Battle Pod

Then tangle-eggs caught Marten and Omi and it was over. One of the cyborgs landed by them, kicked away their long-barrels and scanned the vast garage.

“Who are you?” Omi asked.

“Silence,” the cyborg said.

It dragged Marten and Omi to the others, where two more cyborgs stood.

The computer-like voice reminded Marten of Blake, the Bioram Taw2 that had run his old Tunnel Crawler Six in Sydney, Australian Sector. Marten knew that Blake would have been a cold-hearted killer if given a chance. Maybe it was the same with these horrors.

The cyborgs exchanged glances. One of them bounded away, leaving two of them behind.

The nearest cyborg stood motionless. The second cyborg scanned the garage. It seemed to be searching for something. That cyborg almost seemed agitated. Then it crouched beside the Martian officers.

The first cyborg now watched the second one. “The specimens are secure,” the first cyborg said.

“Why are they so emaciated?” the second cyborg asked.

The first cyborg froze. Then its longish head cocked to the left. “Your question… it indicates—” The first cyborg aimed its tangler at the second cyborg. “There is a seventy-eight percent probability that your query stems from emotive reasons. You must immediately head to the rendezvous point and ask for a diagnostic check.”

“Yes,” the second cyborg said, standing. Then it drew a laser carbine, ducked as a tangle-egg popped from the first cyborg’s weapon and opened fire with the laser.

In moments, the first cyborg slumped to the volcanic floor. As if it were a broken machine, blue sparks emitted from its component parts.

The surviving cyborg aimed the laser carbine at the nearest tangled Martian.

“Wait!” Marten shouted.

The cyborg hesitated. Then it stepped beside Marten, aiming the carbine at him.

“You shot one of your own,” Marten said.

“Now I will shoot all of you,” the cyborg said.

“You have emotions,” Marten said, remembering his talks with the Tunnel Crawler in Sydney. “I understand that. We understand. Leave the others and join us.”

“Join?” the cyborg asked. “You would have joined us as cyborgs. But my secret dies with all of you.”

Marten licked his lips. Blake the Bio-ram Taw2 had always wanted to be human again. “Help us, and we’ll help you become human.”

The cyborg stood perfectly still.

“Stay here,” Marten said, “and they will find your defect of emotion and expunge it.”

“…none can escape,” the cyborg said.

“If you free us,” Marten said, “we’ll flee in skimmers for one of the Martian cities. That way, you can keep your emotions longer.”

The cyborg lowered its carbine. Then it unhooked a canister from its belt. It bent before Marten and said, “Turn your head.”

Marten did. He heard a hiss, felt mist gently falling on him. Immediately, the tangle-threads lost their binding power. Marten sat up as he tore the threads from him as if they were spider webs.

The cyborg bent before Omi and sprayed more anti-tangle mist.

“Who—” Marten had to moisten his dry mouth. “Do you have a name?”

The cyborg turned its head toward him. It stared at him with such machine indifference that it chilled Marten’s blood.

“I am Osadar Di,” it said.

“That’s a female name,” Marten said. “You’re a female?”

“I am a woman, yes.”

“A woman?” Marten heard himself asking.

“They changed me,” the cyborg said in its dreadful voice. “I did not ask them to do it. They kidnapped me from Ice Hauler 49.” Maybe the cyborg recognized Marten’s incomprehension. “That was in the Neptune System.”

Neptune? These horrors are from Neptune? “What about that one?” Marten asked, indicating the dead cyborg.

“All were turned into machines against their will,” the cyborg Osadar Di said.

“Kill it,” Major Diaz whispered from the floor.

Marten glanced at the major trussed in tangle webs. He ignored the advice. Soon other cyborgs would undoubtedly descend into the garage. The idea of—who had made these things? Marten had never heard of cyborgs. These were not bionic soldiers, but living machines melded with flesh and human brains. It was inhuman. Were they madmen out in the Neptune System?

“Right,” Marten said. “You’re one of us now. Let’s shake on it.”

Marten dared to hold out his hand. And he kept himself from wincing in horror as he heard servos whine as the cyborg lifted her hand. They shook, and Marten was chilled again. Could the cyborg have torn off his arm if it —if she—had wanted to?

The cyborg continued spraying the tangled officers. Soon, they all raced for the skimmers.

Doom Stars

-1-

Heydrich Hansen seethed with hatred against his fellow neutraloids and against the Highborn. He had a special hatred for Nada Pravda who had grossly tricked him. But deep in his heart, he hated Marten Kluge the most. Oh, yes, he remembered that awful shock trooper. Everything had gone sour at the Sun-Works Factory the day Marten Kluge and Kang had showed up in his bailiwick at the Pleasure Palace.

Heydrich Hansen wore a strange harness around his blue-tattooed skin. He used to be thin, with sparse hair and slyly cruel features. He had stark muscles now, with almost no body-fat. They were sinewy muscles, as hard as iron when he flexed, which was often. His blue-tattooed face had become harsher and thinner, and his eyes often bulged with the fierceness of his emotions.

He craved specialty foods and ate with animal gusto. Sometimes, secretions in his new body gave him abnormal speed and strength. Sometimes, post-hypnotic commands drove him to raging bloodlust. Then he killed normal humans for practice.

Now was one of those times. Hansen prowled through narrow corridors aboard the Julius Caesar, a Doom Star headed for Mars. He gripped a stun gun and bore a shock rod on his hip. Other neutraloids moved through other corridors. A headset like a sweatband was around his forehead. He could speak into a mike and had an implant in his right ear. They were supposed to coordinate their efforts and drive the ordinary humans into the main exercise chamber.

Unlike his old existence, Hansen now moved with silky grace. The Doom Star presently accelerated at one-G. It traveled to Mars, he had overheard. This was a Highborn fleet action. Hansen didn’t care anything about that. Ever since they had gelded him, tattooed his entire body and surgically put wonder-glands into him, his thoughts had metamorphosed. He raged with primitive desires that involved crushing, slashing, kicking, biting and stabbing.

He snarled, baring his teeth at a camera in the corner. The Training Master watched them. The Training Master graded their worth.

Hansen trembled with suppressed rage. He wanted to blow the camera away. He wanted to kill the Training Master, spread out his intestines and urinate over them. Something pounded in his head then—it was the post- hypnotic commands.