The Enigma Score (47 page)

The troops who had just arrived at the Great Blue Tooth, Horizon Loomer, Mighty Hand, the Presence humankind called the East Jammer, had not received any order that countermanded the original one. They set up and got off several very well aimed shells, which knocked a few large chunks off the Jammer. Gyre-birds rose in a whirling, agitated cloud. The ground shook. The men cheered. The Jammer cheered in return, its enormous voice increasing in volume and rising in pitch. The troops found themselves groveling on the ground, hands over ears, screaming at the noise, which did not end until they stopped moving altogether.

Rage had led the Jammer to this unplanned retaliation. Quiet malice led it to communicate the success of the tactic to all other Presences.

At the foot of the Black Tower, one of the giligees whom Jamieson had saved ran frantically among the Tripsingers and Explorers whose sniper fire had successfully kept the troopers at bay.

‘Highmost Darkness wants you to move away,’ it squeaked in their ears, so excited by the action that it could no longer maintain calm song. ‘Black Tower wants you to move. Fast, away, away.’

‘They’ll destroy it,’ grated one of the Tripsingers, wiping blood from his forehead where a flying crystal chip had cut him. They had managed to hold the gunners at bay. They had managed to kill a good many of them. The Colonel who had set off the shell that had killed Jamieson had left some time ago, marching hastily away toward the south with a handful of men, but he had left enough men behind to pound the Tower to rubble once they got close enough.

‘No. Black Tower won’t let them. It knows how, now, but you must go away. Quickly. Eastward, back into the ranges. Go, and cover your ears.’

The defenders fled, covering their ears as they had been directed. The sound began almost immediately, a painful intensity of sound, and they increased their speed to get away from it as soon as possible. As they got farther away, the sound increased and went on increasing, always only bearable, and they did not stop running.

The troopers, who had not been given permission to run, were soon unfitted for further attack. Some of the weapons detonated by themselves, quite harmlessly so far as the Tower was concerned, though the recumbent and unconscious men would not have agreed.

Thereafter, there was no more destruction.

The CHASE Commission, delayed by explosions in the city, which rocked the building they were in and blanketed the participants with dust, convened belatedly at noon for the sole purpose of announcing their findings.

Sentience: of two types.
Human persons, including their livestock and crops
are to be allowed to remain on Jubal
only at the invitation of the sentient species.

The commission members relaxed. It was done. Facing a corner, the iron-jawed man silently chewed his lips, relieved that he need no longer stand almost alone. If certain people wanted their money back, they’d have to whistle for it. He didn’t have it anymore. One and then another of the members began moving toward the doors. Now if they could only get off the planet.

To the east of and far below the piled rubble of the BDL building, Harward Justin awoke to an almost darkness, a cavernous, echoing emptiness in which shadows moved and gathered. After an unfocused time of half consciousness, he began to concentrate on the light. He could see several flickers from where he lay, dancing light that gleamed from along the floor and walls. Fires. Small fires. Nothing dangerous. Nothing threatening. He tried to get up and found himself pinned by one arm. The car had overturned, throwing him clear except for the right arm. He struggled to drag himself free and almost fainted from the pain that surged through his shoulder and chest. Something there was injured, broken….

He was in the garage, he told himself. He had come back into the garage, and then the rockets had gone off. The garage was still intact. Of course, he had built it and the tunnel to take anything except a direct hit from something major – something nuclear, perhaps. He stared at the flickering light. Perhaps they were electrical fires. By squirming a little he could see a narrow and broken line of light in one direction – the large doors through which he had driven the car, now fallen almost closed and partly buried. In the opposite direction there was only a dark hole, a black ellipse. That was the tunnel back into the wreckage. He stared into it, not really aware for a time that what he heard coming from its depths was voices. Voices. The only people who had been in the headquarters except himself were the security people. Those on the lower levels must have escaped.

‘Hi!’he called. ‘I’m down here.’

There was silence, then a whispering. Then silence once more.

‘I’m caught under this car,’ he shouted again. ‘Get off your asses and get over here.’

Now he heard the voices again, the shuffle of feet. The car blocked his vision. He couldn’t see who it was. Only the feet coming. Bare feet. Why would security men have bare feet? Then another set, shoes this time. He relaxed. Not only those two, however. There were others…. ‘Mr. Justin,’ said a voice from beside the car. ‘Harward Justin?’ A woman’s voice?

He turned, fighting the pain, turning his eyes upward in their sockets to see who it was. A woman. A haggard, burning-eyed woman.

‘Number six,’ he said in disbelief. ‘Number six.’

‘Gretl,’ the woman corrected him gently, her eyes quite mad. ‘Gretl Mechas. With some of your other friends….’

* * *

It was late in the evening before Rheme Gentry came to the General’s room to greet his uncle.

‘Has the destruction been stopped?’ the General asked.

Rheme Gentry nodded wearily. ‘We understand it has. Little thanks to us. The Presences found a way to defend themselves.’

‘Are they holding that against us?’

‘No. Not according to Tasmin Ferrence and his group. Tasmin and friends have turned out to be our main spokesmen. Them and the viggies.’ Rheme shook his head, surprised to find tears coursing down his cheeks. ‘The damned troops destroyed the Eagers,’ he cried. ‘And Redfang!’

‘You’re crying,’ said his uncle, shocked.

‘Oh, General … You just haven’t been here long enough.’

‘No. It’s obvious I haven’t.’

‘In fact, I’m not sure I know what brought you here at all.’

‘There were two things that brought me, Rheme. One was not hearing from you. Considering your unremitting and frequently irrelevant verbosity, I found that somewhat ominous. The other reason was that I did hear from someone else. I got a letter a few weeks ago, evidently just before Justin shut down communications entirely. It was from a former employee of mine, a remarkable woman who used to be the head of our cryptanalysis division. Cyndal Prince. Cyndal retired and came here to Jubal where her only living relatives were. A sister, I believe, and a niece and nephew. Any letter I get from Cyndal, I send over to Crypto as a matter of course. She had some interesting things to say, as usual, beautifully encoded, information she couldn’t have gotten through Justin’s censorship by normal channels. Taking the two things together, I felt my presence might be useful.’ He regarded the wet-faced man before him with sympathy. ‘Now, if you can set emotion aside for the moment, I’d like your opinion on what we need to do next.’

Rheme wiped his face. ‘You reconvened the committee as a committee of inquiry?’

‘Yes. They found as seemed appropriate. We have indictments against Justin, against the Governor, his wife, against a whole throng of lesser villains. Most of whom, Pm afraid, have escaped justice by dying rather sooner than we’d intended.

‘Lang’s still alive. Some of the troops, including Lang and the bunch that destroyed the False Eagers, have refused to come in as ordered.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘Viggies. Tripsingers. They hear things, then they tell a Presence, and the next thing you know, the Emerald Eminence knows all about it,’

‘So?’

‘So, we have to take some of the loyal troops and go after them. We can’t let them roam around like brigands.’

‘You don’t think the viggies and the Presences will take care of them?’

‘I’m sure they would, eventually. It will look a lot better to PEC and be more honorable if we do it ourselves, however.’

‘Where is Colonel Roffles Lang now?’

‘He’s somewhere south of where the Enigma used to be with a couple hundred troopers. He’s proclaimed himself commander of all humans on Jubal.’

‘Oh, has he,’ the General mused with an audible sniff. ‘Well! I agree that it will look better if we discipline our own. And since we may have to leave Jubal very soon, it should be done at once. I’ve promoted Captain Verbold to Colonel, Commander of the Garrison, effective immediately. Sort through the troops you have and the ones that are coming back. Work with him and get the matter in hand.’

The matter had been put in hand by the following morning, and Colonel Verbold was much in evidence as troops began to assemble outside the city. Donatella Furz, who had been alerted by both Clarin and Rheme, circled through the gathering men, her long legs ticking off the distance as she searched for one particular participant. She found him at last, red-eyed, obviously somewhat brou-sotted, sitting in the shade of his own mule as he cleaned his rifle.

‘Tasmin,’ she said calmly. ‘I’ve been looking for you.’

He grunted at her.

‘What do you think you are doing?’

‘Going with the troopers,’ he mumbled. ‘Get everything cleaned up.’

‘Wasn’t Justin’s death enough for you?’

He glared at her. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

She sat down beside him. ‘I’m talking about vengeance, Tasmin. Clarin said you really wanted to kill Justin. I can understand that. He did rather slip through your fingers….’

‘Bastard,’ he growled.

‘But that doesn’t make this more sensible.’ She gestured around them at the assembling ranks.

‘Colonel Verbold said I could go.’ He sounded like an unreasonable five-year-old.

‘No, what he said was that he couldn’t stop you tagging along. However, he did mention his displeasure to Rheme, who mentioned it to Clarin, and both of them told me.’

‘I’ve got to …’ He fumbled for words, unable to find them.

‘You’ve got to get it out of your system,’ she said for him.

‘Celcy,’ he blurted. ‘She died.’

‘Yes, she died. And Lim’s dead. And the Eagers are gone, and the Enigma, and Redfang, and a couple of dozen others. I can’t say I blame you for wanting to kill Justin and trying your best, even though you damn near got yourself killed in the process. Still, Justin had a lot less to do with Celcy’s death than he did with Gretl’s, for instance, but I’m not out here with a stun rifle set on high-fry, trying to do a mop-up job that troopers are trained for and we’re not.’

‘Gretl wasn’t your wife. Celcy was mine.’

She stared at the pig-headed man before her with a combination of pity and irritation. Part of this was her fault. If she hadn’t lectured him, hadn’t gotten his back up over Celcy, if she hadn’t made him aware of and, therefore, guilty over his attraction to Clarin, maybe matters would simply have taken their proper course and he would have let himself forget. Damn!

‘Tasmin, do you value our friendship enough to go into that tavern over there and have a glass with me? Broundy, maybe? Hot tea?’

‘You won’t change my mind.’

‘ After we talk, you do what you like, Tasmin. I won’t try and stop you. I promise.’

Unwillingly, he shouldered his weapon and followed Donatella through the scattered groups of men. When they were seated at the back of the almost-empty place with steaming drinks before them, she regarded him thoughtfully, trying to find a key to that locked, barricaded door he was using for a face.

He was sotted, exhausted, agitated, and pale. Jamieson and Clarin had both mentioned that he had lost weight since Celcy’s death, and Don thought he had lost even more since she had first met him. He didn’t look well. Obsessed, perhaps. Maybe just stubborn. Maybe merely guilty.

‘Why did you pick her, Tasmin? Out of all the women in Deepsoil Five. Why did you pick Celcy?’

Of the many questions she might have asked, he had not expected this one. The stubborn rejection he had ready would not serve. ‘Well… I didn’t pick her, not really. I met her. She was working at the commissary. She was admiring some little trinket, and I bought it for her. I made some remark about buying a pretty thing for a pretty girl….’He tried to focus on Don, having some difficulty in doing it, but his voice was clear.

‘And then?’

‘Well, one thing led to another. You know.’

‘Tell me.’

‘Next time I went in there, I asked her to have lunch. She told me about her family, how she lived. It sounded … bleak.’

‘You felt sorry for her?’

‘In a way. She was trapped in that life. It was extremely limited.’

‘And, of course, she was sexy.’

He flushed. ‘That’s my own affair, don’t you think?’

‘I think we’ve shared enough of ourselves that we can talk about it, Tasmin. Take it as agreed. She was sexy. She made you feel – powerful. Protective.’

‘I suppose.’

‘Did you ever really look at her, Tasmin? Did you really evaluate how much of her you liked? Did you make a conscious choice, based on how well you got along? Did you ever compare her with other women?’

He made an impatient gesture, which she immediately and correctly interpreted.

‘There weren’t any other women. You were completely tied up in yourself and your work, and you weren’t looking for someone who could live happily with you. She was pretty and sexy and she was doing a menial job, which you regarded with aristocratic distaste. She was there. She needed someone, and you responded.’

‘I suppose,’ he said, flushing. ‘You make it sound superficial, but all the conscious choice business is pretty cold-blooded, isn’t it?’

‘Is it? I don’t know, Tasmin. I’ve never been married. All I know is, given your nature, you probably take a lot of care in the fitting of your Tripsinger robes. You were probably very selective about picking a mule from the stables. I know you take infinite care in checking out your synthesizer, because I’ve seen you do it. After all, those things are important and essential to you. But according to you, you didn’t give that much care to seeking a wife. You simply found her, like a bit of crystal in your path. You let her get accustomed to you, let her learn to depend on you without ever making any conscious decision to do so. Then, having done that, you couldn’t in good conscience let her down.’