asked for permission to deploy the android cadre, and the Colonel had put the suggestion on hold. Soon, Lauderdale knew, his androids would be in action.
'There, sir,' said a tech. 'No one can talk to anyone except through this room, sir.'
'Good job.'
The tech didn't say anything. She packed her tools and left. Lauderdale didn't like techs. They jealously guarded their specializations, throwing up an aura of mystery to exclude others. Of course, androids were different. They were supposed to be secret, supposed to be frightening.
It had been easy rising to his current position.
Williford had refused to execute the traitor Badalamenti, and so the task had fallen to Lauderdale. When it was accomplished, Rintoon immediately jumped him to Captain and had him execute Williford too, the Lieutenant having revealed himself by his defiance of authority to be another Maniak in blue. After that, Rintoon had made him a Major. Lauderdale had wondered whether to have the rank insignia sewn on his old tunics, but fortunately the late Majors McAuley and Faulcon had been about his size, and so he was able to commandeer their wardrobes.
Rintoon was in the process of recalling all field units to the Fort. Their positions were lit up on the map, moving back towards Lake Havasu. The cruiser patrols were being logged in as and when they arrived. The Fort was on a war footing. The Colonel was expecting a Maniak assault at any moment. Lauderdale smiled at that. He wondered how his superior would react when he found out precisely what was attacking Fort Apache.
The Colonel had spent the whole morning weeding out traitors, and having them executed. He had found thirteen in the fort's compliment of three hundred and two. What with the other casualties, the fort's tiny morgue was packed to capacity, and the corpses were having to be stored in the hospital beds. Lauderdale noticed that, apart from Colonel Rintoon, none of the other officers had chosen to talk to him since Badalamenti. It didn't matter.
Captain Finney was at her regular console, and seemed to be under control, but Lauderdale knew he had to watch her. She was too in tune with the computer systems. He intended to recommend to Rintoon that her access to them be restricted, or perhaps denied entirely. Still, according to Elder Seth, the thing in the database could take care of itself.
'Cat?' he asked.
'Major,' she said, not looking up.
'All systems A-OK???”
'Sir, yessir.'
She punched keys, and sine curves revolved on her screen.
'You've run the projections the Colonel wanted?'
'Sir, yessir.' She handed him a sheaf of papers.
'Good work.'
'Sir, thank you sir.'
Lauderdale pretended to look at the print-out. He couldn't understand any of the figures. But he knew that the Call of Joseph was nearly upon him.
It was a full three hours since he had last spilled blood. And the blood was an essential part of the ritual. Elder Seth himself had explained it to him on his last covert visit to Salt Lake City. Only through the constant spilling of blood could the Dark Ones keep their purchase on this plane of existence. For them, each sacrifice was like a handhold in a sheer rockface.
Lauderdale considered Cat Finney. She was dangerous to him. He could easily convince the Colonel that she had been a Maniak, that she had been gnawing away at the cybernetic foundations of the Apache database. His hand went to his sidearm.
No. There were too many other operators in the centre.
Finney had too many friends. Lauderdale's position as Rintoon's second-in-command was precarious. There was no telling who the old man would listen to in any given argument. He could as easily be persuaded that Lauderdale was a Maniak as Finney.
'Keep it up, Cat, keep it up,' he said.
'Sir, yessir,' she replied.
He left the Ops Centre, and hurried through the corridors. He hummed to himself, Neil Sedaka's 'I Love, I Love, I Love My Little Calendar Girl'. He reached into the tunic, and felt the switchblade snug in its harness under his arm. The next person to come along would do, he felt sure…
A Trooper rounded the corner. Lauderdale didn't know him. That was good. Personal feelings tainted the sacrifice. It was important to spill the blood without hate, without love, without emotion.
'Trooper.'
'Lieutenant…Major, sir.'
The Trooper stood to attention.
'Name?'
'Brecher, Michaeljohn T., Company B Smoke-Generating, sir.'
Lauderdale prowled around the Trooper. There was no one in sight. He looked at Brecher's broad back.
'You're out of uniform, Trooper. Look, your shirttail is loose…'
Standing behind the man, he drew his knife. The blade silently appeared. With its point, he tugged at Brecher's shirt, pulling it free.
'And here, you have a button missing from your epaulette…'
'Sir?'
He cut the button off. It bounced on the floor and rolled away. There was a touch of perplexion in Brecher's eyes as Lauderdale pricked the side of his throat.
'You're a mess, Trooper,' he whispered into the man's ear as he eased the knife in through his jugular vein, wiggled it into his windpipe, and scraped it against his vertebrae.
Lauderdale stood back to avoid the arterial spray.
The Maniax had struck again. He went to the wall and sounded the alarm.
The dead man's throat kept pumping a red tide onto the dirty white floor until the guards came.
III
As his prosthetic hand ground into Stack's neck Tiger Behr was babbling, 'It's not me, mister,
Chantal brought her gun up, but there were too many people in the way. The Armindariz children had flown into a panic and were running, screaming, around the place like cats on fire.
Chantal made her way through them, gun still raised.
Stack was bent backwards at the waist, limp at the knees. He was feebly scrabbling at Behr's metal-ringed wrist.
Chantal had a good shot now. She took it.
The gun clicked. She remembered she had emptied it at the bell. There was no time to reload.
Through Behr's tattered shirt, she saw a patch of scrawny skin unprotected by fleshplate armour.
She braced herself against a tombstone, and vault-kicked with both feet.
Her kick landed hard, and gouged a gobbet from Behr's back. But she didn't knock him off his footing, and the jolt shocked through her feet and legs. The tombstone tipped over—the sandy ground was too loose to be an anchor—and she fell on top of it, hurting her hip.
Behr straightened, and turned robotically. He held Stack at arms' length, lifting him off the ground. His face was greyish now, and he was bleeding where Behr's fingers were sinking into the flesh.
'What'd ya do that fer,
She tried a double karate chop, either side of his neck. Behr cried out, but didn't die.
