«This is true, I fear,» said Sela. «But we of the Authority have given up hope. Even if we had hope, we lack the strength.»
«Perhaps you lack the strength,» said Blade. «But that does not mean that the strength does not exist or cannot be brought to Mak'loh.»
«Will-will your comrades from England help us?» said Sela.
«Why not?» said Blade. «As I have said before, you are our brothers and sisters. From us you can learn how to bring Mak'loh back to life. From you we can learn our history and some of the science we have lost.»
«That seems to be a fair bargain,» said the woman, frowning. «But I cannot make promises for the whole Authority or speak for them all.»
«I cannot do that for my comrades either,» said Blade. «I shall have to see much more of your city before I can even speak to them. Show me Mak'loh, Sela. Take me everywhere in it, tell me everything you know about it, let me speak to the others of the Authority. Conceal nothing.
«When I have learned everything I can, I shall return across the Wall, to where my comrades wait in the Warlands. I shall speak to them and tell them what I have seen. I think they will agree to help your city. If they are not enough to do all that is needed, we will send word to England. That will bring more of our people to help Mak'loh.»
Blade had never bluffed quite so extravagantly, and he wasn't entirely sure he'd be able to carry it off in the face of sharp wits like Sela's. Yet it was certainly his best chance of learning everything about Mak'loh, and perhaps in the end he could learn enough to actually give them some help.
Sela reached out and caught Blade's right hand in both of hers. There were tears in her eyes as she said, in a voice not entirely steady:
«Blade, we shall do what you wish. Mak'loh must live.»
Chapter 15
Sela was as good as her word. She started by getting Blade the black coveralls of the Authority, as well as a combat helmet, boots, and gloves. She got him a new shock rifle and taught him how to use it more effectively. It could be set to either stun or kill, depending on how much power one wanted to use. She also warned Blade that some of the power cells could be unreliable, since the factory that made them was not working very well.
She also showed him the other main weapon kept in Mak'loh-one that was not given to the soldier androids. It was a grenade thrower that looked very much like a large-bore shotgun with a single, stubby barrel. Blade was familiar with similar weapons in Home Dimension, but this one was lighter and much more powerful. That explained why it was not given to the androids. Some time in the dim past, some wise man in the Authority had realized that the androids might not always be completely reliable and therefore should not have weapons as powerful as those of the Masters.
There were only about five hundred of the grenade throwers in Mak'loh, all of them firmly held by the Authority. Each thrower could fire a fist-sized grenade more than five hundred yards, and each grenade could blow a large tree to splinters or reduce a Watcher to scrap metal.
«There is not much ammunition for the throwers,» said Sela apologetically. «The factory for the grenades has not been working for many years.»
Blade sighed. «What were you planning to do if somebody did get in over the Wall and past the Watchers?» he asked irritably. «Spit at them?»
Sela had the grace to blush.
The last thing she gave Blade was not quite a weapon, although it did have warlike uses. It was a metal box to be slung on his belt, with controls and directional antennae that fastened onto his helmet. With a box he could neutralize the Watchers over a wide stretch of the Wall, or order them to concentrate and attack something they might otherwise ignore.
Blade was particularly careful to learn how to use the Watcher control. If necessary, the box would give him an easy passage over the Wall. Blade never minded having a line of retreat open, although he had no intention of retreating from Mak'loh.
After equipping Blade, Sela called up an escort of two soldiers and two workers. Then the two human beings and the four androids climbed into Sela's truck and rolled off on Blade's guided tour of Mak'loh.
They didn't bother with any of the Houses of Peace where most of the people lived. Blade had seen enough of those, and as he said, «When you've seen one House of Peace, you've seen them all.»
What he wanted to see was the factories for weapons and machinery, food and clothing and furniture, robots, and trucks. He wanted to see where the androids were produced and trained for war and work. He wanted to see the sources for power, water, and the protective force fields. He wanted to learn how everything in Mak'loh worked or didn't work.
Sela showed him everything he asked to see, and the other men and women of the Authority were just as cooperative. The three people on duty at the force-field generators even showed him how to operate the master control panel.
«This controls the Dekim Field,» a woman said, pointing at a quartet of dials set around a large switch. «The Dekim Field is radiated by coils set within the outer Wall, to give it strength to resist any explosions or sharp blows.»
That explained why the Wall had stood firm against the exploding gunpowder, but not against the slow assaults of living plants. Blade couldn't help wondering what would happen if the Dekim Field were turned off.
There was also the Entesh Field, which produced the golden shimmering above the Wall. It gave warning of intruders who reached the top and summoned the Watchers to deal with them. Once it had also been strong enough to keep out storms like the one that had covered Blade's and Twana's escape from the robots.
«That must have been quite a long time ago,» said Blade drily.
«It was,» Sela said.
Now the Entesh Field could only act as a sort of burglar alarm. Even then it depended heavily on the reliability of the Watchers-which was steadily deteriorating.
Finally, there was the Hoak Field, which produced the screen of blindness along the top of the Wall. That alone at times had been enough to keep Mak'loh safe from intruders from the Warlands outside.
«Anyone who was willing to feel his way along for another twenty-five feet could pass safely through the Hoak Field,» said one of the men. «But the Warlanders had degenerated into superstitious barbarians, who would never be capable of such a thing.»
Blade wondered if anybody in Mak'loh had ever seen the Shoba's men in action. No one he'd talked to had mentioned them, so he doubted it. The Shoba's trained soldiers might well be superstitious, but they were not barbarians, any more than the legions of Rome bad been. Sooner or later, if the Shoba's army held together, it would be making a serious attempt on the Wall.
The main power plant of the city impressed Blade even more than the force-field generators. For one thing, the Authority people who ran the power plant and guarded it seemed to have escaped some of the apathy that had swallowed up their comrades. They were brisk, alert, and efficient. They also had several hundred picked android soldiers under their command. The Power Guard was the most highly trained fighting force Blade had seen in Mak'loh. «They must be the best,» the woman in charge of their training said with a shrug. «How can they be otherwise? If the power dies, so does Mak'loh.»
The power plant itself operated by the direct conversion of mass into energy. Theoretically, it could use any form of mass, including sewage. In practice it was simpler to use heavy metals extruded into fine wire and fed into the converter.
Because of its abundance in this Dimension, gold was the favorite heavy metal. Blade saw the gold that was currently providing the power for the whole city-a bar that he could lift in one hand. He also saw the gold stored away for future needs-room after room of gold bars, stacked higher than a man. This mass of glittering metal would outweigh the combined gold reserves of every Home Dimension nation combined. At the present rate of consumption, Mak'loh had power for at least a thousand years. Ironic, when the city and everybody in it would be dead in less than half that time.