The Apocalypse Troll

"Mister President," Nekrasov said stiffly, "this is ridiculous. I-"

"No, Mister Ambassador, it is not ridiculous," Armbruster interrupted, and the cold determination-the ruthlessness-in his iron voice startled the Russian. "I believe you will agree with me on that point, and, if you do, I will ask you to return home-officially for health reasons and consultations regarding the situation in the South Atlantic-to tell President Yakolev that."

"I can conceive of no reason why I should," Nekrasov said flatly.

"We'll give you one," Armbruster said, his tone equally flat, "and to that end, I would like you to meet someone. If I may?" He rose and started for the door, and Nekrasov shrugged. The entire situation was patently absurd, but this madman was the President of the United States.

A naval commander and a ridiculously young captain of Marines entered the room, and Nekrasov wondered what possible bearing such junior officers could have on this affair.

"Ambassador, I'd like you to meet Commander Morris, Admiral Anson McLain's senior intelligence officer, and Captain Ross. Commander, Captain-Ambassador Nikolai Stepanovich Nekrasov." Nekrasov nodded to the newcomers, then looked impatiently back to the President.

"Mister Ambassador, Captain Ross is not precisely what she appears," Armbruster said, seating himself once more. "In point of fact, she's the reason you're here." Nekrasov frowned at the striking young girl. That seemed crazier than all the rest! Armbruster saw his frown and gri

"I assure you, you can't be more surprised than I was when I first met the captain, Ambassador. You see ..."

subversion n. The act of subverting or the condition of being subverted.

subvert tr.v. -verted, -verting, verts. 1. To ruin; to destroy utterly. 2. To undermine character or allegiance; to corrupt. 3. To overthrow completely. [Middle English subverten, from Latin subvertere, to turn upside down: sub-, from below, up + vertere, to turn.]

-Webster-Wangchi Unabridged Dictionary of Standard English Tomas y Hijos, Publishers

2465, Terran Standard Reckoning

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

"She did what?" Anson McLain demanded, and Mordecai Morris went off in a fresh peal of mirth. His ribs hurt, and he wondered how much his laughter owed to hysterical reaction.

"S-she almost shot ... shot up t-the Saint Petersburg zoo!" he repeated, gasping the words between hoots.

"In God's name, why?!"

"She ... she ... Oh, my!" Morris broke off and wiped his streaming eyes. "President Yakolev thought she might ... might enjoy seeing the sights," he managed in a more controlled voice. "So he had a guide take her around Saint Petersburg." He shook his head. "It all went fine until they got to the kangaroos."

"To the-" McLain broke off in sudden understanding. "Oh, no!" he moaned, covering his eyes with one hand.

"Exactly, Sir: Kangas. D'you realize, she even told us they were the height of a short human and had tails, but we never made the co

"Dear Lord," McLain prayed fervently, "deliver me from oversights."

"Amen," Morris agreed, his eyes still damp from laughter. "She took one look and went for her blaster out of pure reflex, and she's fast, Sir. She had it out and aimed-ready to blow the whole damned herd, or school, or whatever the hell you call a bunch of kangaroos, to dust bu

"But she didn't shoot?"

"No, Sir," Morris reassured him. "She realized what it had to be in time. She was pretty pissed with Dick for not warning her, too, until she realized why he hadn't seen any reason she needed to be warned."

"Well, thank God for that," McLain said. "Jesus! We came that close to blowing the whole secret because of a bunch of ragged-assed kangaroos." He shook his head wonderingly, then glared at Morris. "I don't need any more surprises like this, Commander. Tell her that."

"Oh, I will, Sir. I will."

The Troll pivoted his fighter in a hovering circle, examining the hiding place. The Taggart human was right, he thought. It was perfect.

The cool darkness caressed the alloy skin of his vehicle/body, and he dropped another hundred meters, dipping into the oval valley. It was five and a half kilometers long and no more than two across at its greatest width, and night-struck trees were green-black below him, rising towards the star-strewn skies. There were no lights, no signs of human habitation, and his sca

The silent fighter hovered twenty meters above the valley floor while the Troll selected the best spot. There. The slope was almost vertical behind that screen of trees.

He adjusted his position carefully, then activated the battery of special, low-powered power guns mounted under the fighter's prow, and muted blue lightning flared. It was far less brilliant than the sun-hot violence which had killed the cralkhi, and his heart-hunger for havoc longed for the beauty of that brighter, more savage power, but it was time for lesser thunders.

Azure brilliance splashed the mountain, and at its touch, destruction danced. Perhaps not the blazing, shuddering devastation he craved, but destruction nonetheless. Undergrowth and tree trunks vanished. Treetops plunged downward like spears, falling into the ring of light and vanishing with a near-silent whine, and then it was the turn of earth and stone.

The Troll's interior receptors watched his human bend over the vision screen his servomechs had built for it in the cramped "control room." He could feel the human's awe, and silent laughter rippled in his brain. So Blake Taggart thought this was power? What would it say if he told it that this was but an adaptation of a standard Shirmaksu mining tool? That, in the human's own terms, it was no more than a "drill"?

The mountain yielded more slowly than the vegetation which had crowned it, but the Troll chewed steadily deeper. Sixty meters in diameter he sank his shaft, and the humming power of his drill lined the bore with a slick, fused finish. Three hundred meters he pierced into the flank of the mountain, then the blue light died and he turned his ship and slid silently backward into the circular tu

He settled to the floor of the tube and hatches opened, disgorging servomechs that scurried about, filling the tu

The Troll was satisfied in his hide. There were drawbacks, of course. It would take many minutes to extricate his fighter from its snug nest, and his onboard sca

Indeed, his new servant was proving useful in many ways. It had known, for example, that the A