The Chaos Weapon by Colin Kapp

Author:Colin Kapp [Kapp, Colin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction
ISBN: 9780575133785
Publisher: Orion Publishing Group
Published: 2013-08-29T00:00:00+00:00

ELEVEN

“MARSHAL, I am in communion with Talloth. Marshal Hover wishes to speak with you. But first, Talloth and I have something to say.”

Wildheit dragged himself awake and switched on the light in the small cabin in which he had found vacant bunkspace. His action of checking his chronometer had less to do with a desire to know the time than with preparing his mind for an unusual precedent—a communication from the symbiotic gods undertaken of their own volition.

“What’s on your minds, Coul?”

“The things which you are preparing to do frighten even us gods.”

“I wasn’t consciously preparing to do anything. But please continue.”

“We have been through such a cataclysmic period before. Many of us did not emerge from the trial. When continua collide, even dimensions buckle and warp. Many of us were lost in the strange storms that occur in domains even we cannot understand.”

“You’re describing cosmologies many orders above my comprehension. What do you want of me?”

“It’s more a question of what you expect of us. You are my faithful and loving host in this dimension. In return I strive occasionally to save you from the consequences of your own mortal stupidity. But the situation you are entering has elements of scale beyond any possibility of our intervention. We dare not follow where you intend to tread.”

“In other words, when the going gets really rough, I’m on my own?”

“A correct interpretation. The human short and singular life-style breeds a casual disregard for death which cannot be shared by those both potentially immortal and having composite identity. By way of compensation, you shall have special privileges until I take off. For a short period you may call on me without mortal need.”

“Thanks for the offer. When do you go?”

“I shall stay until the last second. When you find me no longer at your shoulder you will know the final catastrophe is imminent. Now if you breathe carefully, I will relay the pedestrian thoughts of Marshal Hover.”

“Jym! Thank heavens you’re still alive.” Hover’s voice broke out of Wildheit’s mouth. “I’ve had the very dickens of a time trying to persuade Talloth to make communion. He insisted that you were in no danger that generated a special reason.”

“Objectively, that’s probably true at the moment. How’re your legs coming along, Cass?”

“They’re the greatest since synthetic onion. Yesterday I ran a mile in four-and-a-half minutes. I reckon to get my time under four by the end of the month.”

“Great to know you can joke about it. Have they set a date for the fitting?”

“Oh my God!”

“What’s the matter now?”

“Jym, how long do you estimate since the last time we spoke?”

“I was in a lifecraft just clear of Mayo, before we got picked up. I’d reckon about thirty hours.”

“Then mark this carefully, Jym boy. That conversation took place nearer twenty months ago, not thirty hours.”

“Then you really do have the legs?”

“Fitted and functioning. And I’ve the corns to prove it. So what the devil happened to you?”

“I think I can guess. I got involved with some characters who have a rather casual approach to the velocity of light.

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