The war room was huge, and every inch of it seemed to be lined with machinery. Bredon had never seen anything like it.
In Arcade and aboard the Skyland all the machinery was hidden away, to be maintained and operated by the artificial intelligences designed for that purpose. Systems generally functioned in response to spoken orders, and needed no switches or levers. Communications equipment projected images or voices from tiny, hidden openings, when necessary, but more often projected them directly through solid walls or created them entirely through invisible fields requiring no openings at all.
Thaddeus apparently did not trust such indirect methods. His war room was jammed with archaic screens, projectors, dials, gauges, switches, buttons, and so forth. Lights flickered and blinked in a rainbow of colors; the machinery itself was mostly steel gray.
The bristling arrays of gadgetry seemed threatening and evil to Bredon, like the flensed bones of tortured intelligences. He knew that that was foolish, that silicon life needed no skin to protect it, that Thaddeus had not tortured his machines, that the missing outer layer had never been there to be removed, but the image stayed with him.
The machine he had ridden stood in the center of the room, gleaming and motionless. A small scanner atop one appendage was pointed to Bredon's left; that, combined with the direction of the voice, convinced him that Thaddeus was in the left-hand corner of the vast room.
“Awaiting orders,” the machine said.
“Aren't you supposed to be somewhere? Wait, I know you; you're a patrol and repair robot, aren't you?"
“Affirmative."
“Well, what are you doing here? I didn't call you. Did you get a signal from something in here?"
Bredon knew that in a few seconds Thaddeus would find out what was going on. If he were to make any use of the element of surprise, he needed to do it quickly.
“Negative,” the machine said.
Bredon dove through the door, rolled, and leapt to his feet in the center of the room. Before he was fully upright he shouted, “Ka nama kaa lajerama, ka nama kaa lajerama! Abort all programming! Abort, abort, abort!"
The effect was all he could have asked for. All around him, the hundreds of screens and image areas reacted. Most of them abruptly went blank; others flickered or shifted. Machines beeped and whistled from every side; dials dropped to zero. Lights flashed, blinked on, blinked off, changed color, and a baleful red suddenly predominated.
Thaddeus was there, inhumanly huge, wearing flowing black robes. He had looked up from the patrol machine in astonishment at Bredon's sudden entrance, but before he could do anything about this intrusion he was distracted by the beeping. He spun, amazingly fast for so immense a man, and saw the blank screens and red lights.
His eyes widened, and his mouth fell open. “What did you do?” he screamed. “What did you do?"
Screens showed “ready” messages, red lights blinked. Horrified, Thaddeus turned slowly in a full circle, looking at his machines, mouth open. “No!” he shouted. “Stop it! Defend me! I programmed you all-you can't obey him!"
Bredon, flushed with his sudden victory, took advantage of this opportunity and jumped at the huge immortal, intending to knock him down and beat his head against the metal floor.
Thaddeus, completing his turn, saw the attack coming. With the speed his rebuilt nerves and muscles provided, he was able to react before Bredon landed. The immortal's arms were up and braced, fending the primitive off.
Bredon responded as he had been trained; his father had taught him from an early age that he must never let the prey escape. As Thaddeus tried to fling him away he grabbed the Terran's wrist and clamped down.
Thaddeus tried to pull free, and discovered he could not. When he pulled back his arm, Bredon came with it. He saw that to pry the primitive loose with his other hand he would have to bring his face and body too close for safety, that it would give Bredon an opening.
Bredon bared his teeth in a snarl, and Thaddeus decided against getting any closer than necessary.
“You, robot!” Thaddeus called. “Get this thing off me!” He held out his arm with Bredon dangling from it like a sloth in a tree.
Bredon, however, was no sloth. He kicked out hard and caught Thaddeus in the gut. The immortal folded up, and they both went down. Bredon's death-grip on Thaddeus's wrist threw them off-balance, and both hit the floor hard, head-first.
The machine Bredon had ridden reached out a long steel arm, wrapped it around Bredon's waist, and plucked the dazed short-lifer off the equally dazed Thaddeus. Bredon, however, still kept his grip on the immortal's wrist.
“Let go!” Thaddeus shouted.
Bredon did not bother answering. He clung remorselessly. The machine lifted him up, extending its arm until his feet dangled half a meter off the floor. Bredon still held on, dragging Thaddeus back up onto his knees in the process.
The machine began shaking Bredon.
He held on, unthinking, as he fought off the effects of the fall. His head cleared somewhat, despite the shaking, and he realized what was happening to him.
“Ka nama kaa lajerama!” he called when he had gathered his wits. “Put me down!"
He felt the arm start to loosen and added, “Gently!"
The machine obeyed promptly, but as the metal arm lowered Bredon, Thaddeus reached up and grabbed Bredon's own wrist.
His grip was inhumanly strong. Bredon had forgotten that the Powers augmented their own muscles directly, as well as through the various serving machines they commanded. He felt Thaddeus's hand tightening steadily on his wrist, cutting off the circulation, straining the very bones.
He released his own hold, gambling that Thaddeus would be more interested in freeing himself than in crushing his attacker's wrist.
He won his gamble; Thaddeus, too, let go, and pulled free. By the time the robot had released Bredon completely Thaddeus was back on his feet and running for the open door, apparently not interested in unarmed combat with his opponent.
Bredon brushed himself off and looked after the fleeing figure.
Thaddeus had already turned a corner and was out of sight. He knew the fortress maze infinitely better than Bredon did, and with his modified body he was almost certainly faster than Bredon. He was also far stronger, and Bredon had no weapons.
And of course, he was a meter taller than Bredon, and built proportionately. Even without any modification, he would have been far stronger and heavier than Bredon.
Pursuit, Bredon decided, would be really stupid. He, Bredon, had control of the war room, and with that he was fairly certain he could handle Thaddeus. Thaddeus could still command any of his machines that he ran into, of course-until Bredon gave Aulden's overriding password, anyway.
Thaddeus was still a very real threat, and would have to be dealt with.
Running after him, though, was not the way to do it. Instead, Bredon crossed to the console where Thaddeus had been standing and began studying the controls.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“Everything of value beneath the surface of the world belongs to Gold the Delver. His is the hand that placed jewels in the rocks, and precious metals in the earth. When we find caves that seem to lead nowhere, these are but the abandoned back rooms of his endless caverns, closed off because he had no more use for them…"
– from the tales of Kithen the Storyteller
“Thaddeus?” Geste called uncertainly, peering about at the blank grey walls. “Are you there?"
No one answered. Nothing changed. He was still alone in the room, with only the gleaming mirrored sphere of the stasis field, and the little black floater still bumping against it, for company.
Something had happened to Thaddeus. That was obvious. Furthermore, Geste had a pretty good idea what it might be that had happened. Bredon, he guessed, must have freed the others somehow, and now they were all at the war room, turning the tables on their captor, keeping Thaddeus too busy to bother with anything else.