[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

even though I was still, for now, on the same side, I was there because the
opposition repelled me, not out of any lingering loyalty to the Confederacy
ideal. Had this, I wondered, happened to the others, my counterparts on
Lilith, Cerberus, and Medusa? I knew this I was
file:///F|/rah/Jack%20L.%20Chalker/Chalker,%...ds%20of%20the%20Diamond%203%20-
%20Charon.htm (195 of 233) [1/17/03 4:31:50 AM]
Charon: A Dragon at the Gate more completely human now than ever before, and
both the weaker for it and yet, somehow, whole as Kira was not and might never
be.
Explaining all this to Darva wasn't easy. Although it helped to share it and
talk it out, the fact was she could never fully understand. She hadn't been
raised to believe.
And that, in the end, was the bottom line of difference between Kira and me. I
had been a believer who lost his faith but found his humanity. She had never
believed in anything, and, because of that, could never find or even fully
comprehend her own humanity. I had been literally reduced to the animal on
Charon and been reborn a human. Kira was reduced to the machine and locked
there for all time.
In a sense, she'd forced me to take a good, hard look at myself and in the
process, I was free. The last bonds were cut. Like that little Cerberan,
Dumonia, I
severed my last ties to my past and stayed allied with it only because, for
the moment, our interests coincided.
For the first time I reached back and examined myself, and much to my
surprise, was able to locate through my own wa that tiny piece of organic goo
in my brain.
Still there. From Lacoch to changeling to bunhar to changeling again, it had
somehow survived. So you're still listening, my brother out there? My... Kira.
Koril looked grim-faced. His office was littered with reports and photos, and
he wasn't pleased with whatever they said.
He got straight to the point. "We have been compromised. After all these
years, we've been compromised."
"Somebody got word out?"
He nodded. "Somehow. I'm not sure how. But this complex is doomed, Park. It's
only a matter of time. Oh, it's safe enough against ground assault, but once
its location is known they could bring in heavy stuff, off-planet stuff, and
fry hell out of us."
"Then why haven't they?"
He smiled. "Funny. Basically because the Confederacy monitors the system so
well. They don't have the heavy weapons on Charon to do the job, and if they
tried to get them they'd be shot to hell in space. To hit us hard they'd have
to bring in one of their alien friends' vessels and that would force them into
the open. But it's only a matter of time until they work out some way to fool
our Wardens."
"How much time?" I asked uneasily.
file:///F|/rah/Jack%20L.%20Chalker/Chalker,%...ds%20of%20the%20Diamond%203%20-
%20Charon.htm (196 of 233) [1/17/03 4:31:50 AM]
Charon: A Dragon at the Gate
"Who knows? A day? A week? A month? A minute from now? Whenever they can work
it out. We can't take the chance of its being long." He sat back in his chair,
and for the first time he looked very old, old and incredibly tired. "Well,
perhaps it's for the best. To end it, one way or the other, once and for all.
He looked up at me, the weight of his decision showing in his face. "You know,
Park, for the first time I realize how I've been kidding myself all these
years. I
Page 140
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
enjoyed this place. I loved the research, the peace, the lack of demands. I
even loved being the rebel leader. It was far more of a challenge to be the
opposition than to actually run the place. It's funny always preparing but
never acting. That's just what Dumonia was saying the other son of a bitch!"
"What's the matter?"
"That old bastard! Outside of people directly under my control, Dumonia was
the only one who knew precisely how to determine this base's location. He had
to his people stocked it. Why, I ought to..." He was turning so red I feared
his rage, but he soon calmed down.
"Oh, hell," he said, "I guess he had a right. Without him I wouldn't have all
this."
"You mean the
Cerberan betrayed you?"
He nodded. "Had to be."
"But why?"
"Just to get me to move. Damn it, Park, I'm ready. I've been ready for over a
year.
You saw Bourget just a little test. That's why Dumonia was here. We talked and
talked and talked, and I gave him a hundred excuses, but hell, the man's a
psych.
He knew I would have to be pushed, and so he pushed."
I frowned. "Who that man, anyway? Where does he get the resources and power
is he uses?"
"He's probably the most dangerous man in the Diamond, and that's saying
something," Korfl replied. "He could be Lord if he wanted, or just about
anything else, I think. He's absolutely brilliant, particularly at making
other powerful people do what he wants. Right now he has the Confederacy and
who knows how much of the Diamond doing his bidding. What his motives are I
can't say but I
know it's not power for its own sake. If he wanted to run things, he would. I
asked him once why he was helping me and you know what he said? He said it was
a relief from boredom! But, enough of him. He's kicked me hard now and I have
no choice but to act."
file:///F|/rah/Jack%20L.%20Chalker/Chalker,%...ds%20of%20the%20Diamond%203%20-
%20Charon.htm (197 of 233) [1/17/03 4:31:50 AM]
Charon: A Dragon at the Gate
"You're going to try and retake control then?"
He nodded. "Now, I don't want to minimize anything. You're still new here a
little over a year total, I think. You still don't really appreciate what
we're up against."
I waved my hands around. "This place is equipped to take the whole system, and
your planetwide underground is effective. I can't see why you'd have a problem
at this stage."
He smiled grimly. "Ah, but you see only the surface. First of all, we can't
depend on the weapons here. Didn't you ever wonder why those troopers in
Bourget had projectile weapons? I took a great risk with the laser stuff
there. One small tabarwind and we'd have been blown to kingdom come."
"You know, ever since I've been on Charon I've heard about tabarwinds," I told
him. "And yet they have to be rare. I never saw one, or met anyone who did."
"It only takes one to scare hell out of you. It's, a whirling electrical storm
that reaches from the ground to the ion layer surrounding the planet. Nobody
knows what causes them, but they look like something out of the most fanatical
of religious hells. There's even a religion based on them, if you can believe
it. They just appear no cause, no real reason we've ever found. They can be
anywhere except here, in the center of Gamush, for some reason. They follow no
set path and no logic, and they vanish as quickly as they come. It can be a
year between them and then there can be dozens, even hundreds. Aside from the
direct fury of the storm, almost anything electrical within a dozen or more
Page 141
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]