Cohaagen’s pent-up anger at the man exploded. He glared at the fish swimming harmlessly in the bowl on his desk, and swept it to the floor, where it smashed to bits. The fish floundered desperately, unable to breathe. Cohaagen smiled.
But there were more important things to do. Cohaagen had suspected that Hauser knew more about the alien artifact that he had let on. Now he was sure of it. He could afford to wait no longer.
He picked up a phone. “Get the demolitions team,” he said. Then he stared intensely into space. He didn’t like doing this, destroying Hauser and the alien artifact. Both could have been far more useful to him, in other circumstances. But security came first. He had built a kind of empire here, and he couldn’t afford to let either friendship or greed threaten it.
CHAPTER 25
Reactor
“Do you know the way to the Pyramid from here?” Quaid asked as the mole charged along.
“Yes,” she said, looking. She pointed. “Turn right, there.”
He swung right, into a wide tunnel, and careened down it at top speed, almost trampling miners who ran for their lives.
“Watch out!” she cried. She didn’t want to hurt the common folk, only Cohaagen’s minions.
“We have to get there first,” he explained tersely. “He’s going to destroy the reactor.”
She was mortified. “No…”
“If Mars has air, Cohaagen’s finished.” But that was the least of it!
Quaid swerved to avoid a fallen miner. He zoomed on down the tunnel, seeing the way now clear.
“If Mars has air,” she said, realizing, “we’ll be free.”
“We’ll be free,” he echoed. “But there’s more. The No’ui—”
“What?”
“I never had time to tell you—and it wasn’t safe anyway, as long as Cohaagen could interrogate you,” he said. “I—that is, Hauser—did more down in that alien pit than just desert you. He—”
“Desert me?” she asked, frowning.
“Hauser was a spy. I remember now. He was only playing you along. He faked the fall so he could get ‘captured’ by Cohaagen or seemingly killed. His mission for Cohaagen was through, because you were too smart for him. But that wasn’t the only reason.”
“I understand. You don’t have to explain.”
“Yes, I do! You don’t understand. Hauser was Cohaagen’s man. He was an emotionless machine, ready to use anyone in order to carry out Cohaagen’s orders. And then you came into his life. You showed him what it meant to believe in something, what it meant to be good. He grew to admire and respect you and then…
“His feelings for you were so alien that he didn’t know what they were. He suppressed them, he fought to control them, and it wasn’t until he found himself in the Pyramid Mine that he realized he couldn’t betray you because… he loved you. So he wandered around down there, really trying to do the mission you had sent him on. And he found the aliens.”
Her face turned to him, amazed. “He—?”
“They had left a—a message. That the artifact was built by the No’ui, an intelligent galactic antlike species, for us, when we came of age. To make air for Mars, and to share technology, so that we could become a species like them, a galactic trader, spreading civilization.”
“Missionaries!” she breathed.
“Right. And Hauser—well, he was impressed. The No’ui trusted him to do the right thing, to tell his species what the artifact was for and how to use it. Because if we use it well, we’ll be traders, but if we use it the wrong way, or try to destroy it—”
“There’s a self-destruct mechanism!” she exclaimed, catching on.
“Right. The thing is primed like a bomb. Do the right thing and it’s okay, great for man in fact, and it will usher in a new age for us, greater than any we have known in the past. But do the wrong thing, and it blows. That hydrazoic acid—there must be hundreds of thousands of tons of the stuff, down below the glacier. Maybe that’s what does it.”
“I can imagine!” she said. “If that’s released, it could wipe out the whole human colony here!”
“Yes. No’ui don’t pussyfoot around. I saw one of their hatchlings. Just out of the egg, and he had to answer questions I couldn’t answer, and show he was one of them, or they would have killed him on the spot. We either use it right or we lose it; we don’t dare use it wrong. So if Cohaagen tries to destroy it, it won’t be just the atmosphere we lose, it’ll be all our lives.”
She was awed. “And that converted Hauser?”
“That finished the job you started,” Quaid agreed. “He couldn’t stand to see you tortured, which he knew Cohaagen would do next, to make you tell where Kuato was. But he also knew he couldn’t let Cohaagen know the full nature of the artifact. Cohaagen must already have figured it would make air, so he tried to hide it away so it wouldn’t ruin his monopoly. But if he had learned how much more it meant, that he could learn the alien technology and magnify his power a thousandfold, he’d—”
“He’d take over Earth too,” she said. “He’d pretend to be a good guy, using the reactor to make air and seeking to learn more about it, but once he had the information, he wouldn’t need his air monopoly. He’d be able to take over everything.”
“Exactly. Hauser—I’m not making any apologies for him, he was an asshole, but you—you were a good influence on him, and the No’ui—it was really a kind of mind implant, and it converted him, and he wanted to do what was right. But Cohaagen routinely mind-checked his agents to make sure no spies had infiltrated, and he would’ve learned about the No’ui. So Hauser—”
“Volunteered for a new mission,” she concluded.
“Right. That saved you, and the artifact. But now—”
“I’m right with you,” she said. “Do what you have to do, Doug. We have to get there and activate that thing before he destroys it.”
“And then we have to see that he’s dead,” he said. “So he can’t pretend he started it, and that he’s a hero who should remain in charge. That man could talk the warts off a mutant toad! We may die doing it, but—”
“Kuato and the Resistance Fighters have given their lives,” she said quietly. “I can do no less.” Then she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.
“Does this thing have a radio?” he asked. “Better check on the pursuit.”
Immediately she turned on the radio. It was a standard unit, able to receive commercial bands as well as private transmissions. She sampled stations. “They must be maintaining radio silence,” she said. “So others won’t catch on to what’s going on.”
“Then they can’t coordinate to cut us off,” he said with satisfaction. “It’s a straight horse race.”
She stopped at a news station. “…results of the special election will be announced as they occur,” the announcer said. “Meanwhile on the science front: astronomers report another ‘inexplicable nova’ discovered. That makes seven so far. According to scientists, these novas shouldn’t be happening, because they aren’t the right type of stars. They—”
Something connected in Quaid’s mind. “Oh, my God!” he breathed.
Melina looked at him again. “Something wrong?”
“That news item—those novas—I just realized—” He choked off, not wanting to believe it.
“What’s the matter, Doug?” she asked, alarmed.
“Those novas—they’re artificial,” he said. “That’s why they don’t seem to make sense. They’re seeded, same way as the No’ui seed species.”
“I suppose, if the aliens are as powerful as you say,” she said doubtfully. “But I can’t believe that—”