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and pampered is the ultimate authority because he or she speaks to the
gods and has the ring to prove it."
Vulture stared at the maps. It was a big continent. "But where? It need not be
very large, but it would have to have some kind of support system so that the
priesthood would be freed from the daily grind of hunting and gathering. And
there would be a single permanent settlement of sorts."
Hawks shrugged. "Right now we can't find it. It might just be too small to be
noticeable on these survey photos. You can bet it's an austere priesthood,
living a hard, monastic life. The only way to know would be to have some
surface operative who could guide us there. Surely someone down there knows
the way.
Someone must relay the theology, exercise the power down the social chain. The
tribal priest must be instructed, trained, and kept to the straight and
narrow.
I suspect that the culture is far more complex than it looks from a distance."
Vulture nodded. "And, as usual, I provide the intelligence. What about getting
in and out?"
"Ever since the problem on Janipur surfaced, we have been working on ways to
do that. We were able to get into orbit and take a survey because of some of
our experimental work. I think we can jam the satellites sufficiently to move
rather freely in that system without an alarm going out. There's all sorts of
cosmic interference going on, especially with so many devices. Getting in and
getting you supplied and supported, even getting you out, would not be a major
problem so long as they don't send a force to the system. My concern is, for
all its complexities, it's too easy."
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"Huh? What do you mean?"
"They know we're after the rings. They know we have to have all of them. They
have access to better tools than we do, and they aren't hampered by any moral
or ethical considerations. They have the ability to create true believers who
won't question even the illogical or irrational and will think when they use
the magic to speak to Heaven they are talking to God and not Master System. It
can't afford to entrust the ring to savages, yet it can't do otherwise without
violating its experiment. Somewhere, down there, they've set a trap for us,
Vulture, and I bet it's a whopper. If we don't find it, then we're going to be
faced with a battle as ugly as the one we survived and that might just cripple
us for years. Still, until we can work out alternate exit methods for
Chanchuk, this is our best bet. Go down there. Spot the trap. Then and only
then will we be able to take the ring."
6. PLAYING PICKUP STICKS IN A MINEFIELD
TIME PASSED SLOWLY ABOARD THE THUNDER AS IT always did, but shipboard life
continued to change. Children were born, expanding the colony even mope;
children of two races with different physiologies and needs. Hawks himself was
now a proud father. For a man of his cultural background he did not seem at
all disappointed or upset that his first child was a girl, whom he and Cloud
Dancer named Chaudiqua, a combination of their Hyiakutt names which meant
Night
Dancer.
Clayben, China, and Star Eagle continued to work on easier methods of
penetrating the closed colonial worlds in Master System's domain, and had some
real success. Long-range reconnaissance indicated that Master System had
finally managed to process all of its ships so that the access codes were
different, and could be altered far more easily and quickly in the future. But
with so vast an area and so many ships, stations, Centers, and satellites, it
simply was impossible for Master System to change the entire surveillance and
communications system, and thus the new challenge was not to feed the systems
false information, as had been done with Pirate One, but rather to deflect or
confuse those sensors so they would not report an intruder at all.
Thunder was moved to a system off the charts with no habitable worlds for a
larger project of Star Eagle's that was quite ambitious: nothing less than the
construction of a small shipyard, entirely robotized, in which ships of new
design small but fast, well armed, and possibly piloted by only one or two
people could be constructed in modular sections using the larger transmuters
and then assembled and tested. Part of the idea was not only to match the
speed and maneuverability of the Val ships, as well as their firepower, but
also to do so without killing any human pilots. Mechanisms had to be created
to shield and protect those pilots from the incredible forces of acceleration
and battle.
The automated fighters of Thunder provided the basic outline for the type of
craft they wanted, but did not have punch capability. The required mechanisms
added weight and complexity to the new design and caused some problems they
were still hammering out.
In the meantime, Vulture had been down on Matriyeh for many months, and there
had been no communication with him for most of that period. As before, they
had been forced to set him down in a remote and unpopulated area where he, as
a
Janipurian, had to make his way to civilization and then blend in as only he
could. Hawks and the others often thought that they could see Clayben's point
in the great experiment that created Vulture. With a mere five or six Vultures
there would be no problem in getting the rings; without one, it would be next
to impossible.
As the time dragged on, though, with no word from the strange creature, Hawks
began to harbor dark thoughts that they might have to go on without him.
Vulture had so many strengths that it was quite natural that he felt himself
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invulnerable and therefore could become careless. But Vulture would be as
helpless as any if surprised by a Val: there were a number of ways to destroy
even such a thing as he, including incineration, disintegration, cellular
disruption, and chemical baths. Like the werewolves and vampires of ancient
legends, Vulture was fearsome but, like them, he could still be killed. The
key so far had been the ignorance of Master System and its minions that such a
creature even existed. The records on Vulture had been destroyed, Clayben was
on
Thunder, and the few surviving scientists who had known about the project had
long ago had their memories altered for their own protection. Their luck,
however, could not last forever.
It was a great relief, then, when word came that Vulture had at last activated
the signaling devices and was requesting a pickup from the surface of
Matriyeh.
It had been over eight months. Unlike the Janipur mission, they needed to
bring
Vulture back aboard and analyze both the new mind and new body he had taken on
when he had absorbed his native persona, and they also needed first-hand
consultation.
The body was that of a tall, thin woman with long, muscular legs and small,
firm breasts. The arms, too, were muscular when flexed, showing surprising
power.
The skin was a very dark brown, so dark as to be almost black, the color
extending
not just to the skin but to the palms and soles of the feet and other such
areas, as well. The black hair was thick and woolly, but the natural curls
were much larger than those of an Earth-human of one of the sub-Saharan
African races or Melanesians, and the features were delicate and more European
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