STAR HOUNDS -- OMNIBUS (20 page)

T
here were only five of the long cylindrical ships studded with protuberances—a foreshadow of the vast armadas the aliens were known to command. They slashed through the Kendrick’s Vision second line of defense, diving through the atmosphere and laying waste to the city’s capital, Shiva, on the coast of its largest continent, Raj.

President Freeman Jonst was just finishing his breakfast when the proton beams began their strafing runs. From his view atop a hill overlooking the harbor, he saw the swords of light rip through his beloved home. By the time he had reached his comm-unit to command defensive measures, the ships were gone, thankfully leaving just a moderate amount of wreckage, with few lives lost.

The Vision’s sensors, however, indicated that during their brief raid powerful scanning rays had been in use—the destruction was apparently but a ruse to disguise enemy reconnaissance.

Freeman Jonst was not the kind of man one took lightly. Over two meters tall, with grizzled gray hair which looked like a well-trimmed scouring pad, Jonst was from Chedrow’s World, 1.4 Standard Earth’s gravity; his chosen home was only .9. And if you spat upon his planet, Kendrick’s Vision, you spat on Freeman Jonst and were lucky to retain your salivary glands. Under Jonst’s leadership, for two decades the colony he had founded thrived on the reputation for harboring no galactic riffraff, maintaining only marginal relations with the Federation, and trading with other Free Worlds only for the Vision’s vital necessities. He kept his planet’s integrity and ecology as clean as possible, for that was his dream, his people’s dream.

Far from the center of Federation power, with plenty of well-armed Free Worlds between it and Terra, it enjoyed a peace and tranquillity unusual in the annals of human colonization of the galaxy.

That was, until that fateful morning.

Later that same day, Jonst received his ministers. Their reports, which showed just how easily those Jaxdron whip-ships had dealt with second-hand fighters and rudimentary defense screens, were hard to swallow. And the conclusion, as much as Freeman Jonst despised it, was inevitable.

He took his cigar, its end chewed to pieces, from his mouth and made the pronouncement that all of his ministers had expected to hear: “Gentlemen, when we settled this proud gem of a planet far from other Free Worlds, farther still from the Federation, we did so with a dream for a solitude. However, with the menace of a warlike alien civilization so apparently intent on conquering us, we have no choice but to seek help. Military help, for as long as these wretched beings are a threat to our peace.”

He turned to a communications officer. “Bill, would you come to my office tonight? I’ll have my request for military aid to Federation Central ready for transmission by then.”

The eyes of the others were lowered.

“Merely a temporary measure, gentlemen,” grumbled Jonst. “But I promise you that I will keep Kendrick’s Vision a safe place to raise our children and fulfill our dreams …. And, at the end of all this, I promise you a Jaxdron head to hang over every mantelpiece.”

“But no one knows what they look like!” objected one of the men.

A slow, humorless grin moved over the great man’s thick face. “When they’re over the mantelpieces, my friend, they’re gonna look dead. No one messes with Freeman Jonst’s planet! I’d make a deal with the devil to keep her safe!”

Not a soul at the table dared say it, but they all knew that they were about to do just that.

C
al Shemzak leaped for his life.

A ragged burst of fire exploded in the place he’d been, its heat singeing the young man on his left arm. He hit the sand and rolled, scraping himself on an occasional rock, turning his roll into a scramble for the cover of a large boulder.

The proton beam screamed through the air again, kicking up stinging bits of desert at Cal’s ruined shoes. Forty meters away the robot grated slowly toward its quarry, withdrawing one weapon rod for recharging, extending another, aiming.

With a burst of effort, the lithe, brown-haired young man got to his feet and sprinted the last few yards to the boulder at the base of the hill.

Shaded for the moment from the glare of this planet’s huge yellow sun, Cal sucked in a gasp of dry air and leaned against the rock.

What the hell was he doing here? The thought rang in his brain, an echo of its initial occurrence a mere hour before, when he had woken up in the middle of an alien desert with only a canteen of water, clutching a ragged map which seemed, at first glance, indecipherable.

How had a simple predoc quantum mechanic landed in a place like this? He’d searched his memory and found it as dry as this toasted piece of hell where he now lay.

Bizarrely colored cactus blossoms were scattered on the parched landscape like tapers of frozen flame. Only an occasional stir of cloud appeared in the azure sky. In the distance were some hills.

He knew his name and he knew his profession. But when he’d awoken in the midday heat, everything else seemed to be fried from his brain.

He was given only a short time to puzzle the matter over, take a few sips of the tepid water from the canteen, and scrutinize the map—alien hieroglyphics bird-tracked across what seemed a representation of this land, including the hills—before the juggernaut rose from behind a grouping of rocks and in a monotone announced its intention.

“I shall kill you, Calspar Shemzak.”

A simple enough mission. And the damned four-meter-high robot looked quite capable of doing it too. Funny thing, though. In an era when anthropomorphized mechanicals were at first sight indistinguishable from a human being, and battle machines were simply unornamented mechanisms, this thing was an anomaly.

In fact, Cal Shemzak thought, his memory percolating, this thing resembled a robot from one of those hilarious old movies.

It was gray and black, the color of gunmetal. Parts of its thick body shone in the sun while other parts were dull. Glass? Plastics? Hard to say, but it was a big thing with awkward movements, steam shovel treads and—

And on its chest were painted concentric circles of alternating red and white.

A target?

Its target, however, was clearly Cal Shemzak. A rod extracted and started firing energy pulses, barely missing Cal. Then, at a relentless pace, it started toward him.

Cal could outrun the thing in a race, no question. A short race, though. For while Cal had to slow occasionally, or even stop and rest when he felt he was out of the thing’s firing range, the robot continued rolling along at a steady ten kilometers an hour.

Squinting up now behind the boulder, Cal examined the climb before him, taking precious seconds to regain his breath. He had struck out immediately for the hills, almost instinctively. But as he huffed along, he snatched anxious glances at the map.

It seemed to indicate something of importance on one of the hills. Something he was supposed to get to, he thought. Safety, freedom ….

The target on the robot seemed to indicate that it was a weapon. Which meant that this was some kind of test.

Test.

Immediately, even as he struck out up the slope, the word and associated memories struggled up to his awareness …

Jaxdron.

He was a prisoner of the Jaxdron! Now he remembered! Now—

A bolt of energy slammed into a cactus just meters below him. He didn’t even bother to turn around and look, knowing that the robot was still behind him, knowing that this grade wouldn’t stop it.

From somewhere he tapped inner resources and increased his pace. Just a few minutes … just a few minutes more and he would reach the summit of this hill and know why the map seemed to want him there.

And while he ran, memory struggled piecemeal through the dank fog that was his mind.

Cal Shemzak remembered the Jaxdron raid on the Project on Mulliphen; Dr. Ornix’s traitor prosthetic hand; his capture by the weird alien ship. He recalled vaguely his time aboard the Jaxdron starship with not even a glimpse of his captors; the strange paces the aliens put him through, the mazes, the puzzles. And finally, a planet … but not this planet ….

The echoes and images of experience were swallowed by the roar of the robot’s motors as they worked harder to deal with the slope. The air was hot in Cal’s lungs. His leg muscles felt as though they were being torn apart, but a quick glance back showed that he had gained some ground over his pursuer. Sweat stung his eyes as he directed them upward and saw the top of the hill, the plateau flat, seemingly just as bare as the rest of this godforsaken country.

What if there was nothing there? What if he had the wrong hill?

He swallowed back his despair.

No. Impossible. He’d figured out the map; that was part of the test. And it was a test—just one of the many given him by the Jaxdron for their own inscrutable reasons. He’d pass this one just like he’d passed all the others.

He hoped.

As though to increase his doubts, another blast of fire dug a quick hole paces behind him. That goddamned robot wasn’t giving up, that was for sure.

Cal Shemzak slogged upward, wondering if all this really wasn’t a Federation hell reserved for naughty and rebellious schoolboys.

When he topped the hill, practically wheezing with exhaustion, he instantly saw the rifle.

It lay propped on a rock.

He ran for it, the sounds of the climbing robot growing louder behind him. Just two meters away he stopped cold in his tracks. There was a glass case around the thing, one angle of it shining in the sun.

If I ever actually meet a Jaxdron, Cal thought, I swear with my bare hands I’ll ….

He did not pause for fantasy, instead checking the case, which proved to be some sort of plastic. It completely enclosed the rifle—which appeared to be a standard-issue Federation 50 gigawatt blaster, energy node glowing with a full charge—and would not budge.

A rock, thought Cal. Maybe I’m supposed to break it. Maybe—His eyes swept along the ground and instantly he saw the puzzle.

It was a rectangular variation on Rubik’s Cube. It was clear that if the puzzle were solved, the glass case would open.

However, there was a definite deadline involved.

Cal did not take the leisure to rail at the perpetrators of this madness. He picked up the puzzle and surveyed it, his sharp mind instantly taking in the arrangement of triangular colors to be unified into blocks. In a moment he analyzed the thousands of possible permutations and combinations, and computed the proper method for solving the puzzle.

Certainly was easier than running, he thought as he solved the problem with a few quick twists of his fingers.

With a whirring noise one of the panels of the plastic case opened. Cal reached in and pulled out the energy rifle.

Not much time to go, he thought as he rubbed the perspiration off his palm. He searched his mind for the memory of how to operate one of these things. He never had, of course. Unlike his sister Laura, he’d never joined the military, though he had read books featuring blasters, and seen movies ….

Yes. There was the safety. He thumbed it off. The weapon seemed to throb in response, crystalline strips fading into a bright red.

Even as the ragged top of the robot’s head bobbed into view, Cal’s finger searched for the trigger. By the time the target on the metal chest was visible, Cal was aiming.

The stream of energy caught the mechanical creature dead on, drilling a hole through its chest. It toppled, crashing out of sight. An explosion rocked the hill, and thick black smoke began to swirl up.

Cal picked himself up from the ground, where he’d been felled by the recoil of the blaster. Cautiously, he peered over the side of the hill. The stench of burnt insulation from an electrical fire was acrid. The robot was quite out of commission, bits and pieces strewn in a trail down the slope.

Then the skyline rolled open, like a matte painting mistakenly moved in a film. Fog rolled in.

The sun above switched off. The horizons died away into blank gray walls, and lamps glowed eerily, like disembodied spirits.

He sees himself in a mirror, and there is a mirror behind him, his image reflected infinitely as he reaches out to touch and all the others reach out to touch him and—

A voice fragmented Cal Shemzak’s total disorientation. “Sir?”

“What?” Cal looked down at his rifle, which had turned into just a cheap plastic model.

Backlit as though by some spotlight, a tall figure carrying something on a tray marched slowly into the weird twilight room that had once been a desert.

Cal could see that the man wore a topcoat and tails. “I thought, sir,” said the man, “that you would like some freshly made iced tea.”

Cal sighed and slowly reoriented himself.

Of course: projection, hallucination, and hypnosis. The Jaxdron were increasing the sophistication of his mental workouts.

But why? What were they all for? They knew he was intelligent, and certainly they had the power to brainwash him, dissect him, do whatever the hell they pleased. Then why were they toying with him?

“Thank you, Wilkins,” said Cal as he took the iced tea and drank. Demi-dream or no, this bizarre business had certainly dehydrated him.

“Lunch will be served soon, sir,” said the servant. “I believe you just have time for a shower.”

Cal Shemzak acknowledged Wilkins with a nod and set the empty glass back on the tray, wondering what kind of drugs had been in it this time.

Well, Laura, he thought, your brother is getting in deeper and deeper.

He smiled to himself. These creatures were damned weird and damned clever. But dollars to donuts they’d never encountered beings quite like Cal Shemzak or his sister Laura.

And Cal Shemzak promised himself the Jaxdron were going to rue the day they started messing with them.

“Thank you, Wilkins. Nothing like a little exercise in the morning, what?”