A Jungle of Stars Page 6

  Someone--or something--had stolen a day out of these people's lives. How it had been done Savage had no idea, and the mysterious force had left no clues to hang on to.

  Or had it?

  The Hunter organization could arrange a sales meeting delay, and tamper with the car. And an organization of Hunter's capabilities could easily black out a town, for they had done things far stranger. And--

  For the first time, it also occurred to him that one other organization would have similar resources.

  Had The Bromgrev landed? Was he--or "it"--one of the townspeople? If so, why do a thing so conspicuous? Why provoke an instant and predictable reaction from The Hunter's people?

  Maybe "predictable" was the word.

  ***

  It was well past three in the morning and Savage lay awake in the darkness of his hotel room. Except for the cricket symphony, there was an almost incredible silence.

  What would be predictable?

  That The Hunter would send someone to investigate. No. More.

  That The Hunter would send him. Virginia through Georgia was his beat.

  Savage crushed his cigarette in the ashtray and watched the glow slowly die in the darkness.

  A soft knock came at his door. The sound, slight as it was, made him jump as if a firecracker had suddenly exploded. He reached over to the chair on which hung his shoulder holster and removed the .38 Police Special he always carried.

  The knock was repeated.

  Slowly he went over to the door and put his lips to the crack between door and door molding.

  "Who is it?" he whispered softly.

  "Someone who has gone to a lot of trouble to talk to you privately," came an equally whispered reply.

  The voice was sharp, clear, every word perfectly formed in neutral American English, yet totally without color or emotion. Savage unlocked the door and stepped back, gun drawn. What was it about the Devil not being able to enter a place unless invited?

  "Come in," he called nervously.

  The knob twisted, then the door opened slowly, revealing a small and not very threatening figure in the gloom. The figure entered and closed the door behind him.

  It was Bakkus.

  No, it was something that looked like Bakkus--but it had no humanity, no fire inside. It was an animated corpse.

  "Please put the gun away, Mr. Savage," Bakkus said in that strange and unnatural intonation. "You can only shoot Mr. Bakkus, and he's an innocent and unknowing bystander in this affair, of no concern to either of us. It takes a great deal of power from my other dealings to communicate in this fashion, so I will be brief."

  "You are The Bromgrev?" Savage asked breathlessly.

  "No, merely one of his agents, as you are an agent of The Hunter. But I am on The Bromgrev's business."

  "Just where--and what--are you, anyway?" Savage asked, not taking his pistol off the figure, who continued to stand motionless.

  "I am in a ship quite a distance from your planet, using a device that amplifies my own rather powerful mental abilities a millionfold. That device--and our agents on Earth--caused the population of this little town to remain comatose for roughly thirty Earth hours, with little disturbance."

  "All to get me here," Savage accused. "Why?"

  "So you have deduced that? You are, indeed, as good as we have heard. As to the why of it, we mean to correct certain impressions you have received. We mean to give you all of the facts, the truth--unlike Hunter. And, at the end, we might ask for your help."

  Savage's thick brows shot up. "My help? I belong to the opposition, remember. What makes you think I'll switch?"

  "You have certain distinct personality traits we believe will make you a key person in coming events. You are, of course, not the only agent we have talked to--or will talk to. If you will permit me to give you my message, you might understand."

  Savage still didn't lower the pistol, but he did flop back down on the bed. Bakkus made no attempt to move or sit. The creature controlling the body operated it as a robot.

  Savage carefully lit another cigarette.

  "Go ahead," he told the creature. "I'm listening."

  "To begin with, The Hunter told you the true nature of the war we are fighting. It is one of his characteristics that his lies are always cloaked in truths.

  "For example, the evolution of the Synthesis is an integral part of natural law. An existing synthesis is necessary to maintain order in the galaxy. It's an order that is beyond your comprehension--or mine--but it is essential to the maintenance and development of all sentient life. But Hunter lied when he threatened you with that standard stage-play of his. Had you refused his offer, you would not have been submerged in insanity, but you would have found and slowly learned to use new powers as an individual--with the ability to synthesize at will with any other individuals, or the group as a whole, to become something even greater. You would have become a part of the management of your planet. You are now cheated of this."

  "Well, I don't miss it," Savage responded dryly. "One doesn't miss what one has never had, wanted, or understood. What's all this to do with me?"

  "Perspective," replied the creature using Bakkus. "You see, the last such race is gone--dead, finally, or, perhaps, gone on to even greater things. Nobody knows. But that race--the race of The Hunter and The Bromgrev--left far too soon. They were able to interpolate and determine that, left completely alone, the Next Race was far enough along to carry our galaxy through any rough spots. The problem, you see, was that one member of the old race enjoyed playing God too much. This was The Hunter's sector: Earth and the nearby planets. He'd played games with Earth, terrible games that could have cheated your people out of their chance--and it's only a chance--of attaining greatness. He introduced space travel at too early a stage. Such travel, before there is a temporal awareness and an acceptance of the Synthesis, can cause wide dispersion and the Synthesis will not be able to grow and evolve to its proper form."

  "But we have space travel," Savage pointed out. "We've been on the moon and rockets--"

  "Toys of no consequence," the creature responded. "It is the knowledge of how to bypass relativity that matters. The Hunter gave Earth the necessary equations to conquer space--and his people, the Kreb, caught him at it, as they had to. They caused a series of natural disasters that forced Earth's civilization virtually back to the caves, but saved its future. And they did something else: they expelled The Hunter from the Synthesis, and caused him to become what he is today--earthbound, material, and parasitic. The hatred he nurtures for this transcends all reason, and he will never allow any to reach Synthesis again. He is the apostle of chaos."

  "You're saying The Hunter is the Devil--cast out of Heaven for playing God," Savage observed. "The Hunter says The Bromgrev is the Devil. So?"

  "When the Kreb departed, they left a guardian, one of their own, to counteract the unforeseen and keep things in check until the Next Race develops. To do this, they reduced this agent to the same status as The Hunter, but not bound to this or any other planet. That is my master, The Bromgrev. Until now there was little need to do anything. Bound to this planet, Hunter was neutralized.

  "But, about a hundred and fifty of your years ago, The Hunter discovered that the ancient destruction wrought upon Earth by the Kreb had left severe weaknesses in the space-time fabric; and, using one such, he was able to transcend the ancient curse that bound him here and to go out again to the stars. He built his headquarters here, and brought real space travel back to Earth from outside. Killed on Earth, he is doomed to remain here--body after body, life after life. But killed in Haven, he is able to overcome the ancient Kreb barriers and be reborn elsewhere. Once loose, his megalomania knows no bounds, his abilities for chaos are unchecked. To save the Next Race and all future races, The Bromgrev organized and began this war--to hold the key positions, to control the key sectors, to protect the Next Race until it could develop to a point where it can do to The Hunter what his own race was unwilling or unable to do."<
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  "All very interesting, but not very important to me. Certainly it doesn't make much difference, from my point of view."

  "There is a crystal world," the creature continued, as if it had not been interrupted, "whose sentient life forms live for more than a million years; where time, and even thought, is that much slower relative to our own. Should hosts of The Hunter and The Bromgrev die at the same instant, in normal space, and if one knew of the impending death and the other did not, it would be possible for the one who knew to control the confused one who did not, to guide him to that crystal world, and there trap both in those near-immortal bodies. The war would end; the Next Race would develop normally and deal with them both, and millions of lives would be saved."

  Savage was quick to catch the implications. "That means put the both of them together--and an executioner," he pointed out. "So The Bromgrev is coming here, after all. But you picked the wrong boy, Bakkus or whatever your name is. Once bought, I stay bought."

  "Our agents reported the rather violent death of one Joseph Santori on a military installation. We made the assumption that you had killed him," the thing said.

  "No comment," Savage replied with a smile. "How can you blackmail a dead man?"

  "Blackmail has nothing to do with it," explained the agent of The Bromgrev. "Our people routinely check out new recruits to your side. We made the connection and decided, after much thought, that you were one of our best candidates. The key is revenge, Mr. Savage. You are a vengeful person. Your hate is deep inside, ready to explode. You killed Santori when he did not attempt to kill you except in defense. Rage, Mr. Savage. You killed a surrogate because your true murderer eluded you."

  "McNally," Savage whispered. It was a tone that was almost inhuman.

  "Ralph Thomas Bumgartner," replied the creature. "One of the best professional assassins around--and, like yourself, an immortal in the pay of The Hunter. You can never revenge yourself upon him, for neither of you could ever really damage the other. We could tell you where he is--but it would do you little good, you see."

  "Tell me anyway," Savage commanded eagerly. "I want to know."

  "Oh, I will... for it will verify my story. But you do not want him any more than you really wanted poor Santori. It is his employer you should seek--the one who arranged for you to die in a manner so bizarre that you would never truly suspect the premeditation of your murder. The one who had to know pretty closely the moment of your death so that you could be intercepted, in the proper emotional state, and subjected to the correct theatrics, so that you would do as was preordained by your murderer for you to do.

  "I speak of your employer: Stephen Wade, The Hunter."

  Savage sighed. "I'm ahead of you on that one," he told the creature. "I just didn't like to think about it."

  "Bumgartner--McNally--has a cottage on an island village called Ocracoke in the ocean part of North Carolina, I am informed," the creature told him. "The description means nothing to me. Does it help you?"

  "I know the place," Savage affirmed.

  "It is near Haven, you see. Right now, Bumgartner is not at home. His team is on what you would call an exfiltration mission, roughly six hundred and fifty light-years distant from here. He will return in a few of your weeks."

  "So what do you want me to do?" Savage asked.

  "We will keep in touch," the creature replied. "I will now take Mr. Bakkus to his home and leave him. In the morning he will be unusually tired but otherwise unharmed; and he will, of course, know nothing of this."

  "So I'll be seeing you?" Savage said, realizing it sounded inane.

  "No, not me, but someone." Bakkus turned and walked out of the door. Just before leaving he/it turned back one last time. "Remember, not even Hunter himself knows this conversation took place."

  And with that, it left.

  Savage lay back on his pillow, still wide awake, thinking about the absurdities of this new life. That Bumgartner was McNally he had little doubt--and he would check, anyway. That Hunter recruited that way was also probably true. But--if The Bromgrev recruited double agents, then which side had made him a candidate for murder? The Hunter, because he wanted another routine agent? Or The Bromgrev, who wanted a traitor?

  For the Devil was the Father of Lies, and the best lie was always the truth told as one wanted it told. Who was who? Who ran what? One wages a dirty war with totalitarian methods. The other murders to get recruits. In neither camp did the individual count for anything. People were things to be used. It was, he thought, a most uncharming philosophy.

  The problem was, of course, that the Devil had lied to him. But which was the Devil?

  Whose game should he play? he asked himself. A lifetime of experience had conditioned him to equate each of two sides with either good or evil. It struck him that those terms--any moral terms--simply did not apply.

  In war, there is no good or evil.

  Only interests.

  STEP TWO

  CHAPTER ONE

  The lights, those ever-present, damnable lights on the Fraskan War Room board, had been blinking for an interminably long time. A tall, lean figure sat at the central console, gloomily studying the rapid series of printouts spewing forth.

  He looked like an eight-foot skeleton over which a tiny, thin layer of blue-white skin had been stretched somehow. "Humanoid," Earthmen might have called him, but hardly "human"--although he was displaying some very human characteristics.

  Aruman Vard, Agent-in-Charge of the Fraskan Sector home world, rose and paced nervously back and forth before the big board, disgusted with the information he been receiving but helpless to correct the situation.

  Every once in a while, he would return to the command console and glance at the printouts and displays. The fear index, he noted, was almost perfect--for the enemy. The penetration ratio gave him very little time to do what he knew he must, as it was; yet he continued to put it off. One did not abandon one's life and homeland so freely.

  He reached over and pushed a large button on the console. The war board picture flipped, and showed instead only the sector. Areas in friendly hands were in blue; those under enemy control were red. His own planet, Fraska itself, was a blinking red.

  The board was mostly stable red, anyway. He looked closely at the tiny single light blinking, telling him his world was still free.

  The light blinked red.

  A telescreen on the far wall showed the spaceport, filled with ugly black keyhole-shaped landing craft. The announcer, almost in hysterics, kept repeating: "...Rhambdan forces are now in the capital, and all citizens are warned to stay inside, where you are, until further notice. Military Command has announced that formal surrender will take place later this morning, all remaining ships of the line having broken contact and headed into deep space. I repeat again: stay indoors. Stay where you are until further--"

  Vard angrily reached over to a console and switched it off. That was that.

  He sat down in the controller's chair, swiveled around to the transceiver, and punched in a ten-digit code.

  "Open all channels!" he ordered crisply.

  He did not wait for a reply or an acknowledgment, but began speaking as soon as the lights on the console told him that all connections had been completed.

  "This is Group to all teams. I have a red light--repeat, red light. Enemy is in the city. Dalthar! Dalthar! Deploy immediately to primary objectives; use secondaries in numerical sequence only as local conditions indicate. We have lost and we must now do our duty. Every blow that you strike today is a blow to the enemy, and a step toward ultimate reclamation of our beloved motherland. I know not who you are, but I--"

  He stopped, aware that he was trembling violently; the microphone was as a thing alive in his hand, writhing, bouncing uncontrollably. Finally he regained some of his composure, although his voice sounded thick and slurred to his ears.

  "Luck be with you all," he managed, his voice cracking.

  He switched off the communicator, sat back wearily in
his chair, and contemplated the master board. Flipping a toggle switch he replaced the starfield with a projection of both sides of the globe, alive with thousands of tiny flashing lights representing at least as many anonymous Fraskans in organized cells all over the planet. He had never known any of them, he thought--and almost none knew him. One by one, the lights were winking out, representing duties done or attempted: sabotage, gumming up the mighty industrial works that were the enemy's objectives and prize, ruining the sweetness of victory.

  Their homes and their jobs. Their lives.

  Winking out.

  Soon only a few were left: the nervous, the cowards, the unsuccessful, the traitors--and the captured.

  For most of them, Vard knew, there would be no returning.

  Suddenly very conscious of time, Vard juggled the dial combinations on the master transceiver for the last time.

  "Group to Mystery. I have acknowledged and transmitted your red light. Will abandon post in a tenth-period or earlier. Prepare to transmit."

  There was again no reply, but in a ship far out in space the words were heard by the cyborg signals unit on board.

  A tiny transceiver implanted long ago in his brain suddenly began a sharp, high-pitched whine that was audible to no one but him. Vard knew he would have to live with that sound, live with it until he was picked up--or killed. If captured, the signal would rise until it struck a certain pitch, shattering his skull.

  Taking a last look around the master control center, Vard went over to a small panel near the doorway. He opened it, revealing a small switch held in place by a complex electrical lock, and removed a tiny vibratory key from his belt. This was inserted in the lock, twisted first this way, then that.