Chapter Twenty-four

Hansen expected a rough palisade around a squalid village, and a sanitation problem worse than that of Peace Rock.

Instead, the high black wall which loomed from the mud and mist was seamless. It had the smooth glint of plastic or surface-sealed concrete. Beyond the wall was a geodesic dome, also black and bulging nearly a hundred meters into the air. The low towers at intervals along the outer wall were too small for living guards—

But just about right for the sensors and weapons of an automatic defense array.

Hansen stopped.

"Go up to the gate and claim admittance as a lone traveler," Walker ordered. "Strombrand should feed and house you for three days."

"Right," said Hansen, keeping his arms at his sides and his hands open toward the sensors. Walker didn't want him dead; that was one of the few things that Hansen did know with confidence.

Of course, that didn't mean that his crystal master couldn't misjudge the odds. . . .

"I claim shelter as a traveler!" Hansen shouted to the blank patch of wall that he'd identified as a gate without asking Walker. Though there was no difference in the sheer plastic surface, the mud had been trampled into a trough leading to this point.

The mini-towers to either side buzzed internally.

"Strombrand has the information you want, then?" Hansen asked as they waited.

"Strelbrand controls the data bank," Walker replied. "They are batch brothers, Strelbrand and Strombrand, dextro- and laevo-rotating twins; and it may be that Strombrand can get us access to what his brother holds."

The section of wall slid downward. Two sullen humans wearing slave collars stood inside with a double-headed android. The slaves weren't much cleaner than Hansen—who'd swum a ribbon of muddy water when Walker assured him that there was nothing beneath of a size to concern him.

The android lounged against the inner surface of the wall. He held a bell-mouthed mob gun in his arms.

"Welcome traveler to the palace of the great lord Strombrand," the slaves sing-songed together in Standard.

"Boy, you look a treat," said one of the android's mouths. The other laughed. "C'mon," the first head continued. "I'm s'posed to take you to my father."

His free arm gestured toward the huge dome. His gun continued to point at Hansen's midsection.

The courtyard was mud surfaced, but there were arched pens—or houses—built into the surrounding wall. Dozens of humans worked at various tasks in the courtyard, all of them wearing slave collars.

They glanced sidelong at Hansen. Their expressions were not very different from those on the faces of the Lomeri as the lizardmen discussed their next meal.

"Father?" Hansen whispered as he stamped toward the dome. "Android batches capable of reproduction are destroyed at once."

"Androids that can reproduce are destroyed—or are very carefully controlled, Kommissar," Walker replied. Hansen thought he heard amusement in the tone. "The batches that can reproduce have a level of cunning which is missing from their normal fellows . . . and which is very useful for certain purposes. For your Consensus."

Solbarth. Was Solbarth from the same batch as Strombrand?

"And sometimes very dangerous, when they get loose," Hansen muttered. But I was better than he was.

Slaves at the entrance to the dome hosed off Hansen without ceremony. "C'mon, c'mon," one of them ordered. "Turn, won't cha?"

Hansen wasn't in a position to complain about the treatment—and behind him, the android's muddy boots were cleaned the same way.

The interior of the dome was illuminated by the tubes of light along each junction line of the facets. The colors varied from one bar to the next—never bright, never saturated; never quite pleasing. Their mixture threw a muddy ambiance around the hundred or more figures, slaves and androids, in the center of the hall.

"G'wan," said the two-headed android as he prodded Hansen in the back with the mob gun. "Grovel fer the ole man and let's find something t' eat."

You'll grovel for me if you poke me again with that gun, Hansen thought; but that was just for his soul's sake. A scene wouldn't help him get the job done, and doing the job had always been Hansen's goal. It didn't really matter what the job was, so long as it was his to do. . . .

Hansen stepped through the loose crowd. Several of the androids were as perfectly formed as Solbarth had been—physically. Others were hideously misshapen, with extra limbs and multiple heads like Hansen's guide.

The androids dressed in layers of flowing garments and were heavily bedizened with gold and jewels. Some of the human slaves were able to follow the same fashion. The plump man speaking to the android seated on the room's only chair ("Strombrand," Walker said, but that was obvious) wore a gold torque which almost hid the plastic collar which controlled him.

"The herdsmen still haven't reported in, sir," the slave said.

"Well, then raise the amplitude when you ask, Donner!" Strombrand said. "Do I have to tell you everything?"

Strombrand had the normal complement of head and limbs, but no one could have mistaken him for a human. He was brutally massive, literally three times as broad as a normal man. His bare arms were roped with sinew and as thick as flowing basalt; the coiled bracelets he wore would have fit around Hansen's waist.

"But we're already broadcasting at a very high level," Donner protested. "I'm concerned that we'll harm the fools if we raise it again, and you know how difficult it is to replace Lomeri."

"If you're talking about the three Lomeri I saw on my way here," Hansen said, stepping toward the throne, "then they're beyond anybody else hurting. They seem to have gotten into a fight and pretty well finished each other off."

"What?" peeped Donner.

"What?" boomed Strombrand, lurching up from his chair. Hansen couldn't help blinking because the motion was so similar to that of an avalanche rumbling toward him.

"Well, it's like I said," Hansen explained. "They'd done each other with spears and teeth, you know."

He shrugged. "There were a couple sailbacks around, which is why I thought of the bodies when you said herdsmen."

"When was this?" the android chieftain demanded. Despite the bestiality of his form, Strombrand's white skin was so smooth that the bars of light lay on it in distinct patches rather than a general blur.

"Three hours, perhaps?" Hansen said. Even without the artificial intelligence—and Walker—Hansen's internal clock could have given the time to within five minutes; but that wasn't anything Strombrand needed to know.

"And the herd's been wandering?" Strombrand boomed. "Well, don't just stand there, Donner! Round up the house slaves and get off after them!"

Sweat beaded on Donner's bald scalp as he wrung his hands together. "Oh, it'll never work," he moaned. "Those damned cattle, they like to stray, and by the time we get out there in the mud they'll all be gone!"

"Did I ask for an opinion?" demanded the android, balling a fist larger than Hansen's head.

"If all you're concerned with is getting back your cattle," Hansen said, "I can call them home for you."

All eyes in the room focused on him.

"Clever, clever Hansen," Walker whispered in his ears.

"Of course," Hansen continued, "there's something I need that you can help me with, Lord Strombrand. Shall we make a pact, you and I?"

The android seated himself again. His right index finger tapped the arm of his throne. It sounded like a maul striking a chopping block.

"What sort of pact?" he asked.

"There's a question I want to ask your brother's data bank," Hansen said. "Will you help me get the chance to ask it?"

Strombrand's great brows drew down in a scowl. "That?" he said. "It's not Strelbrand's, it's all of ours, from when we came here. He'll never give you permission, no matter what I say."

"That's not the deal," Hansen said. "I call your cattle back . . . and you use your best efforts to allow me to ask one question of the data bank. Your oath on that?"

"Oaths have power here on Northworld . . . ," Walker said, repeating one of the first things he'd told Hansen on the snow-covered bluff.

Strombrand knuckled his broad jaw. "All right," he said.

The android stood up, more deliberately than he had before but no less threateningly. "But I'm not interested in best efforts, stranger. If you don't bring back my whole herd, you'll provide the main course for my dinner tonight. Do you understand?"

"Oh, yes," Hansen said with a cold grin. "I understand you very well, Lord Strombrand."

See to it that you understand me, he thought; and that was not a boast.

 

Walker's signals prodded the herd of edaphosaurs home while Hansen stood in the muddy courtyard whistling bars from In the Baggage Coach Ahead. Later that afternoon as Hansen climbed into an aircar to be taken to the estate of Strombrand's brother, he noticed the chief slave Donner leaning close to one of the sailbacks.

Donner was whistling earnestly, hoping to see some flicker of interest in the reptilian eyes.

 

Strelbrand's palace was identical to that of his brother.

Strelbrand himself was Strombrand's mirror image; his wife, as broad as either man with two pairs of arms and legs, was still more hideous.

And Strelbrand's reaction to his brother's request was just as Strombrand had warned.

"What?" the seated android boomed. "Is there madness in our batch, Strombrand, that you'd think of asking me this thing? No! No, of course not!"

Strombrand was as defensive as a spider in another spider's web. He hunched his shoulders as if accepting a weight. "I'm oathbound to ask you, brother," he said. He didn't look back at Hansen, who stood at his heel.

"Well, then I'm oathbound to tell you you're crazy, brother," Strelbrand said. "You know how much North and his lot'd like to get into that bank!"

"I was oathbound," Strombrand said; almost a repetition of his earlier words.

Strelbrand rose to his pillarlike legs. The dais under his throne stood put his head higher than that of his brother. "Tell your oath-lord, Strombrand," he said, "that I alone can enter the chamber."

Strelbrand's wife whispered something into his ear.

"And my daughter Acca, of course," the android chieftain added. He grinned like the earth cracking open. "But she can't enter it, because she can't leave, can she?"

The laughter of the crowd followed Strombrand and Hansen back into the courtyard.

"I told you so," the android muttered to the human as they got into the open aircar.

"So you did," agreed Hansen. "So we'll come back tonight, to the tunnel beyond the walls that leads to the chamber holding the data bank."

Strombrand paused. "You know about that?" he said in something between threat and wonder.

"Go on, lift off," replied Hansen. He smiled. "And yes, I know a lot of things. I know that you'll keep your oath to me tonight, don't I?"

Strombrand slammed his throttles against their stops to lift in the muggy air. The monstrous android couldn't possibly have been afraid of the expression he saw on Hansen's face.

 

The night was as warm and humid as midday. A haze of light seemed to cling to the thick atmosphere. Strombrand set his aircar down on the riverbank with a squelch.

Bubbles from the rotting vegetation rose in a series of muted belches.

They'd landed next to a metal plate two and a half meters in diameter. It would have been almost invisible by daylight, but the mud covering the metal had a faint phosphorescence which emphasized the unnatural circularity. Strelbrand's mansion wasn't far off, but the mist would have hidden it even if the sun were up.

"This is the correct location," Walker whispered approvingly in Hansen's earphones.

"Very good, oath-brother," Hansen said to the huge android. "Now, if you'll just open the tunnel and turn off the protective systems, I'll say we're quits."

Strombrand looked at his passenger. "Who are you?" he growled.

A small lizard in the reed-choked stream raised its head at the sound, then dived beneath the surface with a quick thrust of its broad forelegs.

"I'm the man who whistled your cattle back," said Hansen. "Shall we go?"

Strombrand cursed like thunder and got out. The vehicle slurped from side to side as he moved. He adjusted the sling holding the nozzle of his laser. The powerpack on his back would have required a separate vehicle before a normal man could have moved it.

"If I'd known what you were going to want," the android said, feeling through the muck for the handle, "I'd never have made the oath."

Hansen said nothing.

Insects bumbled into them and buzzed away again: tiny wasps which sipped plant juices for want of nectar in this flowerless world, and biting flies adapted to the cold-blooded sailbacks and their kin, uninterested in the human and android after a preliminary sniff.

Hansen saw iridescent motion against the lights of the instrument panel; he snatched left-handed. Furious wings burred against his palm and closed fingers.

At least he hadn't lost his speed.

The door lifted with a horrible sucking noise. The light from within diffused above the entrance. Strombrand gestured downward. "There you go, then,"

Hansen got out of the vehicle. "After you," he said with a gesture of his own. "You still have to disengage the automatic defenses."

"I didn't promise to die for you!" the android shouted. "If there's a risk, it's yours to take."

"But there isn't any risk for you, Strombrand," Hansen replied mildly, pointing toward the opening with his right index finger. "Because the defenses think you're your brother, so you can turn them off. As you and I both know."

A great-throated carnivore sent a grunting bellow up from deep in the swamp, responding to Strombrand's voice. The big android cursed and plunged into the tunnel.

From outside the entrance, the tunnel appeared to drop straight into the earth. Strombrand was walking as though one edge of the circle were down. With each step, his body rotated another few degrees around the axis of the tunnel.

Golden light from the far end suffused the interior. It winked softly from the android's jewelry and the bright fittings of his laser pack.

Strombrand's broad body shrank faster than distance should have required. Ripples formed between the android and Hansen as though Strombrand were crossing hot sand.

Sparks suddenly enveloped the center of the tunnel. Strombrand paused, lapped in blue fire. He took another step forward and manipulated a switch in the wall. The sparks died away; the curtain which had seemed to fall over the tunnel lifted.

Strombrand continued walking. Hansen slowly released his breath. A second gout of sparks surged over the android so fiercely that the man waiting outside the tunnel felt his own hair lift.

Again Strombrand walked on through. His huge body had shrunk to the size of a marmoset in the center of the golden ambiance.

He reached the end of the tunnel and waved a tiny arm back at Hansen.

"Go," said Walker. "But be careful."

"Go teach your grandmother to suck eggs," Hansen said evenly as he stepped into the tunnel and felt a surge of buoyant energy wrap him.

There was no feeling of vertigo or disorientation as Hansen strode toward Strombrand. Once the human looked over his shoulder to see whether the rotation he'd noticed from the outside was evident from this viewpoint; but there was only mist at the tunnel entrance—and anyway, it was a foolish thing to consider now anyway.

Strombrand grew to his full misshapen enormity. The door behind him was the source of the golden light. He gestured toward it with a hand the size of a power shovel and said, "All right. I've opened the way for you. You and I are quits now."

Hansen opened his left hand. The wasp he held buzzed from him, seeking the light. It touched the surface of the door and disintegrated in a flood of golden radiance.

Hansen smiled. "Open the door for me, oath brother," he said.

Strombrand's shadowed eyes were pools of black fury. He thrust at the center of the door.

There was a loud click. The glow lighting the tunnel shut off, but the door panel swung slightly ajar and a degree of illumination crept around its circular margin.

"My oath is kept," Strombrand said. "Acca will deal with you—but that's no concern of mine."

He strode back along the darkened tunnel without waiting for Hansen's reply.

"It is safe, now," said Walker.

Hansen touched the metal panel gingerly. It was warm and as massive as a vault door—but the android's touch had disengaged its defenses.

Hansen leaned his weight against the doorleaf. For a moment, inertia withstood his thrust; then the circle of light around the panel began to widen.

"Stranger!" Strombrand called from the end of the tunnel. His powerful voice was attenuated by more than distance. "I've opened the way for you. I've kept my oath!"

Hansen looked over his shoulder. The android was sighting down the nozzle of his laser.

"Don't move!" Walker ordered in a tone of absolute command. Hansen froze. His eyes and mouth were open, waiting. . . .

The laser blast was a corkscrew of green light curling down the walls of the tunnel instead of following the straight path along the axis to Hansen's heart. His eyes tracked the bolt's helical progress, though at light speed there should have been no sensory impression except the shock through all his nerves as the center of his chest vaporized. . . .

The blast of coherent light struck and rebounded from the door between Hansen's chest and right arm. Steam puffed from the sweaty fabric of his sleeve. Because the door was ajar, the bolt caromed a dozen times from the walls of the tunnel as it flashed back to the entrance.

Strombrand's body ignited in a crackling green dazzle. His scream was terrible but very brief.

Hansen blinked and rubbed the bare skin of his cheek which prickled from the actinic glare.

"Walker," he said. "What does she look like? Acca?"

"Does it matter?" the machine voice responded.

Hansen shrugged. "I suppose not."

Walker's laughter clicked. "Go on, Kommissar," he said. "Go on. We've come this far."