As the three men were standing in the street, looking about themselves curiously, in the manner of those who have heard a summons but are unable to locate the caller, Emun and Mard Theckles also came out into the street.
“Trouble,” said Emun, simply. “I can smell it. It used to smell like this on Enforcement, when one of the things went rogue. Can’t you smell the hate?”
“Enforcement?” breathed Sam, remembering his breakfast with the old man, long ago. Ages ago. Earlier this year.
Theor Close nodded, quickly agreeing, his mind leaping over possibilities, like a rider going around a series of jumps. “Could be that,” he said. “It has that feel to it.”
“Where?” Betrun Jun asked Emun. “What direction? Can you tell?”
“That way,” said Emun, pointing off to the northwest. “Toward the escarpment, I think.”
Sam’s mind, so long functioning at about one-tenth of its capabilities, came suddenly and shudderingly alert, startled into full consciousness. He had been swamped in matters unresolved, stuck in darkness, in a swamp of dissatisfaction, tangled in ancient memories, unable to forget the last sight he had had of Mam, the one he had had of his dad, the back of him, going away, scatheless. The two visions resonated against one another, making a subliminal vibration which damped his conscious thought, leaving only a shallow habit-self to deal with the business of daily living. Now his mind shuddered to its roots, quaking, erupting in agonized, panicky awareness.
“You’re saying Enforcement. No, more than that! We’re really saying Enforcement-Door-prophets. All three. That’s it, isn’t it. It’s that damned Door the prophets had, the one we warned people about. Somehow the prophets have gained access to the army?”
“Unless we believe Authority has set Enforcement upon us without warning and for some unknown reason,” said Theor Close. “Assume your unlikely triplet, Sam Girat. Door. Prophets. Enforcement. If it’s true, who should be told?”
Sam shuddered. “Everyone! God, Theor. Everyone! Mysore Hobbs, for a start. Authority, at once. Phansure, Thyker, and Ahabar, at once. Mard, can you take care of that. Get to CM, wake up Dern Blass and see that warnings go out at once. Remember, send multiple messages through that damned Door, to allow for some of them being destroyed. Dern Blass may want to use the Archives link as well, though it’ll take watches to get the information there. Alert our own people. Get them up and moving. They may need to run.”
“And we?” asked Theor Close.
“We have to find whatever it is. See what it is,” said Sam, knowing what it was. “We could be wrong.” He knew they were not wrong. “So far we’re only frightened of shadows. We have to be sure.” He was sure, yet prayed he was not. “We’ll take the little flier.” Inside him a volcano roared, splashing white-hot radiance in all directions, lighting deep crevasses of his mind, sending the dark things there scurrying away, though not before he had seen them and recognized them for what they were. He shuddered and ran for the flier.
Sam piloted. Theor Close and Emun Theckles sat behind him on the double seat. As they flew toward the north, the lights of the other flier sped away toward the east. Betrun Jun and Mard Theckles, going to spread the word.
“How much do you know about the army?” Theor asked Emun. “About the technology?”
“I did maintenance and repairs,” said Emun. “I wasn’t taught a lot about the theory, but I picked up a good bit. You have to, you know. You have to understand why things work as they do. Especially when they go wrong.”
“It’s my understanding the army was programmable,” Theor went on. “It could be given a set of attitudes and’ opinions, to agree with the attitudes and opinions of those mobilizing it.”
“True,” said Emun. “And a set of passwords and command words and phrases. These could be changed from Authority, during an action. The big destroyers have a thing like a Door built into them, a command receiver unit about the size of my head. They can be reprogrammed almost immediately, by anyone with the proper passwords. Smaller soldiers only have a command receiver like the Archives link between Hobbs Land and Phansure. It can take a lot of time and many repetitions to make changes in them, depending how far the action is from Authority itself. Most battle plans depended on the big destroyers reprogramming the little ones.”
“If our warning reaches Authority …” Sam said if, knowing it would not. No. That wasn’t the way things were to be. Something else. Something dark and hidden that he couldn’t see at all. Fate. Destiny. Dark forces working against one another, like Titans wrestling far below the surface of this world. What was going on?
The land ahead of them sloped up abruptly, and behind this slope the cliffs of the escarpment loomed black against the stars.
“If our warning reaches Authority, it can override any commands the army has been given. If Authority has the passwords,” Emun finished the thought.
“Which it will not have,” Theor Close remarked in a dead quiet voice. “The first thing a takeover force will do is substitute their own passwords for any currently in effect.”
“Well, yes,” Emun agreed. “Except there’s a Final Command, which is known to every one of the twenty-one Members of Authority, and which can’t be replaced. It’s in a
