"You want us to give you a target?" shouted another voice from behind Geetro. "You're a d.a.m.ned fool if-"

"Oh, be quiet, the whole lot of you," said a woman's voice. The voice was Sela's.

"Sela!"-Blade shouted.

"Blade! It is all right. I swear it. Geetro is the leader of-"

"Enough, Sela! We'll talk of that in private, if you don't mind. Blade, will you come up now?"

Blade still had no idea what Geetro might be planning, but if Sela were willing to trust him that would have to be enough. Blade stepped out from behind the cabinet, walked to the ladder, and climbed up to the balcony.

As he reached the top, somebody turned on a powerful light, revealing the whole chamber. He saw a cl.u.s.ter of armed men and women in Authority black standing in the control room. As they saw the shambles Blade had left behind him, some shouted furiously, while others turned toward Blade with dark looks on their faces.

Geetro and Sela restored order and came toward Blade. Geetro held out a hand, and Blade noticed that the hand was sweaty and trembled slightly. The man was not quite as much in charge of the situation as he pretended to be. They shook hands, and Geetro looked down at the wrecked control equipment with a sour smile. "Well, Blade, I could wish we'd been able to get by without you doing this, but---"

"Geetro, you know how little hope there was of that," said Sela briskly. "So stop trying to prove how mild you are. We've gone too far for that to make any difference, and it certainly won't impress Blade. Not after he's done this." Her hand made a sweeping gesture that took in the whole chamber.

"I suppose you are right," said Geetro. "Will you come with us, Blade? We will not force you. But I think you will want to find out what is going on, and I know you will be safer with us and our androids guarding you."

"Very well," said Blade. "I came here in a flyer though. It's up on the roof, with my-"

"Blade," said Geetro, an edge in his voice. "Forget your flyer. This building will be guarded from the ground and from the roof as soon as the androids of the Power Guard arrive. Besides, it is no longer a target that Paron-that the other people will be attacking. You've done your work so well that it's no longer worth anything." A couple of the men growled in irritable agreement, then fell silent at a glare from Sela. "Blade, come."

Blade fell in behind Geetro and headed down the ramp.

They led Blade to a truck and followed a zigzag course through back streets and alleys to the power plant. The plant was guarded by androids standing almost shoulder to shoulder. Some of them wore the badge of the Power Guard on their coveralls, and these seemed to be giving orders to the others. All the androids had the usual shock rifles and truncheons, and some of the Power Guard were carrying grenade throwers.

"That is against the old laws," said Geetro. "But we are now in a time of new laws for Mak'loh. It is a time we hoped might come sooner or later. You have brought it many years sooner than we expected." He said nothing more to explain those cryptic words until they were all safely inside the main control room of the power plant. Then they sat down, took off their weapons and gear, and ate a light meal. While they ate, Geetro and Sela talked. By the time they'd finished the meal, Blade had a fairly good idea of what was happening in Mak'loh.

Not everyone in the Authority accepted the decline of the city as pa.s.sively as Blade had believed. Twenty years before, Geetro conceived almost the same idea as Blade. Attack something vital in Mak'loh, something so vital that its destruction would bring about a crisis in the city. Then the people would have to choose between death and setting aside the life of the Inward Eye.

"It took me nearly all those twenty years to find thirty people I could trust," said Geetro. "I did not want to try anything with a smaller number."

Blade tactfully refrained from asking why Geetro hadn't realized that one man in the right place at the right time could do the job. In any case, he knew the answer. A man of Mak'loh had enough trouble conceiving the idea in the first place. There was no point in blaming Geetro for not doing something he would have found almost completely impossible, for psychological reasons.

"Eventually I had my thirty. I also knew there were about fifty more among the Authority who would be on my side once I had taken the first vital step. Sela was among them."

"I see," said Blade. He gave Sela a hard look. "Did you know anything of what Geetro had in mind when you were showing me around?" He did not care for the possibility that she'd been systematically deceiving him.

"I did not know," she said calmly. "I suspected that he had a plan. I suspected that, if he did have a plan, it would be something like this. He was not the only one with the wits to understand what Mak'loh needed. I will admit he was the only one with the courage necessary-until you came. Yet I did not show you around the city with the idea of helping you to do what you have done tonight. I believed what you said, about bringing in your comrades to help us. I thought that would be a much better way, and we would not have to destroy anything." Her shoulders sagged. "Blade, did you lie to me-about being one of many explorers from England?"

"I did not lie about that," said Blade. He realized he was going to have to make a few changes in his story now that Sela was politely calling his bluff. "I was. Three parties set out from England, with six men in each one. We traveled separately, and my party was the first to reach Mak'loh. I do not know where the other two parties are. They may be dead."

"How is this?" said Geetro, surprised. "It has been a long time since anyone in the Warlands could harm people from the Cities of Peace."

"Times have changed," said Blade. "The Warlands beyond Mak'loh's Wall are ruled by a man called the Shoba. I do not know what kind of man he is, but I know what kind of army he has." He repeated to Geetro what he'd told Sela about the Shoba's army.

"They were good enough to kill two of my comrades and wound two more so that they could not travel. I left one man with the wounded and came on myself, into the Warlands Villages where I met the girl Twana. Then we came on, over the Wall and into Mak'loh. I have no way of calling my comrades. I do not even know that the Shoba's men have not found them and killed them. Here in Mak'loh I was alone, and I knew I would be alone for a long time. I knew that I could do what was necessary alone, and that the sooner I did it the better. The rest you have seen tonight."

"We have," said Geetro, "and I suppose we must be grateful to you for it."

"You certainly ought to be," said Sela. "The job is done, without you having to gather your own courage to do it or dirty your own hands by doing it yourself."

"You've spoken truly," said Geetro. "The job is done, and by a man who-" He broke off suddenly, but not before his voice had taken on a tone that Blade recognized and distrusted. Quietly Blade dropped one hand to the b.u.t.t of his rifle and shifted in his chair so that he could leap to his feet in a hurry.

Sela also recognized Geetro's tone and finished the sentence. "And by a man who is not of us, and can therefore be blamed-and punished-for it without danger. That is what you think. That is what I see on your face and hear in your voice.

"Think again, Geetro. You will not prove how clean your own hands are by washing them in the blood of this man. Not when he had the courage to do alone what you did not have the courage to do with thirty people behind you."

Geetro sucked in his breath. "Is there-love-between you and Blade, Sela?" Blade hadn't expected to find plain, simple jealousy in Mak'loh, but it was all over Geetro's face. He sincerely hoped Sela would answer, "No," and be telling the truth when she did.

"No," said Sela, with a thin smile. "You do not need to worry about that, Geetro. But you do need to worry about what may happen if you try to kill Blade. He has proved that he can deal very well with any attack coming at him from the front. As for taking him from the rear-any blow at his back must pa.s.s through me to reach him." She laid her rifle across her knees.

Blade had the strong feeling that the meeting was about to degenerate, if not into violence, at least into pointless squabbling. He raised his voice. "This is not telling me much of what I need to know, Geetro. Or have you decided to kill me so that I will not need to know anything more? If so, Sela is right. I will not be easy to kill."

Geetro clutched his hair with both hands, as though he wanted to pull it out by the roots in large handsful. "No, no, no! Blade, Sela, enough! We are not going to kill you."

"Very good," said Blade. "So let us talk of other things. Who is Paron?"

Paron was, or at least had been, the chief of the Authority people responsible for the production, programming, and training of the robots and androids. He was also one of the very few really original and creative thinkers left in Mak'loh, although his originality and creativity had led him into strange and dangerous paths.

Paron's new programs for the worker androids had greatly increased their skills. He had even done some experiments with the training of the soldier androids, to make them more able to act without orders. Those new training methods could also make the soldiers much more dangerous to the human inhabitants of Mak'loh, or so the Authority had come to believe. They outlawed Paron's experiments and confiscated all his experimental androids. They hadn't dared to do more than that. Paron was too indispensable to the working of the robot and android factories. That was unfortunate. They had merely shamed and angered Paron, enough to give him a strong desire for revenge without depriving him of the ability to take that revenge when he chose.

Still, Paron was a man of Mak'loh. Like Geetro, he came very slowly to the idea of doing anything that would upset or force a change in the city's way of life. He acquired a faction of supporters, but neither he nor they had any clear idea of what they ought to do. He was vaguely aware that Geetro was forming a faction of his own, for some purpose or purposes, but couldn't begin to guess what those purposes might be.

At this point Blade began to wonder if either side in this fight were competent to run a dockside tavern, let alone a city or a revolution.

Enter Richard Blade. Paron realized at once that Blade was something new and unpredictable. At the very least he might be dangerous as a rallying point for Geetro's faction.

In any case he had to be guarded against. So Paron started putting some of his people secretly on watch around some of the key buildings in Mak'loh. (It was those people Blade had fought in the field-generator building.) Geetro's people noticed what Paron was doing and became suspicious. Geetro himself began to wonder if Paron was not hatching some sort of counterplot. So he started having some of his own people on alert each night, ready to move into action on short notice. In another year he might even have worked up the courage to forestall Paron-and take over all the important buildings himself.

Blade prayed mentally for patience. These people had an awesomely advanced science and technology. When it came to politics, they were like frightened children cowering in the corner of a darkened room, afraid the bogeyman would get them.

Before anybody could get up the courage to do anything more, Richard Blade walked into the control room for the field generators and blew everything to bits. He smashed not only irreplaceable hardware but many years of planning by both factions. In plain language, he'd started a full-scale civil war in Mak'loh.

It was going to be a remarkably peculiar civil war, thought Blade. There might be no more than two or three hundred people fighting out of more than a hundred thousand in the city. Some of the people from the Houses of Peace might join in, but not many and not soon. Even when they did, how many of them would be of any use?

However, the situation could have been a great deal worse. He himself was still alive and no longer alone. Even the support of fifty or so well-intentioned amateur revolutionaries was better than nothing. If they would take his advice, he might be able to help them become a fairly potent force.

Except for the robot and android factories, all the important installations in Mak'loh were now held by Geetro's people or by androids who would take orders from no one but Geetro. The androids would stun any other Masters and kill their soldiers outright.

In fact, Geetro had a considerable edge in android fighting strength. By a strange irony, most of Paron's experimental androids had been a.s.signed to the Power Guard after being confiscated. So Geetro had most of Paron's own android brain children as part of his fighting force. These androids were capable of using grenade throwers-at least on other androids. They could also act as sergeants and even officers to other androids.

Paron, on the other hand, had nothing except conventional androids on his side. "That's not entirely accidental," said Geetro. "We were watching him rather closely for any signs of more experiments in android training. If he'd done anything unusual, we might have moved against him at once."

"That would have been wise," said Blade. "Also, what happens now, when Paron still controls the robot and android factories? You can no longer keep watch on him. What happens if he starts producing androids capable of killing Masters?"

That remark produced a dead silence. Geetro swallowed. "He would not take the risk. The people of Mak'loh would turn against him in a moment if he did."

"The people of Mak'loh aren't going to be turning anywhere except over in bed for several weeks," said Blade sharply. "Plenty of time for a desperate man to do a great deal of damage."

"He could not possibly become that--"

"He certainly could become that desperate," said Blade. "He has only two choices now-win or die." He paused, then added in a level voice, "So do we."

The others looked blankly at him for a moment, then slowly nodded. Geetro was the first to speak.

"Very well, Blade. You of England seem to know more of this sort of thing than we of Mak'loh. You promised us your help to save our city. Tell us what to do, and we shall listen."

Chapter 18.

Blade expected that open war would explode throughout Mak'loh within a few days. Blundering and inept warfare, perhaps, with both sides learning as they went along, but savage. Armies did not have to be skilled in order to be bloodthirsty.

In fact, almost nothing happened for several weeks. Each side started by establishing a sort of fortified camp, too strong to be attacked by the other without heavy losses. Each side took care to block off the underground tunnels leading into their camp, so that any attacks would have to be delivered on the surface.

Paron made his camp in the robot and android factory. Geetro made his camp in the power plant. Each side tried to win over as many as possible of the uncommitted Authority people. Each side sent out patrols through the city, on foot and in trucks, and occasionally sent flyers over the other's camp. Each side sniped at the other's androids, sometimes. .h.i.tting them, and collected as many weapons as they could.

Neither side seriously tried to inflict casualties on the other's humans. Neither side tried to interfere with the movements and work of the uncommitted Authority people. The Walls were as well patrolled and the Houses of Peace as well served as ever.

It was a cla.s.sical stand-off. Blade realized that neither side could think of a way to gain an advantage that didn't risk leaving the city defenseless or destroying something vital. Only part of this was a reasonable concern for their fellow citizens in the Houses of Peace. Much of it was a continued fear of rocking the boat too badly-even it it were sinking under their feet.

Left to himself, Blade would have organized a full-scale attack on the robot and android factory. He was reasonably certain that the Power Guard androids would give Geetro's side a decisive advantage. Of course, there would still have to be a pitched battle, and the factory might even be destroyed in the fighting. Blade certainly hoped so. He didn't want to destroy the androids and robots already in existence. They were too badly needed for too many essential jobs and would be needed for many years to come. But if no more were manufactured for a generation or two, Blade couldn't see any harm in that.

Geetro, however, wouldn't accept such a bold plan. Sela might have done so, but she was being very careful to avoid the appearance of allying herself with Blade against Geetro. The man's jealousy could too easily warp his judgment and put Blade in danger.

It was amusing to realize that Geetro might be the first man in Mak'loh to "fall in love" in the past century or so. It wasn't so amusing that it added one more complication to Blade's job, when he had enough already.

In spite of Geetro's refusal to plan a major offensive, Blade did not let time go to waste. All the sudden uproar and confusion in the city drew the notice of several thousand people from the Houses of Peace. Many of them wandered out into the streets of Mak'loh for the first time in a couple of centuries, willing to exert themselves Physically to satisfy their curiosity. Most of these wanderers met Geetro's people first.

Blade and Sela were able to recruit several hundred of them for Geetro's little army. They didn't try talking about a duty to the future of Mak'loh. The more intelligent ones would figure that out for themselves, and trying to convince the others would be a waste of breath and a waste of time. Instead, Blade and Sela pointed out that staying awake and moving about freely for a whole month could offer a whole new set of sensations, different from any available on an Inward Eye tape.

"And if there is fighting against Paron's androids," Blade added, "you will be in combat. Combat gives incredibly vivid sensations, like nothing else in the world." That was the truth, if not exactly the whole truth.

The new recruits were enthusiastic, but they had to be trained completely from scratch. "They hardly know which end of the rifle to hold and which to aim," was the way Blade put it. He found himself having to spend several hours a day training the new recruits until they were at least as dangerous to the enemy as to their own comrades.

Fortunately, the rest of Geetro's developing army did not require Blade's help. With only a few orders and a minimum of supervision, the Power Guard androids could train other androids well enough. Geetro's personal followers spent so much time on patrol duty that they learned the business of soldiering almost in spite of themselves. Blade actually had time to spare, and he put that time into improving the weapons of Geetro's army.

The rifles and grenade throwers were good enough for the jobs they were designed to do. Paron's androids had carried away much of the reserve stocks of weapons and ammunition, so for the moment they were somewhat better armed than Geetro's people. But Geetro had the weapons factory, and the a.s.sembly lines were being reprogrammed and started up again. Geetro would soon have an advantage in "conventional" weaponry.

What Blade wanted to create was something unconventional-at least in terms of this war and this Dimension. So he reinvented the mortar.

As he explained it to Geetro: "It's just a metal tube, closed at one end. You put a can of explosives--called a sh.e.l.l-into the tube. Then you fire it. The sh.e.l.l rises high into the air, so the mortar can even be hidden behind a building. When the sh.e.l.l lands, it explodes like a grenade, only it's much bigger and more destructive."

"How can you know where the sh.e.l.l lands, if you fire from behind a building?" asked Sela. "Does someone stand up on top of the building and tell the mortar people?"

Blade grinned. "You've got it exactly right. Each mortar needs not only a crew, but what we call in England a 'forward observer.' We will have to train these, as well as build the mortars. So it's time we got started."

The industrial computers could turn any set of specifications into workable designs and then program the machine tools in the factories to build it. The problem was the shortage of competent computer programmers, reliable computers, and well-maintained machinery. Blade knew he would not be exactly popular in Mak'loh if the first mortar blew up and took its crew with it, so he insisted on taking everything slowly and carefully.

It was two weeks before the first mortar and sh.e.l.l were ready for testing. The mortar was a heavy, monstrously ugly thing that looked as if it had been made in a boiler factory and needed four strong men to carry it. Any Home Dimension army would have taken one look at it and fired the inventor rather than the mortar.

Its only virtue was that it worked. Blade demonstrated this, firing the mortar by pulling on a long cord from the shelter of a wall of sandbags. The sh.e.l.l flew more than two miles and landed with a puff of dust-a dud. The second sh.e.l.l flew just as far and went off with a tremendous explosion that threw a cloud of dirt and smoke a hundred feet into the air.

"That will probably go right through the roof of any building in Mak'loh," said Blade, after examining the hole in the ground. "If you land one in the middle of a group of androids-"

"Please," said Geetro, wincing at the image, "I can imagine well enough. Do we really need to produce these-monstrosities?"

"Yes," said Sela and Blade, almost together. Blade let the woman go on. "We have to. Otherwise Paron will make them, as soon as he knows they are possible." Blade was silent. He couldn't have put it better himself.

So the mortars and their ammunition went into production, and Blade started training the firing crews and observers. He set up the training range on the far side of the city from Paron's camp and had it heavily patrolled by armed androids. Military security was another thing he was having to reinvent.

Before too long there were five mortars, more than a hundred sh.e.l.ls for each one, and a slowly increasing number of trained people. Blade picked out five buildings near the power station and on top of each one put a mortar, its ammunition, and its crew.

Normally everything was kept out of sight, well down inside the spiral ramp from the roof. When Blade gave the signal, the mortar crews would pick up their weapons and sh.e.l.ls, rush up to the roof, and be ready to open fire in a minute or two. Blade carefully picked and measured aiming points all around the power plant, to save time in getting the mortars onto their targets.

As Blade said: "Even if the mortars don't do that much damage, they will certainly be a surprise for Paron. I don't think he's prepared to face one, and that will be half the battle for us."

It was nearly midnight, and everyone in the command post on top of the power plant was asleep except Blade. He himself was leaning back in a folding chair, his feet propped on top of the radio. It had been a long day, starting with seeing two new mortars come out of the factory and go off to the testing range. It was time to call an end to the day and get some sleep.

Blade swung his feet off the radio and stood up. As he stood, the silence of the night suddenly fell apart. Blade recognized the crackle of shock rifles and the crash of grenades. The noise seemed to be coming from the north-toward the area held by Paron.

"Up and alert!" Blade shouted. The people a.s.signed to the command post jerked themselves awake and lurched to their feet. Blade pushed them aside and dashed out onto the roof. He ran to the edge, raised his binoculars, and looked north.

Along half a dozen streets solid ma.s.ses of moving figures were flowing south. Distance made them ant-like, but the binoculars clearly revealed the red coveralls of soldier androids. A few black dots-humans in Authority coveralls-moved along the fringes of the red ma.s.ses.

Ahead of them, each street was vanishing under a blanket of silver-gray smoke. As Blade watched, he saw the flash of grenade throwers, and the smoke clouds grew thicker. The front rank of androids seemed to move behind a fringe of white flame, as they fried their rifles continuously into the smoke.

Not a bad plan, thought Blade. Fill the grenades with some sort of chemical compound and use them to lay down a smoke screen. Then blast the area with rifle fire. He doubted Paron could have retrained the androids to kill a clearly visible Master in this short time. He might very well have managed to train them to fire blindly into smoke that might hide a Master. That way they could kill a hundred Masters without having to see one of them die or knowing for certain that they'd killed one. That would certainly make the androids a great deal more dangerous during one decisive battle, without making them permanently dangerous.

It also made any effort by Geetro's army to meet the attack in the open streets much too dangerous. Fortunately, they would not have to do anything of the kind-at least not until the mortars had done their work. If they did it.

A woman was bringing the radio out to Blade. He picked it up, switched it on, and punched the General Comman frequency.

"This is Blade. General alert, all hands. Condition Red, Condition Red. Paron is launching a ma.s.s android attack from the north. All human and android foot troops, remain in your buildings. Repeat, remain in your buildings. All doors should be locked and, if possible, barricaded with furniture.

"Mortar crews, prepare to fire on my command. Good luck, everybody."

Blade picked up his binoculars again. By now the head of each column was vanishing under its smoke screen. The smoke screens themselves were creeping toward Blade down each street.

There was a planned aiming point for the mortars in each of the six streets. There was another in the middle of the square into which all six streets ran. When the mortars opened up ....

Blade waited until the head of each column was well past the aiming point in each street. The mortar sh.e.l.ls ought to be scattered up and down the column for a considerable distance. Then he picked up the radio.