The Tyrant of Hades

by Colin Kapp

Genres: Science Fiction; Sci-fi Action & Adventure; Hard Science Fiction

Synopsis

Book by Kapp, Colin

Release date: March 6, 1984

Publisher: DAW

Print pages: 200

Sample

ZAPOKETA ON the Saturn shell. Across the worn and tattered lawns of Nexon Square old Imref Varter came, prying into trash cans, pocketing an occasional piece of metal in the bag-like folds of his voluminous and shabby coat, and generally appearing as disreputable as the seedy square across which he moved. Casual observation would have placed him well over sixty years of age, and his hair was a shorn, stiff stubble which blended so completely with his beard that his head was a virtual ball of fur from which protruded two eyes surmounting ruddy cheeks, a nose, and the occasional flash of surprisingly red lips. One leg was seriously twisted, and this gave his movements an odd, rolling effect, as though he lived on his own private sea, yet for all this his frame was fully erect, and his eyes were constantly alive and watchful in a way that stamped him as no ordinary down and out morsel of humanity.

Despite his generally formidable appearance, the children playing in the square paid him no attention. For many months now his ragged eccentricity had been recognised and accepted in the district. He was regarded as a character to be ignored rather than shunned or feared, and so little impact did his comings and goings now evoke that few could truthfully have remembered where they last saw Imref, and if so, when. This situation of ‘non presence’ suited him nicely. He wanted and needed no confidants, and it kept him below the threshold level of notice by the police. He had a job to do for which invisibility would have suited him even better, but lacking the invention of so vital a cloak, he made clever use of its psychological equivalent: whatever he did or wherever he went, nobody wanted to know.

One far edge of Nexon Square gave suddenly on to the Liss-mal, a street of many characters, and one of the most important thoroughfares of the Zapoketa conurbation. Here a mixture of theatres and clubs and places of entertainment vied with shops and restaurants for the rich pickings from those who regarded the Liss-mal as the hub of the universe. Somewhere in this hotch-potch of commercial developments, where land values were so high that had diamonds been discovered in the earth it would not have paid to dig them out, one could find an establishment to cater for virtually every conceivable need and taste, and one could never be surprised at how bizarre or how mundane these wants could be. Thus next to the ‘sex palace’ of Mistress Sin, probably one of the most expensive and exclusive brothels ever devised, came something called ‘Cherry’s Amazing Holo-Theatre’ currently showing a three-dimensional hologram presentation called A FANTASY JOURNEY THROUGH THE UNIVERSE OF SOLARIA. This in turn was adjacent to a single door which bore the simple message: MAQ ANCOR. REGISTERED ASSASSIN.

It was indeed in these three particular establishments that Imref Varter was interested. They were all housed under the same roof in a purpose-designed building in one of the more expensive sections of the Liss-mal, and his painstaking research had shown that, building costs and land values taken into consideration, not one of these enterprises could be considered a viable commercial proposition. Admittedly the ‘palace’ of Mistress Sin was deservedly popular, but she could have operated the same sort of establishment in the better-class ‘red-light’ district for only one hundredth part of her current rent. True also that Cherry’s Amazing Holo-Theatre was playing to full capacity, but his admission prices were so low that Imref, after keeping a careful tally, knew that Cherry was scarcely covering his daily operating costs. And as for Ancor the Assassin—in three months the man had received not one single client, for the simple reason that those with assassination on their minds had better sense than to walk boldly in through a blatantly-marked door on the most public thoroughfare in Zapoketa.

As his intelligence briefing had suggested, these three establishments had to be a front for something else, but despite many months of patient surveillance and enquiry, Imref Varter found himself still no nearer knowing what shadowy organisation lurked behind these intriguing exteriors. The proprietors seldom left their establishments, the telephone and video taps had picked up nothing at all suspicious, and his own watch for visits by subversive agents had been a complete waste of time. Left to make his own decisions, Imref would have written the case off as an innocuous mystery. Unfortunately his superior in the Service, Dil Carras, was not as easily convinced. There was the question of the great bonded sky-carriers which occasionally made deliveries to the rooftop wharf, usually after dark.

Working his way into the Liss-mal, Imref passed in front of the discreetly curtained ‘palace’ of Mistress Sin. One of the windows had been opened, and the curtains were blowing wide in the breeze. Pausing in his vagrant way, Imref looked in. Several of the local girls who worked in the ‘palace’ were joking with an outstandingly attractive girl with a remarkably greenish skin-tone, who he knew to be the legendary Mistress Sin herself. Although he had had the Saturn Identifile carefully researched, he had been unable to discover her real identity—but this was not too surprising, because the Identifile list for the whole shell contained nearly five times ten to the twenty-second power of names. This number was so unthinkable that had it been possible to review ten names every second, scanning through the entire list would have taken around one and a half million million centuries. Of course, looking only at the female side of the file should have taken only half that time.

The laughing green girl saw the curtains blowing and came over to fix them, noticed Imref outside the window, and threw him out a handful of coins, which he pocketed with every sign of gratitude. The gift of money was a handsome sum but insignificant when compared to his salary as a top-level intelligence agent; but the incident gave him the opportunity of examining this green-skinned enigma from a close distance. He found the experience unexpectedly heady and delicious. She was a natural coquette, and an artist as well, but for all her charms the keen and calculating intelligence which nestled in her eyes was not lost on him, and he made a mental note that she must never be underestimated.

Imref Varter passed on then across the front of Cherry’s Amazing Holo-Theatre, slightly dazzled by the moving three-dimensional images in the showcases, which purported to be scenes from the concentric inner shells which lay within the Saturn shell itself. The power and artistry of such images was immediate and obvious, and Imref felt it difficult to relate such genius to the wizened and bearded little man in sandals and white toga who was fussing around the installation of a new display. He knew this to be Cherry, the owner of the show, and Imref would have mentally marked him as a fool, except that no fool could possibly have produced a holo-show so advanced in technique and so imaginative in form and content. Again, here was one of whom it was wise to be wary.

Imref’s third stop was actually against the door marked: MAQ ANCOR. REGISTERED ASSASSIN.

That Ancor was a registered assassin was probably beyond dispute, but the league or guild with which he was registered had not yet been located. Under cover of a pretended paroxysm of coughing, Imref leant against the wall and tested the door. As always, it was locked, and the slight strip of adhesive tape which he had placed there several days before showed that the entrance could not have been used in the intervening period. He had only twice seen Ancor himself, and what he had seen had been impressive: the man looked like a lion and walked like a cat, had proved impossible to shadow without certain risk of detection, and kept trained fingers perpetually within inches of the weapon pouches at his hips. Of all the mysterious trio on the Liss-mal, Varter had decided, Maq Ancor was undoubtedly the most dangerous.

Continuing on his way along the crowded pavements of the Liss-mal, Imref then took a circuitous route through the side streets which fetched him finally back to the vicinity of Nexon Square. Here, in an alley between the delivery bays of two large stores, was located a public video-phone booth. Entering, he spoke a number carefully into the voice-responsive call mechanism, and when the indicator told him that contact had been established, he felt for the concealed button which would scramble the call beyond all possibility of unauthorised interception. The screen remained dark.

‘Dil?’

‘Listening, Imref. What’s new?’

‘Nothing’s new. The last piece of action was that sky-carrier consignment three days ago.’

‘We tried to check on that. But it was a bonded transit container which had been through so many carriers’ hands and had its documentation changed so many times that it was impossible to say what was supposed to be in it or where it came from.’

‘I still think we’re chasing, rainbows, Dil,’ said Varter. ‘There’s not the slightest suggestion of anything illegal or subversive down on that part of the Liss-mal—which is a heap more than I can say for some of the areas adjacent. Why don’t we stop wasting time on this one, and let me get back to doing something where we get some results to show for the effort?’

‘I still can’t agree with you, Imref. I’ve a gut feeling about that place. We’ve managed to get hold of the architect’s plans of the building, and do you know there’s a workshop at the back of it so large you could build a battlecruiser in there?’

‘So what? Anyone mad enough to try to produce holo-scenes of the whole Solarian universe needs a big workshop. I’ve seen the show, and the effects are shattering. The wonder to me is that such trick holo-shots could be produced in so small a space.’

‘Well I’m not convinced. But I agree with you that it’s high time we moved on to other things. So I propose to have one last crack at busting this thing open.’

‘How do you intend to do that, Dil?’

‘I’ve sat behind this damn desk too long. I want to get back into the field again for a bit. I’m coming down to Zapoketa, and you and I are going to penetrate right into that place and discover what really does go on.’

Imref Varter was silent for a moment, then: ‘I can’t advise it, Dil. I know you spent many years in the field, but you never were a big-city boy.’

‘What are you saying?’

‘I’m saying Zapoketa’s the type of place that you were either born into or else you don’t bother with. I couldn’t trust you to get from the Terminal to the Liss-mal with all your luggage intact and without you being mugged on the way. If you want a penetration made, I’ll do it on my own. Frankly, I think you’d just be a liability,’

‘That’s the trouble with you field men. You always get to thinking that anyone who sits behind a desk automatically becomes deaf, blind, and daft. Well, I’ve got news for you, Imref. I’m still a better field man than you’ll ever be—which is why I head the department while you’re still out there gathering moss. I’ll be at the Zapoketa Terminal in two days. Meet me there, and have your plans prepared. I’m giving myself twenty-four hours to crack something the rest of you haven’t been able to solve in nine months. How does that sound for an executive decision?’

‘Have it your way, Dil,’ said Imref. ‘But let the records show I was against your coming. If this thing does blow up in our faces I’d like at least a little something going for me.’

Although Imref’s tone was light, his face was undoubtedly grave as he cut the connection and turned away. Something about the strange mystery on the Liss-mal made him feel certain that what Dil Carras was proposing to do was unquestionably foolhardy. The look he had seen in the eyes of Mistress Sin, and Maq Ancor’s catlike tread, convinced him that whatever it was in that building was no ordinary thing. He and Dil would have to tread warily indeed if they planned an unauthorised entry.

THE TOWNSHIP of Bryhn on the Mars shell, in the principality of Hammanite. A small patch of light in the gloom of an underground room. In the centre, under the light, a low post of no apparent significance, and atop the post the golden spines of a thousand-way multiple-circuit electrical connector. And a drama…

The air in the low cell was so hot as to be almost unbreathable, yet it was tension not temperature which caused the respiration of its occupant to become painful and slow. Confined in a wheeled tank containing his life-support systems and from which only his arms and the top of his torso protruded, Prince Awa-Ce-Land-a felt the warm air sear his straining lungs and watched the monitors below his chin light one after the other with a warning of the imminence of death. Centrally in his thoughts was the dreadful terminal connection under the single lamp. If he had strength and equanimity, he could ignore it, and somehow or the other, with his life-support mechanisms racing out of synchronisation, he would die. He feared however, that as before, when the great monster of permanent extinction seriously challenged his psyche, his resolve would crumble. He would propel himself towards the post, and, taking his own wired connector in his hand, he would once more make that fearful hook-up.

If he did so, then he knew he would survive. His artificial body-processes, again re-sequenced by the most powerful computer in the Solarian universe, would respond immediately and give him great ease and a renewed interest in living. He would be transported from the virtual edge of death and given a literal new lease of life. It was a situation greatly to be desired, and he had done it many times before, but after the first time what had always tempted him to stay his hand was not the process of physical rejuvenation but the accompanying …

ALIEN DREAMS!!!

Whilst that frightful connector was in place every aspect of his being and existence was totally coupled to Zeus, the cybernetic complex which was so powerful that it had taken over from man the task of constructing and regulating the entire Solarian universe. But the linkage brought far more than an adjustment to his physical condition. Whilst the connection remained, even his brain shared some staggering empathy with the artificial intelligence of the giant machine. Although he soon became lost in the gulfs and voids between its mammoth electronic concepts, he was forced mentally to reach out and touch that most frightening entity of all … artificial intelligence … the machine Id … the personality which was the great computer itself. And thus locked together, great, alien dreams would flow from a mind never born of flesh and blood into one only too appallingly dependent on continuing blood supply … oxygen … the removal of waste products …

ALIEN DREAMS!!!

The last of the monitors flared red, and Land-a knew he had very few seconds left in which to reach a decision. Already there was a whistling in his ears rising steadily in intensity, and only his own weak chest muscles were forcing the shallowed movements of his rib cage in the tank. The light before his eyes suddenly seemed intolerably bright, whilst the relative gloom became a sea of impenetrable darkness, and the great shadows of permanent death appeared to hover over his head like dark angels. He looked at the hand which held the fateful coupling, and was frightened by the way it was ghastly white and shaking. Then he made his final deliberate choice, and the coupling dropped down out of sight. He had decided to die rather than once more face the …

ALIEN DREAMS!!!

Then panic hit him like the explosion of a bomb. He had already left it nearly too late for recovery, but the mentally-controlled mechanics of the propulsion system on his tank responded even where muscles might have failed. Hauling the connector back and slamming the self-aligning surfaces on to the terminal plate was quite literally performed with the last remnants of his swiftly-failing energy, and Land-a actually fainted as the connection was made.

He was plunged into ALIEN DREAMS, and these were dreams such as never played in any human brain. The universe was set beneath him, as though he were God, but there was nothing god-like about the interpretation of the scene. Instead, there was an unearthly dispassion and a sense of objectivity, a comprehension of detail which analysed every fragment of every scene down to the most microscopic detail yet simultaneously still encompassed the whole. And strange were the alien fantasies which rode the scene, touched with a curious sense of searching and longing, as though the machine which had built the Solarian universe was looking for something greater than itself with which to share and confirm its sense of being.

Then came the black dreams, the haunting insecurities, the weaknesses and the fears. Like any other advanced intelligence, this vast intellect was riddled with self-doubt and worries about the things it was unable to overcome, and it was in the midst of this traumatic self-search that Land-a saw the tyrant of Hades. Admittedly the view was through a vastly alien perception, but nonetheless it was recognisable as a very potent reality.

The wheeled man had no way of knowing how long these fantasies continued. When he awoke finally, feeling refreshed and renewed, he remained motionless for a long time, stupefied by the imagery which had been impressed into his brain, and trying to shake the trail of alien impressions from his head. Then he drew himself together, wheeled rapidly from the room, and headed for the nearest communications point. Stabbing at the buttons with fingers now cool and precise, he raised his own control operator.

‘Get me the Centre for Solarian Studies at Ajkavit. I want to get a message to Maq Ancor.’

From his observation point high in the building, Maq Ancor had watched Imref’s perambulation along the Liss-mal with a thoughtful frown. Soon the micro-transmitter built into one of the coins which Sine Anura had thrown to the agent became activated by the warmth of the fellow’s pocket and enabled Maq to track his progress back on a way parallel to that by which he had come, and finally to be able to record the conversation in the video-phone booth. The exercise told him noth. . .