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minds.
"How's that?" I asked.
"Better," she said, but I could tell from her strained voice and pale
face that she was far from perfect. Better would have to do.
The dregs of the drugs proved a bonus for Ritch. He didn't look so hot,
either. Coming down from the ceiling and snapping out of shock so quickly
couldn't be good for anyone, and he'd been holding his own in combat instead
of resting.
I wish I could have offered him a needle of the stimulant I'd used back
in the marble room, on Deimos; but stimulant seemed to have been what the
imps were after--the vials were all empty.
Leaving the thumb, we descended on the palm as if storming heaven and
began a serious housecleaning, sliding from rock to rock, blasting anything
in our way . . . and scooping up anything useful. The opposi- tion was
feeble, hardly worth mentioning except to say that they died quickly.
Arlene lucked into finding a rocket launcher of her very own. Then we
helped her locate the little battery- sized rockets that were nearby. She
collected seven of the little darlings, and I showed her where to stick them
and taught her the forbidden lore of proximity fuses and firing rings.
We were so happy about the find that we must have sent out a subverbal
signal. Monsters don't like humans being happy.
We were ambushed by six former comrades at arms and ex-UAC workers,
four imps, three demons, two flying skulls, and a partridge in a pear tree.
(I'm lying about the pear tree.) In the ensuing carnage, Arlene used up
every rocket; but at least she could never again say she hadn't been checked
out on the launcher.
Arlene and I barely worked up a sweat. Ritch was getting good at the
game; he was a good draft pick. He'd been doing some thinking that he was
eager to share with us. Arlene still seemed numb from the discovery of
Wilhelm, but I was ready to get to know this new Ritch better.
So, as we surveyed our latest gaggle of ex's, I encour- aged him to
speak his piece.
He'd already told us that computers were his area, but he'd been overly
modest. Evidently, he was a bona-fide computer genius kidnapped from Deimos
by the aliens.
"We had already decided that the Gates were hypermass transportation
devices; if they really worked and weren't just some elaborate failed
experiment from millenia past, it would blow every physics theory we had out
the wash.
"We discovered they responded to bursts of high- energy microwaves;
their circuits responded for several seconds after each burst--not
electronics, exactly, but something involving direct manipulations of
particle streams."
As Ritch held court, Arlene perked up and started paying attention. She
was getting that expression she wore when a boyfriend betrayed her.
Suddenly, her mouth dropped. "You mean you--activated the Gates yourselves?
You turned them on? Jesus Christ, you brought those things here!"
Arlene had a romantic side that tried to believe whatever nonsense
officials put out as the truth du jour. I'd gotten over that sort of
silliness long before I joined the Corps--it wasn't a long-term healthy
attitude for a jarhead.
"I... I think we brought these aliens through the Gate ourselves, in a
way," Ritch admitted pathetically. "But it was an accident!"
"Ah, an accident," I snorted. "Well, that certainly relieves everyone
of any personal responsibility."
Ritch continued, not noticing the irony. "I think, now, that whatever
these creatures were, they were listening to the Gates. Maybe they were
trying to fire it up from their end, and until we 'answered the phone,' they
couldn't do it. But yeah, I guess we let them in.
"Anyway, I don't believe these are the creatures that built the Gates."
"That's what we figured," I said. "You got anything more substantial
than a gut feeling?"
"The UAC has . . . engravings that the Gate builders left behind. They
are as old as the Gates, showing what the Gate builders looked like." He
paused, trying to find the right words.
"And?" we asked as one.
"You're not going to believe this--" he started.
"After what we've been through, we'll believe any- thing," I said,
launching a preemptive strike.
"Well, they look like something out of H. P. Lovecraft," he said.
"I knew it," Arlene said. She still looked furious.
"Am I the only person in the solar system who never read this guy?" I
asked, irritated. "The first one of you to talk about anything 'eldritch' is
going to get a rocket right between the eyes."
Ritch looked at me like he thought I might be serious, but a big smile
from Arlene put him at ease. He swal- lowed hard and said, "They have
snakelike trunks with multilimbed upper torsos, no visible head; and they'd
have to move like sidewinders."
"How big?" Arlene wanted to know.
"Up to ten meters long," he answered. They didn't say it but I just
know they were both thinking, Oooh, eldritch!
I agreed. "I'd bet my life we haven't met the real intelligence behind
this."
Arlene joined in: "Bet something of more value than that, Fly. What
value do you think an insurance compa- ny would put on us?"
"I don't gamble," Ritch said with a straight face, "and I have met
the--what'd you call it? The mastermind. That spider thing . . . it's in
charge, I'm positive."
"Tell us more," I requested.
He shuddered. I knew how he felt. Theory was one thing, close contact
another. "So far as I can tell, the spider thing has real intelligence," he
said. "It spoke in clear English." I wasn't about to doubt him after my
experience with the imp back on Phobos.
"What did it say?" asked Arlene.
"Well, first it started asking me questions. It started with simple,
yes-no, true-false; I tried to lie a few times, but it already knew a lot,
and I got caught."
"What was its response to a lie?"
Ritch shrugged. "Didn't seem to care emotionally; but it punished me.
Horrible stuff, but all hallucination. You know how you're having a dream,
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