Demon princes 01 05 the.., p.26
Demon Princes 01-05 The Star Ki, page 26
Construction continued; the fort neared completion. Kokor Hekkus now made his appearance, for the purpose of inspection. Much to Patch’s dismay he declared himself profoundly dissatisfied. He derided the leg action, which he characterized as awkward and obviously nonorganic. In his opinion, the fort “would not deceive a child!” Patch, at first appalled, gradually recovered his wits. He brought forward the specifications and demonstrated that he had performed to the letter of his instructions. Nowhere and at no time had he been supplied unambiguous information regarding leg motion. Kokor Hekkus was unmoved. He declared the object totally unacceptable and demanded that Patch make suitable changes. Patch angrily disavowed responsibility: he would gladly make changes but he must ask more money. Kokor Hekkus drew back in outrage. He made a harsh cutting gesture with his hand to signify that Patch had gone too far. Patch, he declared, had not fulfilled his contract, which was thereby void; he demanded return of all moneys advanced: namely SVU 427,685. Patch refused, whereupon Kokor Hekkus bowed and departed. Patch armed himself but to no avail; four days later he was set upon by three men, beaten in a thorough but disinterested manner, hustled into a spaceboat, conveyed to Interchange where his ransom was set at SVU 427,685. Patch had neither friends, relatives, nor business associates; owing to certain debts incurred in the process of expansion, forced sale of his engineering shop would bring no more than SVU 200,000. He had given up hope of redemption, and had resigned himself to slavery. Then Gersen had appeared. Patch hesitantly inquired Gersen’s motives. He felt boundless gratitude, he recognized Gersen’s generosity, but surely there was more to the situation than this.
Gersen felt no impulse to confide in Patch. “Assume,” he said, “that I am acquainted with the Patch Engineering and Construction Company, that I consider the ransom as constituting payment for a 51 percent interest in the organization.”
Patch rather forlornly declared himself satisfied with the arrangement. “Do you wish formal acknowledgment of partnership?”
“You might write a memorandum to the effect. Essentially I want control over company policy for an indefinite period, not to exceed five years. As to profits I have no immediate need of money and you may apply all such to repayment of the sum advanced.”
Patch was not too pleased with the scheme, but had no basis for argument. A sudden thought came to him, and he rubbed his face nervously. “By any chance, do you intend to have further dealings with Kokor Hekkus?”
“Since you ask—yes.”
Patch licked his lips, “Allow me at once to register a 49 percent negative vote. If, in your mind, there is even a 2 percent misgiving, the negative votes will defeat this reckless ambition.”
Gersen grinned. “All 51 percent cries out in favor of recovering from Kokor Hekkus money illegally extorted from company funds.”
Patch bowed his head. “So be it.”
6
Rigel flared across the sky. Gersen located Alphanor; Daro and Wix became effervescent with excitement. Gersen watched them wryly. As soon as they returned to the dim old house in the sunstruck hills above Taube, they would rush to the arms of their father and mother; the kidnapping, the imprisonment, the voyage home would become vague, Gersen would be forgotten .... Gersen mused upon the vagaries of fate that had molded him into a—ruefully he supplied the word—a monomaniac. What if, by some fantastic set of circumstances, he succeeded in avenging the Mount Pleasant cataclysm upon all five of the Demon Princes—what then? Would he be able to retire, to buy country land, to woo and wed, to breed children? Or would the role of nemesis have become such an ingrained element in his nature that never could he draw back, never could he know of evil men without wanting to take their lives? It was all too possible. And, sadly, the impetus would come not from indignation or moral outrage, but from reflex, a passionless reaction; and the only satisfaction to be derived would be that of fulfilling a minor physiological need, such as belching or scratching an itch.
As always, such reflections drove Gersen into a fit of melancholy, and during the remainder of the voyage, he was even more terse and gruff than ever. The children inspected him wonderingly though without fear, for they had learned at least to trust him.
Down to Alphanor, down to the continent Scythia, down to the antiquated Garreu Province spaceport at Marquari. Here Gersen communicated by visiphone with Duschane Audmar, whose face was vaguely haggard; Gersen guessed that he had given much introspection to Gersen’s mission. He inquired briefly as to the health of his children and accepted Gersen’s reassurance with a curt nod.
There was no air-service between Marquari and Taube, and spaceships were proscribed except at the spaceports. Gersen herded the eager children aboard the coast dispatch-ship, a broad-beamed vessel with cargo below and passengers above, which required a day and a night to make the five-hundred-mile run down the coast to Taube. Here he hired the ancient glide-car and rumbled up the long slope to the manse of Duschane Audmar. The children jumped from the car and ran pell-mell, without a backward glance for Gersen, into the arms of their mother, who stood, waiting in the open doorway. Her face worked with the effort to hold back tears, and Gersen was conscious of an emptiness within himself, for he had come to feel affection for the children. He entered the house, and now, secure in their home, Daro and Wix ran up, hugged and kissed him.
Audmar came forth, conducted him to the austere room where they had first spoken. Gersen made his accounting.
“Kokor Hekkus needs ten billion SVU. He hopes to raise this amount by extorting a hundred million from a hundred of the wealthiest folk of the Oikumene. He has attained perhaps a third of his goal, and money is rapidly coming in. He desires the money in order to ransom a young woman who to evade him has taken refuge at Interchange under a rescission fee often billion SVU.”
“Hmmf,” said Audmar. “This woman must be extravagantly attractive for Kokor Hekkus to value her at this figure.”
“So it would seem—although any object valued at this figure must be inherently desirable,” said Gersen. “I would have inspected the woman, but she, functioning as her own sponsor, charges ten thousand SVU a look, presumably in order to discourage the curiosity of such as myself.”
Duschane Audmar nodded. “The information may or may not be worth a hundred million SVU to the Institute, from which the money naturally comes. My children are back with me, I am of course grateful for this, but I fear that I have allowed my emotions to interfere with rm. reason, I fear that I have compromised myself.”
Gersen made no comment. His private opinion was to the same effect. Still, the Institute had only itself to blame, should it choose, it undoubtedly could destroy Kokor Hekkus “A second matter of interest. The young woman’s name is Alusz Iphigenia Eperje-Tokay. She is native to the planet Thamber, or so she claims.”
“Thamber?” Audmar at last was interested. “Is this a serious avowal or facetiousness?”
“I believe that she makes a serious claim to this effect.”
“Interesting. Even if all cockalorum.” He looked sidewise at Gersen. “You have something else to tell me?”
“You gave me a certain amount of expense money. I used part of it in a manner I considered pertinent, which is to say, I bought a controlling interest in the Patch Engineering and Construction Company of Patris on Krokinole.”
Audmar nodded graciously “It was the obvious thing to do.”
“The opportunity occurred at Interchange. Myron Patch was sponsored by Kokor Hekkus, with a rescission of 427,685 SVU. The figure interested me, I made inquiry, and when Patch stated that he was able to establish contact with Kokor Hekkus, I redeemed him, taking the partnership as security.”
Audmar rose to his feet, walked to the door, returned with a tray containing cordials.
“I find,” said Gersen, “that Myron Patch has been building a mechanical monster for Kokor Hekkus a walking fort in the shape of a centipede of eighteen segments.”
Audmar sipped his cordial, held the glass aloft, eyed the rose and violet glintings. “You need not account for the money,” he said “It has paid for a few items of interesting information, and as an incidental concomitant brought two pleasant children back to their home.” He finished his cordial, set the glass down with a click Gersen, understanding more from what was left unsaid than what was said, rose to his feet, took his leave.
Patch, capital of the Cumberland associated Parishes, rambled and sprawled for miles along the Card River Estuary, with residential suburbs along the shores of Ock Eake. There were many thousand-year-old structures in the Old Quarter; three- and four-story buildings of rough black brick, narrow fronted, with tall narrow windows and high pitched gables. Up-river, in seven-hundred-year-old New Town, stood the famous River Arches—eleven monumental river-straddling structures of a type unknown elsewhere in the human universe. Eight-hundred-feet high they stood truncated triangles with two-hundred-foot arches carved from the base. Each was identical save for color, each housed shops, studios, service areas in the legs, with apartments for the urban elite above. Between the arches of New Town and the black brick structures of Old Quarter spread a dingy industrial area, and here was Myron Patch’s shop. In mingled eagerness, irresolution, pride, anxiety, and wounded dignity, he escorted Gersen to the main entrance. It was a more imposing operation than Gersen had expected, occupying an area two-hundred-feet long by a hundred-feet wide, with parts and material storage above. Patch was depressed to find the shop locked and silent “It would seem that in a time of stress, one’s employees would pitch in, keep the wheels rolling, so to speak, or even make some attempt to rescind the fees of their employer. Over a hundred men and women derived their livelihood from me, and not one so much as made inquiry from the Interchange representative.”
“Presumably they were all occupied in seeking new employment,” Gersen suggested.
“Be that as it may, I am not gratified.” Patch flung the doors wide, ushered Gersen into the cavernous interior, pointed to the section that had been walled off from the main plant “Seuman Otwal insisted on absolute secrecy,” Patch explained. “I used only trusted employees, and then, at Otwal’s insistence, I put them through a hypnotic process in which I ordered them to forget everything they saw in Workshop B after they passed through the door. Also,” he said musingly, “while they were in the hypnotic condition I added the suggestion that they work with greater zeal and accuracy, that they feel neither thirst, hunger, loquacity, nor fatigue during the working hours, and I must say that for a space I have never seen such an admirable set of workers I was about to extend the plan to the entire working force when I was kidnapped, indeed my first thought was that I had encountered bravos from the Fabricators’ Protective Guild.” He led Gersen across the shop, past various forges, cutters, molds, welding rigs, and lathes, to a door placarded with the universal symbol for KEEP OUT a red palm-print. Patch ran his finders over the code buttons to the lock. “Since you are a partner, there can be no secrets from you.”
“Precisely,” said Gersen.
The door slid aside, the two passed through an anteroom into Workshop B. There was the walking fort. Patch’s habit of mild understatement had not prepared Gersen for the ferocious aspect of the device. The head was equipped with six scythe-like mandibles and a collar of long barbed prongs. The eye was a single faceted band; the ingestion orifice was a conical maw at the top of the head with a pair of jointed arms at each side. Behind were the eighteen segments, each suspended from a pair of high-rising jointed legs, these encased in a rugose yellow skin. At the far stern was a nubbin like a second head, equipped with an eye and another set of barbed prongs. The torso had not yet been finished and still exhibited a metallic sheen.
“What do you think of it?” asked Patch anxiously, as if hoping for vindication or endorsement.
“Highly impressive,” said Gersen, and Patch seemed satisfied. “I’d like to know what he wants it for.”
“Watch.” Patch mounted the head of the object, using the prongs as a ladder. He stepped into the maw and disappeared. Gersen was alone in the room with the seventy-six-foot engine of fright. It could spew poison from its prongs, dart fire from its eyes. A sweep of the mandible could slash through a tree-trunk. Gersen looked right and left, then retired into the anteroom. Patch seemed a good fellow, sincerely grateful, but why put temptation in his way?
He positioned himself in the anteroom where he could not be seen from the head, and watched. Patch had started the energy system: the object insensibly had come alive. The head gave a shake, the prongs rattled, the mandibles clicked. From vents at the side of the head came a wild wailing scream; Gersen stood quivering. The scream died. Now the object moved, the legs of alternate segments rising and swinging ahead while the others thrust back.
Backward and forward moved the device, the jointed legs working smoothly if a trifle stiffly. Now the metal centipede halted, pranced sidewise; a step, two steps, three steps. Then the near side of legs seemed to collapse; the object toppled, fell with a clanging thud against the wall. Gersen would have been crushed had he remained in the shop. Unavoidable, doubtless—a flaw in the machinery, a clumsiness on the part of the operator .... From the topside maw scrambled Patch, round face pale and clammy, eyes big with consternation. Gersen, watching from the anteroom, would have sworn that his concern was real, that Patch was horrified by the thought of what he might see. Patch jumped to the floor, peered back and forth under the hulk. “Gersen! Gersen!”
“Behind you,” said Gersen. Patch jumped around, and if the relief on his face were not genuine, then, Gersen thought, the miming-pads had lost a great performer.
Patch gasped his thankfulness that Gersen was safe. The phasing mechanism for the starboard bank of legs had failed; it was a deficiency that he had not previously recognized. Not that it made any great difference one way or the other, since now the object must be scrapped.
He led the way back into the main shop, locked the door behind them. “Tomorrow,” he said, “it’s back to work. I don’t know what has happened to my old customers, hut I always satisfied them in the past and perhaps they will bring their business back to us.”
Gersen stood looking across to Workshop B. “Exactly what faults did Kokor Hekkus find unacceptable?”
Patch made a wry face. “The leg action. He said it did not produce the effect he desired. The motion was too stiff and rigid. Only a soft supple looping motion would serve. I pointed out the difficulties and the expense of such a system; indeed I doubt if a durable mechanism could be worked out, considering the mass of the fort and the terrain to be traversed, which I understand is extremely rugged.”
“My idea is this,” said Gersen. “Kokor Hekkus extracted almost half a million SVU from us. I want to get that money back.”
Patch smiled a sad tremulous smile. “We should be wiser to ignore him. We do not need his class of trade. Let bygones be bygones, that is the wise course. Come! Into the office. We will go over the accounts.”
“No,” said Gersen. “I plan to leave these matters entirely in your hands. In the matter of the walking fort, however, I feel that we must regain our money. And we can do it in a safe, legitimate fashion.”
“How?” Patch asked dubiously.
“We must modify the fort so that it functions to suit Kokor Hekkus. Then we will sell it to him for the full original price.”
“Possibly. But there are difficulties. He may not now require the fort. Or he may not have the money. Or—even more likely—we won’t be able to modify the device to suit him.”
Gersen reflected. “Somewhere I’ve seen a means to overcome the difficulty .... Across the Oikumene is Vanello, something of a resort world for the region back of Scorpio. At one of the religious festivals, a platform supported by a long flexible stem raises a priestess dressed in flower petals. Another similar platform raises a table supporting certain symbolic objects—as I recall, a book, a beaker, and a human skull. No matter. The priestess performs rites while the stems twine about each other. I learned that the stems are built up of several dozen smaller tubes, each containing a magnetic slurry: iron powder in a viscous liquid. Reacting to fields from internal windings, these tubes selectively contract with great force. By proper circuitry any contortion of the tubes is possible. It seems to me that this system might be applied to the legs of the walking fort.”
Patch scratched his small round chin. “If what you say is correct, I am inclined to agree.”
“First we will want to consult Seuman Otwal to assure ourselves that Kokor Hekkus still needs the fort.”
Patch heaved a deep sigh, raised his arms, let them flap down to his sides. “So be it—though I would rather deal with adders.”
But when Patch called the hotel that Seuman Otwal was wont to patronize, he found that Mr. Otwal was not currently in residence, and the date of his return was indefinite.
Patch heard the news with vast relief. Only at Gersen’s prompting did he leave his name and the request that Mr. Otwal call as soon as possible.
The hotel clerk’s face vanished; Patch became cheerful once again. “After all we have no need for their filthy money, derived from the most vicious crimes imaginable! Perhaps we can sell the monster as a curio, or even mount seats on the back and advertise it as an eccentric charabanc. Have no fear, Kirth Gersen! Your money is secure!”
“I’m not interested in the money,” said Gersen. “I want Kokor Hekkus.”
Patch evidently considered this an odd or even perverse inclination. “For what purpose?”
“I want to kill him,” said Gersen, then regretted his lapse from taciturnity.
7
From “Kokor Hekkus the Killing Machine,” Chapter IV of The Demon Princes, by Caril Carphen (Elusidarian Press, New Wexford, Aloysius, Vega):
If Malagate the Woe can be characterized by the single word “grim” and Howard Alan Treesong by “incomprehensible,” then Lens Larque, Viole Falushe, and Kokor Hekkus all lay claim to the word “fantastic.” Which one exceeds the other two in “fantasy”? It is an amusing if profitless speculation. Consider Viole Falushe’s Palace of Love, Lens Larque’s monument, the vast and incredible outrages Kokor Hekkus has visited upon humanity: such extravagances are impossible to comprehend, let alone compare. It is fair to say, however, that Kokor Hekkus has captured the popular imagination with his grotesque and eerie humor. Let us listen to what he has to say in an abstract from the famous telephoned address, The Theory and Practice of Terror, to the students of Cervantes University:
