Philip José Farmer's The Dungeon 06] - The Final Battle (26 page)

"Not exactly, sah! Haven't time to explain! Sidi, man the mortar!"

To Clive's astonishment, Sidi Bombay could be seen once more opening the seat that revealed the little car's miniature arsenal. He removed a weapon with a tubular barrel and a heavy base-plate closely resembling the mortars with which Clive had become familiar while serving in Her Majestey's Horse Guards.

"Is that really a mortar?" Clive exclaimed.

Sidi Bombay said, "Of a sort, it is, Major Folliot."

"But you'll blow out the roof of our car if you fire it."

"The Major forgets that ordolite weapons fire bolts of pure energy, not material objects. The purpose of the mortar tube is to focus that energy so that it does no harm to our own car, but has its desired effect on that against which it is fired."

Clive bided his time, watching Sidi set up the mortar. It was obvious that he knew exactly what he was doing, and was an expert at his task. To offer assistance—interference!—would have been worse than useless.

Through the transparent wall of the car, Clive could see the Ren ship growing closer. It was unlike their own.

"It reminds me somehow of Chang Guafe!" Clive exclaimed, peering past Horace Hamilton Smythe.

"How's that, sah?"

"It looks like—like a combination of a machine and a living thing. Look, Horace! It has antennae and claws like a crab's! It's changing, shifting its shape even as it approaches us!"

"Yes, sah! I'm familiar with Ren ships, sah!"

"You must have learned this during the years we were separated, Horace! And yet you appear no older than you did when last we saw each other on the eighth level!"

"You're right about that, sah!" was Smythe's laconic reply.

"But how can that be, Horace? Both my brother and my father have aged normally, as had my friend du Maurier, to the very brink of the grave."

"If I may explain, please," Sidi Bombay put in. "As one who has both aged and grown young, I have some understanding, perhaps." When neither Clive nor Horace demurred, Sidi Bombay continued. "Sergeant Smythe and I have lived our lives in spurts, one might say. Like a flat stone skipped across the face of a pond, Clive Folliot—am I expressing myself clearly enough?"

"I'm not sure that you are, Sidi Bombay. I'm not sure that I take your point."

"Well, you see, Clive Folliot, the stone may cross a pond a rod or more in width, while actually touching the surface of the water a few times, skipping onward each time. Thus Sergeant Smythe and I have skipped over the years, dropping in now and then to accomplish such tasks as were needed. You were away from the Earth for twenty-eight years—we have been away only for a few years at a time, but have spanned the same twenty-eight years all told."

Behind Clive there was a
thump
and a
whoosh
. He could detect a strange odor in the car, and inferred that it was an ordolite propellant substance.

Above the car a blob of energy arced through the black sky. Clive tried to follow its course. At first it was easy enough. The blob was a brilliant magenta in color, and it pulsed and glowed even as it flew away from their car.

The magenta blob writhed and turned visibly, as if it were a thing alive. Although it made no detectable sound, Clive had the impression that it was hissing like an angry panther. It swooped toward the Ren craft.

The Ren craft dodged to avoid the blob.

The magenta blob altered its course to pursue the craft.

The blob, sizzling and throwing off specks and fragments like a Guy Fawkes Day rocket, flew past the Ren ship.

The Ren ship, meanwhile, slid toward the car containing Clive and his companions. It flexed its external claws, opening and closing their pincers, showing their razor-sharp serrated edges.

Behind Clive, Sidi Bombay fired another round of ordolite ammunition from the mortar.

This time the ordolite ray coalesced into a blob of brilliant yellowish-green. The distinctive odor smote Clive's nostrils, and the sound each time the mortar was fired left Clive with a ringing in his ears. As he regained hearing he said, "They aren't firing back. Perhaps their intentions are peaceful."

Horace Hamilton Smythe growled. "Might be, might not be, sah. Take a look at that thing, eh, sah?" He pointed toward the Ren craft. It was impossible to tell whether the mixture of organism and mechanism was truly glaring hatefully at the transparent car. Perhaps the bulging, reflective features that looked like eyes were merely observation ports.

Perhaps not.

In any case, they gave the appearance of hate-filled, intelligent eyes.

"We are far beyond the Earth's atmosphere," Clive said. "Do you know where the Ren came from, Horace? Are they from another world circling our own sun, or are they from a more distant locale?"

"We don't know their home, sah! We—" Horace paused, pointing in horror at the Ren craft.

It had voided both rounds fired from the ordolite mortar. Now it was nearly upon the transparent car. It altered its position, upending itself so that its rearmost segment was exposed, moving toward the car.

It was shaped like the hindquarter of a scorpion—a curving, segmented organ with a barbed protuberance at its tip. Were the Ren ship truly a scorpion, the barb would have been coated with deadly venom. As it was… who could guess?

Horace threw the control lever of the car to the side, and the little craft dipped and swooped away from the scorpion-tail of the Ren.

Clive tumbled against a glass panel.

Sidi Bombay swung the mortar away, so Clive would not collide with it. "Be careful, Clive Folliot! If we lose the services of our ordolite weapon, we are in peril even more grave than that which we already face!"

Through the glass panel, Clive could see the Ren's scorpion-tail twitch convulsively. A glowing blob detached itself from the barbed stinger and flew sizzling toward the car.

Horace Smythe jockeyed the controls, swinging the car through a series of evasive gyrations.

The luminescent blob—an angry, glowing orange—sped past. So close to the glass did its course carry it that Clive could make out individual sparks and tails of flame flickering across its surface. Again, while there was no audible sound, it seemed to Clive that the ordolite energy-blob hissed its hatred in some psychic manner as it sped past the car.

"What would happen if it struck us?" Clive asked. "Would it envelop our ship as the ordolite ghoster enveloped me in the tunnel?"

"It would do something worse than that, Clive Folliot. It could penetrate our car's wall as the rounds from our own mortar penetrate that wall. Once inside the car, it would disperse its evil, destructive energy into our bodies."

"Would it kill us?"

"Only if we were fortunate beyond belief. More likely it would—perhaps it is better not to say, Major Folliot."

"Tell me, damn it! Tell me, Sidi Bombay!"

"It would kill only our minds. Our wills. It would turn us into hopeless slaves of the Ren. We would obey them because we would lack the force to place our own choices above their commands. That is what the ordolite would do to us, Clive Folliot. To Sergeant Smythe and myself, at any rate."

"But not me? It wouldn't do that to me?"

"You are of the Folliot blood, Major. You might be exempt from its malign influence. There is no knowing without testing, and it seems foolish at this moment to make that test."

"I might not react to the ordolite at all?"

"Or you might be—you just might be, Major Folliot—the Master of the Ordolite!"

Before Clive could demand an explanation of that extraordinary term, the car in which the three adventurers were traveling was filled with a new light so brilliant that it dazzled the eyes. Clive threw a hand before his face. When he sensed that the flash of light had ended, he lowered his arm and opened his eyes again.

Afterimages danced dizzyingly. He blinked and caught a glimpse of Horace Hamilton Smythe struggling frantically with the car's controls. Facing about, he saw Sidi Bombay clutching the mortar tube. The car bucked violently. Clive grasped a handhold to keep from being thrown against one of his companions.

"What happened?"

Horace Smythe concentrated on the controls of the car, unspeaking.

Sidi Bombay said, "We're being attacked from the rear!"

Horace swung the car in a loop. As it swooped past the upended Ren ship, Clive caught sight of a being through one of the transparent domes that gave the Ren ship the appearance of a great face.

Then Horace had the car successfully turned and speeding in the opposite direction. Ahead of them a squadron of slim shapes appeared. They were gracefully formed, as artistically curved as oriental dancers. Their skins shone in metallic hues: the blue of a dragonfly's wings, the green of a hummingbird's breast, the red of newly shed blood.

Behind them flared the exhaust of rockets. Clive was stunned at the notion of using fireworks to propel great ships, but even as he recognized the nature of these craft, the logic of their means of propulsion became clear. One after another, they discharged what appeared to be concentrated bursts of energy.

Clive could not tell whether these were yet another form of ordolite weapon or some different device. Whatever the case, one of the newcomers scored a glancing blow upon the Ren ship. Clive saw the crumpling of metal plates and watched as the Ren ship reconfigured itself before his very eyes.

Another of the graceful metallic craft scored a hit on the Ren ship, this time to greater effect. The scorpionlike weapon of the Ren ship snapped at its base and tumbled through the blackness, swiftly disappearing.

Now the Ren ship sped forward, ignoring Clive and his companions in their transparent car. The Ren charged directly at the metal squadron. Blow after blow was struck against it, and the Ren ship did nothing to respond. It took each strike in turn, writhing and tumbling, sliding metal plates and organic components into place but struggling toward its foes nevertheless.

When it reached the metal squadron it spurted forward once again. Clive lost sight of it for a moment, but even as he strained his still-stinging eyes to see the ship, he realized that Horace Smythe and Sidi Bombay, also, had been gazing transfixed at the ongoing combat.

Sidi Bombay raised a dark hand and pointed a long finger. "Behold! The enemies, locked in final embrace!"

Clive followed Sidi's direction. Yes, the Ren ship had penetrated the metallic squadron's formation and had cleaved to a red-shining ship. More than ever, the Ren craft resembled Clive's erstwhile companion Chang Guafe. It was a living thing, and it clung and tore at the metal ship with great metal claws and saw-edged extrusions.

The other members of the metallic squadron swung or drifted in disorder. It was obvious to Clive that the ships—or their crews—were desperate to come to the aid of their comrade. Yet the energy-weapon that had temporarily blinded Clive earlier seemed to be all that was available to them. And they dared not fire upon the Ren for fear of hitting their own ruddy-skinned companion.

A circular saw blade was whirring against the skin of the metal ship. The red ship was larger than the Ren but appeared helpless to counter the attack. There were windows or glassed portholes on the scarlet ship. Clive could see movement within it, but could not discern the nature of the ship's crew.

At last the blade bit successfully through the skin of the scarlet ship. A gaping hole appeared as the Ren ship grasped the edges of the opening and tore at the ship, peeling away its skin like a hungry child tearing at the skin of an orange.

One of the occupants of the metallic ship pulled himself through the opening. For a moment Clive caught a glimpse of him. The crewman appeared to be human enough, wearing a helmet and baggy suit not unlike those used by deep-sea divers.

The Ren ship caught the baggy-suited crewman in a pair of pincers that resembled those of a shore-crab. For a fraction of a second Clive could see the man's mouth open to give out a scream of agony and terror. Although Clive could not hear the man, he imagined the sound.

Then the man was halved, snipped through the middle by the saw-edged pincers. Blood and viscera spurted from both halves of the body even as it tumbled away, trailing crimson gobbets.

Clive felt his gorge rising. His hand covered his mouth and he looked away for a moment, but almost involuntarily he turned back, transfixed by the scene of battle.

He had seen many sights of combat and bloodshed, had in fact participated in many, both in his first career as an officer of Her Majesty's Imperial Horse Guards and in his second as an adventurer in the Dungeon. But seldom had he witnessed such carnage, such horror as this. Perhaps the monster at the bridge in Q'oorna, on the first level of the Dungeon… or perhaps the cavern of the hideous sacs in which Sidi Bombay had been held prisoner and then rescued, rejuvenated… but even those scenes… he could not be certain.

The Ren ship—or being—reached through the rent in the metal craft's skin. It inched forward. It looked to Clive as if the Ren ship was trying to climb inside the metallic craft.

But the metallic ship's defenders must have beaten back the invasion, for the Ren ship pulled back its pincers, retreating before a counterattack that saw a squad of bulky-suited individuals clamber through that same rent, some of them clinging to the Ren ship's great claw and others pulling themselves forward in pursuit.

They were men, or at least they had the appearance of diving-suited men, and they were connected to their own ship by what appeared to be hawsers. That was necessary, Clive realized, as the counterattacking troopers bounded from the skin of their ship.

The rest of the slim, metallic fleet filled the sky, circling the combatants but taking no other part in their struggle.

The troopers were armed with primitive weapons. Clive pressed his face to the transparent wall of the car, straining his eyes for the best possible view of the battle. The troopers were carrying—astonishingly, appallingly—axes.

No civilized man had fought with a battle-axe for three hundred years or more! But in Africa, Clive had seen men go into war armed only with spears. Had seen them bring down great murderous beasts with nothing more.