Part 61 (1/2)
”So, I left my soldiers back with my two s.h.i.+ps. Where we landed, a couple of kilometers from here.
They have things to do there to keep them busy. And they admire my almost foolhardy courage in coming here without their protection. Actually what I really wanted was this little talk with you alone.
Lescar is there with you, of course-how are you, Lescar?-but he doesn't count.”
The Prince said: ”Speaking of little talks, I've just been having one with Captain Lergov.”
”My dear man. I thought you said you were concerned with truth.”
”I believe I heard some of it from him, this time. The Templars are going to hear it too.”
The prospect of revelations by Lergov seemed to have no more effect on the prime minister than did the presence of berserkers. Roquelaure only shook his head inside his helmet. ”Ah, truth. A chancy business, trying to deal with that.”
In another large airless chamber half a kilometer away, Chen s.h.i.+zuoka was watching Colonel Phocion patch another communications connection into another utility box. The journey to this point from the interior had seemed a long one to Chen, though in fact it had taken only minutes.
The self-propelled gun, here with them in near-weightlessness, was clinging to a wall nearby.
Phocion had stopped frequently en route, at each stop using his old base commander's key, gaining secret access to the various communications networks of the Fortress. He kept looking as they progressed for traces of berserkers or other people in areas nearby.
This time his caution was rewarded.
Beatrix moved closer, watching with the men as a picture appeared. The colonel had managed to get a remote video pickup working in an area ahead of them, where preliminary readings had indicated there was activity.
”It's Harry,” she breathed, as the picture steadied. ”Harry, and . . . ahh.”
Harivarman ordered the controller to send its companion machine scouting, to check whether Roquelaure had really come here unguarded and alone.
”Affirmative,” the controller replied, after the other machine had been gone for a couple of minutes, searching the nearest other rooms and corridors.
The Prince said: ”You appear to take your status as my captive quite calmly, Roquelaure. Are you so sure I won't give the word to my machines and have you pulled to pieces?”
”I'm not sure what word you will give them. Are you sure of the result?”
”Yes, I think so. I've had some time to get used to it, watching berserkers operate at close range, having their power at my command. Have you ever tried to imagine, Roquelaure, what it would mean to a man to have the berserkers' control code in his hands?”
”Oh, I have tried to imagine that, yes. I too enjoy power, you know. Though perhaps my imagination is not as fertile as yours, Prince. Anyone would be able to make certain deductions about you, though.
Anyone who saw you come here escorted by berserkers. And I suppose that you have been holding the surviving inhabitants of the Fortress hostage until you are somehow provided with a getaway s.h.i.+p.”
”It would seem that I can now count a prime minister among my hostages.”
”It might seem so to you. But in reality, it is not so at all.” The prime minister turned his head calmly to one side, looking directly at the controller. ”Your berserkers are not going to harm me. Because, you see, I am not here at all. It is a mere phantom that discourses with you. The real, historical meeting between us is coming a little later, in an hour or so. I am going to catch you without your escort then and kill you, earning the cheers of billions of people by eliminating the despised arch-goodlife. Meanwhile my men will be defeating the berserkers and driving them off, saving the precious population.”
”I see. I hadn't realized all that . . . but did I understand the first part correctly? At the moment, you are not here?”
”That is correct.”
Prince Harivarman shook his head. ”My eyes and instruments a.s.sure me that the image of a somewhat overly handsome a.s.sa.s.sin before me is not a creation of holography. So explain that claim to me, if you will.”
”Tut. You could be sued for that, calling me an a.s.sa.s.sin. You seem to be projecting all your own little flaws upon me . . . I mean that my presence here, tolerated by the machines escorting you, is going to be invisible to history-because only I will survive to tell humanity about this talk that we are having. This moment of history is going to be exactly what I say it is. No more and no less.”
”Oh indeed?” Harivarman sounded as confident as ever, but suddenly very curious. ”And how do you plan to accomplish that? What bluff is this?”
”No bluff at all, my dear Prince.” Roquelaure gestured offhandedly at the controller. ”How long would you say our friend here, and its auxiliary machines, have been on the Fortress?”
”I have seen evidence that they have been here for several centuries. They were even filmed with dust-”
”No. Not at all. There you are wrong. Dust can be arranged. Several months is much more like it.”
Harivarman smiled slightly. He raised his control device near the window at his side. ”You have carried off some amazing bluffs in your career. But not this time. Can you see this? What would you say this is?”
”Tell me. I want to hear you tell me.”
”Very well. Suppose I tell you that I have here the control code for the berserkers?”
”I would say that you are making a false claim-as you have often done. You are not only goodlife, and an a.s.sa.s.sin, but a fraud!”
”I can demonstrate the fact.”
”Oh indeed? Can you? I look forward to witnessing the attempt.”
Harivarman thumbed his device. At the same time he spoke in a changed, commanding voice.
”Controller, seize that man. Do not kill him, but bring him here, closer to my vehicle, away from his own.”
It was a direct order, if Lescar had ever heard one.
The controller ignored it. The tall metal shape, still incongruously trailing cable-ends, was clinging to a wall approximately equidistant from Harivarman and the prime minister. And it did not move a centimeter.
The Prince triggered his device again and again. ”Seize him! I order you!”
The controller turned another one of its lenses toward the Prince's vehicle. But it did nothing else.
Roquelaure had begun to laugh when the Prince's first order was ignored. He was still laughing. It was a very confident and a very ugly sound.
The Prince slowly lowered his hand, the radio device still in it. He sat there, his helmet shadowing his face from Lescar's gaze. When his voice came into Lescar's headphones again it sounded more numb, more utterly defeated, than Lescar had ever heard it sound before. ”But . . . it worked. I found them . . . I opened the controller unit . . .”
Lescar bent over his seat, hands raised to his own faceplate. But that did not shut out their enemy's laughter, or their enemy's voice. Those came through inexorably.
When he could stop laughing, the prime minister said: ”Do I need to explain to you what the real controlling code is? Even berserkers can be-well, no, unlike humans they cannot be corrupted. Unlike people, they remain forever true to their basic drive. But they are honestly, openly, ready to be bought.”
”You've bought them, then . . . there's only one kind of coin they'll accept.”