. The shock almost paralyzed him. It was such a tiny thing, a thing of air and filaments. Its only strength was in its mind and its millions of years of culture. The Therem was a little spherical puffball held in stasis at the very center of the sphere that was its armor. It was so small that a man could enfold it in the palm of his hand. Humanity had been enslaved by something that even a child could crush in its fist. There was a terrible absurdity here. The sphere started to melt. Large molten drops formed on the underside.

"Get out from under that stuff! Don't let it touch you."

A drop about the size of a man's head detached from the sphere and fell to the deck. Where it touched, the deck plate bubbled and smoked.

"It's finished!"

The halo vanished as if it had never been. The two red spheres vanished with it. The Therem was gone. Hark knew that he had killed a God. The white sphere, which was now just a blob of gray molten material, burst on the deck in a spray of acrid smoke and acid foam. The lanteres were starting to crawl ponderously forward. They didn't seem to have recovered sufficiently from the Therem mindlock to start shooting.

"Finish those things and let's get out of here."

The people with weapons tore into the lanteres while the others hurried down the umbilicals. Rance turned to the three longtimers.

"Let's go put their guns out of action. We need to go up a level."

Renchett shook his head. "What did I tell you guys?" Rance grinned. "What did you expect?" They rode up in a small elevator to the rear of the gallery.

"Don't take any chances. The Therem effect may not have reached up here."

"What are you telling us? This is another suicide mission?"

"What's it ever been?"