Easy to Be a God, page 33
Ashnalia walked over to the diagnostic chair.
“You should go, too, Sergeant. You’ve been here much longer than necessary. If the esdees keep an eye on you, they will notice that.”
“Sure, I understand.” Henryan jumped down onto the floor grid, and walked toward the door with no word of farewell.
He dragged himself to his cabin just before the curfew. He hardly ate anything in the mess hall, because whenever he thought about Draccos, appetite always left him.
The warden wants to get me at any cost as if he made it a point of honor. And he made sure beforehand to have the advantage over me … Henryan thought.
He felt powerless. Every time he thought he saw a light in the tunnel, the brightness turned out to be a sign of another, even greater threat.
Why is the fate out to get me? Darski thought, opening the door. Is it just because I killed an innocent man—?
Suddenly, he realized that something was wrong.
The lights were on in the cabin. He gulped and stepped over the doorstep. By the computer console, he saw a familiar figure of a bald man in a black suit and synthetic leather coat. The surprise guest leaped to his feet, raising his hands in an apologetic gesture.
“What did I tell you, you clone-of-a-bitch?!” Darski hissed. “By coming here, you sealed your—”
“It’s not what you think!” the man interrupted him.
The esdee’s plaintive tone surprised Henryan. He would have expected anything but such reaction. But then his nervousness returned.
“I said clearly that if I ever see your snout again …” He took out the headreader from his pocket.
“Wait, let me explain,” the esdee begged.
“And what is there to explain?”
“I didn’t have a choice. If I hadn’t showed up, starting tomorrow you would have another investigative team to worry about,” the esdee answered, clipping his words.
“What?” Henryan was too confused to understand him properly.
The esdee repeated everything slower, and added at the end, “If I suddenly let you off the hook, my superiors will realize that something is wrong. Contrary to what you might think, they are not stupid. That’s why we have to see each other from time to time, so that they won’t get suspicious. We don’t have to talk if you don’t want to. I’ll wait a few minutes and leave.”
Darski lowered his hand, and the headreader went back to his pocket.
“If it’s another of your bullshit stories, whatever you’re up to, I will bust your balls no matter what.”
“I don’t bullshit you. I want to play it as calmly as possible. The battle is only a few days away, and then each of us will go his own way.”
Henryan shuffled to the bunk and fell heavily on it.
“A few days? How many exactly?” he asked, feigning indifference.
“It seems that the sampo-sithu’s army will reach the Valt Aram in six days, so the final battle can be expected as soon as next week.”
A week. Draccos will get the warrant in—Henryan recalled the correspondence he’d been reading last night—in two, maybe three days. A day later the esdees will get the codes, with which they will be able to activate the chip, and take control over his brain at the first opportunity. In any case, one thing was certain: they won’t bust him until the colonel needs him.
Henryan wondered briefly whether he should blackmail the esdee further and force him to give away the codes, but on reflection he realized that he wouldn’t gain much this way. Dodgy Draccos would contact the commander of the local SD and not the subordinate officer, even if he’d been appointed as the guardian angel of his victim. The dumb, bald esdee didn’t need to know about the existence of the codes till the very end; the station’s network was omnipresent, thus activating the malicious chip could be done from anywhere, also from the command room of the Security Department.
He considered a number of scenarios for some time, but always came to the same conclusion: he was screwed, finally and irrevocably. Sitting on the bunk and staring at the grim, silent esdee, he made the final decision. He knew which solution he would choose. He also knew how it all would end.
“Time for you to go,” he said, standing up.
The esdee nodded, and immediately headed to the exit. However, he stopped in front of the door, then glanced fearfully over his shoulder. He looked dejected.
“Can I ask you something?” he said, a little shakily.
“Don’t push your luck—”
“Just one question. Unrelated to the case.”
Darski nodded. He would do anything to get rid of this scumbag. Not only from his cabin, but also from his life.
“Rap it out, and then get the hell out of here.”
“I wonder why you hate esdees so much. After all, your brother—”
Henryan’s face flushed hotly.
“Never, I repeat, never mention my brother, you wimpy clone-of-a-bitch. He wasn’t like you and your minions from counterintelligence. The fact that you are wearing a black coat doesn’t make you a true SD officer. Do you want to know how I see you? You’re just an informer, a rat who loves to torment the defenseless, so please be so kind as not to desecrate the memory of the hero, who died on duty, fighting the real bandits.”
The esdee, red in the face, slipped out through the door without one word.
FORTY-FIVE
THE XAN 4 SYSTEM, X-RAY SECTOR
09/16/2354
The next morning Henryan jumped out of his bunk as the reveille was sounded. He felt strange, but it was not until much later that he realized what had changed. He felt surprisingly well. Although he couldn’t say that he exuded humor, all the tension was gone, having dropped like the pressure in an open airlock. The horrible, depressing thoughts had also left him. No, actually, they hadn’t. They were still embedded in his head, but no longer crushed him with their weight, nor caused depression.
He was so relieved because he had made the final decision. So far he had been flailing in the dark. Wading through the maze of fate, he found himself caught in one dead end after another, turned back and continued looking blindly for the way out, because he firmly believed that against all odds he would find it, that it was out there somewhere. Today, he at last woke up in a place that looked like a long straight alley, where there were no spurs, or turnoffs. He didn’t need to strain anymore. The destination of his life journey was clear, and for the first time in a very long time it was within sight. All he had to do was to go straight ahead, without worrying about anything …
And that was exactly what he was going to do. But he was still missing one crucial piece of the puzzle. As soon as he found it, his explosive surprise would be all set.
FORTY-SIX
THE XAN 4 SYSTEM, X-RAY SECTOR
09/19/2354
Three days later the punishment was over. As promised, Valdez assigned him to jobs that had been done previously by other soldiers, so Henryan could laze in the afternoons, disappearing in the lower-level cabins prepared for minor parliamentarians, or—if he didn’t want to sleep at that particular time—he could work his way through the allocated area and check whether his colleagues had done everything right.
A few hours before the end of the last penal shift he fell on a soft bunk with every intention of sleeping through the rest of his sentence. Before he could close his eyes, though, he heard a melodious signal coming from the corner of the dim room. He leaned on one elbow, squinting, as if that could help. A buzzer of the comlink mounted in the console? Here? Impossible. This level was uninhabited, and everyone at the station knew it perfectly well.
Henryan walked over to the console, surprised, but curious. He hesitated, but after another importunate buzz he put his thumb on the cool glassy sheet. The holopad came alive, and soon an iridescent familiar bust appeared above it.
“Hello, Sergeant,” a mechanical voice said.
A robot called him. That is, the robot! Or rather, one of Gods …
“You’re out of your mind!” Henryan muttered in disgust. “I bet the esdees can already see this connection—”
“Don’t be so quick to make a new bet,” his interlocutor cut in. “You lost the last one. Do you even remember what the stake was?”
The mechanical voice remained neutral, but Darski was pretty sure that whoever was using a voice changer had a good laugh at his expense.
“There was no bet,” he grumbled. “What do you want?”
“You know what. Your time is up. I’m waiting for your answer. You’ve seen Rutta’s correspondence. Now you know what awaits you.” Henryan nodded. “All right then, in that case help us. It won’t change your situation, but—”
“No.” Henryan’s answer was short and sweet.
“No?”
“What do you expect to accomplish by sabotaging Gurds’ actions?” Darski asked, barely hiding his irritation.
“We’re going to stop the destruction of one of the three intelligent races that exist in the known Universe,” the conspirator said.
“Propaganda bullshit.”
“And at the same time, the purest truth. These beings did nothing to deserve extinction.”
“The same sad fate awaits all species. Us, too. Maybe even sooner than we think.”
“Maybe …” the mechanical voice admitted after a moment’s thought. “But—”
“But me no buts,” Darski cut in. “Suhurs will be erased from the surface of Beta. If not today, then tomorrow, in a month, or in a few years’ time. Saving them now, you’ll cause a hundredfold greater suffering on both sides of the conflict.
“As it happens, a few days ago I tried to intervene, with the commander’s knowledge and consent. Before we secured the external transmitters, I’d sent a message to the savages in the caves, hoping that this would terminate the carnage going on before our very eyes. You know how it ended. I saved a few youngsters who would anyway die in a few days. Thousands of inkblots were turned into food for some horrendous creepy-crawlies. Do you want to watch holos of this feast? As far as I know, it hasn’t finished yet, and it’s going to continue for a long time, because some of the creatures living in the underground tunnels don’t kill their victims right away …” He paused to take a breath.
“Yes,” the conspirator said, taking advantage of the moment’s silence. “It’s true that Suhurs are disgusting, cruel, ruthless, and devoid of higher-order emotions known to humans. But this is just one side of the coin. You are looking at the problem from a human perspective. And that’s a mistake. A serious mistake.”
“And what perspective are you looking from?”
There followed a prolonged silence. In the end, the robot spoke again.
“From the perspective of a doomed race.”
“And why not through Gurds’ eyes?” Henryan asked, perfectly serious.
“Maybe because Gurds don’t have any eyes,” the conspirator answered, and before Henryan could attack him, he added, “It was a joke. A sick joke. Seriously speaking, though, it’s Gurds who are bad guys here.”
“In your opinion their conquests differ substantially from the conquest of the Aztec Empire or colonization of North America?” Darski pressed his point.
His interlocutor hesitated.
“I don’t get you,” the conspirator said in a mechanical, neutral voice.
“And therein lies your problem, or rather the problem of your whole group.” Henryan snorted. “You react automatically, not thinking in a broader context.”
“Explain to me, then, what this broader context is.”
The sergeant laughed.
“I’m afraid this time I won’t be able to meet the challenge. Although it is not entirely my fault—”
“Try anyway,” the mechanical voice encouraged him.
“Well …” Darski sank into a deep chair provided specifically for some VIP. “For starters, let me just explain one thing. My father taught history at the sector’s academy, hence my knowledge of the antiquity and quite unusual perception of the problem. With the knowledge of history, I have a broader view. I know, for example, that similar cultures existed on Earth at some point.”
“Let’s not go back to prehistoric times.”
“I didn’t know that the nineteenth century was ‘prehistory,’” Henryan mocked him.
The hologram still showed the robot’s blank face. Darski regretted that he couldn’t see his interlocutor at this moment. Trying to recover from shock, they must have had this look on their face …
“What are you talking about?” the Gods’ leader asked.
“Aboriginal peoples of Australia. Look it up on Galactopedia, it’s worth it.”
This time the silence was even longer. Eventually, however, Henryan again heard the same mechanical voice.
“I can see some similarities …”
“Etruscans, Tasmanians … In the history of Humankind you will find dozens, if not hundreds of peoples that became extinct, or were wiped out by their better adapted neighbors.”
“That’s true, but they were all human beings, belonging to a single species that has survived to this day.”
“That’s why I didn’t say you were wrong, but that you lack a broader perspective. If you knew what I do, you might realize that the fall of Suhurs is inevitable. They will share the fate of dinosaurs, saber-toothed tigers, mammoths, and millions of other species that once inhabited planets known to us.”
The leader of Gods was silent.
“But given half the chance—” he began after a long pause.
“You can’t uproot tens of thousands of years of tradition in an instant. It would have to take many generations, and no one’s going to give Suhurs that much time. They will share the fate of the Tasmanians, except that they won’t be able to crossbreed with the invaders, so they won’t melt away in the new society, but rather get annihilated. If you stop their destruction today, Gurds will finish the job in a few years, when we finally take off, leaving them to their own devices.”
“What you say makes a lot of sense, but—” The person hiding behind the mechanical voice suddenly paused.
“But?” Henryan asked encouragingly.
“We didn’t do all this so that Suhurs could keep slaughtering Gurds. Frankly, we have a great idea how to solve the problem.”
“Would you like to tell me more about it?” Darski thought he would be brushed off once again, but he was mistaken.
“We are going to talk some sense into both sides. Create a huge hologram of gods, who will order the two races to stop warfare … Religion is a powerful force offering leverage over all areas of life. Maybe this would stop the Warriors of the Bone from attacking inkblots—straight away, not in a few generations.”
“You forget one thing. Gurds don’t believe in supernatural beings. That’s why I don’t think they will respect the order of ‘gods’—especially those who won’t be able to do anything to them if the conditions of the truce are violated.”
“I know. Some of us share your doubts. We decided, however, that it is better to do something, anything, than passively watch the destruction of Suhurs.”
“The road to hell is paved with good intentions,” Henryan said sententiously, rising from his chair.
“You won’t help us, then?” the conspirator asked.
“On the contrary,” Darski said. “I am doing you a huge favor by protecting your asses from spending the rest of your lives in orange outfits.”
“Don’t exaggerate. Seifert got only six months in a minimum security penal colony.”
That was something new. Henryan looked at the hologram through half-closed eyes. Seeing the prisoners in orange overalls, he assumed that all of them got long prison sentences and ended up in a place resembling the Sturgeon Belt. Apparently, he was wrong.
His interlocutor noticed his surprise, and added, “Rutta made us all to watch the sentencing.”
Henryan pulled himself together.
“Intervention in the fate of the upcoming battle will be judged by Security Department, which means zero tolerance and longer sentences,” he said.
“What do you care?”
“Right. Whichever way you turn, your ass is always behind you,” Henryan admitted.
“Indeed, picturesquely termed. And very accurately …”
“Don’t try to outtalk me,” Darski cut in. “I said no.”
“And if I said that I am able to capture these codes—”
“I would consider it a lie. We both know that Draccos is going to send the codes to the local head of the Security Department, and you don’t have any leverage with him. You can’t do a thing. The verdict is hanging over me, and I know it. That’s why I’d rather spare you all my fate.”
“You will make things harder for us, but that’s it. You can’t stop us—”
Henryan laughed.
“I’ve stopped you already. This conversation proves it. There won’t be any holograms appearing over the battlefield. For your information: the old man has deployed several jammers over the Valt Aram, so even if by some miracle you manage to send a signal to the devices, which you have hidden there earlier on the quiet, you won’t activate anything. Give up playing God; even He didn’t create a sensible world.”
With these words, Henryan reached for the switch.
The hologram vanished into thin air, when the robot was beginning to say something. To be sure, Darski disconnected the power supply. Going back to the bunk, he smiled to himself. Thanks to this conversation, he found the last piece of the puzzle.
FORTY-SEVEN
THE XAN 4 SYSTEM, X-RAY SECTOR
09/20/2354
That day was supposed to be the beginning of the end. If Draccos hadn’t been bluffing, the warrant should appear in the colonel’s mailbox with the next message bundle. Courier ships reached the entry point of Xan 4 twice a day: at oh six hundred and eighteen hundred standard time. The transfer between the entry point and Beta took another two hours. There was nothing of interest in the morning mail, though; therefore Henryan could calmly wait for the end of his shift, observing the situation on the planet. And there was a lot happening there.
