The Firvulag royal enclosure was deep in a nimbus of scarlet anguish. Its dense cl.u.s.ter of supporting mentalities pulsed in irregular rhythm, slowing and then quickening, and flaring up here and there in nervous coruscations of vermilion and angry white. The Firvulag astral arm was much larger than that of the Tanu, but its colour shone dull carmine.
"The Little People falter," Katlinel observed to her husband.
Her face was troubled, in contrast to the jubilant Howler subjects that capered about.
Sugoll said, "It is as we expected. Having lost the initial advantage when Aiken phased in his unexpected subsumed faculties, they are on the verge of panic. The pain unnerves them and metaconcert is still too unfamiliar a discipline for them to have confidence in their superior potential ... Hark! Can you hear the desperate confabulation taking place on the racial submode? They fear they are done for. But Queen Ayfa proposes a bold plan. She will take half the linkage and transfer to the Tanu bracelet and push, while Sharn"s force continues to pull."
"Firvulag have ever been dubious about following female generals," Katlinel remarked. "I wonder-"
The spectators screeched. The Firvulag astral arm split suddenly into two. But the Tanu responded with violent, wrenching tugs that had the Firvulag bracelet sliding to within a bare half metre of the golden serpent"s amethyst fangs. The secondary Firvulag arm groped impotently for the base of the Tanu bracelet.
"The blunderers!" Sugoll cried. "The increase in the pain burden causes them to lose heart. Many of Queen Ayfa"s force desert her, rushing to help Sharn pull the black serpent"s tail away from the rival"s punishing jaws! The Queen"s ploy is ruined. She retires in disorder."
The second astral arm commanded by luckless Ayfa petered away into falling sparks and the Queen hastened to reestablish the mind-link with her consort. All over the Firvulag grandstand, gnomish minds were giving up the struggle. Tiny red embers winked out as people climbed to their feet and resigned.
Aiken and his team made a flooding sunburst. With a last mighty movement, the golden arm pulled the tail of the black serpent through the Tanu worm"s jaws. The dark-jewelled bracelet disappeared behind glittering purple fangs. A final enormous bow of lightning haloed the twin serpentine bodies. Then the black snake seemed to catch fire, devoured in yellow flames.
Its head withdrew into the mountain. Its twisted body writhed, disentangling itself from its victorious antagonist. The burning black snake fell to ashes and only a golden circle was left, poised on the artificial mountain base like some huge, upstanding Tanu torc.
"Your people will need some hours to recover their strength,"
Marc said to Sharn and Ayfa. "We can use it productively. My metaconcert program will not be too difficult for you to a.s.similate if you both subordinate yourselves to my coercive function and let me force-feed the data."
"Submit to you?" Sharn exclaimed in horror. "I knew it! You intend to enslave us!"
"What good even the Nightfall victory," Ayfa wept, "if in the end, the Adversary rules over all?"
"Fools," said Abaddon. "Haven"t I told you that I have no interest in this miserable world? Once your minds help me to break into Castle Gateway, I"ll set you free-and good riddance!
No strings attached. You"ll have my metaconcert program, the ability to exert firm control over the undisciplined brains of your rabble. And I"ll have what I want ... secure on a world fourteen thousand light-years away from you. Now choose!"
The co-monarchs stared numbly at the dark armoured ma.s.s that lurked at the back of the now-deserted royal enclosure.
The thing"s inhuman mind opened to them, showing a tantalizing glimpse of complexity, beckoning.
Together, they pa.s.sed into the abyss.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN.
It was past 0400. Only Cloud"s redactive faculty now sustained Tony Wayland as he made continuous manual adjustments to the faulty cladding device that spun gossamer-fine niobiumdysprosium wire.
"You"re doing fine, Tony," Cloud said. "Only another five hundred metres to go. You can do it-"
The cladder"s spec-variance alarm went off. He croaked, "G.o.d-not again!"
Respool. Cut off the strand at the slub and clear the aperture.
Make microscopic adjustments to the fouled vaporizing chamber. Smear more balsam sealant on the leaking nipple gasket.
"Work, d.a.m.n you, work!" he shouted. The watchers standing about the messy cubicle in the Castle Gateway cloister had blank faces and barricaded minds. Cloud. The thunder-browed redskin, Chief Burke. Kuhal Earthshaker. The incompetent amateur engineer, Chee-Wu Chan, whose screw-up had produced the faulty batch of wire in the first place. "Work!"
Finger the restart. Set tolerance: 0.005u,. Feed.
Go!
He moaned, "Now stay there, you perishing f.u.c.ker." Cloud caressed his fatigue-poisoned senses. A vision of sweet Rowane seemed to float just beyond the labouring machine, slender scaled arms outstretched, single eye weeping tender tears.
Chee-Wu caught a fresh bobbin as the machine spat it out, and rushed it away to the core-spinning team. Hagen Remillard stuck his head into the cubicle and said to his sister, "Aiken"s deep-sight has spotted an anomaly just outside the castle, standing on the old time-gate site. Impermeable, two hundred and thirty cents high, ma.s.s congruent with Papa"s CE rig."
"We can"t hurry this," Cloud said. "Go flog the other workers."
"We"re going to stack all the small sigmas that the King brought with him around the inner ward," Hagen said, "get everybody under the umbrella up next to the Guderian device and the fix-it benches. We"ll activate just as soon as you finish the last spool of wire. With luck, there"ll be enough time left to complete the last cable repair."
Tony gave a manic chuckle. "Some hope! You have Jonah himself jinxing your escape, kid! Disaster tracks old Tony Wayland like hyenas trailing a wounded buck. You"re not going to get away from your father. None of us have a chance! The black Night"s closing in and the demon horde is ready to strike-"
The cladder ejected the final spool of wire.
"Grab Tony!" Hagen told Kuhal Earthshaker. "Everybody out into the courtyard!"
"We"ll try a psychocreative shield," Aiken told the crowd gathered about the gazebo platform. "It might give us a lastsecond edge after he cracks the big dome and the improvised sigma-stack. But I can"t go the limit defending the time-gate.
The war that"s coming up has to be my first priority. You understand that, don"t you?"
Hagen and Cloud gave a simultaneous mental a.s.sent. They stood, together with Kuhal Earthshaker and Diane Manion, inside the gazebo of the Guderian device. Every person in the silent a.s.sembly knew that once Marc Remillard"s children were beyond his reach, the battle would be over. But if Hagen and Cloud failed to escape ...
Elizabeth said to them: You have fully a.s.similated the extremity defence?
Cloud said: Yes. And we"ll use it. Papa won"t take us alive.
Hagen said: I wish there was some way we could destroy our bodies!
Aiken said: He"ll be able to stop that-if it reaches that point.
I"m sorry. Elizabeth"s snuff sequence is your last bastion.
Kuhal and Diane said: And we are in tandem.
Elizabeth said: Fortunate ones. In the Milieu such consolation would be refused for the greater good of the Unity.
Anatoly said: "And rightly! Poor children. But G.o.d understands lovers and forgives. Those who refuse to love are another matter."
Elizabeth cried: How can you hear us? How dare you?
"He hears through my mind"s ear," replied the King. And he said to her on the intimate mode: Death is not the children"s last defender Elizabeth. You are.
Outside the castle the armoured shape stood ready in starless dark. Its body was set aside, suspended from life-process in refrigerated stasis. Its brain blazed as the needle electrodes charged it with energies too great for unsupported flesh and blood to bear. It was fully empowered in the aggressive psychocreative faculty. Far away in Nionel, the obedient cells of the Organic Mind, 80,000 strong awaited its command.