Pheromones?

Jennifer stared at the skeleton the impossible machine was showing, rotating slowly to give an all-around view. She remembered more than enough of her premed studies to know that theskeleton was impossible, too. The flanged bones, the high-leverage double-acting joints, the too-large nasal and ear cavities . . .

That isn't a human being. That isn't ahumanbeing.

Yeah, pheromones, supercharged variety. Lafarge says they can play games with your head.

Oh, myGod, Jennifer said. She put a hand to her mouth. Oh, my God, I went tobed with- Suddenly she was up and running, struggling to hold back the bitter-tasting bile. Remembering fever-hot skin tasting of cinnamon and salt, weight that crushed out her breath, a growling chuckle in her ear. Vomit splashed into the bowl as she knelt, heaving and retching uncontrollably; the raw physical misery was a relief, crowding thought away. When she was finally conscious of something else, it was Carmaggio standing beside her with a towel and damp facecloth.

Here, he said, helping her clean up. C'mon, sit, get your head down a little, try this.

She washed her mouth out with water and then took a sip of the brandy, sitting on the edge of the bathtub and shivering. A hand rubbed her back and she leaned into it gratefully.

Don't sweat it, he said gently. You're not to blame.

That's justit, she said roughly and took another swallow of the brandy. I thought I was seduced, and I wasdrugged, I wasraped -and I didn't even know it. I was an accomplice! She set the glass down carefully. Remembered words fell into place with little mentalclick sounds. The bitch, the bitch, she was laughing at me all along. Laughing. I want herdead.

Well, said Carmaggio, and put his arm around her shoulders. Yeah, that's the option we've been looking at, actually.

I think we have something! Mueller exclaimed. The words echoed through the huge empty spaces of the warehouse.

It was brightly lit now, with banks of overhead fluorescent lights; the interior was painted white, including the surfaces of the windows. Armed guards stood at intervals on catwalks around the upper interior walls, and another spanned the arch of the building. Below was the great circular ring of the fusion generator, man-high and twenty meters in circumference. Lying within that was another ring almost as large, smooth enigmatic metal with heavy fiber-optic cable junctions at its four corners. The air held a heavy electrical smell, overlain with new paint and hot metal.

The German scientist was standing at a console on the warehouse floor. Above in the glassed-in control chamber Gwen twitched her ears forward to pick up his voice, then glanced over at the display monitors.

I think you're right, she said. Get- CRACK.

The noise was deafening even here in the control chamber. The tragus clamped automatically across the opening of her ears to protect the sensitive inner mechanisms. Humans screamed down on the floor, clutching their hands to either side of their heads.

From within the center of the inner ring a thread of light too intense to see speared upward, cutting through the roof with hardly even a spark as the steel flashed into its constituent atoms and the atoms were stripped to ions. It wasthinner than a thread, Gwen realized as she flung up a hand and glanced away, blinking at the line of darkness scored across her sight. She opened the door and stepped out onto the new metal of the catwalk, past a Haitian bawling in panic and fumbling with his heavy Barrett .50 sniper rifle.

Thinner than a thread and utterly rigid. The source was-her mind and transducer did quick calculations-a spot 7.32 meters above the exact center of the inner ring. Head height for her, now that she was out on the catwalk that spanned the transposition circle.

Her breath was fast and heavy; she controlled it, and throttled back the beating of her heart.

Below the thread of energy a spot opened. It swelled outward into a perfect circle a meter wide, and then flashed from silver to transparent.

Well met, she breathed to the one who stood there. Glory to the Race.

Service to the State, Alexis Renston replied. Sorry for the side effect, he went on, pointing upward to the beam. Energetic particle byproduct.

The Archon was in a suit of powered infantry armor; it mimicked his form a few millimeters out, flexible as liquid and as strong as anything in the universe, set to a shiny jet-black at the moment. Molded lumps and protrusions told of engines concealed within, and weapons deadly enough to savage whole cities. It slid from face and hands as he tilted his head back slightly to take in Gwen, then glanced around at the interior of the warehouse. Behind him she could see others, and the hulking hyena-ape forms of ghouloons. The background was Reichart Station, but the forest beyond it had been cleared and the surface smoothed. Machines rested on it, waiting, and more hovered in the sky. The heavy iron was ready.

I see you haven't been idle, the Archon said.

Nor have you, she said.

There was aservus off to one side, operating some equipment.Ah, Tolya. Theservus physicist looked . .

.younger. Well, she deserved the ultimate reward.

datadump,she commanded her transducer. There was a barely subliminal hum along her nerves as it sent/received data at a rate far too high for conscious reflection. But it would be there, and here, when needed.

Timeframe? she went on, while the machines spoke to each other.

This molehole is barely at the atomic scale, Renston said. Proof-of-concept. Scaleup is proceeding rapidly and shouldn't present any problems, provided you keep the beacon in operation. Planetary Archon Ingolfsson, he added. They both wolf-grinned at the essential clarification of status.

News?

The Samothracians attacked, with moleholes in place. We stopped them, but only just. We're making excellent progress on our own moleholes for interstellar travel.

Gravitational effects . . . slipslide?

Exactly. Deeper into the solar gravity well than the Oort, and you go sideways. Very high energy costs, too.

Acknowledged. I suggest we break off until you can establish full contact. The situation here's a little delicate; the enemy sent an operative through. He'll detect the spike . . . even thenatives will detect it, and that could be awkward.

Confirmed, Renston replied. His eyes had a slightly detached look, that of someone reviewing transducer-linked data. Ahhh, good hunting there, grandmother.

Very good. See you soon.

CRACK.

The thread of intolerable light disappeared, leaving nothing but the ringing in her ears and the memory of heat and light. With it went the holographic window. The humans were babbling and rushing about, some screaming or weeping, others exultant. Gwen stood rock-still; she'd have to see to them, but not in this instant of purest joy.

I'll see you all, my brothers, my sisters, she whispered. And we shall hunt together, forever.

Across New York, static seared radio and television. Instruments jumped and computers stuttered, data scrambled on electromagnetic disks. And nearly a million eyes saw a spike of intolerable fire slamming into the sky above Manhattan, like a line of blue-white light reaching into space and scoring the face of the moon. For six seconds it hung above the city.

When it ended, darkness fell as overloaded transformers shattered and exploded in fountains of sparks.

What thehell?

Carmaggio jumped up from the sofa. Jennifer stayed, but turned her red-rimmed eyes around while her handful of Kleenex fell unnoticed to her lap. The apartment lights flickered wildly, and the telephone rang-a single long note that went on and on. The computer in the corner of the living room switched itself on, flashedsystem error, and died. Then the lights followed with an abrupt finality; but the blackness that followed was only partial. An actinic blue-white light lit it, reflected off buildings and through windows. Thunder boomed in the distance.

Jennifer came to her feet. The two humans clutched at each other. For five long seconds the unnatural lightning-light lasted, until true darkness fell.

What was that? she asked.

The end of the world, unless we're very lucky, Carmaggio said.

He fumbled in his pocket and pushed the tiny button into his ear.

. . . working, Lafarge's voice-or his machine's-sounded. The enemy has made a breakthrough. It's not a full-scale molehole but we can expect that soon. I'm coming to- The door burst open. A man-shape walked through, then lit to cast a background luminescence.

There's no more time, it said. Glowing material ran like water down its face, revealing Lafarge. No more time at all.

CHAPTER TWENTY.

Work was piling up at the warehouse. There was no more time, and the outer circle of human servants was beginning to suspect something. She'd had to slap one down with a broken skull to get the others into order, of a sort. Gwen's lips lifted from her teeth when her transducer pinged an alarm at the back of her consciousness.

plasma gun discharge,the machine said,location follows. The antennas on the roof were big and clumsy, but they worked after a fashion, and the instrument behind her ear could interface with their input.

Gwen snarled, a ripping, guttural sound full of menace. The enemy must have made up a supply of energy weapons-easier for him; he probably had a small faber to do the difficult components.Ah.

Central Park. Not too far away, and a good enough place to group for an attack. Why the discharge? It could be a trap; on the other hand, it was also likely that a cobbled-together group of hastily trained humans had poor fire discipline.

how many energy weapons?she asked the machine.

well stealthed,it replied.indeterminate; not lessthan five; not more than thirty of the same class as the discharge.

Damn, she said aloud.detection anomalies?

neural interfacer traces, possible.

She couldn't take a chance on those plasma guns getting any closer. This building was shielded and ran off the power from the fusion generator, but that didn't apply to the surrounding neighborhood. A bad fire or brickwork collapsing on the fragile walls could ruin everything. And the Samothracian was with them.

Listen.

Her humans looked up; it was safer not to make eye contact with adrakensis in the mood indicated by the sounds she'd made, unless you had direct orders.

Vulk, she said briskly. Get the perimeter out as we planned. The rest of you, Option Orange.

Tom's strained face turned to her. What's gone wrong?

The Samothracian is desperate. He's armed a number of locals with improvised energy weapons, and we have to assume he's coming after us here. I can't allow that; too much danger to the apparatus, even with the shielding. I'll have to take them out. Hold the fort, and it'll all be over soon.

And if not, this planet gets scoured clean by the biobomb,she added to herself. A nuisance; her household were all immunized, of course, but they'd have to evacuate until bacteria took care of the bodies. Seven-million-odd corpses here in New York alone-a severe sanitation problem-not to mention the longer-term damage industrial spills and runaway nuclear power plants would do to the planet.

Needs must. She stripped and began putting on her blacks, while one of Vulk's men brought the backpack shield generator she'd cobbled together.

Isn't that risky? Alice asked. Dolores whimpered slightly, subvocally.

Yes, Gwen said. But at this stage, the maximum priority is protecting the signaling apparatus. The child comes second, and myself third.

She shrugged into the backpack; with the metal sheathing to protect it from mechanical damage, it weighed about fifty kilograms. A nuisance, but not enough to slow her down significantly.

Hold the fort, she said, and trotted briskly away.

CRACK.

Hell, Carmaggio said.

The oak tree toppled away from him, its trunk blasted into splinters by the bolt from the plasma rifle in his hands. The crash echoed through the park, sinking among the treetrunks. Flames licked up and caught, dancing reddish-gold among splintered wood blasted into kindling-dryness by the energy release.

The firelight glittered over bodies and goggled eyes, extra brightness to the enhanced vision equipment from out of time gave him.

The others looked suitably respectful. They'd all practiced in Lafarge's shielded firing-range, but this was a lot more immediate.

He pushed the goggles up on his forehead, and night returned. Blacker night than any he'd ever seen in New York. You didn't realize how much ambient glow there was until it was gone; the stars were out over Central Park, a frosted arch across the sky. It was clear enough to see thecolors of the stars. Quiet, too. A little traffic noise-not much, with the streetlights dead-and plenty of sirens. Agood thing I'm on suspension, he thought dryly.Probably lose my badge if I still had it, for not showing up in an emergency like this. The policeman's part of his mind was shuddering at the thought of what it was like out there, with power down and communications scrambled.

There were about fifty men and women grouped around him, in the woods just north of the pond and across from Bethesda Fountain. Saunders and his weekend warriors, in camo-patterned Fritz helmets and fatigues, all suited up with Kevlar body armor-much good that would do them. Finch and her boss and some FBI SWAT types. And Jesus Rodriguez and Mary Chen, of course. All with Lafarge's gadgets, shielding and plasma guns; whichwould do some good, and the little ECM pod which was supposed to fool the enemy's instruments into thinking Lafarge was here. He hoped.

Carmaggio took a deep breath of the night air, scented with trees and grass and earth, and now with burning hardwood.

All right, people, he said. You all saw that.

He jerked his head toward the Lincoln Tunnel, which was near enough where the spike of fire had thrust into the night sky.

The bad lady is coming, and we have to hold her here. Otherwise it's all over.

He remembered a running translation he'd heard of a bad Japanese animated feature once-the Admiral up on the screen had talked to the hero for ten minutes, and this guy who knew some Japanese had said: The fate of the Universe is in your hands, boy. Don't fuck up.

And Jenny was walking into the tiger's den, with only this diversion to protect her.

Keep together, keep alert, and don't shoot each other. Another deep breath. Let's go.

Jennifer felt numb.I'm a financial analyst, not a spy, she told herself as she pushed through a panicked crowd in Lafarge's wake.Financial analysts don't do this sort of thing.

Nobody did this sort of thing. She stumbled over something lying on the sidewalk. Somebody. She looked down; there was just enough starlight to see the reflection on open eyes. Jennifer Feinberg had been born and raised in New York, mostly on Manhattan Island, and she'd prided herself on knowing the city in all its shapes. Until now. All at once there were no more people around her; maybe they'd all gotten sensible, and gone home to hide until things returned to normal.

She caught her breath, panting hard against the feeling of being squeezed beneath the diaphragm. If they-ifshe -didn't do something, there would be no more normal, not ever again.

Walpurgisnacht,she muttered to herself.

Lafarge turned back and put a hand under one arm. She snatched it away. I'm all right, she said. Just keep going.

Keep going because if I stop I won't start again.

Financial analysts didn't-God damn it, nobody followed time travelers into deadly peril. That was for the movies. Nobody ended up in bed with genetic super-women, either. Rage ground her teeth together and made the fluttering in her stomach recede. The fear that that column of fire had brought was still there, like a grace-note under the main theme, less personal but just as menacing.

A police car went by, siren wailing and lights blinking. Up ahead the metal bars on an electronics store had been torn loose and figures in hooded sweatsuits were carrying out equipment, laughing and prancing. The beams of their flashlights danced and jigged with them, sweeping circles of white light over windows dark except for the occasional candle. Shots sounded in the distance, a sudden crackle and then a series of slow deliberatebang . . . bang sounds.