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they are friends of those whose destiny we once controlled. Their destiny was our destiny, and now that
control has slipped through our fingers."
"We can still try to strike a deal with them," Antal insisted. "We can hold out till the regular supply ship
arrives."
"Don't be a fool." They had reached the cleared area which fronted the entrance to the installation. As
they watched, the huge door rolled up into the solid rock, admitting them to the complex beyond. "We
are finished here. The project is finished. They will communicate with the authorities. We will not be given
time to reach our own relief ship. Now if there was a way to disable their skimmer& "
"Not a chance. They've got rifles down there. They can sit around and pick off anyone, human or Tran,
who tries to get close."
"As I feared." They were inside the complex now. Curious engineers and technicians looked up from
their work as their supervisors walked past. Corfu was already getting hot, but he followed anyway. He
had nowhere else to go.
"There's got to be something we can do," Antal muttered. "If they take us back, it means mindwipe at
least."
"Better to die. The body lives on but the soul perishes."
Antal eyed him askance. "What do you mean, 'soul'? Mindwiping just removes whatever the psytechs
identify as criminal tendencies. When it's over you're still the same person you were when you went in."
Bamaputra was shaking his head. "Are you so credulous as to believe the government's propaganda?
They leave you enough to function -with, but you arenot the same person. Something vital has been
taken away."
"Sure. The criminal part. Just the criminal part."
"But we are not criminals, you and I. We are visionaries. I do not think I could stand to lose the
visionary part of myself."
The foreman frowned, but Bamaputra appeared to be completely in control of himself. "Yeah, well, I'll
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take care of securing the station, making an announcement about what's happened and what we can
expect. There's only the pedestrian entrance and the cargo dock to seal. No matter how much portable
firepower they can bring to bear I still think we can keep 'em out long enough to do some bargaining.
Meanwhile you can start shutting stuff down."
"Shutting down, yes, of course," Bamaputra murmured softly. "There are records to destroy, chips to
erase, people to protect." He turned on Antal so sharply that the foreman jumped in spite of himself.
"Whatever you do, do not negotiate with this September person. Try to talk to the scientists. If we are
fortunate, there may be a government official among them. Such types will go to almost any length to
avoid bloodshed. I will see to the pumps and reactors while you brief the staff."
"Got it." They separated, leaving behind a confused and panting Corfu ren-Arhaveg.
Only much later did Antal reflect on his supervisor's words. Seeing to the pumps and reactors did not
necessarily mean shutting such systems down.
* * *
There was some desultory resistance put up by the ragtag imperial armed forces of Yingyapin. It didn't
last long. Spears and swords weren't much of a match for beamers and energy rifles. Despite the pleas of
Hunnar and Elf a, Colette directed her troops to shoot only to wound. After all, as Hwang explained to
her, the citizens of Yingyapin were as much victims of the visiting humans' deceit as anyone aboard the
Slanderscree . Once the truth could be explained to them they should become useful members of the
expanding Tran union.
When the last soldier had dropped his weapons and fled, those on board the skimmer considered what
to do next. Iriole was studying the entrance to the buried installation through a monocular.
"Door looks pretty solid. I'm not sure we can blast our way past."
"We shouldn't have to," said September. "They know it's in their best interests to surrender peacefully.
They can't go anywhere. The threat of busting in should be sufficient to induce the lower echelons, at
least, to come out with their hands in the air. Can the skimmer make the climb?"
Skimmers were designed to travel no more than thirty meters above a solid surface. They were not
designed for ascending steep inclines. They were not aircraft. Still, if they moved slowly, Iriole thought
they might be able to make it to the level area fronting the entrance. He looked to his employer for
instructions.
"Let's give it a try."
Ethan put his arm around her. Somehow it seemed the right thing to do. Didn't feel bad, either.
"Everybody take a seat and strap down," Iriole told them. "We're going to tilt some and I don't want
anybody falling out."
When the awkward climb had been accomplished and they landed outside the massive doorway,
Grurwelk Sees-far wanted to go back down and make the exhilarating ascent all over again.
"Mr. Antal, sir?"
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The foreman turned to the young technician who'd barged in on him. "What is it? I'm busy?"
"I think you'd better come with me, sir."
"Can't. I'm trying to do a dozen things at once right now. Didn't you hear me over the com system?
Don't you know what's going on?"
"Yes, sir. But I still think you'd better come with me. It's Mr. Bamaputra, sir."
He removed his right hand from the sensor screen and turned to her. "What about Mr. Bamaputra?" he
asked quietly.
"You'd better come quick, sir." That's when he noticed that she was so frightened she was shaking.
A crowd had gathered outside the central control room. It contained the master panels for programming
reactor output. Armored glass enclosed it on all four sides, standard protection for the sensitive heart of
the installation. Except for Bamaputra the room was deserted. It was also locked from the inside.
A single speaker was set in the glass next to the transparent door. "Shiva, what are you doing in there?"
The supervisor turned to smile back at him. "Preserving a vision, perhaps. Surely you recall our
discussion wherein we talked about greatly accelerating the melting of the ice?"
The technician who had fetched Antal pointed into the room. As the foreman scanned the readouts she'd
indicated the small hairs on the back of his neck began to tense. The figures he read belonged only in
manuals, not on green screens. They continued climbing even as he stared.
"Shiva, you're going to overload the whole system! You've probably gone beyond several limits already.
You need to let us in so we can emergency override and shut the system down."
"If we do that now, we will not be able to start up again," Bamaputra explained quietly. "I have ample
food and water in here with me. I really can't allow override and shutdown at this point. It would interfere
with the vision.
"I believe you underestimate the system's integrity. It will hold at these levels and we will accomplish fifty
years' work in a few months. I am counting on you to bargain with these people to buy me that much
time."
"You're going to blow the whole place!"
"I am not. Talk to the engineers."
Frantically the foreman sought out one of the installation's chief techs, asked her for an unbiased
appraisal.
"He's right," the woman said. "Nothing will explode. It will melt. Not just the reactor cores: everything. If
containment fails, there'll be a short, quick release of heat. It will dissipate rapidly."
"How much heat?"
She didn't bat an eye. "Millions of degrees."
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"What do you think the chances are of maintaining containment?"
The woman turned to the older man standing behind her. His jaw and neck displayed the marks of an
addict. "I'd say about one in ten."
Antal whirled back to the speaker. "Did you hear that? Your chances of bringing this off are one in ten."
"A better chance than a Commonwealth court would give us."
"The opposite side of that," the foreman shouted, beyond frustration now, "means there's a ninety [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
