Part 41 (1/2)

FOURTEEN.

He was at Blackwool, he was sure of that. He had even been inside the nebula for some unknown time, working his way toward its concealed heart. Toward his home.

Once he had known exactly what he was going to do when he got home. What things he would do, and in exactly what order he would do them-and now, just what had that plan been, again?

While a part of his mind worried at that question, Michel kept on working his/Lancelot's way toward the inner depths of Blackwool's darkness. He no longer had the slightest fear of getting lost, wherever Lance might take him. By now he thought he could determine, from samples of the matter and the flow taken inside any nebula, approximately how big it was and in what ways it might be moving, and also which way he could proceed to reach his goal. This nebula, he was sure now, had at its heart a great hollow s.p.a.ce swept out by the solar wind of one lone sun.

Was the Bottleneck still open, through which t.i.tanic s.h.i.+ps had once escorted him in frantic flight? Michel didn't know and didn't care. He didn't need the Bottleneck, and so made no attempt to find it in the ebon labyrinths. Smooth glide amid the molecules of gas, the particles of dust, then microjump when he could, and glide again when matter got too thick. Thinking about it now no more than walking, moving now much faster than any s.h.i.+p could have made this constricted pa.s.sage, he descended to the center of Blackwool.

He expected a bright gleam ahead at any moment now, and presently it came. Then, somehow before Michel had managed to feel quite ready for it, the sun that had lighted his days of childhood was floating in velvet s.p.a.ce before him, a lone jewel set in the almost-perfect dark. To one side of the sun moved a lightspeck of reflection that had to be Alpine.

He supposed that if he waited here just a little while, long enough to watch a segment of the planet's...o...b..t, it ought to be easy for him to tell just what season of the year it was at home. Instead of delaying like that, though, he ought to be hurrying on . . .

. . . and at just about this point it came back to him, his plan for what to do first when he got home. First he would greet his parents, certainly. Then-and he was no longer sure why this had once seemed so desirable-he had meant to crawl into that little bed of his and go to sleep.

There was some doubt in his mind, now, as to whether he would even fit that bed. He was still tired, yes, in a way. But truthfully he wasn't sleepy any longer. He hadn't felt sleepy at all for a long time now.

With a little cold feeling somewhere inside him, he realized that he could no longer remember exactly what his mother looked like. There, he had the picture almost clear again. . . .

When he got home, no doubt about it, the first thing that he would really have to do was change. Lance would have a real job to do. The way Michel was now just-wouldn't work at home. But with relief he reminded himself again that Lance was sure to be able to change him back. Changes, hormones, Tupelov . . . it was a long time since he had even thought of Tupelov.

Suddenly he didn't want to look at Alpine any longer. It took Michel a while to remember how to close his eyes, but when he had managed to do so, darkness brought him peace. What next? Go home, of course. Something was holding him back; he wasn't pus.h.i.+ng on for Alpine nearly as fast as he might have.

His mother's face at last became clear in his mind's eye. And with that, he had no choice but to go on.

Lately, whenever he was bothered by some upsetting thought, Michel had taken to stroking his unseen chin with an invisible finger. And now on his chin he could feel what must be, well, some sort of a beard.

Tupelov, hormones, change. . . .

Anyway, where else was there for him to go? The sun was much brighter before him now, Alpine much closer in its lonely orbit crossing the velvet sky. The trouble was . . . again he could tell that there was something wrong. So it had been with that berserker base. So with the Core itself. And so it now proved to be with this.

The upper atmosphere of Alpine was all wrong. It was nothing but a great single cloud, glowing on day-side, a lifeless sun-reflecting sh.e.l.l of steam and water vapor and fine dust. It was much hotter than it should have been. All the adventure stories agreed that any once Earth-like planet that suddenly looked like that had been . . .

If any confirmation was needed, he could see that the once strong network of defensive satellites had been entirely removed.

He thought, or tried to think, about his parents. His head seemed to be filled with dull confusion. Yes, he remembered now, his father had been going to join his mother in Sol System. His mother really hadn't been here at all.

Numbly Michel drifted round the world to night-side. He listened for radio voices, and after a lengthy interval of silence heard one. It was not human; it spoke only briefly, and only in coded mathematics. It had a lot in common with that horde of voices that had once pursued Michel across a broken landscape, when he had been a small boy filled with fear.

He was ahead of Alpine in its...o...b..t, and now he let the bulk of the advancing planet pull him closer to the deathmask of its poisoned air. Had his father really left in time? Had his mother instead come back? He thought from the look of things that all life must be totally expunged by now. The radio message he had intercepted indicated that some machines must have been left behind by the destroying berserker fleet, to make quite sure that the last microorganism was quite dead. But no locator beams came probing toward him.

Michel used Lance's senses to probe beneath the slowly seething, overheated clouds. Down there he could find the outline of a flattened landscape, but no remaining seas. Nothing to indicate that the berserkers' job had not been completed.

”Michel.”

Round the limb of the slain world a small artificial satellite had appeared, moving in low orbit. It was revolving in Michel's general direction, and from it had come the radio voice speaking his name. The voice was familiar and unchanged-not Tupelov's, the other one.

”Michel.”

He made himself wait, motionless relative to the planet, to see if the satellite would change course.

Activating a comparatively feeble drive, the berserker device pulled itself out of free orbit and decelerated, coming finally to a stop within ten meters of Michel. Its diameter was about the same distance, and it was roughly spherical in shape. In the gloss of its surface metal he could see himself reflected, a long-tailed s.p.a.ceborne figure of living flame, his glowing body almost featureless except for striations like those of muscle tissue.

”Michel, I am your friend.”

”How do you know me?”

”Your present appearance has been predicted.” It was the Co-ordinator's voice, Michel felt sure of that.

The Co-ordinator somehow, against all odds, found and salvaged from the smashed goodlife s.h.i.+p, the Co-ordinator's memory installed in this new hardware. That memory, then, was still something on which the berserkers placed great value.

”Come aboard, Michel.” Only now did he take notice of the surprising fact that the satellite really did have a hatch on its side, of a size to accommodate a human. A casual probe of the interior confirmed that there was a warm, cell-sized chamber within, even now being filled with breathable air.

”Come aboard,” it repeated, ”and we will talk. I will convey you to a place where you can get the help you need.”

”I need-” His own voice, so long unused, startled him with its harsh roar. Controlling it consciously, he tried again: ”I need no help.”

”But come aboard and we will talk. I have information that you will want to hear.”

”My father?” When Michel waved an arm at the cloud-surfaced world below, a reflected glow from the movement came and went across the faceless surface of the machine that faced him. ”What happened to him?”

”Come aboard and we will talk.”

”Sixtus Geulincx. Where is he?”

”Sixtus Geulincx is quite safe. He was taken from this world before it was purified of life. The Directors now have him in their care, against the time of your return.”

”And my mother, what about her?”

”Come aboard, and we will help you search for her.”

”Liar!” The radio echoes of the shout rebounded from the lifeless clouds below.

”I was left here to be a guide for you when you returned.”

”You're lying.” But it just might be true, or halfway true at least. The cell inside might not be meant for goodlife after all. What must have happened, Michel realized now, was that the Co-ordinator's somehow-rescued memory had been replicated and grafted into a hundred or a thousand berserker brains scattered across an unknown volume of s.p.a.ce. Each such machine was effectively the Co-ordinator now, besides serving whatever other functions it might be programmed for. Should Michel, or news about Michel, ever turn up, each one would be ready to deal with the event as the Directors wished.

Michel demanded, ”Where have you taken Sixtus Geulincx? And what of Carmen Geulincx, and Elly Temesvar, and Frank Marcus? Which of them are still alive, and where?”

”I know only that Sixtus Geulincx is still alive. And well cared for, as I have said. He is with the Directors, and they are somewhere near the Core. My programming does not allow me to be more specific at this time. Come aboard, and we will talk more.”

The physical form in which the Co-ordinator now confronted Michel had been built for several purposes. For orbital movement, for limited communication, to house goodlife or desirable prisoners if need be, to observe a purified planet and seed it with additional destruction if required. It had not been built for real fighting. When Michel reached out an unhurried hand toward it now, it had time to compute what the gesture meant, and then to lash back at him with energies intended to be murderous. But Michel/Lance's right hand went straight in through its nominal armor, to the key parts that Michel had chosen. In Lance's fist he squeezed them to something less than matter. It was done before the destructor charges lining the satellite's memory could be made to discharge.

Lance sipped at the satellite's power supplies, like some odd new lifeform imbibing electronic blood, gaining new strength in the process. Then, after some study, Michel removed more parts, deftly and with great care. The Co-ordinator's memory banks were open to his scanning now.

He scanned them and learned what he could; and when he had done learning, he seized what remained of the satellite in one fist and hurled it down into the clouds, where a new fireball bloomed suddenly and disappeared. The radio voices of other berserkers began questioning s.p.a.ce around him.