Transcendence (89 page)

Nadir felt a little sick listening to the man. He didn’t need to know all this. He just had to find Herrschaft.

“
I remembered something from Edufeed,” the old man went on. “You know the kings of ancient Egypt? The pharaohs? The old sonofabitch thought of himself as some godlike pharaoh! He was gonna bury his Personal Guard with him, down there, in this goddamned electronic pyramid! The only ones who knew the burial site. Hmmm! But gods be damned if I was gonna die with him! Hmmm!”

The inner door cracked open, and Nadir stared into a dark space. He heard the trickle of condensation running along walls and dripping into puddles. He felt creeped-out, as if he were entering a domain of ghosts and dinosaur bones.

“
Well, my boys, here you go!” The old hand gestured into the dark. “I been down there a thousand times in the past 47 years, eight months, and one days. You’ll see my buddies down there. I
. . .
I swore I’d smash a hole in that tank of his. But I never got past the second escalator, and I never dared show my face aboveground.” He made a fist that looked as if it were made of twigs and leather.

He leaned forward and screamed into the black space: “I was too much a damned coward! Well, Herrschaft, you sonofabitch! See how much of a coward I am now! Hahahaha!” The ancient body began to quake with grief. A rusty sound fell from the dry lips.

Nadir cleared his throat. “All right,” he said. “Let’s go.”

“
Subbs,” said Paolo, who grabbed hold of Nadir’s sleeve. “Don’t you think maybe one of us ought to go first? In case?”

“
Right. You boys wait here. If I’m not back in ten minutes, shoot this old bastard and go back up the way we came. Shoot anyone you see up there. Got it?”

“
Yes, sir!” all four said in unison.

The old man broke into laughter and began slapping Paolo on the back. “Smart! Smart is good.” He dropped to one knee and clasped Nadir’s hand. “I can’t begin to thank you.”

“
Knock it off,” Nadir said.

The old man sprang to his feet and laughed again. “Go on now, before we all die of pneumonia!”

Nadir removed the flashlight from his belt and pointed it into the next room. Sure enough, just as he stepped past the airlock door, he saw a downward-leading shaft filled with rubble. He slung his EMMA back over his shoulder and began to descend.

After the second stand of granite, Nadir noticed a scattering of brown bones on the rusted escalator steps. They had been gnawed open by small, sharp teeth; the skull lay separated in plates across several steps, even the teeth picked out of its jaw. Nadir felt acids begin to boil in his guts as he recalled the dream
. . .
the badlands around Wolf Point and the dinosaur bones buried there
. . .
the rigid faces of hundreds of murdered North Africans
. . .
I earned more than two hundred marks there, he thought with such bitterness that he nearly vomited.

As he wormed his way past cracked, slimy blocks of stone, Nadir saw five more skeletons, all mauled by rats. At the bottom of the shaft, he encountered an airlock door nearly rusted shut. It was locked. A small strip of explosive tape and a detonator took care of the lock, though he still had to strain to move the rusted hinges.

Then up another flight of stone-barricaded steps, at the top of which stood a marble door. Spaceships and planets were carved into the dusty, once-white rock. The frame was engraved with stylized cities, smiling faces peering from thousands of windows. Cold fingers tickled Nadir’s spine. He pushed open the door with a creak; a wall of warm, dry air struck his face.

In the cone of his flashlight beam, Nadir caught a spectral figure encased in glass. Beside a massive tank, great banks of electronics hummed. Dozens of green and yellow lights cast an eerie glow on the other side of the curved glass. Nadir remembered to breathe and stepped inside what the old man had called “the burial chamber.”

As Nadir approached, the glare of his flashlight cut deeper through the tank’s liquid. Soon he could see features on the face behind the glass. Veiny eyelids covered sunken eyeballs. Long, grey hair entangled a waiflike figure that drifted gently in a burbling current. Countless wires and tubes pierced its translucent skin, bruised at the contact points. The jaws worked slowly, like a dying ant’s. Between its skin-wrapped femurs, a purple penis seemed to have a partial erection.

Nadir felt so revolted that he forgot his purpose here was to avenge what he and his men had been tricked into doing in Africa. He wanted to kill this monster, only because it was so
. . .
inhuman. He couldn’t bear to think that this
. . .
thing was at the heart of EarthCo. The EMMA fell into his hands.

“
No fucking wonder,” Nadir said. He backed away and stuck his head out into the hallway.

“
Paolo! Men! It’s all right. Get over here right away.” He would wait to destroy the thing until the others had a chance to see what it was they had come here to kill.

Thinking they couldn’t hear him past the airlocks and rubble, Nadir backed out of the room and back down to the bottom of the first escalator-shaft. Again he called out. As he waited for a response, he heard what sounded like branches breaking.

“
Firefight,” he said when he recognized the sounds. “Damn, damn, damn!” he said as he struggled back up the blocked stairs. He turned off the flashlight. When he reached the top, near the airlock, the shots echoed clear and loud. Many weapons. Bullets rang against the wall beside Nadir, chipping craters into the cement. Shadows moved on that wall as bright lights shone at Nadir’s men.

What I wouldn’t give to have my commcard back
, he thought. On hands and knees, Nadir crawled to the airlock opening and chanced a look. His men crowded against the far side of the airlock, unable to do anything more than point their weapons out into the larger room and fire wildly. Two thousand-watt searchlights glared in at them, behind which an unknown number of men or machines sprayed bullets.

Then the firing stopped and Nadir heard footfalls leading away. The EarthCo Warriors took the opportunity to drop to their knees around the circular opening and fire directly at the two lights. One of them dimmed. A black spot arced across the face of the other light, and Nadir heard a faint clang as the shadow fell behind his men, into the open airlock.

“
Grenade!” he cried, and ducked beneath the threshold.

A deafening roar filled the rooms, followed briefly by crazily ricocheting shrapnel. Men screamed in pain. Nadir’s calm finally exploded.

He ran through the smoke-filled airlock and out into the domed room, firing his EMMA at the remaining light. It flashed and went out, burning its coiled element onto Nadir’s retina. He ran a zig-zagged path across the tilted floor, firing half-second bursts in random directions. When he passed the frames of the searchlights, he saw several bodies of injured or dead men, dressed in white uniforms with hand-sized EMMAs hanging by cables from their hip units. The old man lay like a sack of bones near the middle of the room, looking completely natural in the state of death. Nadir hoped the man died believing his vengeance had been exacted.

In the hallway beyond the room, a handful of white-uniformed men stood facing one another, hands over their ears. Nadir startled them so much one slipped on the wet grating, and then he opened fire. Two of the men managed to draw their weapons before Nadir dropped them. One managed to release a one-second burst.

Part of that burst struck Nadir’s chest. Two rounds punctured the vest. Nadir flew back from the impact and fell, wedged between curved wall and floor-grate. He raised his rifle at the guards, but none moved. Receding into the distance, a single pair of boots clanged against the grating, sending tremors into Nadir’s ribs.

“
Fuck,” Nadir said. He struggled to his knees and remained in that position for a second, panting. “Paolo.”

With that name on his lips, Nadir stood and ran back to the still-smoky airlock. He flicked on his flashlight and searched the faces of the four bodies. Only two still breathed; one in the way an animal struck by a groundcar might, gasping for each breath. Nadir rolled the smoother-breathing body over and saw the face of his young friend. Dark gashes crossed the forehead. No blood seemed to have flowed out of the wounds.

No, no, no, no, no
. . . .

“
Hey, Paolo. Now why the fuck’d you let yourself get hit?” Inside Nadir’s head, the word kept repeating:
No, no, no, no, no
. . . .

“
I’m alive, subbs,” the boy said. Nadir could see his teeth, gleaming white behind blue lips. “You were right. I’m alive.”

“
Come on,” Nadir said. “You’ve got to see the
. . .
you’ve got to see Director Herrschaft before I tag him. On your feet!”

The legs twitched, but that was the extent of Paolo’s movement. The other soldier stopped convulsing.

No, no, no, no, no
. . . .

“
Come on,” Nadir urged. He lifted Paolo by the armpits, which sent shots of fire through Nadir’s chest. He remembered that he, too, had been hit. This confused him. How could it be that he and Paolo were wounded? Sure, they said the morning words: “Live well today, boys, for today you may die.” But that didn’t really count, not for him and Paolo. They were invulnerable! He began to drag Paolo down the rubble-blockaded steps.

Hell, I’ve stood up during heavy firefights
, he thought.
Nothing could touch me. I was hit at the village, hit by something heavy. It just knocked the wind outta me, that’s all!

Nadir found himself sitting on wet stairs, dizzy and dreaming. “Come on,” he repeated. Carrying Paolo down wasn’t nearly as difficult as bringing him back up, over and around blocks of granite, toward the burial chamber where the inhuman thing floated in its fountain of youth. The effort bled out the last of Nadir’s vitality and defiance. By the time he again faced the tank and its floating specimen, he barely had the strength to unsling his EMMA and point it at the bank of machines. He leaned Paolo against the carved marble door.

“
See, Paolo,” he said, gasping, “he’s nothing. Herrschaft’s just a shriveled old monster. Society hasn’t gone bad, boy, it’s just led by a creature that’s no longer a man. We’re not alone. We’ll set everyone free. Let’s do it. Ready, boy!”

Paolo said nothing, didn’t even raise his own weapon.

“
What’s the matter, boy?” Nadir asked. When he looked into his longtime friend’s eyes, he saw the dead stare he had seen too many times, the black spots where life used to dance. Only now the death-mask occupied a face that was supposed to be immune to it.

Nadir was by himself, completely, for the first time since Wolf Point. Cold pierced his chest where the round had punctured his vest. He wanted to grieve, but all he could manage were a few tears that burned their way down his cheeks.

The strange light again burned just behind Luke Herrschaft’s eyes. He couldn’t blink it away, nor could he find any feed intruding upon this intimate moment with Lucilla.

“
Lucilla,” he said, melting away from the odd sensation. She slid against his back, massaging his neck with one hand and his cock with her other. “Nobody cures me like you, my dear. I’m sorry you haven’t been the only one. Do you forgive me?”

“
Of course, Luke.” She crawled over him and lay face-to face with his robot. An idiosyncratic expression of sadness and loss crossed her face.

“
You’re not completely bad,” she said. “I loved you—did you know? That’s why I had to do what I’ve done.”

He felt taken aback. What was she talking about? Had the bomb-concussion during the assassination attempt addled her brains?

“
Who says I’m completely bad? And what is it you’ve done?”

Then he saw the light behind his eyes. The room flickered a bit as he remembered what that meant. It had been a long, long time. . . .

Luke Herrschaft, power-broker for half a solar system and soon-to-be Director of every world lit by its sun—EarthCo Feedcontrol Director Luke Herrschaft allowed his consciousness to seep back into his mortal coil, half a thousand meters beneath where he and Lucilla lay.

Pain danced through his nerves. Flashes of color and pulses of light needled his eyes. He felt as if he were drowning. None of his limbs seemed to possess any strength at all, and it took great effort just to open his eyes.

Blind! He could see nothing but a white light. But when he focused on it, he glimpsed a reflection of the husk of some old man floating in a bubble-dense liquid, hair wrapped around his neck like a noose, wires and tubes protruding from virtually every pore.