Vulcan's Hammer

Other Directors had undipped their pencil beams. Hen­derson fired and the second hammer vanished. On the platform Reynolds fired back; Henderson moaned and sank down. Some Directors were firing wildly at the ham­mers; others wandered in dazed confusion, uncertain and numb. A shot caught Reynolds in the arm. He dropped his pencil.

"Traitor!" the two remaining hammers cried together.

They swooped at Barris, their metal heads down, coming rapidly at him. From them heat beams leaped. Barris ducked. A guard fired and one of the hammers wobbled and dipped; it fluttered off and crashed against the wall.

A beam cut past Barris; some of the Directors were fir­ing at him. Knots of Directors and guards struggled to­gether. Some were fighting to get at Reynolds and the last hammer; others did not seem to know which side they were on.

Barris stumbled through an exit, out of the auditorium. Guards and Directors spilled after him, a confused horde of forlorn, frightened men and women.

"Barris!" Lawrence Daily of South Africa hurried up to him. "Don't leave us."

Stone came with him, white-faced with fright. "What'll we do? Where'll we go? We-"

The hammer came hurtling forward, its heat beam pointed at him. Stone cried out and fell. The hammer rose again, heading toward Barris; he fired and the hammer flipped to one side. He fired again. Daily fired. The ham­mer vanished in a puff of heat.

Stone lay moaning. Barris bent over him; he was badly hurt, with little or no chance of surviving. Gazing up at him, clutching at Barris' arm, Stone whispered, "You can't get away, Barris. You can't go outside-they're out there. The Healers. Where'll you go?" His voice trailed off. "Where?"

"Good question," Daily said.

"He's dead," Barris said, standing up.

Dill's guards had begun to gain control of the audi­torium. In the confusion Reynolds had gotten away.

"We're in control here," Chai said. "In this one build­ing."

"How many Directors can we count on?" Barris said.

Chai said, "Most of them seem to have gone with Reyn­olds."

Only four, he discovered, had deliberately remained:

Daily, Chai, Lawson of South Europe, and Pegler of East Africa. Five, including himself. And perhaps they could pick up one or two more.

"Barris," Chai was saying. "We're not going to join them, are we?"

"The Healers?" he murmured.

"We'll have to join one side or the other," Pegler said. "We'll have to retreat to the fortress and join Reynolds or-"

"No," Barris said. "Under no circumstances."

"Then it's the Healers." Daily fingered his pencil beam. "One or the other. Which will it be?"

After a moment, Barris said, "Neither. We're not join­ing either side."

CHAPTER 12

The first task at hand, William Barris decided, was to clear the remaining hostile guards and officials from the Unity Control Building. He did so, posting men he could trust in each of the departments and offices. Gradually those loyal to Vulcan 3 or Father Fields were dismissed and pushed outside.

By evening, the great building had been organized for defense.

Outside on the streets, the mobs surged back and forth. Occasional rocks smashed against the windows. A few frenzied persons tried to rush the doors, and were driven back. Those inside had the advantage of weapons.

A systematic check of the eleven divisions of the Unity system showed that seven were in the hands of the Healers and the remaining four were loyal to Vulcan 3.

A development in North America filled him with ironic amusement. There was now no "North America." Taubma

Standing by a window, he watched a mob of Healers struggling with a flock of hammers. Again and again the hammers dipped, striking and retreating; the mob fought them with stones and pipe. Finally the hammers were driven off. They disappeared into the evening darkness.

"I can't understand how Vulcan 3 came to have such things," Daily said. "Where did it get them?"

"It made them," Barris said. "They're adaptations of mobile repair instruments. We supplied it with materials, but it did the actual repair work. It must have perceived the possibilities in the situation a long time ago, and started turning them out."

"I wonder how many of them he has," Daily said. "It, I mean. I find myself thinking of Vulcan 3 as he, now... it's hard not to."

"As far as I can see," Barris said, "there's no difference. I hardly see how our situation would be affected if it were an actual he." Remaining at the window, he continued to watch. An hour later more hammers returned; this time they had equipped themselves with pencil beams. The mob scattered in panic, screaming wildly as the hammers bore down on them.

At ten that night he saw the first flashes of bomb-blasts, and felt the concussions. Somewhere in the city a search­light came on; in its glowing trail he saw objects passing overhead, larger by far than any hammers they had been up against so far. Evidently now that real warfare had broken out between Vulcan 3's mobile extensions and the Healers, Vulcan 3 was rapidly stepping-up its output. Or had these larger extensions, these bomb carriers, already existed, and been held back? Had Vulcan 3 anticipated such large scale engagement?

Why not? It had known about the Healers for some time, despite Jason Dill's efforts. It had had plenty of time to prepare.

Turning from the window, Barris said to Chai and Daily, "This is serious. Tell the roof gu

On the roof of the Unity Control Building, the banks of heavy-duty blasters turned to meet the attack. The ham­mers had finished with the mob; now they were approach­ing the Unity Building, fa

"Here they come," Chai muttered.

"We had better get down in the basement shelters." Daily moved nervously toward the descent ramp. The guns were begi

A hammer dived for the window. A pencil beam stabbed briefly into the room, disintegrating a narrow path. The hammer swooped off and rose to strike again. A bolt from one of the roof guns caught it. It burst apart; bits rained down, white-hot metallic particles.

"We're in a bad spot," Daily said. "We're completely surrounded by the Healers. And it's obvious that the for­tress is directing operations against the Healers-look at the extent of the activity going on out there. Those are no random attacks; those damn metal birds are co-ordinated."

Chai said, "Interesting to see them using the traditional weapon of Unity: the pencil beam."

Yes, Barris thought. It isn't T-class men in gray suits, black shiny shoes and white shirts, carrying brief cases, who are using the symbolic pencil beams. It's mechanical flying objects, controlled by a machine buried beneath the earth. But let's be realistic. How different is it really? Hasn't the true structure come out? Isn't this what always really existed, but no one could see it until now?

Vulcan 3 has eliminated the middlemen. Us.

"I wonder which will eventually win," Pegler said. "The

Healers have the greater number; Vulcan 3 can't get all of them."

"But Unity has the weapons and the organization," Daily said. "The Healers will never be able to take the for­tress; they don't even know where it is. Vulcan 3 will be able to construct gradually more elaborate and effective weapons, now that it can work in the open."