Zelazny, Roger - Novel 05 (6 page)

 
          
 
"Of course the race is worth
saving," I said through the taste of salt. "But whenever
circumstances conspire against it, its own irrationality pushes it forward for
the kiss. This madness is its doom. If it were mine to do, I would beat it out,
breed it out." I laughed then, as the second robot came apart. "Hell!
I'd start with myself!"

 
          
 
I could hear the crackling of flames at my
back, as well as the swishing of a sprinkler system. I had my beam on the final
robot now, and I was beginning to fear I had gotten to it too late. Its own
beam was melting and pulverizing my heap of protective junk, and I kept ducking
my head and pulling it to the side, blinking dust from my eyes, blowing it from
my nose, smelling my burning hair and my charred ear.

 
          
 
It came, it came, it came. My left hand seemed
to be on fire, but I knew that I would not move until one of us was
extinguished by the blaze.

 
          
 
I kept firing after it had stopped, I guess,
because I had my eyes squeezed shut by then and my head turned to the side, and
I did not see it happen.

 
          
 
When I realized that too much time had passed
for me to be alive if things had not gone right, I stopped firing and raised my
head. Then I let it fall again and just lay there, knowing it was all right
now, aching, unable to move.

 
          
 
After perhaps half a minute, I knew that I had
to get up and go on, or I would just lie there losing the benefit of all that
adrenalin, growing weaker and sleepier before my pain and fatigue. I pushed
myself upright, reeled back. I almost fell as I stooped to retrieve my final
grenade from its place at the hip of my armor. Then I turned and faced the
building.

 
          
 
The large metal doors were closed. When I
moved to them and tried them, I found that they had been secured. While I had
knocked many holes in the building, fires seemed to be burning behind all of
them. I backed away, half-expecting an explosion when I tried it, raised my gun
and burned away the locking mechanism.

 
          
 
Nothing happened. No hidden charges.

 
          
 
I moved forward, opened one of the doors,
entered.

 
          
 
It was a simple lobby, of the sort to be found
in office buildings anywhere. Deserted, though. And hot and smoky.

 
          
 
I stalked ahead, ready to fire at the first
movement of anything, wondering about concealed guns, bombs, gas nozzles,
hoping they were damaged now or powerless, if present, and going over the plans
for the place which I held in my mind.

 
          
 
My feelings were that he would be downstairs
in the brain room. It was the safest as well as the most sensitive place in the
entire installation.

 
          
 
As I worked my way toward the rear of the
building in search of a stairwell, Styler's voice came to me over the
loudspeaker system:

 
          
 
"I was not mistaken about you," he
said. "I was afraid of you from the first. It is a pity that we could only
meet under these circumstances. You possess a quality I admire greatly—your
determination. I have never seen such a singlemindedness, such a definition of
purpose before. Once you made up your mind to take the contract on me, that was
it. You closed it to everything else at that moment, and nothing short of death
will stop you now.”

           
 
I dashed through a burning corridor, leaped
over a section of fallen wall. Sprinklers soaked me as I went.

 
          
 
"... We were miscast, you and I, you
know? Have you ever considered what would have happened had Othello been faced
with Hamlet's problem? He would have dealt with matters as soon as he had
spoken with the ghost. There would only have been the one act and no great
tragedy. Conversely, the Dane could have resolved the poor Moor's dilemma in a
twinkling. It is sad that such things continue to be so. Had I been in your
place, I would be in control of COSA by now. They were in terrible shape.
Seriously. This assault on Doxford is part of their death throes. Their top
management hated one another more than they did their competitors. You could
have exploited your ruthless grandfather-image and moved right in, then bullied
them into line. You— Oh, hell! It doesn't matter now, I have answers for
everybody's problems but my own. If you sat where I sit, knew what I know, you
might have been able to stop the war. I didn't, though, so why talk about it? I
was still busy weighing alternatives when the bombs were going off. You would
have done something ..."

 
          
 
The door to the stairwell was jammed shut. I
burned it and kicked my way through. Smoke billowed out, but I held my breath
and plunged ahead.

 
          
 
"... And I am still thinking, considering
the possible ways of handling the present situation ..."

 
          
 
I groped my way about the first landing,
continued on down, my eyes stinging and watering.

 
          
 
The door at the foot of the stair was locked.
I burnt away the lock plate, my head spinning, blood hammering in my temples.
Another flaming corridor confronted me. I ran its length, blasted another door
and entered a hot but unfired hallway.

 
          
 
I hurried, cutting my way through several more
doorways, expecting an explosion, a round of gunfire, the hiss of gas at any
moment The air grew cooler, cleaner, as I proceeded, finally approaching
something I considered normal and comfortable. The lights burned steadily, and
though there were communication boxes at regular intervals, the only sounds
that emerged were those of heavy breathing and whispers, possibly curses, that
I could not quite make out. I wondered—had wondered all along— whether he was
alone. I had not yet encountered a single human being, living or dead, on Alvo,
and while it seemed likely that any others would have headed for his sheltered
area when the attack began, the monologue-like quality of Styler's speech would
tend to indicate that he was alone and possibly had been so for some time.
Where, then, was everybody else? This was a big place, with a supposedly large
staff.

 
          
 
Soon, though, the matter would be resolved. I
caught sight of the heavy door that marked the entrance to his sanctuary.

 
          
 
I approached cautiously, found it to be
sealed, as I had expected. I raised my gun and began to burn it.

 
          
 
The charge gave out before I had finished,
though. The lock still held too well.

 
          
 
I had the grenade, of course. But if I were to
use it to blow the door, I would be disposing of my only weapon capable of
killing at a distance. The only thing I would have left beside my hands would
be a stiletto I had picked up in
Sicily
. My instructors had laughed when I had
insisted on bringing it along. They did not believe in good-luck charms.

 
          
 
I drew it from my boot, casting the gun aside.
I located the grenade.

 
          
 
"I imagine you expect to be picked up by
your associates after you have completed your mission," Styler said, his
voice coming from a speaker above the door. "When they fail to come for
you, you may begin to wonder whether you have been abandoned or whether perhaps
I spoke the truth concerning the war on Earth. I spoke the truth. Then you will
look for some means of departing Alvo on your own. You will find that there
seems to be none available. You will begin to suspect that you are the only
human being on the planet. This will be correct. Then you will wish that you
had believed me, for you will realize that with me you slew the solutions to
your various dilemmas."

 
          
 
I backed down the hall, threw the grenade and
ducked into a recessed doorway.

 
          
 
"I have sent everyone else away. You see,
I saw this coming months ago. Now, with the war, it is doubtful that any will
be returning. The refugees are being sent to those worlds where settlement had
already be—"

 
          
 
The explosion, in that confined area, sounded
enormous. I was out of my niche and running before the echoes had died, the
vibrations ceased, before all of the rubble had hit the floor.

 
          
 
If he had indeed sent everyone else offworld,
it indicated that there was no one to come pick me up, had I halted at any
point in my expedition as he had requested. Therefore, he had simply wanted a
stationary target. The hell with him! Any possible beginnings of sympathy
quickly vanished.

 
          
 
I plunged across the blasted threshold, my
stiletto low and ready.

 
          
 
I did not stop moving once I had entered, but
took in my surroundings as I made my dash- No splash of Renaissance splendor,
as I had half-anticipated. The far wall was the face of an enormous console,
the near one housed a multitude of screens, showing various views of the valley
and the building's burning interior. The front of the room was separated from
the rear by a decorative screen, was carpeted and furnished for full-time
residence.

 
          
 
Styler, looking as he had in the pictures, was
seated at a small metal desk, near to the left wall. An elaborate machine,
possibly some extension of the behemoth at the rear of the room, jutted from
the wall to enclose him on the right. His head was bared, and a mass of leads
ran from it to the unit. He was staring at me, and he held a gun in his right
hand.

 
          
 
I did not know how many times I was hit until
afterward. I believe the first shot missed me. I am not certain about the
second one. It was a small-caliber weapon and he managed to fire it three times
before I knocked it aside, plunged my blade into his midsection and watched him
sag back into the seat from which he had risen.

 
          
 
"You will—" he began, then opened
and closed his mouth several times, a look of surprise breaking, for an
instant, the grimace he had worn.

 
          
 
His right hand shot out, threw a small switch
on the panel at his side. He slumped forward then, across the desk top,
twitching.

 
          
 
On the corner of his desk, near to where I was
leaning, breathing heavily, there was a telephone. It began ringing.

 
          
 
I stared at the thing, fascinated, unable to
move. It was ridiculous, absurd, that it should be ringing. I fought back a
wild impulse to laugh, knowing that it would do me no good, that it might take
me a long while to stop.

 
          
 
I had to know. I would always wonder, if I did
not find out now.

 
          
 
I reached out and raised the receiver.

 
          
 
"—discover possible solace," his
voice continued, coming now through the earpiece, "in the building at the
other end of this valley."

 
          
 
I controlled a sudden desire to scream, I
maintained my grip on the receiver. With my other hand, I reached out and
grasped his shoulder. I pushed him back in the chair. He was either dead or so
close to it that it made little difference.

 
          
 
"The neurons are still firing," came
his voice through the phone, "and with my hookup, I can activate anything
here that still functions, even though my own vocal cords are now beyond my
control. Everything here goes through the formulate*, and its voice is my own.