Finally, as Yar Alt had been expecting, the young Faetians and their companions entered the shrine through a gap in the wall.
During the improvised wedding ceremony under the temple vaults, apart from the nanny and the secretary, there had been one invisible witness. He had been unable to suppress a groan, as if echoing, like the officiating priests, the Elder’s cry:
“So be it!”
Yar Alt had failed to win “full psycho-life contact” from Mada, while this foreign half-breed had achieved it without effort. In the depths of his soul, Yar Alt considered that he could have become a totally different Faetian if his love had been reciprocated. Tenderness, sensitivity and goodness would have blossomed in him if the beautiful long-face of his choice had not responded to him with proud disdain. That was why Yar Alt had come to hate the world.
And now, in fear and shame at having groaned aloud, he kept himself in hand so as to carry out his duty.
He waited until Mother Lua led the newly-weds and the hunchback into the secret passage, watched as Um Sat retired to his cell, and only after that did he risk going to the hidden door. He strained all his will as he ordered the wall to divide. And he sighed with relief. The wall parted to form an opening. Yar Alt dived through it.
The criminals shouldn’t have gone far. The biocurrents of the Supreme Officer of the Blood Guard were effective. He would find the intruders while they were still underground and not give them a chance to shelter in the palace.
He ran along the passage, but the cursed lamps were coming on and going out again of their own accord. He stopped, realising that they would give him away. All it needed was for one of the party to look round…
If only the lovers could have suspected what they were walking past! The galleries of the Central Console! The heart of the disintegration war!
Why hadn’t the alarm gone off? Or was it all because of the brain biocurrents of the roundhead woman whom the automatic machines recognised as friendly, just as they recognised him, the Supreme Officer of the Blood Guard?
So reasoned Yar Alt as he hurried in pursuit of the departing group. Suddenly, he stopped abruptly.
To one side, a gallery sloped steeply downwards; along it ran a cable in red braiding. It seemed to Yar Alt that the light had just gone out in this gallery, which certainly didn’t lead to the Dictator’s palace. Had the hunchback turned off for the Central Console? Why?
Yar Alt caught his breath. Enemies were sneaking up to the Console! It was not just a matter of purity of blood, but of a threat to the whole of Powermania!
Without another thought, Yar Alt also turned off into the gallery and ran headlong down the slope. He was blocked by a blank wall. The light switched itself on and a spiral, the symbol of the Superiors, became visible on the smooth surface.
Yar Alt had never been here before and did not know whether he would be able to open the door in the Wall. Terror and fury made the force of his gaze ten times stronger as he fixed it on the spiral. The moment before the automatic machines began working seemed agonisingly long. But the Wall divided. His status as Supreme Officer of the Blood Guard had helped. The biocurrents of his brain were familiar to these machines too.
Yar Alt rushed through the gap.
After a short while, he saw the secretary and the nanny walking ahead of him.
He drew a pistol loaded with poisoned bullets. Even a light scratch would stun a man.
Without warning, Yar Alt fired at the hunchback from behind. Kutsi started, but stayed on his feet. The bullet had ricocheted off his hump into the wall.
Alt fired again and yet again. The shock of the bullets threw the secretary onto his knees this time.
Yar Alt slowly walked up, waiting for his enemy to breathe his last.
But the other, who was lying on his back, suddenly kicked the weapon out of Yar Alt’s hand. It clattered over the flagstones.
Alt flung himself on the enemy as he struggled to get up and tried to pin the hunchback down to the floor.
Kutsi Merc was unarmed. He had intentionally not brought a weapon with him, anticipating possible searches which could have ruined his whole plan. Endowed with exceptional strength, he would easily have coped with a lighter opponent had it not been for the heavy burden on his back.
Yar Alt drew a long stiletto that served him as a personal antenna in the Blood Guard communications system. Embracing the hunchback with one arm and breathing heavily into his face, he drove the stiletto into his back. But the point slid over something solid, slitting the cloth.
Yar Alt thought only of bullet-proof armour and of nothing else. This spelled disaster, and not only for him.
Almost without hope of success, Yar Alt stabbed his foe in the chest. Strange to say, the hunchback had no frontal armour. The stiletto went straight into Kutsi’s heart. His grip loosened and he fell backwards. A pool of blood spread over the stones.
Yar Alt jumped to his feet and prodded the hunchback with his foot. Only then did he turn to Mother Lua.
But she was not there. She had snatched up Alt’s pistol and disappeared during the brief struggle so as to warn Mada and save her life.
Yar Alt ran forward and immediately came up against the blank Wall. He fixed a malignant glare on the centre of the spiral, but it never budged. Yar Alt realised that Mother Lua was standing on the other side of the door and by effort of will was commanding the door not to open. That was why the automatic machines were not reacting to his own command!
A struggle began between Yar Alt and Mother Lua. Separated by a solid barrier, they glared furiously at the centres of the two spirals. The programmed machines were paralysed by the opposing wills.
Yar Alt was bathed in drops of sweat and his lips were flecked with foam.
It had been easier to kill Kutsi Merc than to cope with this damned witch. He knew that she composed forbidden songs. Her kind had once been burned at the stake.
Finally, the Wall shuddered and parted to leave a gap, but slammed shut again. Yar Alt just managed to catch sight of the nanny. Fortunately, it hadn’t occurred to her to shoot at him. At the mere thought of this, Yar Alt’s skin crawled. He had not noticed how exhausted she had been.
The Wall shuddered and was still by turns. Yar Alt ground his teeth. Mother Lua’s mistake had suggested a plan of action. He wanted very little now: it was for a gap to open for only a fraction of a second. He himself would not, of course, be in front of it.
The perspiration streamed into his eyes. In a wild frenzy, he continued drilling the centre of the spiral with his eyes, commanding the Wall to open. He made ready, drawing his left arm back in order to throw the stiletto.
Mother Lua was almost losing consciousness. Her arms hung helplessly by her sides. She knew her own life and that of her favourite depended on her will-power.
The nanny swayed. The Wall opened just a little way. Yar Alt waited for the right moment and hurled his stiletto through the gap. It pierced the roundhead woman in the throat. Her eyes went blank and the Wall divided.
Yar Alt jumped over the fallen nanny. He tugged the stiletto out of her throat and started racing down the corridor. After a few strides he suddenly realised that he had not retrieved his pistol from Mother Lua. He was about to go back, but changed his mind, hurrying to catch up with Ave Mar and Mada. The traitress who had led the evildoer towards the Central Console had already received her deserts!
Yar Alt ran along the underground passage and the lighting went on as he approached and went out again behind him.
The Wall directly before the palace barred his way once again, but opened as soon as he glanced at the spiral.