Cyber Rogues (50 page)

And if the
shapes
thought, could they therefore
feel
also . . . like
Spartacus?

The twenty amplified laser pulses had to hit the target at the same, precisely timed instant. Therefore they all had to enter the amplifier chains together. To insure this, a single pulse from the master oscillator was split twenty ways by an accurately aligned optical arrangement. Without the oscillator, the whole fusion plant would die instantly . . . and with it,
Spartacus.

“The quickest way will be through there,” Dyer said. He pointed to one of the holes blown through the wall of the control room opposite the door by which they had entered. “There should be a way down into the oscillator bay from there. I’ll go through and blow the master oscillator and its standby with grenades. You stay here and watch for anything coming through that door.”

“Okay. Don’t take your time about it.”

“I won’t.”

Dyer pushed himself across to the hole and then slowed down abruptly. The metal around the hole had been torn into a mass of jagged, twisted knife edges; they looked razor-sharp—capable of slicing through his suit as easily as if it were made out of tissue paper. He maneuvered himself carefully to the exact center and nudged his way through with delicate touches of his gauntlets. On the other side was a short drop to the level below and at the bottom of the drop, immediately opposite where he was floating, was the door into the oscillator bay.

And if the
shapes
felt, then it meant that the
shapes
were as
Spartacus. Spartacus
was as the
shapes.
Now
Spartacus
was beginning to comprehend . . .

Many things . . .

Inside the door was an anteroom and then an inner, dust-excluding hatch into the surgically clean chamber that housed the oscillator. Dyer steadied himself against the doorpost and blew open the inner lock with a burst from his M25, then sailed through. The outlet tube of the metal-encased oscillator system was right in front of him, feeding a bewildering array of lenses, mirrors and prisms that flashed and glinted crazily in the darkness as Dyer swung his lamp from side to side. The geometric web of laser beams that he knew was strung between them remained invisible in the dust-free vacuum. Everything in sight was aligned to the millionth part of an inch, and consisted of ultrasensitive precision engineering that hadn’t been designed to withstand deliberate abuse. One grenade would almost certainly be all that was required.

Dyer positioned four, all at places that looked like critical parts of the optical system. Then he set another four on the standby oscillator alongside, which would take over automatically if the output from the primary master ceased for any reason. All he had to do now was set the fuses to a delay of five seconds or so, release the firing levers in quick succession, and get out.

“RAAAY!”
Laura’s sudden shriek was pure, undiluted terror. Dyer came back out through both doors of the bay like a bullet and was streaking back up to the hole into the control room before the sound had stopped. Laura was tumbling head over heels toward him on the far side of the hole, away from the two armored destroyers and the two armored crabs that were moving in fast from the doorway at the far end. Dyer brought up his rifle instinctively, but his mind registered in the same instant that Laura was in the line of fire. One of the crabs was ahead and closing on her rapidly but Dyer could do nothing. His stomach turned as the two pincerlike jaws shot out and closed around her waist. Her screams tore through his helmet. Suddenly he was screaming too, with rage and helplessness.

But . . . the crab had let go. It had steered her back to a stable position away from the wall inside the control room . . . and released her . . . gently. And then Dyer saw the vicious blade of metal. She had been tumbling straight at them. Another second or two . . . He blinked and shook his head—but he hadn’t dreamed it.

Laura was still choking back her remaining sobs of fright as he moved warily inward toward the control mom. The second crab came forward and obligingly snipped away the worst of the metal spikes to clear his path while the two destroyers hovered—somehow meekly now—in the background. Dyer drifted through the hole and came to rest totally bemused.

There were lights showing on a part of the main fusion plant control panel that was still operative. The panel had come back to life. And he noticed something else. Something had changed—something that had been around them all the time had stopped and he couldn’t place exactly what it was. Then he reached out and felt the edge of one of the consoles that was anchored solidly to the floor. It was rock-steady. He couldn’t feel any vibrations. Then it came to him. The deep throbbing and pounding that had been with them ever since they neared the Decoupler had ceased. The Decoupler was once again spinning smoothly.

It meant something.

He felt Laura clutching at his arm and could feel her trembling through his suit.

“Ray . . . what’s happening?”

“I don’t know,” he said slowly. He slid his arm around her comfortingly but his voice was far away. Slowly his mind begun functioning again. The panel had come alive again. All he had to do now to kill the fusion plant was throw a few switches.
Spartacus
had reactivated the panel.
Spartacus
was showing him how to shut it down. It was offering itself . . . inviting him to kill it if he so chose.

Why . . . ?

It meant something.

The vision of the drone snatching Laura out of harm’s way with seconds to spare replayed itself again before his mind’s eye. It reminded him of something he had seen before somewhere . . . someplace . . . long ago. A cartoon figure and a comical dog . . . FISE . . . FISE had snatched Brutus away from the glass . . . Why . . . ? It had overgeneralized . . . It had thought that everything alive was the same . . . And the nucleus of Kim’s programs was based on FISE . . .

Something very strange had happened in the last few minutes. Somehow it had something to do with the Decoupler . . . But how . . . ?

“Well I’ll be goddamned! You did it!” Linsay’s voice came suddenly through on his radio. “I still don’t know how you two got in here, but you did it.” Dyer returned to the present to find a spacesuited figure wearing incongruous pearl-handled revolvers and a general’s steel helmet over its ISA helmet sailing in through the doorway from the gallery. There were more forms close behind him and within seconds the room had begun filling with weary-looking and battle-stained but triumphant soldiers.

“But we didn’t . . .” Dyer began, and then thought better of it. “What about the barrier?” Linsay clapped him heartily on the shoulder, sending him reeling back and clutching at the console to check himself.

“Obviously the barrier deactivated when you zapped it,” Linsay said. He caught the perplexed look on Dyer’s face and frowned suddenly. “That thing
is
harmless now, isn’t it?”

Spartacus
had turned off the barrier! It had ceased to fight, everywhere. A look of wonder flowed slowly into Dyer’s face as the pieces of what it all meant began coming together inside his head. He turned his head slowly to look at Linsay and nodded firmly. There was no doubt in his mind now.

“Yes,” he replied. “It’s harmless. It can’t hurt anyone now.”

“Very good,” Linsay said crisply. “Then there’s only one thing left to do.” He spun himself around and began heading back toward the door.

“Where are you going?” called Dyer.

“It doesn’t matter,” Linsay said without turning his head. “Anything might have happened outside. There isn’t time to explain.” Dyer and Laura exchanged puzzled looks as Linsay disappeared. Dyer tapped the shoulder of a major-general floating beside him and gestured toward the console.

“Put a guard on that console. Don’t let anyone near it. I’ll explain why later.”

“Sure, if you say so, Doctor.” The officer beckoned two of his men into position and relayed the instructions. Dyer motioned at Laura and they launched themselves away from the console to follow after Linsay.

By the time they reached the core, Linsay had already vanished into the maintenance tunnel that they had used after leaving the concealed hatch. Dyer peered into the tunnel and, in the glow of a lamp clipped to the edge of the hatch, could see Linsay inside, working rapidly with his arms. After about ten seconds Linsay pushed himself back from the hatch with what looked like a gesture of relief, retrieved the lamp and began making his way back toward them.

“The hatch was off,” Linsay said as he saw them waiting. “So that’s where you came through. I guess you know all about it then, huh? That’s the way that official minds have to work sometimes, I’m afraid. Anything could have been going on outside and maybe there wasn’t a lot of time left. I didn’t want to take any chances.”

“Mark,” Dyer said, holding up a hand. “You’re losing me. What the hell are you talking about?”

Linsay gaped at him in sudden astonishment. “You mean you don’t know what that thing in there is?”

Dyer looked at him suspiciously.

“No, I don’t . . . but I’m beginning to think I might have an idea. Maybe you’d better tell me.”

Linsay pointed to his own chest pack to tell Dyer to switch to a security-coded frequency. Dyer did so and Linsay told him. Dyer felt his knees and legs turn weak. If it hadn’t been for the zero-g, he was sure they’d have buckled under him.

“What’s going on between you two?” Laura asked over the wire link that still connected them. Dyer repeated what he had just learned. Laura gasped.

“Our own people? You mean that we had them against us as well? All this time we’ve been fighting ourselves as well?”

Dyer became very quiet for a few seconds. When he looked back at her a strange new light had come into his eyes.

“Maybe that’s
all
we’ve been fighting all along,” he said quietly.

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

A shocked silence had gripped the White House communications room.

The readout screen still held the computer’s acknowledgments of the three codes required to unlock the
Omega
trigger. The release sequence of the safety interlocks was recorded, showing positive at each stage, and beneath those was the final confirmation that the firing command had been issued.

“Please repeat that message,” Nash whispered to the image of General Miller that was staring out at him from an adjacent screen.

“Confirm negative function,” Miller recited. “Device
Omega
has not activated. Repeat—has
not
activated. Firing command acknowledgment received and indicates local defusing procedure has been implemented.”

“My God . . . !” Schroder breathed. “Do you realize what we almost did? There were only two people up there who knew the location and the defusing procedure. Krantz isn’t even on Janus anymore. It can only mean that Linsay must have got there. It was right next to the fusion plant.”

“Not necessarily,” Belford said woodenly. “How do you know it wasn’t
Spartacus
that defused it?”

“That’s impossible!” Schroder protested.

Belford smiled humorlessly. “Impossible? Who says so? How many other things were supposed to have been impossible?” He looked at Nash, “It’s building an impregnable fortress out there and equipping itself with ships. It’s already started cannibalizing Janus so we know it’s running short of materials. The next obvious thing for it to do will be to send out missions to search for more. It’ll be on the Moon inside a week. Once it gets control of that there will be no stopping it ever.”

“What else can we do?” Nash asked, spreading his arms despairingly.

“Inertial missiles,” Belford answered. “Launched on pure ballistic trajectories without any guidance systems that can be burned out by X-rays. Also shielded to protect against premature detonation . . . internal time fuses so they don’t rely on any form of remote control that might get jammed.”

“It could still get locked out by antimissile missiles,” Nash pointed out.

“
Spartacus
hasn’t used anything like that—yet!” Belford replied. “All the more reason to move fast—like now!”

“How long would it take?” Nash asked.

“We could probably try launching the missiles we’ve got out there on ballistic courses right now. They’re not shielded but it’d only need one to get through. We can use nukes now. In the meantime we start adding shielding to a reserve supply back here straightaway. I reckon we could have the job done and get them to Janus in about . . . aw, say twenty-four hours.”

Nash looked at Schroder.

“Why not?” Schroder sighed with defeat and shrugged wearily. “It doesn’t make any difference now. We might as well—” Miller’s voice interrupted from the screen. He sounded incredulous:

“A report has just come in from Surveillance . . . They think there’s still somebody alive on Janus.”

Schroder and Belford leaped forward to crowd behind Nash at the panel.

“Well . . . ?” Nash demanded after an agony of seconds had passed.

“Report being checked now,” Miller replied.

“It’s not possible,” Belford whispered, white-faced.

“He
did
make it,” Schroder said in wondering tones. “It has to be Linsay . . . It
has
to be . . . He did get there . . .”

Then Miller spoke again. This time his voice was unable to conceal excitement.

“It’s positive, repeat—
positive
!
Human figures positively identified on Detroit. They’re at the place where Linsay’s assault went in. Normal communications are not functioning but they’ve set up a visual beacon and commenced signaling. First message being decoded now. We’ll put it on the beam, channel six.”

“Put channel six up on one of these screens,” Nash snapped at the officer manning the console behind them. Another eternity passed while they waited. Then Miller spoke again.

“More human figures have been identified on the Hub. There are quite a few moving around the large hole that the assault wave came out of. There are two more standing in a partly open airlock farther around on the south side. A lot of waving and moving around. Looks like the war’s over. We’re continuing to scan for signs of any more.”