i e4a5a8edf2d8eda0 (31 page)

weapons that she had taken from the skeletal bodies. After experimentation, she had found

only one of them that still had any charge left—but she would use it to make a good

accounting of herself. A last stand.

She stood bravely, holding the weapon in her trembling hands as the rest of the wall

dissolved into a curtain of boiling rock and metal steam. Something large and dark came

rumbling through.

«
^
»

With the disintegrator beam playing ahead of the car, Jommy drove into dense strata through

new tunnels of his own making. A straight line down into the secret base, where he hoped to

rally hundreds of surviving slans.

They followed the beacon signal, listening to the repeated recording of his father’s voice.

The car rumbled along fused rock, going deeper and deeper. Jommy was eager to find the

underground slan society, to reunite with a whole settlement of his people and convince them

to help save the Earth.

If necessary, he would act as their leader, convince them to gather their weapons—maybe

they all had disintegrator tubes, like his own. Together they could rush back to the summit

meeting at Granny’s ranch and make a show of strength that Jem Lorry would never suspect.

With sufficient persuasion, they could make the tendrilless come to terms that would allow

survival for all the races of humanity.

Rarely in his life had he known so precisely where he was supposed to go. The first slan

hideout he’d discovered, years ago, was full of wonders, heavy machinery, and stored records,

but it was empty of the people he so desperately sought.
Somebody
had to be in the

tremendous complex up ahead, since someone had activated the distress beacon. He counted

on finding new allies who could help him and explain what had happened to the rest of the

slan race.

Jommy broke through a thick curved wall and drove his car forward, switching off the

front-mounted disintegrator weapon. If necessary, he could always collapse the tunnel behind

him to seal and protect the buried redoubt again. For now, he felt this was the only way he

could get to the hideout swiftly enough.

Once he drove the car into the giant underground complex, melting through the steel

plates, he brought the vehicle to a halt. He and Joanna emerged from the car filled with a sense

of wonder, expecting to find a large greeting party.

Instead, he faced a haggard-looking woman pointing a weapon at them. One woman. The

rest of the facility seemed deserted.

Jommy stepped forward, raising his hands, trying to be calm. “You have nothing to fear

from us.” He took a gamble. “We’re slans. This is a slan place.”

The woman had hard blue eyes and an intelligent expression. Her hair was strawberry

blonde, her cheekbones high, and her nose pointed. Her lips barely moved as she spoke.

“Prove to me who you are.”

But Jommy no longer had tendrils, and Joanna had not been born with them. “I

understand your fear. My parents were both slans, and both of them were killed by the secret

police. I know what it’s like, whatever happened to you.”

Joanna remained at his side. “Tell us what you’re doing here. How did you find this place?”

Her grip on the weapon was unwavering. “I received … instructions. An ancient beacon

calling me here.”

“And so did we. I followed the signal, a homing message that comes from here. It

originated with my father.” He saw her expression change. “His name was Peter Cross.”

“Peter Cross?” Her shoulders slumped, and she finally lowered her weapon. “And I’m

Anthea … Anthea Stewart. I have a baby, a newborn. He’s got tendrils. I don’t know how,

because neither my husband nor myself are slans. I don’t understand it.”

Jommy felt his heart swell. He stepped forward, looking at the amazing expanse of the

underground complex. “I had hoped to discover other slans here, but maybe I’ll find what I

need regardless.”

*

*

*

After they had introduced themselves and briefly told their stories, Joanna busied herself in

the communications room to study the progress of the approaching occupation fleet.

Meanwhile, Jommy explored the remarkable base. Each step he took through the amazing

chambers and laboratory rooms filled him with awe and anticipation. He felt he could learn

something important from each document or piece of machinery. Though he was disappointed

to find no large settlement of hidden slans, the other wealth of information was significant.

Anthea came up behind him, standing at a doorway. “I have something to show you.

Something from Peter Cross.”

He hadn’t even noticed her watching him. He felt so helpless and blind without his tendrils.

“Yes!”

She led him to the table where she had arranged a video viewer and a stack of old film

loops. She activated the player and stepped back while Peter Cross gave his moving speech.

Jommy listened with tears in his eyes, looking again and again at the image of a man he barely

remembered. His mother had told him that her husband had been killed when Jommy was

only six. Fortunately, she and the boy hadn’t been with him. On the projected image, Jommy

could see echoes of himself in the older man’s handsome face.

The recorded voice sounded achingly familiar, much clearer than in the Porgrave

transmission. “I will never stop my work,” Dr. Cross said. The words struck directly at

Jommy’s heart. “Not until I succeed in making a better world so that my wife and baby son no

longer have to live in fear.”

He played each one of the recordings three times, though he had instantly memorized

them. He found his father’s voice and his image to be strangely comforting and compelling.

Marshalling his courage and his determination, Jommy went to the boxes of bones that

Anthea had gathered. She had been careful to mark the location of each body and noted any

details. Jommy could only imagine the battle that had occurred here.

He stopped in front of the box that, as far as he could tell, contained what was left of his

father. He looked down at the skull, trying to imagine the man’s features. After all his

searching, Jommy was finally at home, but this wasn’t the home he had been looking for.

«
^
»

The pulse beacon continued to send out its insistent signal, calling any slans, but Jommy had

begun to lose hope that more of his comrades would arrive. It would be up to them.

Before he could plan his next step, he and Joanna needed to assess all the equipment and

weapons available in the redoubt. How could it help President Gray? He couldn’t begin to

understand the large banks of twirling discs and blinking lights, the powerful generators and

the purported “life imprint” machinery that dated back to the days of the first slans. He

studied his father’s notes again, thought about the single disintegrator tube he possessed.

Though it was a formidable weapon, it wasn’t enough to take back an entire conquered planet.

He needed far more help than that.

But where were all the slans?

Together, the three of them listened to the staccato radio reports and wireless bursts from

small groups of survivors. They told horrific stories of human renegades and tendrilless

squadrons who shot humans for the mere sport of it. As usual, everything was blamed on the

“evil slans.” Anthea wept, as much for her murdered husband as for the future of her baby.

Joanna tried to comfort her. “I wouldn’t believe all those reports, Miss. For years the

tendrilless distorted and manufactured news reports. They’re doing the same thing now.

Notice nobody is reporting about the tendrilless? Not a single broadcast.”

Jommy called them over to a large set of external screens in the monitoring room. The

slow-moving force of enormous wheel-shaped battleships cruised inexorably closer,

atomic-powered disks filled with armaments and tendrilless soldiers. The images were crystal

clear, disturbingly close to the approaching armada. It was enough to strike cold fear into any

observer.

Anthea’s face was gray with dismay. “You mean the fleet that attacked us in the first place

was just a … a warmup exercise?”

Joanna’s lips formed a bitter smile. “The tendrilless have been planning this takeover for a

very long time. They didn’t just want to win the battle, but to exterminate every one of their

enemies.” She spoke as if she no longer considered herself part of her race.

Jommy was puzzled by another question, though. “Where are these images coming from?

The tendrilless wouldn’t be broadcasting this, and it’s certainly not a news broadcast from out

in space—” He turned dials, scanned through the available visiplates, then he smiled. “These

are our own satellites, watchdog probes. The true slans must have put up a monitoring

network as well! Look, these pictures are from sentry probes beyond the orbit of the Moon.”

The great slow ships cruised by, filling the view, not knowing—or else not caring—that

they were observed. Each vessel looked large enough to swallow a building. The decks were

marked by twinkling lights.

Joanna measured the speed and finished her calculations. “They should be here within two

days. That’s what the Authority projected.”

“Then that’s how much time we have.” Anthea sounded determined rather than panicked.

“What are we going to do?”

Jommy decided he would scour through all of his father’s laboratory notes, maybe race

back to Granny’s ranch to get the rest of the journals—and bring Kathleen and President Gray

with him. Perhaps all together …

Suddenly new alarms screeched through speakers in the underground base. He and Joanna

scoured the numerous visiplates, switching to local scanners and trying to discover the source

of the warning. In the past when this underground base had been fully occupied by slans,

whole groups must have monitored these stations, constantly manning the hideout’s defenses.

Joanna finally discovered the reason for the alarm. “It’s another ship approaching,

Jommy… high-technology configuration, an advanced model that I’ve never seen before.”

“A secret tendrilless weapon? Another air raid?”

“It doesn’t look like something the Cimmerium shipyards would build.” She worked with

the visiplates, trying to switch through any still-functioning cameras implanted in the city

buildings, though many of the lenses were now dark, buried under the rubble of collapsed

skyscrapers. “Ah, here it is!”

Finally, she locked on and increased the magnification as a silver and red ship streaked in,

burning hot like a spear point just taken out of a forge. “Looks dangerous—and it’s homing in

on our location—no doubt about it!”

Anthea’s face was both frightened and angry. “Have we been discovered?”

The image sharpened as the ship turned about and fired blazing orange retrorockets to slow

its descent. As it lowered upon a pillar of fire into the ruins of the city very close to the base’s

access point, Jommy laughed with blessed relief. “We’re not under attack! That’s a

rocket-plane—my rocket-plane. I left it in a hangar at Granny’s ranch.”

On the screen, the rocket-plane had landed and, as it cooled, the hatch opened. A thousand

questions filled Jommy’s mind as his heart swelled. He saw Kathleen and the President emerge

and immediately guessed that something terrible had happened at the summit. He didn’t

know why they had come here, or what they had been through, but now they had two more

allies.

He was already sprinting toward the hidden lift and its controls. “I’m going up there myself

to meet them.”

*

*

*

Safe again deep below ground, Jommy held Kathleen in his arms. The girl felt wonderful. “I

thought you were dead, Jommy! Oh, I was sure of it—your thoughts were cut off. The last

image was pain, such agony that I couldn’t stand it! And then nothing.”

When Kathleen had seen that his tendrils were sheared off, she began to sob and clung to

him even more tightly. He squeezed her and tried to calm her shudders. Her tendrils were

alert, able to pick up any thoughts—but he was a blank to her. He would always be a blank