13
'I'm disappointed in you, Mr. Delaney,' Drakov said, mockingly. 'Here I am helping you complete your mission and you were going to sell me out.'
'Some help,' Delaney said.
Andre was staring up at the immobile bronze giant. 'You made this?' she said.
'I thought you'd be impressed,' said Drakov. 'Actually, an old friend directed the construction process. The laborers who performed the bulk of the less sophisticated tasks thought they were working for Hephaestus, the Greek god of the fire and the forge. Santos found it all very amusing, being a god.'
'Santos Benedetto?' asked Steiger.
'The last of the Timekeepers,' Drakov said, 'except for myself, of course. If you care to wave hello, he's sitting up there in the helmet, at the controls of what I believe is the largest robot ever built. As I told you once before, the game continues. And we are still a long way from the endgame. The problem is what to do about you in the meantime.'
Drakov glanced out over the water at the Argo, receding in the distance. 'I'm afraid you've missed your ship. No doubt they think you died here on the beach. Pity. That will make it difficult to explain your reappearance.'
He looked sharply at Andre. 'Please, Miss Cross, leave your hands exactly where they are. If you make one more move toward your warp disc, I shall have to kill you and I would prefer it if you stayed alive awhile longer.'
'Why? 'she said.
'Because a quick death for you would provide me with little satisfaction. I have far more interesting plans for your demise. You can imagine how alarmed I was when I realized that the Special Operations Group was about to cheat me of my revenge. Interesting how they used the hominoids as preprogrammed zombies. Very creative. It never occurred to me that their cybernetic augmentation could allow them some limited function after their organic life processes had ceased.'
'We thought you were responsible,' said Steiger.
'An understandable mistake,' said Drakov. He looked down at what was left of Kovalos. 'Clever fellow, whoever he was. Apparently, he decided that since you were using the myth to create your disruption, he'd also use it to eliminate the threat. The idea might well have worked, only he underestimated the Argonauts. They didn't panic. An admirable man, that Theseus. Utterly fearless. Now, Miss Cross, if you would be so kind, please raise your left hand high overhead and remain completely motionless.'
He gestured at her with the plasma pistol and she complied. A huge shadow fell over them as the bronze robot slowly bent at the waist, reaching down with a huge hand that closed around Andre's body so only her head and shoulders and her raised left arm, with the warp disc bracelet on her wrist, were free.
'Now if you gentlemen will each hold out your hands,' said Drakov, 'I will relieve you of your warp discs. If either of you attempts any heroics, Santos will close the fist completely and Miss Cross will experience a most unpleasant death.'
They did as they were told and Drakov carefully removed each of their warp discs, then stepped back. He looked up at Benedetto, out of sight inside the robot, and nodded. The giant fist opened, releasing Andre. 'Now, Miss Cross, carefully remove your own disc and toss it here. Don't try to clock out or you will force me to kill your friends.'
Slowly, Andre removed her warp disc and threw it down at Drakov's feet. He bent down, keeping his eyes on them, and picked it up.
'Thank you. Now turn around, please.'
They turned and faced the robot. There was a loud metallic click and then a low whine as a small door opened just beneath the giant's right ankle.
'After you,' said Drakov.
One at a time, they went through the door into the giant robot's foot and Drakov followed them, carefully allowing some distance between them. He had learned the hard way once before that the temporal agents were far from helpless without their warp discs. He didn't take his eyes off them for a second, which was why he failed to see two figures sprint toward the bronze giant and slip through the small door behind him just before it closed.
They climbed up the metal stairs past a number of landings beside the complex hydraulics in the robot's joints and into the giant's face. They came out through an opening in the floor into a carpeted room containing several beds and a number of bookshelves. With the exception of the monitor screens and several banks of electronic equipment, the inside of the giant's face resembled the bedroom of some 19th century English gentleman, complete with sideboard and gasogene, as well as several oil paintings. There was something of a shipboard flavor about the room as well in the way that everything was secured so that it would not be displaced by movement. Drakov had the ability to move through time at will, but he had never been able to abandon the aesthetic sensibilities of the late 19th century, the time from which he came.
Above them was an open space, domed at the top of the giant's war helmet and ringed by a metal catwalk. Looking up, they could see the control station of the robot, with Santos Benedetto seated before a large monitor screen and instrument panel. He got up from his chair, walked over to the edge of the catwalk and stood looking down at them with his hands resting on the guardrail. Above him, suspended below the domed ceiling, was a V-20 temporal transponder, the largest size in the classification of warp discs, part of a shipment Drakov's time pirates had hijacked from the top security manufacturing facility of Amalgamated Techtronics. Drakov had once used a similar disc to equip a Soviet nuclear submarine for time travel. Now, it performed the same function for the robot inspired by Talos, the bronze giant of Greek mythology.
'It seems to be old home week,' Benedetto said, looking down at them and grinning wolfishly. He looked older and even thinner, but beyond that, he hadn't changed. He still dressed habitually in black and his sharp features and neatly trimmed black beard gave him the look of a Renaissance assassin. His knowledge of cybernetics combined with his training in psycho-conditioning made him doubly dangerous and he had no scruples whatsoever. Once a passionate moralist, a scientist who had enlisted in the Temporal Preservation League out of a genuine concern over the Time Wars, he had gravitated toward the radical militants who had made up the Timekeepers. Terrorism had destroyed his ethics and he was reborn a consummate cynic without any hope or optimism. Drakov conceived his mad plans in deadly earnest, but to Benedetto, they were merely fascinating games, complex entertainments for his jaded appetites.
'We're going home, Santos,' Drakov said.
'Before or after we take care of our intruders?' Benedetto asked.
'Our guests will accompany us,' said Drakov. 'I think they'd enjoy meeting the professor.'
'I wasn't referring to our commando friends,' said Benedetto. 'I meant the two men who came in after you.'
Drakov glanced up at him sharply. ' What two men?'
'Really, Nikolai,' said Benedetto, 'you're becoming careless. Two men managed to slip inside before I could close the door. Talos isn't exactly state-of-the-art design, you know. Certain operations are cumbersome and they take some time. I told you we should have used nysteel construction.'
'Translocate, Santos! Immediately!'
'As you wish.'
He turned around and returned to the controls. A moment later, the V-20 warp disc suspended overhead started to glow. Drakov motioned the three agents over to the bed and indicated for them to sit down, then he sat in a chair across from them, in a position where he could keep them covered and at the same time observe the opening in the floor.
'If we've been penetrated by agents of the Special Operations Group,' he said, tensely, 'things might become a bit more interesting than I care for. We'll be better able to deal with the threat when we reach our home base.'
'Our home base?' said Finn.
'Certainly,' said Drakov. He smiled. 'We are working together in this venture, are we not?'
