Empire of Two Worlds

“They’ll be through there before long,” Bec mused. “Come on, we’ll get in the back way.”

It didn’t take us long to work our way round and get into the complex by the hidden back entrance. Inside, it was organised desperation. They had put up makeshift barriers to hold off the cops when they broke through the lid. Half the mob had already sneaked off.

Grale and Reeth were running things. “We’ve been waiting for you,” Grale said thankfully when Bec appeared. “What do we do, fight or run?”

“Run?” Bec snarled. “Run where? Think you can hide in Klittmann all your life? There won’t be any Basement to go to after this.”

Reeth was looking at Bec sardonically. “You really did it, didn’t you? Thought you could take the whole city.” He shook his head, smiled ruefully.

“Shut up!” Bec roared, and hit him across the face.

Reeth didn’t seem perturbed or surprised. Bec was dialling on the vision phone, trying to get Bissey.

Eventually there came the hiss of the audio line but the paper screen remained a blank square of luminescence. This time Bissey wasn’t showing himself.

“Yes?” a grunting, whispering voice said.

“What’s the meaning of this, Bissey?” Bec demanded in hard tones. “This wasn’t in the deal.”

For answer there was only a dry laugh.

“I’ll ruin your organics!” Bec fumed. “You won’t get one pint of it back!”

“Stop kicking, little man,” the dry husky voice said distantly from the vision phone. “Me, I’m just a small-time tank owner. But there are some pretty big boys up in the pile. They didn’t like what you did. They wouldn’t even let me go through with it, when they heard about it. They’re making up the nutrient you stole. So enjoy yourself while you still got time.”

The line went dead.

Bec brooded.

So did I. Bissey’s whispering voice was still in my ears. It was an all too painful lesson in the power that resided in Klittmann, the power that Becmath had so badly underestimated.

The muffled explosions seemed to be getting louder and sharper. Shouts of consternation could be heard in the garages. Apparently the lid was cracking.

“I didn’t see our sloop out there,” Bec said at last. “Have you sent it out?”

“No, there didn’t seem any point against the fleet out there,” Reeth told him. “Anyway, we were waiting for you to get back.”

“You did the right thing. Is it armed up and everything?”

“Yes. Ready to go.”

“Put extra rations in. All we’ve got.”

“Rations? What for?”

“Do what I tell you,” Bec snapped. “Doesn’t anything get through to you? After today our supply of everything is cut off.”

Reeth went away to arrange things. Grale was still hovering around, nervous but tough.

“We’re taking the sloop and making a break for it,” Bec told him. “Just eight or nine of us. Tell the rest of the guys they’d better filter out through the back way while they can.”

“Hell, why?” Grale said with a grin. “Let them klugs take what’s coming. They’ll help draw fire from us.”

Bec gave him a hard look that meant business and then turned to me. “We’re taking the alchemist with us. Come and help me persuade him.”

The laboratory was reached by a stairway in the corner of the garage where the sloop was kept. Reeth and a couple of others were throwing protein packs in its storage space as we went past. I admired its long black torpedo shape one last time, then we were clattering down the stairs.

Harmen seemed to be only vaguely aware of the events that were going on above his head. Usually he had half a dozen different experiments going, but this time there was only one. He sat at a table, making adjustments on a panel of dials. In the centre of the table was a big globular discharge tube — though he called them retorts, not discharge tubes — with at least half a dozen necks growing from it at the end of each of which was an electrode. Actually as I looked closer the retort was not globular at all, but was made up of a number of different cavities fitted together. Every few seconds the electrodes discharged in a rapid sequence with a loud shuuush and the globe flamed up. In the centre something was writhing and running through a spectrum of colours.

For a few moments we were captivated by the sight and didn’t speak. With each shuuuush the writhing gas in the retort seemed to be taking a more definite shape. Then, for several fleeting seconds, it took on the firm, tiny form of a human being. The body was a gay reddish colour. It was bedecked in multi-coloured garments and it looked up at us, its arms spread towards us appealingly.

A shuddering gasp escaped me. Then the minuscule thing dissolved again into a writhing, formless cloud of colour. Harmen turned to us with a smile.

“Merely a phantom, I’m afraid. But my first step towards the creation of the Androgyne. It is possible, by means of a recipe now lost, to grow real flesh and blood homunculi that are no bigger than what you have just seen. However, they require special environments and so cannot be let out of their glass bottles.”