Star Bridge Part 16

"No, no," she said frantically. "That was one of the things Duchane kept asking me. He kept saying, 'Tell me the secret and I'll let you go.' I thought he was going mad. We all knew the secret."

"Then he was up here, too," Horn mused. "He tried the switch. He knew it didn't work."

"Perhaps there is a secret," Wu said softly, "that even the Directors do not know."

Wendre moved in Horn's arms. "Help me, Matal," she pleaded. "You've been a Director longer than anyone. Surely you-"

"It's time the situation was clarified," Wu said. "Things are not always what they seem." He turned his back to them; his voice sounded oddly m.u.f.fled. "I want you to remember that we rescued you from Duchane at considerable risk to ourselves."

Horn had a premonition of disaster. "Wait!" he began.

"I am not Matal," Wu was saying. "I'm only an old man with a penchant for lost causes, a talent for disguise, and a thirst as big as the Empire."

He turned back. Wu faced them, his wrinkled face screwed up apologetically. With sudden and surprising strength Wendre pushed herself out of Horn's arms. Her narrowed eyes s.h.i.+fted without understanding from Wu to the bedraggled parrot sitting, head c.o.c.ked, on the old man's shoulder.

"I don't understand," she said breathlessly. She took several steps away. "If you're not Matal, who are you? Where did that bird come from? What-"

"Friends," Lil said in her cracked voice.

"Friends," Wu echoed.

"And you!" She whirled to face Horn. "If he's not Matal, you're no guard. What are you? Why have you brought me here?"

She turned away frantically and started across the room.

"Wendre!" Horn shouted. "Wait! Let me-" He was going to tell her then; he was going to say that he had killed her father, and all the rest. But she turned back, and it was too late.

Her eyes were wide and stricken. "You! Of course I recognized that voice! You're the a.s.sa.s.sin!"

She turned and fled toward the elevator door.

"Wendre!" Horn called again, despairingly.

"Boarders!" Lil screamed.

Horn spun around. It was too late even to reach for his gun. The black uniforms swarmed over him, entering like a flood from the gaping door. In a few seconds Horn was being dragged toward the door. He struggled to free his head, to look around.

Wu was beside him. Lil had disappeared. Horn glanced hopelessly over his shoulder.

A ragged, clay-faced rabble erupted through the other door, swept around Wendre, and waded with suicidal frenzy into the black forces.

THE HISTORY.

Vantee....

Prison Terminal. World of the condemned. Purgatory for lost souls, whose release was not suffering but death.

There was no escape from Vantee. Like Eron, the prison planetoid circled the feeble warmth of a dim, red sun. The nearest inhabited world was many light years away. Where in the Empire was Vantee? No one, not even the Warden himself, knew that. There was no help from outside.

There was one entrance to Vantee: the Tube. There was one building on Vantee: the grim, black fortress in which the Terminal was housed. There was no exit. The fortress had a name: Despair.

The fortress kept the prisoners out. They had freedom of a sort. Freedom to roam the barren surface, freedom to kill each other, freedom to die. Twice a day they gathered to eat at the troughs. Their only restraint was to stay on Vantee. It was enough; it was doom.

Not a thousandth part of those eligible for Vantee ever reached there, but it served its purpose. It was more effective in discouraging the prospective criminal, the incipient rebel, than the threat of death itself.

Many of the prisoners sat and looked at the golden Tube that rose from the black fortress and dwindled away into the night. Their thoughts might bridge the gap, but for them the Tube ran only one way. From Eron to Vantee. Vantee was the end.

It had been the end, rumor said, for Peter Sair. But men quickly lost their names.

Like the fortress, they were all named despair. What can bare hands do against walls a meter thick...?

15.

DEATH IS THE DOOR.

Weaponless, his pistol torn away, Horn was hustled down a wide corridor inlaid with tracks. He tried to pull free, to look back where Wendre had been, but it was futile. A pistol came down sharply against the side of his head. Horn staggered forward, fighting blackness, sagging in the hands that pulled him along.

Wu was sometimes alongside, sometimes behind. The guards took them a long way down the corridor while the sounds of fighting died behind. Horn had a long time to think and all he could think was: Duchane! Duchane!

Duchane had them and maybe the control room, too. Struggle was pointless. Wu was suffering his indignities with the resignation of a martyr. Horn decided to save his strength and start thinking again.

A giant door was gaping open at the right. The guards turned, took them into one of the towering Tube rooms. In the cradle was a small transport; a tall escalator was pressed against the dark oval in the s.h.i.+p's side. Wounded men were being helped up into the s.h.i.+p.

Horn and Wu were stopped in front of a hard-faced officer. There was an odd insignia on his shoulder, something black and squat and- "Matal's men, eh?" he said. "Where's Matal?"

Horn glanced at Wu, but the old man wasn't going to talk. Horn didn't see that it would get them anything but a beating and a quick death.

"He's dead," Horn said.

"Fenelon? Ronholm?"

"I think they're dead, too."

"Wendre Kohlnar?"

Horn shrugged.

"Duchane?"

Horn shrugged again, but behind his impa.s.sive face was a mind suddenly alive again. This man might be attached to Duchane's security forces, but he wasn't getting his orders direct from Duchane. Nor from any of the other Directors. The question was: who was he taking orders from?

"Take them away," the officer said. His nod to the guard in charge of their group was barely perceptible.

Horn knew what the nod meant. He tensed his muscles for a final struggle.

Suddenly the officer turned back. "Put them on the s.h.i.+p. Maybe the Warden will have a use for them."

The Warden! Horn stiffened as the guards pulled him toward the escalator. That was where the troops came from. That was where he was being taken. Vantee! Prison Terminal. In the long history of Eron, no prisoner had ever returned from his trip to Vantee. He couldn't go there. He had to find out what had happened to Wendre; she needed his help, and he would help her in spite of herself.

At the foot of the escalator, a convulsive twist tore his arms free. A chop with the hard edge of his palm crumpled one of the guards; a fist in the belly doubled up the other. He started to sprint toward the distant door. It wasn't as foolhardy as it seemed. The guards wouldn't dare shoot while he was dodging among the troops, and before the others became aware that someone was escaping, he would be through the door and away down the corridor.

Once there, his planning ended. He didn't need to think about it. As he pa.s.sed Wu, he stumbled. Something hit the back of his head. As the darkness spread behind his eyes, he had a dazed moment to wonder: Wu? Wu?

Someone was groaning in the blackness. Horn opened his eyes and listened. There was no sound. A feeble light beamed behind a sheet of thick, unbreakable gla.s.s in the low ceiling. He was strapped to a bunk. Dull thumps were transmitted to him through the walls.

He unsnapped the belts and sat up. The sudden movement shot bright, jagged pain through his head and down his spine. He groaned. The other groans had been his, too. He felt the lump on the back of his head; it had stopped bleeding.

The s.h.i.+p lurched. Horn grabbed the edge of the bunk to keep from falling. The sounds, the movements were familiar. The s.h.i.+p was settling into a cradle. They had put him on the transport he had tried to escape.

He remembered stumbling. Had Wu tripped him? Someone had, and Wu had been closest. Horn shook his head; pain brought instant regret. If it had been Wu, it was incredible; there was no reason for it.

He glanced around the room. It was a little, square box with four bunks in it. The three others were unoccupied. The door was locked; there was no window in it.

He was on Vantee, then. Escape-proof Vantee. He took a deep breath. That remained to be tested. Peter Sair was here. The only man, he had told Wendre, who could save the Empire from complete destruction. Everyone said that Sair was dead. At least he would have a chance of finding out the truth.

His waist felt unprotected and cold. He patted it and realized what was wrong. The money belt was gone; naturally it would be. Horn shrugged. That was the least of his worries; he would have given it all-all the kellons he had been paid for Kohlnar's a.s.sa.s.sination-for a gun. He had neither.

He was sitting on the bunk when they came for him. They were good. The door slid aside. Two pistols covered him. The faces behind them were cold and experienced. They wasted no words, no motions; they took no chances. But then they were used to dealing with desperate men.

As Horn came into the narrow corridor, they retreated, keeping a meter or so between them and Horn.

"That way," one of them said, nodding. "Start moving. We'll tell you when to stop."

Horn started moving. He was never close enough to anyone or anything to have a chance at escape. They wouldn't hesitate to shoot him down, and they'd shoot not to kill but to cripple. That, Horn knew, would be worse than death. He had no faith in the promises of Entropy; death would be final and with it would come the end of doubts and torments and regrets. To be alive and yet incapable of acting to change his circ.u.mstances was another thing; it was a thing Horn didn't care to face.

They descended from the s.h.i.+p in an escalator. Horn realized that the prison s.h.i.+p was only a shuttle; the cradles at each end were fixed, and the s.h.i.+p never left them. It had no reason to.

They walked through the Tube room, which was only big enough to contain the slow movements of the Terminal mechanism as it followed the apparent movement of Eron. They walked down a long corridor, through a doorway, and into a luxurious office. Horn had no attention for it; he was looking at the man behind the huge, black desk.

The man was a curious contradiction: he was a big man, bigger than Horn by many kilograms and centimeters, and a barbarian; his eyes were hard and calculating; but time seemed to have blurred his outlines. His face and body were those of an athlete after his active days were over; he had grown fat and soft, but inside there was still an iron core.

This could be no one but the Warden, keeper of the Empire's enemies: her criminals, her traitors, her rebels. Of these, only the worst; Vantee received only a real elite.

It was logical that the Warden and his guards would be part of Duchane's Security forces, and the black uniforms supported the logic with data. It was likely, however, that the Warden had received no orders or, if some had slipped through, was ignoring them. Chaos offers every ambitious man a golden opportunity.

The Warden would not be troubled by ideals. As a barbarian, he would never have climbed so high with such a burden. His attempt to seize the north cap and the main control room seemed like his own idea. If Duchane was able to smother the fires of rebellion in blood, the Warden could name a high price for his help. If Duchane fell-well, other barbarians had seized an empire and held it for their own.

The Warden's shrewd, dark eyes sized up Horn. "Watch him! He is a dangerous man."

Behind Horn, the guards s.h.i.+fted, one to each side. Now they could shoot through Horn without endangering their commander.

"So," the Warden rumbled, leaning back in a giant chair, "Matal is dead."

"That's what I was told," Horn said calmly.

"And Fenelon and Ronholm, too."

"It's probable. I didn't see them die."

Horn caught the flicker of the Warden's eyes as he glanced down and back up. Horn s.h.i.+fted his position casually.

"Don't move!" the Warden snapped. "Kohlnar, too," he continued. "They haven't caught the a.s.sa.s.sin."

Horn realized that he was standing on or in some kind of lie detector. His instinct to tell the truth when a lie wouldn't help had been right; as long as he stuck to literal truth, he gained an advantage. "No," he said.

"Of the original six, only Wendre and Duchane are left. Who is General Manager?"

This one was a question, not a statement to be verified. "Duchane," Horn said.

"That's logical," the Warden said. "But can he keep it?"

"It's doubtful."

"Why not?"

"At the top, they're fighting among themselves. The troops and guards are battling each other. The lower levels are rising. Eron is in flames. Only one man can stop it short of total destruction."

"Who?"

"Peter Sair."

"He's dead."

The statement was quick and flat. For the first time, Horn's stubborn conviction that the Liberator still lived was shaken. This man should know, but then he had no reason to tell the truth. Horn wished he could sneak a glance at the instrument the Warden had behind his disk.

"Do you think my men can take and hold the control room?" the Warden asked.

"Not a chance," Horn said quickly, firmly.

"I should be there," the Warden growled to himself. "How can I trust that- Three hours away! Who was the old man captured with you?"

Horn blinked; the question had caught him by surprise. "Matal's steward," he said hastily.

"That's a lie."

Horn shrugged. "He said his name was Wu."

"Where is he?" the Warden snapped.

Horn looked blank. "Why ask me?"