around aimlessly. Offer to send it home, somehow get it under his control.
He smiled. This might be the best break yet. He got up, walked over to the balcony, and called, “Wooley! Vistaru! Nikki! Mavra! Come here!” The honor, he thought with grim humor, should be theirs.
Four women scrambled eagerly up to him.
“There’s a horse out there at the other end of the bridge,” he told them. “It’s more than a horse. It is a person inside a horse’s body and it can talk. It is one of the people opposed to me. A very dangerous one, the most important one. We must get it inside here. However, others are waiting just out of our sight and may rush you.” He thought furiously for a moment. “When you reach the horse, work your hypnos on it. Give it all you have. Tell it it is your horse and must follow you, then lead it, ride it, or in any other way possible bring it and yourselves back here.”
“What of the others, My Lord?” they all asked in unison.
“Numbers one and three, up here with your weapons” he yelled. Two more women came. They held energy pistols.
Obie couldn’t design an organic defense against energy pistols, but he could make them easily enough.
“You will follow the others to about halfway across the bridge,” he told them. “Keep your pistols ready, and get into position so you can cover both them and the hall opening. If you see
“We hear and obey, My Lord,” the two responded.
He nodded, then turned back to the control board. “Obie, on my count, you will drop out of defense mode and open the door. You will reinstitute defense mode on my command the instant I order it. Got that?”
“Got it, Ben.”
“Get ready, girls. All right, Obie—five… four… three… two… one…
The door slid open and Wooley, Vistaru, Nikki, and Mavra rushed out. A few seconds later the pair followed, pistols ready. In two groups the six ran low and carefully out across the bridge.
Mavra saw them immediately. “Okay, Bozog, Ghiskind! Now!” she hissed.
Like a flash the Bozog was across the bridge and over the side. The women, still carefully keeping low, didn’t see it.
Renard was almost dragged into the archway by the sudden force of the uncoiling wire and he struggled to keep his legs in position. He was afraid that he would lose the wire, or that the Bozog would pull him into the opening.
Mavra was acutely aware that the wire was visible and very noisy as it unreeled. Since she did not want it noticed, she was left only one choice. She reared up like a wild horse, kicked off, and charged across the wide bridge.
At first, the women were taken by surprise, but they recovered quickly and waited for their quarry to come to them.
Mavra got up so much speed that she decided to try to run right past them, into the open door of the control room. The four lead women leaped out of her way, leaving a path for her, which Mavra took. Just as she passed them she felt, first, a sharp series of stings and then the sudden force of a boy jumping on her back. Then more stings, this time in the neck.
She tried to throw the rider, but things suddenly slowed, her mind clouded, and she came slowly to a dizzy halt.
“Keep going, horsie,” a soft, sexy feminine voice said to her. “Right through the door, at a trot.”
She obeyed unthinkingly. The three other women jogged alongside, and the two backups followed last, ensuring that there was no pursuit.
“Defense mode on, Obie!” Yulin yelled. The door slammed shut as the bulk of a horse almost crowded him out. He managed to turn and asked, “Obie, any life forms now in the bridge and shaft area?”
“No, Ben,” Obie responded. “No life forms in that area.”
Vistaru still rode Mavra’s back, smiling like a child with a new toy.
“Such a nice horsie,” she said to Yulin. “Can we keep it? As a pet?”
He chuckled, but he liked the idea. The more he thought about it, the better it sounded.
“Take her down to the disk, my love. A pet you’ll have, but a new kind.”
The girls had some problems negotiating the winding stairs with Mavra, but they managed it. The horsewoman was taken to the disk, placed on it, and the girls stepped away.
Yulin chuckled to himself. He’d never seen Mavra Chang as an Olbornian mutation, but he had some notion of it, which he found erotic and exotic. A pet! he thought gleefully.
“Obie, you have Mavra Chang’s original encoding still, do you not?” he asked, hardly able to suppress himself.
“Yes, Ben.”
“All right. Encode subject on the disk,” he ordered.
The little dish swung over, the blue glow enveloped the disk below, the horse flickered and disappeared.
“New encoding for subject,” he said to the computer. “Body that of Mavra Chang with tail, as placed in previous run-through. Arms and legs are to be that of a small horse, body facing down and resting on them, length and muscle size in proportion to human body. Internal muscle tone and bone structure sufficient to support weights up to one hundred kilos, or pull even more. Ears will be as on a mule. All skin and body color to be human, but digestive system shall parallel mine, ability to eat and digest anything organic. Got it?”
“Got it, Ben. Has anyone mentioned that you are beginning to resemble Antor Trelig?”
“Who said it mattered to me?” he retorted. “Continuing instructions. Enlarge breasts so they almost reach the ground. Sensory perception human norm in all areas. Make the tail long enough to reach the ground, and establish hair on subject’s head and neck to be thick but short. Okay? And make her hermaphroditic—self- reproducing by parthenogenesis. Identical copies. Got it?”
“Yes, Ben.”
“Attitudinal adjustments: Subject is to be fond of humans, particularly those in this room, and to require constant love and attention. Totally docile and obedient, no memory before this point nor reasoning ability above the level of a highly intelligent dog. Got it?”
“I’ve got it. Ben, you are a true rat.”
“Thank you, Obie,” he responded. “Lock and run.”
It took less than six seconds.
The Bozog oozed down the side of the shaft, following the Yugash closely and maintaining a tight grip on the wire. Finally, after passing what seemed like thousands of panels and openings, they reached one that the Yugash pointed to, then entered. The Bozog followed.
Just inside, the wire snagged, and the Northerner had to stop and gently free it, afraid that Renard might interpret any tug as a signal to fire away.
The shaft led past large humming modules for some distance, then up, back, and around. It was quite a maze, and the Bozog stayed close to the Yugash, knowing full well that should the other abandon it there was no way it would ever find his way out of there.
Finally the Yugash reached the correct point. Only a meter or so away was a very odd-looking cube with a lot of connections. It didn’t match anything else around, and so it had to be the bomb.
With the Yugash guiding, the Bozog placed the wire on the proper module. The device was incredibly complex—millions of tiny hairs, each surrounded by countless tiny, perfectly round bubbles, protruded from the surface. At the proper spot, the Bozog emitted a sticky, glistening substance, then embedded the wire in it.
Hastily, the Bozog started to back out, following the wire. It got a fair distance when the Yugash started making anxious gestures.
For a moment the Bozog was puzzled, then it thought about it for a second and gave a slight tug forward on the wire.
It moved easily.
Retreating, the Bozog had pulled the wire from the jury-rigged connection. With a grunt that the translator
