The Pandora Sequence: The Jesus Incident, the Lazarus Effect, the Ascension Factor by Frank Herbert Page A

itself.
    The last of the followers dogged the hatch behind them. Lewis took quick stock of his personnel—fifteen people, only six of them from his personally chosen crew. The others, rated reliable by Murdoch, had not yet been tested.
    Illuyank had moved to the maze of controls at the cliff wall and was poring over the Redoubt’s schematics etched into a master plate there. It occurred to Lewis then that Illuyank was the only survivor from Kingston’s mission to this chunk of dirt and rock named Black Dragon.
    “Is this how it was with Kingston?” Lewis asked. He forced his voice to an even calm while watching Illuyank trace a circuit with one stubby finger.
    “Kingston cried and hid behind rocks while his people died. Runners got him. I cooked them out.”
    Cooked them out! Lewis shuddered at the euphemism. The grotesque image of Kingston’s head crisped to char grinned across his mind.
    “Tell us what to do.” Lewis was surprised at his control under this fear.
    “Good.” Illuyank looked directly at him for the first time. “Good. Our weapons are these.” He indicated the power switches and valve controls around them. “We can control every circuit, gas and liquid from here.”
    Lewis touched Illuyank’s arm and pointed to a one-meter square panel beside him.
    “Yes.” Illuyank hesitated.
    “We’re blind otherwise,” Lewis said.
    For answer, Illuyank tapped out a code on the console beneath the square. The blank panel slid back to reveal four small viewscreens.
    “Sensors,” one of those behind them said.
    “Eyes and ears,” Lewis said, still looking at Illuyank.
    The dark man’s expression did not change, but he whispered to Lewis: “We also will have to see and hear what we do to them.”
    Lewis swallowed and heard a faint snap-snapping at the hatch.
    “They’re cutting in!” a voice quavered behind them.
    Lewis and Illuyank scanned the screens. One showed the rubble that had been the clones’ quarters. I’M HUNGRY NOW!, the new rallying cry of the clones, was smeared in yellow grease across one wall. The adjoining screen scanned the courtyard. A crowd of mutated humans—E-clones all—scoured the grounds for rocks and bits of glass, anything for a weapon.
    “Keep an eye on them” Illuyank whispered. “They can’t hurt us with that stuff, but all that blood out there will bring demons. There are holes all over our perimeter. If demons hit, they’ll catch that bunch first.”
    Lewis nodded. He could hear some of the others pressing close for a better view.
    Once more, there was that snap-snapping at the hatch.
    Lewis glanced at Illuyank.
    “They’re just pounding at us with rocks,” Illuyank said. “What we have to do is find that lasgun. Meanwhile, keep an eye on the courtyard. The blood . . .”
    The lower left-hand screen showed the clone mess hall, a shambles of security hatches broken open in the background, a turmoil of clones throughout the area. This screen suddenly went blank.
    “Sensor’s gone in the mess hall,” Lewis said.
    “Food will keep them busy there for a time,” Illuyank said. He was busy searching through the Redoubt on the remaining screen. It showed a flash of the courtyard from a different angle, then a broken tangle of perimeter wall, cut to pieces by the lasgun and swarming with clones coming in from the outside where Lewis had ejected them, the action which had ignited this revolt.
    We have to cull them somehow , Lewis told himself. The food will go only so far .
    He turned his attention to the screen showing the courtyard. Yes . . . there was a lot of blood. It made him aware that he was badly cut himself. Celltape stopped his major bleeding, but small cuts began to ache as he thought of his condition. None of them was without injury. Even Illuyank bled slightly from a rock cut above his ear.
    “There,” Illuyank said.
    His voice coincided with a new thump and crackling agitation at the hatch. But the COA screen Illuyank had been using now showed