[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
his goal every time he asked the distance. Even at night, driven only by the
disk, he was able to plod a few kilometers more.
Every day the land climbed higher. The tundralike cover thinned and changed at
last to desert: bare red rock cut with dry arroyos and only sparsely tufted
with thick-leafed things evolved to conserve every drop of the rare rainfall.
A noon came when he cast no shadow. A long day that let him make many
kilometers, yet its very length alarmed him. Time had run too fast. The
monsoon storms must already be marching off the ocean across the continent
behind him. The flood waters would rise too soon around the ship, and the sun
would too soon retreat south again, leaving him to the disk's uncertain mercy.
Page 45
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
One cool dawn, he discovered a new shape above the fading infrared of the
north horizon. An enormous moon rising, he thought for a moment - but
Mansphere had no moon.
"You observe Base Alpha Prime," the disk informed him. "Distance one hundred
nineteen kilometers."
Its shining wonder chilled him with dismay. A huge silver dome looming high
enough to catch the sun while the desert lay still dark around him. The alien
citadel, built thirty thousand years ago by the killers of the planet.
Had they all been robots?
When he asked the disk, the swift drumbeat of its inhuman voice informed him
only that no data were available. All the endless day, he watched that immense
bright shape swell slowly as it climbed from the shimmer of heat on tufted
scrub and naked stone until by sunset he could see dark ribs arching up across
its mirror-brilliant fabric. A structure many hundred meters tall, city sized.
The human in him tried to imagine what he might find inside. The secret of the
planet's death, perhaps the awful weapons used to kill it? The feedstocks he
needed - or ancient traps still set for anything alive?
Eyes lifted to its riddles, he failed to see the brink. Other perceptions
checked him: a sense of the sudden decrease of surface density ahead and a
muffled thunder from far away and far below, felt with all his skin.
An unexpected chasm, so vast it struck him giddy. Shaken, he dropped to hands
and knees to peer across the jagged edge. Bare stone fell sheer for thousands
of meters to rocky shelves and broken pinnacles and a dark inner gorge already
clotted with dusk.
His eyes adapted to find the river that had cut it, a narrow-seeming silver
ribbon. That far-off roaring was water falling into clouds of shining spray.
He recalled the gorge from space and this mighty river. Born of the glaciers
around the great caldera that had built the continent, it sliced down across
this plateau to the southeastern ocean where the monsoon was rising.
He saw no way across.
"Defender to Unit Ten." He collected himself to chal-
lenge the disk. "Why didn't you warn about this barrier?"
"Data not requested."
"How can we get across it to the base?"
"Data restricted."
"We've got to get into that dome."
Unexpectedly, something had turned it talkative. "Information: admission to
Base Alpha Prime forbidden except to Master Builders."
'The things that built the robots?"
"Affirmative."
"Are they here?"
"Negative. Attack Command was launched to prepare the planet for them. The
planet has been prepared. We await their coming."
"You've been waiting for thirty thousand years?"
"Information: computed by the revolutions of this planet, the delay is less
than twenty thousand years."
"You still expect them?"
"Attack Command will wait until they come."
"Then I've got a surprise for you." Even to him, the words were startling. Don
Brink's more than the Defender's. "Things change as ages pass. Living things
evolve, even the Master Builders. That is why you did not recognize me. I am a
Master Builder. I have come with new orders that now control Attack Command."
The disk dimmed its radiation. Without its power, he swayed to his knees.
"If you command Attack Command - " Its swift rhythm became hesitant and faint.
"You will repeat recognition signal."
"Recognition signal is restricted. It is reserved for direct communication to
Attack Command alone."
"Information: Attack Command now inactive. Access forbidden. You cannot reach
Attack Command - "
"I will - "
Page 46
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
It cut him off. He fell through red gloom, almost into the pit.
Palm Springs in scorching July.
Up at dawn, he had found his own breakfast and hiked out beyond Tramway Road,
explaining to skeptical city cops and private guards along the way that he was
a house guest of Victor Vane. The whole sky was burning before
he got back, but he had learned to love desert heat, and the air-conditioned
house felt clammily cold when Vane's silently efficient Filipino let him in.
"Hullo, Brink." Puffy eyed and rusty voiced, Vane beckoned him into the
kitchen. "Our chance to talk, with the women still in bed." Wearing a dirty
bathrobe, Vane looked sallow and broken, years too old to fit his movie image.
"We played poker last week, and I've heard how good you are at your special
calling. I'm hiring you to win a poker pot."
"Listen, Mr. Vane. I do play poker, but never professionally. Just to kill
time while I'm waiting for the right sort of job at the right sort of pay - "
"I'll pay." Vane was mixing himself a Bloody Mary. His hands shook. "And if
it's danger you need to make the job feel right - "
"I don't cheat, if that's what you mean."
"Your opponents will do the cheating. If you're sharp enough to catch them at
it, you'll see." Vane shuffled to sit at the bar. "I'll outline the job - "
"First, I want a drink."
Vane was offering the bottles, but he wanted cold water. He got it at the
sink.
"Call me an idiot," Vane was muttering. "But I've been robbed. Playing poker
for stakes I couldn't afford on a yacht out of Long Beach, With a con man, it
turns out. A slick bastard who claims to be a Saudi prince with oil billions
to burn - I finally got smart enough to hire a private agency to find out what
he really is."
"So? Why do you need me?"
"Listen, Don. I - "
He stopped to gulp the rest of his drink. The glass clattered when he set it
on the bar. He sat for a moment merely staring, ravaged face twitching, a mute
appeal in his bloodshot eyes.
"Sorry." With a pained grimace, he jerked himself straighter.
"Things have gone bad, Don. I was on the ragged edge before I met that thug.
Fool enough to think I -might win enough to pull me out. Now - "
He sloshed vodka into his glass and tossed it off straight.
"The last chance I've got - if you'll help me grab it." Vane shivered as if he
felt the clammy cold. "A scam of
my own." His bleary eyes turned anxious. "If you'll lend your able hand - "
"Scam?"
"Listen, Don, before you say no. Here's the scheme. I'll introduce you as a
playboy banker out from my own home town. Your dear old dad has just passed
away. You've come into the money, and you want action. I've got together
eighty thousand dollars - not mine, Don, and about the last I can borrow. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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his goal every time he asked the distance. Even at night, driven only by the
disk, he was able to plod a few kilometers more.
Every day the land climbed higher. The tundralike cover thinned and changed at
last to desert: bare red rock cut with dry arroyos and only sparsely tufted
with thick-leafed things evolved to conserve every drop of the rare rainfall.
A noon came when he cast no shadow. A long day that let him make many
kilometers, yet its very length alarmed him. Time had run too fast. The
monsoon storms must already be marching off the ocean across the continent
behind him. The flood waters would rise too soon around the ship, and the sun
would too soon retreat south again, leaving him to the disk's uncertain mercy.
Page 45
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
One cool dawn, he discovered a new shape above the fading infrared of the
north horizon. An enormous moon rising, he thought for a moment - but
Mansphere had no moon.
"You observe Base Alpha Prime," the disk informed him. "Distance one hundred
nineteen kilometers."
Its shining wonder chilled him with dismay. A huge silver dome looming high
enough to catch the sun while the desert lay still dark around him. The alien
citadel, built thirty thousand years ago by the killers of the planet.
Had they all been robots?
When he asked the disk, the swift drumbeat of its inhuman voice informed him
only that no data were available. All the endless day, he watched that immense
bright shape swell slowly as it climbed from the shimmer of heat on tufted
scrub and naked stone until by sunset he could see dark ribs arching up across
its mirror-brilliant fabric. A structure many hundred meters tall, city sized.
The human in him tried to imagine what he might find inside. The secret of the
planet's death, perhaps the awful weapons used to kill it? The feedstocks he
needed - or ancient traps still set for anything alive?
Eyes lifted to its riddles, he failed to see the brink. Other perceptions
checked him: a sense of the sudden decrease of surface density ahead and a
muffled thunder from far away and far below, felt with all his skin.
An unexpected chasm, so vast it struck him giddy. Shaken, he dropped to hands
and knees to peer across the jagged edge. Bare stone fell sheer for thousands
of meters to rocky shelves and broken pinnacles and a dark inner gorge already
clotted with dusk.
His eyes adapted to find the river that had cut it, a narrow-seeming silver
ribbon. That far-off roaring was water falling into clouds of shining spray.
He recalled the gorge from space and this mighty river. Born of the glaciers
around the great caldera that had built the continent, it sliced down across
this plateau to the southeastern ocean where the monsoon was rising.
He saw no way across.
"Defender to Unit Ten." He collected himself to chal-
lenge the disk. "Why didn't you warn about this barrier?"
"Data not requested."
"How can we get across it to the base?"
"Data restricted."
"We've got to get into that dome."
Unexpectedly, something had turned it talkative. "Information: admission to
Base Alpha Prime forbidden except to Master Builders."
'The things that built the robots?"
"Affirmative."
"Are they here?"
"Negative. Attack Command was launched to prepare the planet for them. The
planet has been prepared. We await their coming."
"You've been waiting for thirty thousand years?"
"Information: computed by the revolutions of this planet, the delay is less
than twenty thousand years."
"You still expect them?"
"Attack Command will wait until they come."
"Then I've got a surprise for you." Even to him, the words were startling. Don
Brink's more than the Defender's. "Things change as ages pass. Living things
evolve, even the Master Builders. That is why you did not recognize me. I am a
Master Builder. I have come with new orders that now control Attack Command."
The disk dimmed its radiation. Without its power, he swayed to his knees.
"If you command Attack Command - " Its swift rhythm became hesitant and faint.
"You will repeat recognition signal."
"Recognition signal is restricted. It is reserved for direct communication to
Attack Command alone."
"Information: Attack Command now inactive. Access forbidden. You cannot reach
Attack Command - "
"I will - "
Page 46
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
It cut him off. He fell through red gloom, almost into the pit.
Palm Springs in scorching July.
Up at dawn, he had found his own breakfast and hiked out beyond Tramway Road,
explaining to skeptical city cops and private guards along the way that he was
a house guest of Victor Vane. The whole sky was burning before
he got back, but he had learned to love desert heat, and the air-conditioned
house felt clammily cold when Vane's silently efficient Filipino let him in.
"Hullo, Brink." Puffy eyed and rusty voiced, Vane beckoned him into the
kitchen. "Our chance to talk, with the women still in bed." Wearing a dirty
bathrobe, Vane looked sallow and broken, years too old to fit his movie image.
"We played poker last week, and I've heard how good you are at your special
calling. I'm hiring you to win a poker pot."
"Listen, Mr. Vane. I do play poker, but never professionally. Just to kill
time while I'm waiting for the right sort of job at the right sort of pay - "
"I'll pay." Vane was mixing himself a Bloody Mary. His hands shook. "And if
it's danger you need to make the job feel right - "
"I don't cheat, if that's what you mean."
"Your opponents will do the cheating. If you're sharp enough to catch them at
it, you'll see." Vane shuffled to sit at the bar. "I'll outline the job - "
"First, I want a drink."
Vane was offering the bottles, but he wanted cold water. He got it at the
sink.
"Call me an idiot," Vane was muttering. "But I've been robbed. Playing poker
for stakes I couldn't afford on a yacht out of Long Beach, With a con man, it
turns out. A slick bastard who claims to be a Saudi prince with oil billions
to burn - I finally got smart enough to hire a private agency to find out what
he really is."
"So? Why do you need me?"
"Listen, Don. I - "
He stopped to gulp the rest of his drink. The glass clattered when he set it
on the bar. He sat for a moment merely staring, ravaged face twitching, a mute
appeal in his bloodshot eyes.
"Sorry." With a pained grimace, he jerked himself straighter.
"Things have gone bad, Don. I was on the ragged edge before I met that thug.
Fool enough to think I -might win enough to pull me out. Now - "
He sloshed vodka into his glass and tossed it off straight.
"The last chance I've got - if you'll help me grab it." Vane shivered as if he
felt the clammy cold. "A scam of
my own." His bleary eyes turned anxious. "If you'll lend your able hand - "
"Scam?"
"Listen, Don, before you say no. Here's the scheme. I'll introduce you as a
playboy banker out from my own home town. Your dear old dad has just passed
away. You've come into the money, and you want action. I've got together
eighty thousand dollars - not mine, Don, and about the last I can borrow. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]