“You observe ’em.” Ashwood brushed at her jeans. “Me, I’ll wait for the movie.”
Sound deafened them (another explosion or a scream? Carter wondered) and everyone turned back toward the building. The roof and walls were collapsing inward, imploding, subsumed in brilliantly colored light pierced through with flailing silver cables. Other flickering hues ran along the cables as if they were giant fiber optics, only to burst from the waving tips as lambent balls of fading flame. Each time one of the lightning-like spheres shot into the air, a miniature sonic boom would roll outward from the disintegrating structure to rattle the spectators assembled in the parking lot. Flames began to lick upward, feeding on the crumbling complex.
A moment later something within blew up with the force of a fully loaded bomber smashing head-on into a mountainside, vomiting the steel roof skyward and showering the dazed onlookers with glass slag and lumps of molten metal. A piece of video camera landed near Carter’s feet, the tough housing reduced to a glob of plastic taffy. Ashwood was one of several people knocked off their feet. It was his turn to help her erect.
“What the hell was that?” Shakily she joined the others in staring at the remains of the studio. The entire complex had been reduced to unsalvageable rubble, flattened as thoroughly as if by a tactical nuclear weapon.
“So much for the Contisuyuns’ mind-manipulating machinery.” Carter looked over at the Boojums, who were only slightly less mystified than the humans. “Look, everybody around here is pretty wasted right now, but that won’t last forever. Nobody’s questioned your presence yet. If you still want to preserve your anonymity you ought to get back in the van.”
“Jolly good idea.” Crease pivoted on multiple cilia.
Ashwood came up short near the back doors, frowning at the crumpled roof. “What happened to y’all? You run into another snark out there?”
Igor lowered his eyes. “Not exactly. A railroad bridge. You did not know, but we were almost too late. We were stuck out in the countryside somewhere. I was thinking that we could not possibly get here in time when the most amazing thing happened. An industrial lifting copter flying past noticed the accident and stopped to see if they could be of assistance. Inca gold did the rest and, after making temporary repairs to our broken axle, the crew transported us and the van here without ever setting eyes on the Boojums, who remained inside.
“I did not even have to lie to the guard at the entrance to the parking lot. When he saw the copter set us down and the Boojums climb out the back he sensed instinctively that we had something to do with the show. He never questioned me about our means of arrival.
“Once inside the complex our friends dealt easily with any who got too curious. They immobilized the guards and technicians at the uplink facility in the same fashion.” He raised his eyes to Carter’s face. “By the time we arrived you were already on the set, performing.”
Carter gawked at him. “You mean I went out there and exposed myself and you weren’t even in control yet?” The guide nodded as the Boojums climbed into the back of the van.
“I could’ve been killed, for nothing!”
“Ah, these humans.” Shorty leaned out to help Tree up beside him. “Their powers of perception never cease to amaze me.”
Something in the front seat meowed plaintively and Carter walked around the van to open the door. Macha leaped out into his arms. As he caressed her Grinsaw hopped out, walked with great dignity to the rear of the vehicle, and jumped in the back to rejoin his Boojums.
“Poor thing.” Carter spoke soothingly as he stroked her behind the ears. “Bet all this noise and confusion has you scared to death. Well, it’s all over now. When we get back to L.A. I’m gonna buy you the biggest scratching post you ever saw and feed you nothing but gourmet cat food from Gelsen’s.” Gently he placed her on the seat next to him.
Cars continued to screech out the entrance as fleeing cast and crew burned rubber in their haste to escape. One nearly ran smack into a pumper truck coming the other way as the first representatives of Greater Edinburgh’s fire department began to arrive, the workers at the nearby plastics plant having sounded the alarm.
“So the only way y’all could’ve made it here in time to be of any use was by helicopter, an’ one just showed up?” Ashwood looked dubious as Igor nodded. “Sounds like a helluva coincidence to me.”
“Sometimes it is best not to question all things,” Tree pontificated. “To the best of our knowledge, coincidence does not flout natural law.”
“What I don’t understand,” Carter said pensively, “is why this snark thing would want to attack me. And why then? Was it after the same thing as the Contisuyuns? Or was it just another crazy coincidence?”
“One would have to inquire of the snark.” Shorty was staring at the burning building, observing the local fire department in action. “They have been suspected of interfering in sentient affairs, though as in everything else involving them nothing has been proven for certain.”
“I wonder if everyone got out,” Ashwood was saying. “Not just the locals, but Fewick and Da Rimini and the Contisuyuns.”
“I’m sure Trang Ho did,” Carter commented. “People like that always survive, so they can make the lives of the less fortunate miserable. That’s a natural law.”
“It does not matter.” Crease emanated assurance. “With their equipment destroyed the Contisuyuns can never again influence large masses of your population, nor can the ones isolated here ever return to their world to mount another attack. You need no longer fear that what little stability and maturity you have managed to achieve will be disturbed by external forces.”
O’lal and the Monitor who had arrived to reinforce her were reasonably pleased with their efforts. By revealing his true nature the Renegade had given them no choice but to likewise expose themselves in order to deal with him. Yet conditions had been sufficiently chaotic at the critical moment that she was confident no record of their materialization had been made. Nor were the few frightened humans who had witnessed the climactic confrontation likely to persuade others of their kind of what they had seen. Knowing her human charges as intimately as she did, she was convinced that the brief realization of the Monitors would soon be forgotten.
It had been close. The Renegade had demonstrated incredible, unprecedented strength. She could never have defeated him alone. Even the combined exertions of her colleague and herself had barely been equal to the task. Only their unexpected appearance had enabled them to seize an initial advantage and hold it to the end.
The Renegade still lived. Seeing that he was about to be overwhelmed he had expended a titanic burst of energy in breaking free of the Monitors’ grasp and fleeing via the tenuous, difficult-to-negotiate places that curled and tunneled between interstellar mass. Both Monitors had elected not to follow. The Renegade had been defeated in his aims and wounded in his bonding. He should not reemerge to trouble any evolving species for some time to come.
The three humans joined the two cats in the front of the van and Igor eased them out of the parking lot. Those of the cast and crew who’d wanted to had already fled, but there was still a line of arriving, siren-blaring municipal vehicles to avoid. Once clear of the industrial park their guide took the road that led toward the city.
A sliding window gave those in the cab access to the van’s cargo bay. Carter spoke hesitantly.
“How did I do? Did we do it?”
“It was a jolly good effort, young human. Jolly good!” He recognized Crease’s turn of mind. “Of course we will not know for certain if our efforts were successful until your newspeople broadcast from Spain tomorrow, but I am of the opinion that we had ample time to counteract the effects of the Contisuyuns’ subliminal propaganda. There should be no riot, and without a dose of regular weekly reinforcement on the television, what irrational anti-Spanish feeling persists should fade rapidly from the collective European consciousness.”
Carter allowed himself to relax. “What now?”
“We drive to our current residence to gather your baggage and erase any traces of our presence here, whereupon you may convey us to the continent you refer to as South America. Upon our return to Paititi we will remove all traces of the transmitter there, reboard our vessel, and depart your world, leaving it to evolve naturally, in its own way and its own time, without any further outside interference.
“Contisuyu will do likewise, memorializing their lost expedition as a sad but forgettable incident in their own history.”
“What about that snark thing? What if it comes back?”
“The threat to the stability of your society was mounted by the Contisuyuns,” Tree assured him. “That has now been dealt with. The snark’s presence we cannot explain, but personally I think you worry overmuch. There is no point to doing so because one cannot affect a snark’s actions anyway. One might as well waste time worrying about tripping over a singularity.”
“What about the Contisuyuns like Apu Tupa and Pucahuaman who are stuck here?” Ashwood wanted to know. “What happens to them now?”
“I venture to say that they will either integrate themselves into your society or be locked away as insane. In any case they no longer constitute a danger.”
“They still have the use of the treasure at Nazca and Paititi,” she pointed out. “On our world, treasure is power.”
Crease thrust a root-tentacle through the opening and waved it about by way of emphasis. “A small matter which we are prepared to deal with. Our ship is equipped with a compact but very powerful device with which we will methodically reduce to dust any evidence of advanced technology such as the inoperative transmitters and the fish-filled transport vessels of the Contisuyns, together with the treasure. We will then utilize it to collapse the caverns, burying them forever beneath tons of solid stone. As that part of your planet is tectonically active, several small, highly localized ‘earthquakes’ should go unremarked upon.
“Both sites will be rendered useless to Contisuyuns and your people alike.” A long-drawn-out mental sigh filled the van. “It will be a great relief to leave this world, which delights in inventing problems where none exist.”
