ime did wonders for her psychological recovery. We continued up the narrow corridor to the teleport. "So what happens now?" I asked. "Back to the hand again? I should've kept my hole shut. We stepped aboard, but instead of teleporting, the walls of the chamber lowered into the floor, leaving us standing behind some pillars in a very wide open courtyard. A neat row of UAC boxes stretched across the court- yard before us like a skyscraper on its side. Every box held a five-pack of rockets--all the rockets in the world. There was also another launcher. A silver lining like this couldn't possibly arrive without an accompanying thundercloud. We heard the thunder of the heaviest feet in all monsterdom. Another lovely steam-demon . . . and there weren't any convenient zero-g zones around this time. "What the hell is that?" Ritch whispered, crouching behind a pillar. "That, my friend, is a steam-demon. Fifteen feet tall, long horns, a missile launcher for an arm--" "Oh, one of those," Ritch said, nodding. "You know about them?" asked an incredulous Arlene. "Sure; I've just never seen one before. They ripped off my programming for an ore-crusher to run the creature." His tone of voice was what you hear in small claims court, offended about business-as-usual. "Any way to sabotage it?" Ritch frowned in thought. A steam-demon was large enough to inspire frowns in anyone. "If you can get me around back, maybe," he said. "That's where the missile feeder is." "Worth a try," I said. I looked at Arlene, and she nodded. We dashed out to either side of the pillars as the steam-demon spotted us. It was as ugly as last time, but not as terrifying when frozen in indecision about which target to attack. While it made up its mind, assuming it had one, Arlene and I fired rockets from opposite direc- tions. At last the steam-demon chose the prettier target and raised its missile-launching hand. Arlene saw what was coming and dived behind her pillar. Three small cruise missiles struck dead-on, shattering the pillar. I jumped out and shot the sucker over and over until I got its attention. As the big ugly mother deigned to notice me, I popped behind my own column; Arlene repeated the same process, out from her cover and blasting away. It was kind of like dealing with the playground bully where the stakes were real. The steam-demon proved that it had a mind by passing our little intelligence test. It stomped closer to the pillars, cutting off our angle. Arlene was ready for this. She ran backward, zigzagging, popping off an occa- sional rocket. Time for Ritch's plan. While all this was happening, Ritch and I were moving into position. When the monster was finally standing with its back to the pillars, lining up a fatal shot for Arlene, I interlaced my fingers, bent down, and let Ritch climb aboard. Heavy as he was, I could barely boost him up high enough to grab the back of Godzilla for the ride of his life. He shoved his hand into the missile-loading machin- ery up to the elbow. I ditched him, as agreed beforehand, and leapt to a safer position to try something else in case Ritch failed. Arlene was still dodging around as if she were an actress at a producers' convention. She was too busy now to even take a shot. Besides, she wasn't going to risk hitting Ritch. As for the behemoth, it hadn't even noticed that someone was riding on its back. Then Ritch ripped out a cable, and the steam-demon noticed. It jammed its left arm back at an impossible angle; it could just barely brush Ritch, but couldn't bring much force against him, not enough to dislodge him. The hand with the launcher had a better angle; the steam-demon got it back, pointed at Ritch, and I held my breath, expecting Armageddon. But at the last moment, rarely used self-preservation circuitry kicked in, prevent- ing the big guy from firing into its own missile supply. The steam-demon alternately swatted at Ritch from both sides until our man finished his task and jumped down. Then Bill Ritch started running, headed in my direc- tion. The steam-demon turned around with great delib- eration and aimed its missile launcher at Ritch's head. This was point-blank range. Ritch would never have to worry about a hat again. The monster fired. We heard a loud, empty click. Nothing happened. Ritch kept run- ning. The steam-demon kept clicking, pointing and clicking, as if it couldn't fathom the situational evolu- tion. It flunked that intelligence test. Arlene didn't waste the opportunity. She started pumping at it from behind. The poor bastard turned and aimed its useless arm at her. Click! I shot it three times with my own compact rockets. I kept at it, squeezing the ring until my palm became numb; after what must have been twenty-five direct hits at least, the titan finally staggered and fell to the deck like a skyscraper under demolition--I kept fifing, and it got weaker and weaker. Then Arlene got smart, ran around back, and pumped a couple into the missile supply; the steam-demon's last words were pretty spectacular. I was surprised the entire hyperspace tunnel didn't collapse. I was tired. But Arlene and Ritch were still full of fire. We went back the way we'd come, but there had been a change in the architecture. Walls no longer stood where they had. Floor plans were different. A room that had been a small, empty antechamber was now a huge room with the equivalent of a "beach" against which red waves of toxin washed relentlessly. "Look!" Arlene said. I followed her pointing finger to the unwelcome sight of a hell-prince wading through the crimson toxic surf. After playing patty-cake with the steam-demon, a minotaur didn't seem that serious--but back on Phobos, Arlene had ripped through a crack to avoid one, and I'd been almost paralyzed with fright. How times change! But it wouldn't do to be careless. We took it left, right, left, right with rockets until it was slagged. It made one gratifying "Ork!" before dying. The long, narrow corridor where Arlene had chain- sawed the demons was now one edge of a triangular room full of specters. We gave that a pass, rushing through before the lumbering, invisible pinkies could avenge their more-visible cousins; we beat cleats back to the door leading to the central corridor and slamming it, jamming the latch with some 10mm rounds. We didn't see anything in the corridor outside, so we went back along the secret passage by which we had exited from the room behind the illusory wall. From that room we could see that the lava lake now had a wall at the back, and next to it a corridor that offered the possibility of dry land. I was about to slog across the corridor when Ritch got into the act. "Why don't you use the toxic protection suit?" he asked, pointing. "What? Where?" "See those coveralls?" Huh! I pulled one on over my armor and boots before making a dash through the crud to the island behind it. There, I found the damnedest rifle I'd ever seen, huge, gyrostabilized, and with a gigantic battery backpack. Hoisting it up, I was pleased that it was a lot lighter than it looked and considerably less unwieldy. Grinning like I'd won a bowling league trophy, I humped back to where the others were waiting. It was a good thing I followed Ritch's advice on the protective suit; the toxic glop ate away at the material with a consistent low hiss for company. I started feeling lousy by the time I was out of the stuff, but at least I wasn't in pain. Arlene reached out to help me climb from the red pool. "Get it off!" she said. "Your suit is disintegrating." I eagerly stripped for her. She noticed a telltale bulge under the suit. "What's this?" she asked. I looked at it. "It's a... it's a big, freaking gun, I guess." "What's it do?" "I hate to say it, but we'd better find out in combat; I don't want to waste power. Ritch?" He looked at the thing and shook his head. My skin was tingling after dumping the suit. We three exchanged that special expression that is only shared by those who skirt close to death. We touched hands, more than a handshake--more like taking a secret oath. There was nowhere to go but back out to the court- yard, and now I was glad we'd already popped the two pumpkins. We found another difference in the pattern: a new door next to the old, this one locked. Arlene dropped to her knees and fiddled with it. "Bad news," she said finally. "I can't pick this one." That was annoying. I'd about convinced myself that she could handle any of these. Surveying the scenery, I noticed a third door on the far side of the courtyard. This place was turning into a hotel lobby! "Let's try over there," I suggested. We skulked through the doorway and entered a dark corridor. I took point and no one argued. I suppose I'd become careless. I didn't notice the teleport pad until I'd stepped on it. This one was quick, but it made me feel like I wanted to throw up. Suddenly I was standing on a triangular platform directly behind two pumpkins, not two meters away! 32 They didn't see me. That was a good thing because there was no way I could kill them quickly with a shotgun or pistol. It would take multiple shots to destroy them, and at this range, long before that happened they'd fry me with their lightning balls. And I could forget about rockets, unless I had a "burning" desire to be a burn- ward poster boy. This seemed a fine time to give the big freakin' gun--call it a BFG--a shot. Taking a deep breath, I raised this fine piece of Union Aerospace Corporation craftsmanship and pointed it at the nearest oblivious target. There was no obvious trigger mechanism, so I squeezed the hand grip. There was no kick at all. Instead, I heard a loud whine of energy. The pumpkins heard it also and started rotating. Nothing had come out of the muzzle of the weapon yet; I had just about decided I'd made a big freakin' mistake when a green ball of energy exploded from the sealed mouth of the gun. The light was so bright it seared my eyes . . . the pumpkins screamed and popped like balloons, leaving nothing but smoking, blue and orange shreds. But my troubles were not over; I wasn't back home with my feet up. A horde of zombies poured out of cubbyholes that were like eyes stretched up and down both corridors. Funny how I hadn't noticed them until trouble came out. Exhaustion was taking its toll and making me lose my edge. I'd already dropped to my belly when I heard the unmistakable clatter of machine-gun bullets ripping over my head. Who the hell was shooting now? The attack came from behind. I was tired of attacks coming from behind. Rolling to the side, staying low, I fired off another BFG blast down the corridor to the left. The results were good--a large bunch of fried zombies. I was ready to institute a firm gun-control policy for all undead: I would firmly control my BFG as I fired it. Leaping down from the pumpkin platform, I bolted along the corridor to the left end, ducking into a cubby- hole myself. Old rule: when a bad guy comes out of a hole, he's not there anymore. I laid down the BFG and unslung my trusty shotgun, then poked my nose out of the cubbyhole again. Seemed like a good idea at the time. A stream of bullets came out of nowhere and I ducked back in. And at last I figured out what the hell was happening: it was Arlene! She must be firing across the hidden teleport pad . . . and her bullets were being tele- ported to where I had first emerged. No wonder the zombies were confused. This was enough to confuse someone with a functional brain. She was doing just as good a job of mowing them down as if she'd been present and accounted for. Encouraged, I helped out and shot the ones who ran past my cubbyhole, hunting for an enemy. So specters weren't the only ones who could play this game. Of course, the zombies got mad and started shooting each other. They were all dead by the time Arlene joined me. She hopped off the pad and I filled her in. Then we returned to the end of the corridor where I had hidden; I'd seen a door awaiting our attentions. There was no special key required to open this one; of course not ... a hell-prince waited for us on the other side. It had a blue key card in its mouth; we took it after making a fair trade: he got a whole bunch of rockets. I'm sure the minotaur appreciated our generosity. Returning to the mouth of the corridor, we picked up Ritch. We hadn't forgotten him. Ritch never seemed to regret missing out on our repeated exterminations, al- though he acquitted himself admirably when backed into a corner ... the perfect civilian. He'd have done well at Lexington and Concord, provided there wasn't a lot of running involved. The three of us trucked back across the courtyard to the locked door--and none of us was the least surprised when the key unlocked it. Inside was a single, ornate teleport pad. We blinked into existence in a vast room, a huge, open pit with a narrow catwalk running around the periphery. Our eyes watered from mist in the air. The place stank of boiled rock and the walls were the color of dried blood, and everywhere was the stench of sour lemons. "This is it!" Ritch said, suddenly excited. "This is the place where the spider, the mastermind, interrogated me." I'd been getting to the point of dismissing any differ- ences in the hellish architecture. All the chambers seemed more and more identical. But they'd never tortured me, stringing me up to hang halfway between life and death. There was no doubting Ritch's memory after what he'd been through. We heard a cacophony from below, as if a monster convention was being held under our noses. We dropped on our bellies, hugging the catwalk, and listened. I heard roaring, grunting, screaming, wheezing, howl- ing, snuffling, and even a weird piping or whistling. Heavy thumping and thudding left no doubt that some of the big guys were down there. Didn't hear a steam- demon, though; that was the only good news. "If you want to see the spidermind, now's your chance," Ritch whispered. "Isn't it special invitation only?" Arlene asked. "I can't help it," I whispered. "I'm a born Gate- crasher." She crawled to the edge. "Pumpkins, hell-princes, those crazy flying skulls." "Did we ever get around to naming them?" Arlene looked at me with a strange expression, as if I'd just missed something. "Gee . . . how about 'flying skulls'? Any objections?" Shaking my head, I couldn't help but notice Hitch's expression. He probably thought our little name game the pinnacle of insanity. And Ritch had a gift for it himself: he'd called our steam-demon a "cyberdude," and "spidermind" turned out to be a perfect description for the thing that chose that moment to make a big entrance. It was worse than all the rest. If I'd found the steam-demon disgusting with its mixture of organic and mechanical, this completely alien It scuttling across the floor down below completely turned my stomach. Numerous mechanical legs sup- ported a dome housing a gigantic, gray, pulsing brain with a hideous, ersatz face formed in the center of the squishy gray matter itself, complete with "eyes" and "teeth." It should have been funny, almost a cartoon-- but there was nothing remotely humorous about the living incarnation of a nightmare. Its appearance was so unnerving that one could easily neglect taking inventory of the most important thing: its weapons. Even from this awkward angle it was easy to see that it came equipped with what looked like an ultraspeed Gatling gun, like a Vulcan cannon. There was little doubt that up close there'd be other unpleasant surprises. "Listen," I hissed, "suppose we can take this spidermind thing. We'd throw a monkey wrench into the invasion plans right here and now! I could run along the catwalk, drop down in front of the creature and fry it with my new toy." "Too dangerous," Arlene said. "It would get you with its machine guns before you got close enough to try," Ritch added. These were extremely good points, I had to admit. Rethinking the idea, I realized that even if I succeeded, I would be ripped to shreds by the throng of monsters surrounding the boss. Ritch seemed to be reading my thoughts when he said: "We should kill some of the other creatures so the spidermind won't have as much back- up." Maybe this guy could make an honorary Marine after all. Creeping along the catwalk rim, peeking over the edge, we made slow progress. While finding a more advanta- geous position, Ritch sneezed. I think he was allergic to monsters. The element of surprise blown, it was time to open fire and blow them away. Their reward for paying attention. Arlene and I worked through the rockets we'd scavenged from the steam-demon chamber. Good distance and angle to use those little darlings. There had been so much noise already that plenty of the monsters farther away still hadn't noticed what was going on. They were partying down. Our primary goal was to keep the spidermind from noticing as long as inhumanly possible, so we never shot a rocket in its direction. We still had a lot of unanswered questions: How well did the brain hear? And were other creatures supposed to report back--and were they in constant communication, by radio or telepathy? We continued the slaughter. Ritch was proving himself useful again, this time with his Sig-Cow. Finally, the general run of monsters noticed that something was amiss. Some became agitated and began to run about, their roars more thoughtful, attuned to the condition of the general community . . . communication, obviously. A few even attempted to apply what mentality they had to "investigate" the mysterious deaths of their comrades. Alas, the spidermind lived up to its name. It detected the trouble and began stomping around, trying to identi- fy the source. But my respect for that great quantity of gray matter declined somewhat as the damned thing got frustrated and started blasting away at random, killing its troops! Ritch crept over and offered more analysis: "Corporal Taggart, I--" "Call me Fly." "Well, Fly, I've been thinking that the amount of energy required to actually move Deimos through hyper- space would be monumental. There's no way they could have snuck such a huge power generator onto Deimos through those fairly small Gates. We're talking many terawatts, thousands of Hoover Dams worth of power." "Makes sense," I said. Arlene nodded, while continu- ing to hold down the fort. "The most likely explanation is that the power is coming from an external source," he said, "and they're beaming it in somehow." "Ritch," Arlene said, "are you saying cut the power and end the invasion?" For the first time since seeing the spawning vats, I began to think we might really have a chance. So long as they had power, they could produce an endless number of monsters in their damned caldrons. It was time to cancel their service. 33 Arlene pointed at a central building, a small pillbox structure right in the center of the monster convention. In all the chaos, none of the creatures had gotten anywhere near this pillbox ... as if they deliber- ately avoided it. "Could that be the power receiver?" she asked. Ritch shrugged. "I don't know, but it seems like the best possibility." That possibility did as much for our morale as if we'd each been given a blue face-sphere. The spidermind continued firing until many of the other creatures, its own troops, were killed or driven off. It was now or never. I jumped first, feeling as if I could fly. Arlene followed and I turned to help, but she didn't need a hand. We both had to help Ritch, who wasn't exactly constructed for flight. The three of us made a dash for the central building. Monster corpses presented a major obstacle; but we quickly turned grateful for the thick-limbed, heavy bod- ies all over the floor. The spidermind noticed us and opened fire with its 30mm Vulcans. We hit the deck and used the bodies for cover. The incredible creature charged us, firing maybe three hundred rounds a minute, five rounds a second. In a few moments it would be upon us, firing so rapidly we'd never be able to return fire. Suddenly the firing stopped. The spidermind was tangled up in the bodies it had helped produce. The mechanical spider legs were not designed for an obstacle course. "Run!" I shouted, heading for the building. A quick glance at the location of the spidermind told me what I needed to know--the angles were perfect. "Get between the spidermind and the building--move!" I bolted hutward and immediately sprawled gracefully over the prone body of a steam-demon--a steam-demon! My heart leapt up my throat. . . then I realized the damned thing was under bloody construction. Great, and me without my monkey wrench! The gigantic monster lay on its belly, face into the deck; the missiles were exposed, and as bullets flew haphazardly over my head I swallowed hard: a couple of good shots might detonate the warheads on those puppies--or, if the warheads weren't yet attached, the fuel cells could rupture and spray us all with caustic and flammable rocket fuel. "Very adroit, Mr. Leslie," snapped Arlene, yanking me to my feet. We made tracks. We had crossed perhaps a third of the open territory when a wave of horror struck me like a physical hammer blow. Nightmarish images of Degas, Bosch, Patrick Woodruff. . . blood dripping from the walls and ceiling, sprays of blood in the distance, blood from overhead sprinklers ... it probed, trying to find a weak spot: my father lurched out of the building, grinning and slapping his body. "Me heap big chief Kamehameha!" he shouted, then gave a Tarzan yell. He humiliated me all over again, as he had twenty years earlier; we'd been in Hawaii in a museum, before a life-size (huge) statue of Hawaii's greatest king. I shrank away from him, praying to God no one knew he was my father; but he followed me, saying, "Did you see what I did? Watch!" And he did it again! I was never more ashamed of him in my life. We were lucky to make it out of the museum alive. But goddamn it, he was not going to stop me reaching that building. I pushed on, tuning out the spidermind. Then I saw myself brought up on charges again, but this time I was tried and convicted, and they ripped the stripes off my sleeve like, what was it, that old television show, two-dimensional, . . Branded, something like that. They tore off my sharpshooter's medal, my ribbons, finally the eagle-and-globe that told the world I was a Marine. But I gritted my teeth, and through my tears I told myself that I knew I was a Marine no matter what, and Arlene would never let me forget it even if I tried. My feet never stopped. God knows what horrors it sent to Arlene and Ritch; their faces were white, grim, but determined. The monstrosity realized it didn't have our number psychologically and tried the more direct route: it opened fire. But it was off balance, picking its way through the bodies, and the whole contraption tumbled over. This gave us the time to get into position. Just as we got behind the building, the spidermind freed itself, stood up straight on mechanical legs, swiveled the weap- onry into position . . . and started firing. A few quick burps of gunfire probed our way; then it abruptly choked off and there was silence. "What happened?" Ritch asked. "It's like it stopped automatically," Arlene said. "It can't shoot us without shooting the building!" I realized. "The guns were clearly cut off by a circuit breaker." We had to get inside; but the spidermind lived up to its name. The thing scuttled quickly to the side, trying for a better angle and a clear shot. We kept moving, dancing around the pillbox in a tightening spiral, always keeping ourselves between the spidermind and the building. It was like playing some kind of children's game, only this playground was the killing field. Then we had a new problem. The other monsters had been considerate enough to stay away, but now the noise attracted them back into the fray. A random sampling of fireballs, ball lightning, and even the hell-princes' green fire creased our bow. Under the circumstances, it would have been rude not to respond. We fired back, while we kept running from the spidermind. "One rocket left!" I yelled as I fired the penultimate one at a minotaur. I slung the launcher--never know when a weapon might come in handy. But Arlene must've figured there'd be no more rainy days: she blew through her AB-10 ammo and dropped the pistol with- out a second glance, not wanting anything to slow her down. Bill Ritch fired his Sig-Cow at the spinys and actually dropped one. Despite his bulk, he'd managed to keep up with us, although his heavy breathing was cause for worry. I hoped he wouldn't have a heart attack. We still needed him. I wasn't being callous in thinking this; the mission was all-important. God, did I actually think that? I guess I did. Arlene had converted me . . . and I didn't even know when she managed it. My goal had shifted from rescuing her to fighting the last battle as the last Marine. I blew the door off its hinges with a point-blank shotgun blast. One of the spinys didn't approve of my housebreaking; it dive-bombed me and flung a ball of burning mucus that just missed . . . just missed me that is. Arlene took it out--but then I glanced over at Ritch and saw that the imp had done him serious damage. Ritch had taken a faceful of the poison and was coughing his guts up. Holding the door open with my back, I racked and fired as fast as I could as Arlene dragged Ritch inside. Vindication! The room was full of electronic gear, cables, data banks. While Arlene did what she could for Ritch, damned little under the circumstances, I stood guard on all four doors, shooting anything that ventured dose. Naturally, the monsters couldn't fire back. I en- joyed the situation until one of the imps flung a spitwad and hit the door frame, missing me by a handsbreadth. For one moment in the history of the universe, the spidermind and Yours Truly shared the same opinion. The imp's action was ill-considered in the extreme. The spidermind proved it was no dummy; it blew the imp to cutlets. I drifted from doorway to doorway and nothing shot at me; however, every time I passed within line-of-sight of the spidermind, I caught another faceful of hypnogogic horror. It was the only weapon the critter had left; in a way, you had to feel sorry for it. Well. . . maybe not. "How's it going?" I asked Arlene, already knowing the answer. She shook her head. Ritch was in a lot worse shock than when we first found him. The flaming goo had stuck to his face, catching him just as he inhaled; his lungs were fried . . . they could no longer transport oxy- gen to his blood. I didn't know what we were going to do; maybe a hospital could save him . . . but we didn't even have bandages or painkiller. The skin of his face was angry red, and it was bleeding in a dozen spots where enough layers of epidermis had burned away. He must have been in agony .. . and Ritch knew it was hopeless, for him at least; he was a smart man. Bill was dying. Arlene propped him against a wall and whispered in his ear. He nodded, making the coughing worse; but she wiped his eyes, and he could see well enough to help us. In a weak voice he began identifying critical compo- nents within the room. He remembered everything from when they forced him to work on the mess. He told us what we needed to know. Arlene left him propped against the wall and came to me. In a low voice she said "I wish we had one of those blue spheres right now." "It's the only thing that would save him," I agreed. "We don't even have a Medikit. At least I could make him comfortable." I looked her in the eye. "He told us what we need to know," I said. "That's the important thing." I felt professional. I felt several degrees colder than mean. But Arlene was as much a pro as I. "Do you want to perform the coup de grace on this energy conduit, or shall I?" While I thought about it, she made up my mind for me: "You'd better do it, Fly; we need a real sharpshooter's eye to keep those bastards far enough away that they can't reach in and grab us. I suppose even you can't miss a computer bank from two meters away, hey? Even if you can't shoot an apple off Goforth's head." She grinned. I turned and became a one-man wrecking crew. Rais- ing the BFG, I took a deep breath and let fly at the collection of electronics. The explosion knocked me on my butt. I staggered up and took out the rest of the targets Ritch pointed out in the mass of equipment. After four walloping shots, the BFG fizzled and wouldn't shoot anymore. Out of juice. I finished the job with a dozen shotgun shells. "Jesus, Fly! Come look at this," Arlene shouted. I came, still shaking, ears still ringing like Christmas. This was turning into an hour of surprises. The monsters were acting like they were on PCP, wandering in circles and firing at anything that moved--which meant each other. The spidermind still seemed to have control over its ugly faculties. It opened fire on several of the hell- princes, no doubt with the idea of removing those of its minions most potentially dangerous if there were no way to give them orders. Naturally, the executions drew the attention of other monsters. They fired at the noise. We weren't cast members in that show, but we took full advantage of our backstage passes. Fifteen minutes later there was one monster, count 'em, one monster left that we could see. For the moment, the spidermind was boss over itself. And it had one other problem besides not being able to get any decent help. The gun cylinders spun, empty. The spider hadn't saved any ammo for us. "Ritch," Arlene said, speaking quietly but enunciating clearly, "your plan worked brilliantly." I'm sure he would have appreciated her good opinion of him--if he had still been alive. The damned, stupid spiny had killed him after all. I stared at the dead face of Bill Ritch, the captivity and torture survivor, comrade, the man who gave us a real chance to defeat the alien invaders. I looked at this brand new corpse and something snapped. "I'm sick of this," I told Arlene. I shrugged off my beloved rocket launcher and handed it to my best gal-pal. "Keep an eye on me, First Class. You'll know when to use it... and don't, God damn it, miss." "Show me the apple, Flynn Taggart, and I'll pop it off your head." I loaded up my shotgun, for attention-grabbing pur- poses only, and calmly walked out to face the ugliest alien of them all. "Hey, spider baby," I called out. "Yeah, I'm talking to you!" The turret turned. The spidermind and I looked at each other .. . and suddenly I was overwhelmed with the most horrific vision of all: I saw the Earth in flames, burning buildings, fields, oceans of corpses. I saw the demons, not just aliens, but honest-to-Lucifer demons, wading through the rivers of filth and blood and urine, laughing in triumph. I saw mankind under the heel. Collars around our throats, chains on wrists and ankles. I saw collaborators, traitors, quislings, turncoats of every race and culture. I saw a "Vichy" Earth government. And I saw in the distance an endless parade of bigger and more ghastly demons. They filled the land from end to end, sea to shining sea. And I knew this vision was no nightmare plucked from my own subconscious fears. This was reality. I saw the future. I leaned forward and spat upon the shredded machine mind. "Remember the imp you had talk to me back on Phobos? That creepy leatherface asked for my surrender. Well, here's my answer, you insect!" Raising my shotgun, I took careful aim and blasted toward the brain inside the crystal case. Then I did it again. And again. And again. I stopped at eight shots because I'd run out of shells, and because the turret had finally rotated in my direction and was chewing up the deckplates with 30mm rounds. I slalomed through the heaped corpses, looking for one in particular. . . one body not dead but pre-born, as my nuns would say, though in a hell of a different context. I was looking for my steam-demon, and that had to be a first! The spidermind scuttled after me; on open ground it could make quite a clip ... quite a bit faster than a mere two-legger like me. But we weren't on open ground; I chose my route well. I leapt from body to body like Eliza across the ice floes, and the frustrated arachnoid android started shooting the corpses out of the way for clearer footing. I put some distance between us, and for a moment the stupid thing lost me! Great... I should've brought an air horn. Crouching so I wouldn't get clopped by a stray, I loaded up, stood, and fired a few more shells. It spotted me, screamed in triumph--just like you'd expect an insect to sound, magnified a billion times--and charged, Gatling barrels spinning like gyroscopes. I ran the hundred in world-record time. I flung myself through the air in a graceful swan dive, tucked at the last second, and rolled beautifully--dislocating my shoulder. I struggled up, shifted the shotgun to my right, weak hand, reached over the steam-demon, and let fly with the last shell. My cough was answered by a diarrhea of Vulcan Cannon rounds that tore up the iron flesh of the steam- demon like an AB-10 tears up plaster. The bullets ripped the legs apart; they ripped the head apart. They ripped the missiles apart. I clenched my teeth .. . now was the moment of truth. If they'd already attached those warheads . .. Well, I guess I'd either go north and meet the nuns, or ... or stay right where I was--in Hell! Fifteen seconds and 750 rounds later, sudden silence startled me back to the here-and-now. My ears throbbed and rang, and my skull felt like it was still vibrating; but the spidermind had stopped shooting to see what dam- age it had done. I wasn't about to stick my head up, but I didn't need to: I closed my eyes and sniffed deeply. There is a smell most people don't know, but once you've tasted it, you never forget it. Anyone who's hung around a Marine air base or Naval air station remembers and pilots remember from the airport: it's the pungent aroma of JP-9 "jet propellant," and it tears through your septum, up your nasal passages, and straight into your brain. Think of ammonia, formaldehyde, and skunk- juice swirled together into a malt. There was no possibility of error . . . dozens of gallons of the burn-juice pooled around the steam-demon; in fact, looking down, I saw it seeping from under the body onto my side, eating away at my boots worse than the green sludge. My bruised eardrums were trying to tell me something urgent, a sound behind the ringing and throbbing: click- ing feet. The spidermind was on its way to investigate! I backed slowly away, crouching lower and lower to stay behind the steam-demon; then the spidermind loomed, and I could no longer hide. It screamed again, this time in rage, not triumph, and charged. It slipped in the fuel slick that it itself had created. It tried to rise and slipped again, skating in the horrible stuff. JP-9 dripped from the spidermind's underbelly, splashed up and down its legs, even sprayed across the crystal canopy. Time to split that apple, A.S.! I dashed to the side, waving frantically at the building; I couldn't see Arlene. I pointed at the spidermind, screaming, "Now, now, you crazy bitch!" She couldn't hear me, of course, or I never would have said such a thing! A tiny bud of red bloomed in the black doorway, flowering into the bright-red tail exhaust of our very last rocket. I hit the deck, hands over head, belatedly wonder- ing whether any of the jet propellant had sprayed on me. . . I barely heard the explosion through the ringing, but the force kicked me in my dislocated shoulder. After a moment with my eyes shut, arms locked over my head, I ventured a glance. The spidermind screeched and skittered, joyously engulfed in bright white flames, like one of Weem's monks protesting the war in Kefiristan by immolating himself with burning gasoline. I watched for several minutes, keeping low as the last of the spidermind's ammo exploded, bursting off in all directions. Mobility lasted only half a minute, then the intense heat melted the crystal canopy, turning the truck-size brain into a crispie critter in seconds. It took longer for the metal body to liquefy, even longer for the whole mass to bubble through the melted deckplates. At last there was nothing left of the dreaded spidermind but a smoking crater. . . . "Get used to it," I muttered, unable to even hear my own voice. "Think of this as a rehearsal for the next eternity." A hand grabbed my arm--my left arm. "No!" I screamed; then I screamed again in pain as Arlene yanked on my dislocated shoulder. "Jesus, Fly, I'm sorry!" I faintly heard her voice, as if through a speakerphone across the room. I rolled onto my back, swearing like a drunken long- shoreman. "Oh," she said, "I see what it is. Hang on, Fly, this is going to hurt--but you'll thank me for it in a minute." Would you believe she grabbed my biceps, pulled my arm out of the socket, and snapped it back into place? I passed out. I came to in a few seconds, then cursed her out again, sorting the epithets alphabetically, in case I missed any. I passed through the scatological and had started on the blasphemous when she shut me up by planting a big, wet boot-heel on my mouth. She sat me up; by then, my ears were starting to recover, and I could hear what she said. "Pretty spectac- ular, Fly. I guess we won. . . . Ritch would've loved this spread now." But still I heard the hum of power. The lights remained lit. Something was wrong with this picture. "I hope you won't take this wrong," said Arlene, staring curiously around, "but why aren't we plunged into terrible darkness, Fly Taggart?" "I know what you mean, A.S. We can't feel total satisfaction until we're freezing to death in the black night of space . . ." "And running out of air." "So what's gone wrong with Bill Ritch's plan?" She frowned in thought. "I guess that building didn't house the power receiver, after all," she said. "It must have been the communications gear by which the spidermind was controlling all the other creatures." "You mean all the creatures left on Deimos and Phobos will destroy one another, like these guys did?" I smiled ... I like that thought. "The spidermind was barely able to control them as it was," she pointed out. "They have a natural hatred for each other." I remembered the crucified hell-princes. Then I re- membered Bill, dying from the stupid blast from a stupid imp. Now he was gone! Focus, Fly . . . focus. We went back in the control room and I threw a piece of canvas over Ritch. We laid his body out in the place that was the most