even the Baron.'
'Shut your mouth, you fool!' Mallon choked on his fury. I tossed the lighter in my hand and felt a smile twitching at my mouth.
'So Don was too smart for you after all. He must have been the one who had control of the Bolo. I suppose you called for a truce, and then shot him out from under the white flag. But he fooled you. He plugged a command into the Bolo's circuits to fire on anyone who came close-unless he was Banner.'
'You're crazy!'
'It's close enough. You can't get near the Bolo. Right? And after twenty years, the bluff you've been running on the other Barons with your private troll must be getting a little thin. Any day now one of them may decide to try you.'
Mallon twisted his face in what may have been an attempt at a placating smile. 'I won't argue with you, Jackson. You're right about the command circuit. Banner set it up to fire an antipersonnel blast at anyone coming within fifty yards. He did it to keep the mob from tampering with the machine. But there's a loophole. It wasn't only Banner who could get close. He set it up to accept any of the Prometheus crew-except me. He hated me. It was a trick to try to get me killed.'
'So you're figuring I'll step in and de-fuse her for you, eh, Toby? Well, I'm sorry as hell to disappoint you, but somehow in the confusion I left my electropass behind.'
Mallon leaned toward me. 'I told you we need each other, Jackson: I've got your pass. Yours and all the others. Renada, hand me my black box.' She rose and moved across to the desk, holding the gun on Mallon-and on me, too, for that matter.
'Where'd you get my pass, Mallon?'
'Where do you think? They're the duplicates from the vault in the old command block. I knew one day one of you would come out. I'll tell you, Jackson, it's been hell, waiting all these years-and hoping. I gave orders that any time the Great Troll bellowed, the mob was to form up and stop anybody who came out. I don't know how you got through them…'
'I was too slippery for them. Besides,' I added, 'I met a friend.'
'A friend? Who's that?'
'An old man who thought I was Prince Charming, come to wake everybody up. He was nuts. But he got me through.'
Renada came back, handed me a square steel box. 'Let's have the key, Mallon,' I said. He handed it over. I opened the box, sorted through half a dozen silver-dollar-sized ovals of clear plastic, lifted one out.
'Is it a magical charm?' Renada asked, sounding awed. She didn't seem so sophisticated now-but I liked her better human.
'Just a synthetic crystalline plastic, designed to resonate to a pattern peculiar to my EEG,' I said. 'It amplifies the signal and gives off a characteristic emission that the psychotronic circuit in the Bolo picks up.'
'That's what I thought. Magic.'
'Call it magic, then, kid.' I dropped the electropass in my pocket, stood and looked at Renada. 'I don't doubt that you know how to use that gun, honey, but I'm leaving now. Try not to shoot me.'
'You're a fool if you try it,' Mallon barked. 'If Renada doesn't shoot you, my guards will. And even if you made it, you'd still need me!'
'I'm touched by your concern, Toby. Just why do I need you?'
'You wouldn't get past the first sentry post without help, Jackson. These people know me as the Trollmaster. They're in awe of me-of my mana. But together-we can get to the controls of the Bolo, then use it to knock out the sentry machine at the Site-'
'Then what? With an operating Bolo I don't need anything else. Better improve the picture, Toby. I'm not impressed.'
He wet his lips.
'It's Prometheus, do you understand? She's stocked with everything from Browning needlers to Norge stunners. Tools, weapons, instruments. And the power plants alone.'
'I don't need needlers if I own a Bolo, Toby.'
Mallon used some profanity. 'You'll leave your liver and lights on the palace altar, Jackson. I promise you that!'
'Tell him what he wants to know, Toby,' Renada said. Mallon narrowed his eyes at her. 'You'll live to regret this, Renada.'
'Maybe I will, Toby. But you taught me how to handle a gun-and to play cards for keeps.'
The flush faded out of his face and left it pale. 'All right, Jackson,' he said, almost in a whisper. 'It's not only the equipment. It's… the men.'
I heard a clock ticking somewhere.
'What men, Toby?' I said softly.
'The crew. Day, Macy, the others. They're still in there, Jackson-aboard the ship, in stasis. We were trying to get the ship off when the attack came. There was forty minutes' warning. Everything was ready to go. You were on a test run; there wasn't time to cycle you out…'
'Keep talking,' I rapped.
'You know how the system was set up; it was to be a ten-year run out, with an automatic turnaround at the end of that time if Alpha Centauri wasn't within a milliparsec.' He snorted. 'It wasn't. After twenty years, the instruments checked. They were satisfied. There was a planetary mass within the acceptable range. So they brought me out.' He snorted again. 'The longest dry run in history. I unstrapped and came out to see what was going on. It took me a little while to realize what had happened. I went back in and cycled Banner and Mackenzie out. We went into the town; you know what we found. I saw what we had to do, but Banner and Mac argued. The fools wanted to reseal Prometheus and proceed with the launch. For what? So we could spend the rest of our lives squatting in the ruins, when by stripping the ship we could make ourselves kings?'
'So there was an argument?' I prompted.
'I had a gun. I hit Mackenzie in the leg, I think-but they got clear, found a car and beat me to the Site. There were two Bolos. What chance did I have against them?' Mallon grinned craftily. 'But Banner was a fool. He died for it.' The grin dropped like a stripper's bra. 'But when I went to claim my spoils, I discovered how the jackals had set the trap for me.'
'That was downright unfriendly of them, Mallon. Oddly enough, it doesn't make me want to stay and hold your hand.'
'Don't you understand yet!' Mallon's voice was a dry screech. 'Even if you got clear of the palace, used the Bolo to set yourself up as Baron-you'd never be safe! Not as long as one man was still alive aboard the ship. You'd never have a night's rest, wondering when one of them would walk out to challenge your rule…'
'Uneasy lies the head, eh, Toby? You remind me of a queen bee. The first one out of the chrysalis dismembers all her rivals.'
'I don't mean to kill them. That would be a waste; I mean to give them useful work to do.'
'I don't think they'd like being your slaves, Toby. And neither would I.' I looked at Renada. 'I'll be leaving you now,' I said. 'Whichever way you decide, good luck.'
'Wait.' She stood. 'I'm going with you.'
I looked at her. 'I'll be traveling fast, honey. And that gun in my back may throw off my timing.'
She stepped to me, reversed the pistol, and laid it in my hand.
'Don't kill him, Mr. Jackson. He was always kind to me.'
'Why change sides now? According to Toby, my chances look not too good.'
'I never knew before how Commander Banner died,' she said. 'He was my great-grandfather.'
7
Renada came back bundled in a gray fur as I finished buckling on my holster.
'So long, Toby,' I said. 'I ought to shoot you in the belly just for Don, but-'
