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control chamber Gwen twitched her ears forward to pick up his voice, then glanced over at the display
monitors.
"I think you're right," she said. "Get—"
CRACK.
The noise was deafening even here in the control chamber. The tragus clamped automatically
across the opening of her ears to protect the sensitive inner mechanisms. Humans screamed down on the
floor, clutching their hands to either side of their heads.
From within the center of the inner ring a thread of light too intense to see speared upward, cutting
through the roof with hardly even a spark as the steel flashed into its constituent atoms and the atoms were
stripped to ions. It was thinner than a thread, Gwen realized as she flung up a hand and glanced away,
blinking at the line of darkness scored across her sight. She opened the door and stepped out onto the new
metal of the catwalk, past a Haitian bawling in panic and fumbling with his heavy Barrett .50 sniper rifle.
Thinner than a thread and utterly rigid. The source was—her mind and transducer did quick
calculations—a spot 7.32 meters above the exact center of the inner ring. Head height for her, now that she
was out on the catwalk that spanned the transposition circle.
Her breath was fast and heavy; she controlled it, and throttled back the beating of her heart.
Below the thread of energy a spot opened. It swelled outward into a perfect circle a meter wide,
and then flashed from silver to transparent.
"Well met," she breathed to the one who stood there. "Glory to the Race."
"Service to the State," Alexis Renston replied. "Sorry for the side effect," he went on, pointing
upward to the beam. "Energetic particle byproduct."
The Archon was in a suit of powered infantry armor; it mimicked his form a few millimeters out,
flexible as liquid and as strong as anything in the universe, set to a shiny jet-black at the moment. Molded
lumps and protrusions told of engines concealed within, and weapons deadly enough to savage whole cities.
It slid from face and hands as he tilted his head back slightly to take in Gwen, then glanced around at the
interior of the warehouse. Behind him she could see others, and the hulking hyena-ape forms of ghouloons.
The background was Reichart Station, but the forest beyond it had been cleared and the surface smoothed.
Machines rested on it, waiting, and more hovered in the sky. The heavy iron was ready.
"I see you haven't been idle," the Archon said.
"Nor have you," she said.
There was a servus off to one side, operating some equipment. Ah, Tolya. The servus physicist
looked . . . younger. Well, she deserved the ultimate reward.
datadump,
she commanded her transducer. There was a barely subliminal hum along her nerves
as it sent/received data at a rate far too high for conscious reflection. But it would be there, and here, when
needed.
"Timeframe?" she went on, while the machines spoke to each other.
"This molehole is barely at the atomic scale," Renston said. "Proof-of-concept. Scaleup is
proceeding rapidly and shouldn't present any problems, provided you keep the beacon in operation.
Planetary Archon Ingolfsson," he added. They both wolf-grinned at the essential clarification of status.
"News?"
"The Samothracians attacked, with moleholes in place. We stopped them, but only just. We're
making excellent progress on our own moleholes for interstellar travel."
"Gravitational effects . . . slipslide?"
"Exactly. Deeper into the solar gravity well than the Oort, and you go sideways. Very high energy
costs, too."
"Acknowledged. I suggest we break off until you can establish full contact. The situation here's a
little delicate; the enemy sent an operative through. He'll detect the spike . . . even the natives will detect it,
and that could be awkward."
"Confirmed," Renston replied. His eyes had a slightly detached look, that of someone reviewing
transducer-linked data. "Ahhh, good hunting there, grandmother."
"Very good. See you soon."
CRACK
The thread of intolerable light disappeared, leaving nothing but the ringing in her ears and the
memory of heat and light. With it went the holographic window. The humans were babbling and rushing
about, some screaming or weeping, others exultant. Gwen stood rock-still; she'd have to see to them, but
not in this instant of purest joy.
"I'll see you all, my brothers, my sisters," she whispered. "And we shall hunt together, forever."
***
Across New York, static seared radio and television. Instruments jumped and computers stuttered,
data scrambled on electromagnetic disks. And nearly a million eyes saw a spike of intolerable fire slamming
into the sky above Manhattan, like a line of blue-white light reaching into space and scoring the face of the
moon. For six seconds it hung above the city.
When it ended, darkness fell as overloaded transformers shattered and exploded in fountains of
sparks.
***
"What the hell?"
Carmaggio jumped up from the sofa. Jennifer stayed, but turned her red-rimmed eyes around while
her handful of Kleenex fell unnoticed to her lap. The apartment lights flickered wildly, and the telephone
rang—a single long note that went on and on. The computer in the corner of the living room switched itself
on, flashed system error, and died. Then the lights followed with an abrupt finality; but the blackness that
followed was only partial. An actinic blue-white light lit it, reflected off buildings and through windows.
Thunder boomed in the distance.
Jennifer came to her feet. The two humans clutched at each other. For five long seconds the
unnatural lightning-light lasted, until true darkness fell.
"What was that?" she asked.
"The end of the world, unless we're very lucky," Carmaggio said.
He fumbled in his pocket and pushed the tiny button into his ear.
". . . working," Lafarge's voice—or his machine's—sounded. "The enemy has made a
breakthrough. It's not a full-scale molehole but we can expect that soon. I'm coming to—"
The door burst open. A man-shape walked through, then lit to cast a background luminescence. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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