Authors: Steve Perry
Of course, the Republic had enough weaponry to blow Wall out of the skies, yawning all the while, but it would not happen that way—at least not until it was too late. No, Khadaji would feel the need to confront him, thinking that he somehow would prevail. He would walk into the den to beard the lion, certain of his own invulnerability, positive he would triumph. That would be his last error. The lion would take his soul.
Come to me, hero. Come and meet your match at last. I will not make the same mistake I made before.
Wall stole a few seconds from his concentration to construct a brief affair with another of his delicate flowers. Soon, he would be able to hunt for them in the flesh again. It was his most pleasant thought.
What a garden he would sow!
• • •
The first orbit Khadaji hung was tricky. It had to be exact, the speed and angle could not be off, and he could hold it for only seventy seconds at the most. If he could not manage what he needed to do by then, he would have to break it and try again.
It took sixty-nine seconds to accomplish his task.
Still shaving things right to the edge, eh?
Well, said his little interior voice, a second is as good as an eon, if you succeed.
Yeah, and as good as forever if you fail.
Jacob'sLadderscooted from the first orbit and spiraled outward.
Wall checked his input, crosschecked, and crosschecked again. He ran all the numbers, crunched all the data, and became satisfied with his conclusion:
There he was!
The ship was matching his orbit and moving closer, past the Duralum Wall, and there was nothing else within a dozen klicks with which to rendezvous.
Wall had an armory built into his vessel, of course. He couldn't wear battleship plate on the outside without arousing suspicion, but nobody could see what hid behind the standard ship-sandwich skin.
Tracking lasers and railguns could come into action in less time than it took a man to blink. He could knock Khadaji's little ship to pieces with less effort than solving a nine-level spakulus equation, had that been his desire. Of course, that wasn't part of the plan, but in the remote chance that Khadaji brought help, Wall had the means to protect himself, at least for a while. He could go out in a blaze of glory.
He had no intention of so doing, however; he was certain he was right, and so it seemed. Khadaji's ship was alone, and there were no other vessels within close range. He continued to track anybody who might venture near, of course, but he was certain he was right.
The ship drew nearer. It rolled to match its docking plate with Wall's. Wall allowed it to come.
This was the one variable about which he could not be positive. Out here against the black of space with the needle points of the stars and planets unblinking, there was a slight chance—very slight—that Khadaji might be willing to sacrifice himself to take Wall with him. Get within range, trigger a backpack nuke, and die in the fireball that would shatter both ships.
But, no.Not until he had a chance to talk, to see if Wall had a way out. It wouldn't do him any good to destroy the ship if there might be another computer hidden somewhere, ready to take over. There was not, but Khadaji couldn't know that for sure. And once he thought he knew, it would be too late.
The smaller ship, tiny against the bulk of Wall's, neared the dock. Wall extruded the link.
Come into my web, foolish fly.
When Khadaji stepped into Wall's domain, Wall stood there waiting for him. A holoproj, of course, as good as any he'd ever seen. Just as he remembered Wall from years before: dark skin, blue eyes, black hair. He looked a fit forty T.S., and the image wore red silk and platinum fittings. He was braced by a pair of vaguely anthropomorphic dins, man-high, with heads and arms, each pyramiding to a wheeled base.
"Well, well," Wall said. "The hero arrives." Khadaji still had his spetsdods, but they wouldn't do him any good against the holographic Wall or the dins. He could have loaded explosive pellets but he was sure that he wouldn't have been allowed on the ship if he had been carrying any weaponry that might cause major damage. He'd recognized HO scanners, bomb and poison sniffers, and fluoproj gear in the lock.
His one hidden ace was partially scan shielded, but wasn't a weapon in the real sense—it occupied the slot normally taken by his left spetsdod's magazine.
"Marcus Jefferson Wall," Khadaji said.
"Not exactly in the flesh, but, yes."
"You are very resourceful."
"Especially considering that I am dead, eh?" Wall waved his hand and the ship rocked slightly.
"If you were planning on using anything in your ship in this encounter, think again," Wall said. "I've just kicked it loose and already it is on its way into deep space."
"You've gone to a lot of trouble just to get me here."
"No trouble at all. I've had a lot of free time on my hands of late. Care for something to eat or drink? I don't have much use for it myself these days, it's not very fresh, but I can have one of the dins thaw something."
"A last meal?"
"I am civilized."
"I'll pass."
"This way, then."He turned, flanked by the dins, and walked away.
Khadaji followed him. He glanced at his chronograph.
Wall led him to a wide door that slid back to reveal an operating theater. The centerpiece was a sealed unit the size of a small room.
"A Healy?"
"Of course.Only the best.You'll have questions now."
"And you will give me answers?"
"Why not?It won't matter, and as I said, I am civilized.Even to my enemies."
"I think I've got most of it," Khadaji said. "Stop me if I go wrong."
Wall smile.
"After you were assassinated, this ship became fully operational."
"Yes. The recordings run right up to the moment of my death. My old friend Cteel, a later incarnation of whom you met, was my security computer at the time. He kept the attacking forces out of my sanctum long enough to finish the final transfer."
"What took you so long to begin this operation? It has been five years."
"Well, I had some learning to do. Plus there was the question of reversing the technology that put me here.Rome wasn't built in a day, you know."
"And I was always the goal?"
"From the first.It is only fitting, don't you think?"
"I could have been dead or injured."
"The Man Who Never Missed? Hardly. I needed to draw you out; you were hidden rather well, I must confess I could not find you."
"And all the rest of it was just to keep us off balance."
"Yes. With the Republic running around putting out a lot of little fires, it kept them out of my hair, so to speak. I merely had to make sure my timing was right for the main show."
"You could have done it all so much easier."
"Of course.But when one has a muscle, one uses it. It hardly seems fair to waste such brainpower as I have in a straightforward manner. Much like playing fugue, the fun comes in the indirectness. Occam's Razor is such a bore when you control millions of blades."
Khadaji nodded. "And you think I'm stupid enough to walk into your trap unprepared, knowing what you intend?"
"Dear boy, no. Iknew you would come, but I also figured you would have some kind of inept and inane plan to save yourself. My scanning gear is second to none, much better than what I had on Earth. You have nothing with you that can hurt me. A poison spew won't slow my dins a microsecond, they are sealed against corrosives, and I already know that you don't have any inert components that can combine to make either, anyhow. I, on the other hand, could flood this ship with sleepgases should I so choose.
You'll have to breathe sometime. Your hipshooting reflexes won't help you now."
"But you don't want to kill me."
"To be sure.Nor do I want you to kill yourself. You won't, you know."
"Why is that? I could deny you your goal."
"Temporarily. My second choice would be your ex-lover or your daughter, or, failing them, one of your matadors. You would rather it be you than them."
"You think so?"
"Oh, I know so. I know just about everything there is to know about you. You probably had something on your ship—there was a shielded package next to the pilot's seat—upon which you pinned your hopes of defeating me. You aren't transmitting on any frequency I can monitor, and if you were, it wouldn't get past my jammers. Nothing on your person can be made into a weapon fierce enough to stop my dins from putting you into the Healy, and five minutes after that happens, you won't beyou anymore,you'll be me ."
"But if somehow I were to succeed, where would that leave you?" Khadaji said.
"Well, I could say I've got another me waiting to take over, but the truth is,I don't. It won't be necessary."
"You seem so sure."
"Oh, Iam sure. You weren't sure of what you would find, so you had to come and see. And in your arrogant, simple-minded way, you thought somehow to find out and then escape, probably destroying me in the process. It isn't going to happen, Emile Antoon Khadaji. Your quickness and dead aim won't help you now, because I have out-thought you. In the end, it is the brain that is the more powerful weapon, no matter how large a gun you can mount. This is my victory."
"You think so?"
"I know so. And it is sweet beyond anything you can imagine. You took my life, and now you will replace it."
Wall waved one hand, and the two dins moved toward Khadaji.
Khadaji raised his right hand and fired his spetsdod, forefinger held rigid in full auto. The darts pinged harmlessly off the dins. He backed away from the slow-moving robots.
Wall laughed.
The spetsdod ran dry. He lifted his left hand, pointed it, but nothing happened. Quickly, he reached to his right weapon and ejected the empty magazine. But when he repeated the action for his left side, he touched the miniature projector he'd gotten from Jersey Reason. It ejected and fell onto the floor as had the magazine.
Behind the image of Wall, a young woman appeared.
"Marcus?"
It was hardly necessary, but the image of Wall spun.
"Michelle?!"
The dins stopped.
The girl appeared to be no more than twelve or thirteen, right on the budding edge of womanhood, and she wore tight white thinskins that revealed every prepubescent line of her body. She looked to be a beautiful child, though the recording of her was based on a woman who had actually been closer to thirty T.S. years than to thirteen.
Khadaji stole a glance at his chronograph.
The girl held out her arms to Wall. "I've missed you so much, Marcus."
After what seemed a long time, Wall turned away and looked back at Khadaji. "Oh, no, you don't. You think I'm so stupid as to be fooled by this fake image? You had her kill me once; it won't happen again!"
There came a noise like a fist hitting a solid object.
The ship shuddered.
The image of Wall wavered. "What have you done?"
"I got your attention," Khadaji said. He turned and started to run.
"You can't escape!"
Another fist hit.Then a third and then a fourth.
Behind him, the holoproj of Wall vanished. He would have other things on his mind, Khadaji knew.
The ship rocked under more impacts, ten, a dozen,a score.
Khadaji ran for where he thought Wall would have his escape pod. There would be one, so that the new Wall wearing Khadaji's body could have a way out, in case something happened. He might well be able to whistle up a troop transport, but he wouldn't take any chances with his new body; there would be some insurance. Khadaji had spotted the unmarked hatch while approaching, and if his sense of direction could be trusted, he was heading the right way.
The artificial gravity wobbled, making Khadaji suddenly lighter on his feet. He was prepared for that; the soles of his boots were stiktights he could trigger if need be.
He started hyperventilating as best he could while sprinting. He could hold his breath for two and a half minutes while doing moderateexercise, and that had been augmented by a tailored aerobic bacteria circulating in his system that would stretch the time to perhaps four minutes.
The noseplugs he wore expanded and shut his nostrils, triggered by the invisible gas which must be pouring in around him. The special contact lenses sealed and protected his eyes. Khadaji held his breath and kept going.
"DAMN YOU!"came an amplified voice from the changing air.
More impacts against the ship's hull. Wall's self-repair machineries would be running at full speed, and losing the battle. The sandwich-hull, layers of metal and carbon fibers separated by dead spaces, would absorb the impact of a paint flake or metal shard that might somehow slip past the orbiting Duralum Wall, but it had not been designed to withstand the assault of sixty steel marbles moving at more than twenty-five kilometers a second.
The window in the Duralum Wall was open only once every ten orbits, forunder three seconds, and then it was less than half a meter wide, giving odds that the chance of some stray orbiting particle getting through would be tiny in the extreme. But to somebody with the resources of the Siblings' computer and a conscious design, shooting through the small gap was not all that difficult. It was, as Wall had said, the timing that was important. Khadaji had gotten there ahead of the steel missiles, and had only needed to distract Wall in the final seconds before they arrived. Wall could not have seen them earlier, and after a brief instant when he might have been able to move, it would be too late.
He should be getting close to the escape pod, Khadaji figured.
He hoped so.
How could this have happened? He was under attack; missiles slammed into him, shattering and tearing holes in his hull, some of them punching through into the ship itself!
Wall sent all his repair dins into the fray, patching head-sized holes that allowed the air inside to escape, where it turned to frozen crystals in the hard vacuum.
He didn't have enough units. Air continued to whistle forth.
One of the missiles found a hole made by a previous strike and slammed into a heater, splashing plastic and circulating fluid about as if it had been bombed.