He followed Hork Nomas onto the landing field. They passed the smoking, still glowing debris of the mobile thermoguns and the bodies of the fallen soldiers who had stood guard. As the falling snow abated, he looked around and saw many more dead Lemurians, but only two Beast corpses. This was yet further proof of the ancient Halutians' technological superiority.

  The shadow of the descending super-battleship lay like a dark creature on the landing field. Masses of displaced air buffeted the Halutian and he braced himself against the pressure.

  Nomas stopped and deeply inhaled the smoke-filled air. "Ah," he sighed, "that is the fragrance of victory, my friend."

  My friend. Tolot's two hearts leaped. His strategy had been successful. He had correctly estimated the hatred of the ancient Halutians for the First Vibratory Power and had appealed to their secret desires with his story. They had accepted him.

  But only because, for them, the concept that one of them really could be a traitor and desert to the Lemurian side is utterly absurd, his overbrain informed him coolly. You must be careful not to arouse their distrust. Your life depends on your cleverness.

  The flattened south pole of the super-battleship HORGON THAR with its ring of attached propulsion engines hung directly above Nomas and Tolot. As a hatch door opened, the two Halutians were seized by an antigrav field and they shot upwards. From the corner of his eyes, Tolot saw the Beasts dragging the first components of the time machine out of the hall, then they were lost from his view.

  He followed the commander through the large airlock to an antigrav shaft, which carried them up to the ship's command deck. A moment later they had reached the control center. The Beasts at the control consoles, terminals, and switch panels leaped up and saluted as their commander entered. Nomas rumbled in satisfaction and waved Tolot to a vacant seat, then dropped into the massive chair at the command console.

  "The enemy's ships are gathering in the orbit of the moon," a Beast reported. "Our units continue to control near-planetary space around Lemur. However, we won't be able to hold the position if the Time Criminals launch a counterattack. We must either request reinforcements or withdraw."

  "Our mission is nearly complete," Nomas growled. "We need only a little more patience."

  Tolot watched on the monitors as the individual components of the time machine were transported out of the hall to the super-battleship and disappeared within its enormous cargo holds. The Beasts worked with astonishing and frightening efficiency. It didn't take long before the disassembly and the loading of the machine was finished. The last members of the ground troops went on board and the colossal hatch doors closed.

  Slowly, the super-battleship climbed into the sky.

  From a high altitude, the extent of the destruction around the Fleet base could be clearly seen. Where the towers and skyscrapers of Matronis had once risen, now yawned blazing, smoking craters. Fires burned everywhere, and the soot and ash colored the winter landscape black.

  Nomas gave an order and the Beast ship's interval and impulse cannons fired at the base's ruins. Within a few seconds, it was completely annihilated. Anyone who might have still been alive down there was now certainly dead.

  So many victims, Icho Tolot thought, depressed. What a monstrous tragedy ...

  All this is history and happened long ago, his overbrain told him, unmoved. Your pity is understandable but inappropriate.

  The Halutian choked back a curse. Sometimes he hated the overbrain for its cold, heartless logic.

  "We should take advantage of the opportunity and drop an Armageddon bomb on Lemur," one of Nomas's officers said suddenly. "We can wipe out the Time Criminals' home world once and for all."

  Tolot looked in alarm over at Nomas. The commander seemed to be considering the suggestion

  You must prevent that no matter what! The overbrain's thought shot through Tolot's mind, the mental equivalent of a shout. An atom fire would negate the existence of the Second Humanity and cause a time paradox with inconceivable consequences!

  Tolot cleared his throat and said aloud to Nomas: "Commander, Lemur will be one of our most important strategic bases in the future. From here we control the Westside of the Galaxy. Destruction of the planet would mean a weakening of our own power."

  The gigantic Beast with the white pigment flecks looked at him thoughtfully. Then he shrugged, indifferent. "Lemur is no longer a threat to us," he rumbled. "Why should we waste an Armageddon bomb, then?"

  Suddenly, an alarm howled through the control center. On the hyperdetection monitor a Lemurian battleship had appeared in a higher orbit. Apparently the commander had taken the risk of making a semispace jump in the outer region of the planetary gravitation field. With a glowing red shield it raced towards the Beast ship and fired its Thermo and impulse guns. The energy beams faded away without any effect on the HORGON THAR's paratron shield.

  "Return fire," Nomas ordered coldly.

  A salvo from the interval guns was enough to sweep away the Lemurian ship's semispace shield and punch large holes into the super-hardened steel hull. A section of the equatorial rim engines exploded. Out of control, the 1000-meter diameter battleship plunged towards the planet.

  In helpless horror, Icho Tolot watched as the steel giant plowed through the atmosphere, leaving a fiery trail many kilometers long behind it, and crashed into the ocean off the southern coast of Lemuria. The impact set off a gigantic tidal wave that overran the coast and a large part of the interior. Immediately after the crash, the wreck exploded. A colossal atomic mushroom cloud rose into the sky. The huge explosion triggered massive quakes that shook every coastal area that had been spared by the tsunami. Tolot saw a deep crevice, glowing at the bottom, open up at the southwestern edge of Lemuria. Then the super-battleship was too far away to make out further details.

  The planet and its doomed continent fell away, and the super-battleship pushed onwards into open space. The other Beast units gathered around the flagship and accelerated as the Lemurian fleet in the distant orbit of the planet's moon began its counterattack.

  But the Lemurian ships were too slow.

  Long before they reached the enemy, the small Beast fleet disappeared into hyperspace.

  24

  After a flight that lasted barely a day, they landed on a Beast base planet. A volcanic, rocky world ravaged by storms. If it wasn't Hell, Tolot thought, it wasn't far removed. The majority of the fleet had separated from the HORGON THAR to carry out operations against the Time Criminals in other locations. Only two light cruisers stood next to the super-battleship at the small spaceport. With diameters of one-hundred meters, they looked like toys beside the giant.

  Lightning flashed in the dark, cloudy sky, and a violent hurricane raged over the low, bulky buildings that surrounded the landing field like a horseshoe. The Beasts transported the individual components of the time machine into an assembly and repair shop for heavy war machines.

  Icho Tolot sat in the control center of the HORGON THAR and observed the unloading and transport operation.

  You must find a way to prevent or even sabotage the use of the time machine so the Beasts cannot thwart Levian Paronn's plans, his overbrain told him. And you must try to escape from the Beasts—somehow.

  Tolot could have laughed out loud in despair. It was easy for the overbrain to talk. Although he was certain that he had managed to win the Beasts' trust, he was equally convinced that they would not let him out of their sight for a moment. Hork Nomas might be pleased by the idea that his people had defeated the First Vibratory Power, but the commander was no fool. He would keep the visitor from the future under constant observation until the time mission had been successfully completed.

  Tolot thought once more of the star arks. He still had no idea how he was to get on board the LEMCHA OVIR, and he was gradually beginning to doubt that he would ever manage it. If that was so, then he would not reach Ichest and make the trip through the time machine possible for his earlier self on Gorbas IV. The danger of becoming the victim of a time loop grew with each second.

  Nomas's booming voice tore him out of his thoughts.

  "We know what the Time Criminal Levian Paronn did in the past," the Beast Commander said as he fixed the Halutian with his shining red eyes. "We have found proof of his activities in Lemuria's historical archives. We must retroactively make sure his plan fails."

  Normas gave one of his subordinates a wave. The Beast bent over its control panel and pressed several buttons. A monitor lit up. Tolot suppressed an astonished gasp when he saw a cylindrical structure of gray metal some five kilometers long and 500 meters in diameter. It was the NETHACK ACHTON! The camera showed the ark from various perspectives in front of a background of stars and the blue sphere of Lemur. There then followed a sequence in which it accelerated and disappeared into the blackness of space, leaving only sparking stars behind. A distorted commentary praised the accomplishment of the Great Solidarity. Under the leadership of the scientist Levian Paronn, the Solidarity had constructed generation ships to spread the seed of the Lemurians throughout space.

  The images changed. Another ark became visible, a ring-formed construction with a rectangular cross-section that Tolot immediately identified as the LEMCHA OVIR. That was the ark he would accompany on its dilation flight ... if the Beasts did not change the course of history and he was successful in finding it. A date indicator in the lower right corner of the image showed that this ark had set out on its millennia-long journey years later than the NETHACK ACHTON.

  Other generation ships of different construction types appeared on the monitor as they began their flights to the stars at intervals of years and decades. Finally, the historical recordings ended with the departure of the ACHATI UMA, the ark on which Levian Paronn was traveling.

  Tolot felt electrified when he heard Levian Paronn's voice, announcing that the generation ships would ensure the continued existence of the Lemurian people.

  As the recordings ended, Tolot could conceal his relief only with difficulty. Paronn had actually succeeded in building the arks and sending them on their journeys. Everything had happened in accordance with the pre-existing shape of time.

  "We have analyzed the recordings," Hork Nomas rumbled, "and we are certain that we can calculate the course vectors of these ships using the star patterns. We will then track the ships down and destroy them. However, there is still the possibility that the historical records are not complete and we will not find all the arks. Some of the Lemurian Time Criminals could survive."

  "That must not happen," Tolot agreed nervously.

  "Therefore, we have no other choice than to eliminate Paronn's work in the past," Nomas continued. "We must kill him before he can begin the construction of the generation ships." He was silent for a moment. "With your help, Icho Tolot, we will transport the HORGON THAR into the past and deal with the time criminal."

  Tolot hesitated while his thoughts raced. He couldn't allow Nomas to calculate the arks' flight vectors and destroy them. But he also couldn't allow a fully functional Beast super-battleship to reach the past. Knowing Nomas, it was only too probable that he would not be satisfied with killing Paronn. He would use the HORGON THAR to annihilate the entire Lemurian civilization of the year 4500 d.T. at the same time.

  Suddenly it occurred to Tolot that there had been a mention in Paronn's mental diary of a small Beast ship that had attacked the Apsu System in the year 4560 and was destroyed.

  That was the solution! If he went about it cleverly enough, he could fulfill Nomas's wish without endangering Paronn or retroactively changing the course of history.

  "I am sorry," he said aloud, "but transporting the HORGON THAR into the past is impossible. The ship is too large for the time machine's capacity."

  Nomas swore.

  Then Tolot added quickly: "But I am certain that one of the light cruisers can be readied for a time jump. The small ship should be enough to eliminate the Time Criminals. After all, Lemurian civilization in that period is extremely primitive."

  "Excellent!" Nomas exclaimed. "I expect you to start work immediately. The time criminals must be dealt with as quickly as possible."

  "As you command," Tolot murmured.

  The Commander indicated two of his subordinates. "Gorben and Kadark are my best technical officers. They will assist you with the assembly of the time machine and preparations for the jump into the past."

  "That is a good idea," the Halutian lied. "The more support I have, the more quickly we can carry out our plan."

  Guards, he thought. But he didn't expect anything else. Nomas trusted him only to a certain extent. In any case, he doubted that the Beasts understood much about temporal physics and the operation of the time teleporter. He had to conceal his true intentions from them with a little cunning and trickery.

  "However," he continued, "the cruiser will not be able to return to the present. It will have to remain in the past."

  "Not necessarily," Nomas rumbled. "It can come back to our time by dilation flight. And if the cruiser is unable to do that, the crewmembers will have merely sacrificed their lives for our great victory," he added indifferently.

  Tolot growled in agreement. "Follow me," he said to the two Technos and left the control center with them.

  When they reached the building in which the components of the time machine were stored, he discovered that some of the pieces had been damaged during the disassembly or transport. He complained loudly about the incompetence of the salvage team, but secretly he was pleased. To carry out the plan he had devised, he needed time, and the repair and reproduction of these parts would provide him with the necessary delay.

  Under the watchful eyes of Gorben and Kadark, he busied himself with the reassembly of the components. He worked with deliberate slowness. As he did so, he bombarded the two guardians with long-winded explanations of temporal-physical theory and the complicated internal structure and functioning of the time machine. His assumption that his endless stream of words would soon bore and overwhelm the two Beasts proved correct. He now knew how he could divert his watchdogs and carry out his plan.

  He worked for twelve hours during which the assembly of the time machine made only sluggish progress. He then went back on board the HORGON THAR, taking Gorben and Kardak with him into the super-battleship's highly advanced, automated workshop to have the damaged components duplicated. The fully automatic reproduction of the pieces did not take long, but he pretended to be dissatisfied with the quality of the duplicates. He repeated the process several times, finally breaking off with an angry tirade about the primitive technology of his ancestors and postponing the work until the next day.

  Visibly unnerved, Gorben and Kadark led him to his cabin and left him alone. They did, however, post a guard by the door.

  Tolot smiled joylessly and concentrated on his real plan. With the help of the positronic unit in his battlesuit, he programmed regenerating stealth viruses that he intended to input into the three Beast ships' on-board computers. They were destructive, hardly detectable programs that would enable him to sabotage Nomas's time expedition and allow him to flee from the Beasts' base planet.

  Assuming Halutian software technology is superior to that of the Beasts, his overbrain commented with cold logic. You are not familiar with the quality of their virus scanners. If they catch you inputting the stealth viruses, they will kill you.

  He ignored the critical remark and continued to work determinedly.

  The next day, he informed Hork Nomas that the entire output of the HORGON THAR's reactor would be necessary to supply the energy requirements of the time machine. He embellished his claim with complicated temporal-physical explanations and digressions about nanopulsating energy streams. These went far beyond the Beast commander's capacity to understand, and Tolot was given permission to use the ship's positronic and adapt the reactor's control mechanism to the time machine's energy control systems.

  Tolot spent long hours writing the necessary programs and testing them. In a moment when he wasn't being observed, he input the prepared stealth viruses into the ship's computer. He held his breath, half-expecting the positronic's virus scanner to sound the alarm, but nothing happened. The viruses' camouflage ensured that the computer saw them as integral components of the new energy control programs.

  The first step had been successfully taken.

  When the viruses were activated, they would block the super-battleship's engines and weaponry, and help him in making his escape. Even if the Beasts succeeded in tracing the active viruses and eliminating them, they wouldn't have accomplished anything. The sabotage programs would keep regenerating and expanding their destructive power until the entire operating system was erased and reinstalled.

  A complicated, labor-intensive process that would give him enough time to flee from this planet.

  Tolot assigned Gorben and Kadark to take the energy cables from the HORGON THAR to the building where the time machine stood. He then used the opportunity to copy the historical recordings of the launching of the star arks to his battlesuit's computer. Then he input another, simple virus that would erase the recordings in the super-battleship's computer as soon as the sabotage programs became active.

  He didn't know if other copies of the recordings existed, but he couldn't do any more to protect the star arks from the Beasts' reach.

  Luck was with him. No one noticed his covert meddling with the program of the ship's positronic.

  He spent the rest of the day in the SHAKAN, the light cruiser that would be transported into the past. Under the pretext of calibrating the cruiser's five-dimensional operating systems so they wouldn't hinder the time jump, he input camouflaged viruses into that ship's computer as well. Malicious little programs that attacked not only the software but the hardware, too, and saw to it that the cruiser's engines, energy shields, and weaponry would only operate defectively when it had made the time jump.

 

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