Part 22 (2/2)
”I would have been his father,” Marc said. ”And I would have lived content, seeing you and the others command the stars I gave you.”
”No longer human.”
”You would never have remembered.”
”Go away!” the three-year-old cried. ”Don't touch me. Don't look at me!” The nurse held him and stopped him from running away, but he buried his face in her long skirt and wept, refusing to look again at his father. The others mind-whispered, and then the walls closed gently about him, and he was lifted and carried away ...
He woke standing on the empty foredeck in the dawn breeze, and went to look at the hatch where the illusion had stood.
There were two great circular indentations in the pla.s.s, as if it had supported a tremendous weight.
Yosh wedged his face more firmly into the hooded viewer of the infrared spotterscope and said, ”Now we're finally cooking.” Servo motors whined and the machine and its operator spun slowly in a 360-degree scan. ”Terrific. Perfect emplacement, up here in the beacon tower. Must have a coa.r.s.e range of seventy, eighty kloms, Calamosk being on a hill. Nearly halfway to Afaliah clearview-wise before we smack into those hills the other side of the Opaar. Oh, this baby was made for steppes.”
”How she do on the fine-tune, chief?” inquired Sunny Jim.
He and Vilkas were sitting in the shade and drinking beer after having spent a sweaty two hours deploying the solar-collection panels of the power supply.
”Working,” Yosh muttered. Yes, here we go, sauntering down the Great South Road at ... four-one-three-one-two-pipsix-one, a herd of hippies, taking to the freeway, the lazy scuts.
Good thing this Pliocene doesn't run to high-speed surface transit. You'd need HIPPARION CROSSING warning signs every fifty metres.”
Vilkas set down his big covered stein, wiped his moustache with the back of his hand, and sighed in a martyred fas.h.i.+on.
”Will we have to hook up the remote right away, or can it wait until after chow?”
”What do you think?” Yosh grinned at his two as.h.i.+garu briefly, then vanished again into the viewer. Vilkas groaned. In a m.u.f.fled voice, Yosh went on, ”What's more, we're going to have to string cables instead of slave-transmit, and cobble up something to match the brain-directed board with this red eyeball and the weapons batteries. Sorry, men. This piece of junk must be forty years old if it's a day, and the zappers are even older. You'd think some turkey would have smuggled in more up-to-date stuff by now.”
”Could be they did.” Vilkas peered gloomily into his empty stein. ”But who's to know? The Tanu lords who had contraband dumps kept mum about their collections. No swap meets or comparing goodies. King Thagdal would have had their heads on a pike if he found out they were holding out on him. All important Milieu gadgetry coming through the time-gate was supposed to be the property of the Crown. And things like guns were supposed to be destroyed.” He gave a bark of ironic laughter.
”Lucky for us they wasn't!” Jim nodded at the newly installed cl.u.s.ter of medium-sized laser weapons. ”We'ns wouldn' have a hope 'n h.e.l.l 'gainst this North 'merican gang if all we fielded was gla.s.s blades 'n' brainpower. Those zappers-shoo! Never saw nothin' like this yere in the swamp!”
”They're junk,” said Yosh flatly. ”So antiquated, it's pitiful.
Supposed to have a range of ten kloms and they go plasmatic at seven! G.o.d, what I wouldn't give for some modern fieldjacketed beam blasters-or even an old-time X-ray job.”
Jim regarded him open-mouthed. ”Shoo, boss-what a place that 'ere Galactic Mil-yew must be!”
Yosh and Vilkas eyed each other. The robotics engineer asked. ”Were your parents time-travellers, Jim?”
”Gran'parents,” said the young man. ”We lived two whole gen'rations free there in Stilt Town, after the Firvulag abandoned Nionel. Not even Howlers wanted the Paree Basin.” He giggled. ”Which was fine by us!”
Vilkas was staring at his boots. ”Would you go back to the swamp if you had the chance, kid? Go home?”
”An' eat smews 'n' bulrush roots and hog-deer?” Jim snorted.
”Not this chile. You can keep ol' Paree.” He snapped two fingers against his grey torc, making the metal ring.
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