The Overlords of War by Gérard Klein Read Free Book Online Page A

friends!”
    “Who are you?” he cried, but the words were as shrill as though he were hearing through a tiny, tiny spy mike.
    “Colonel Veran,” the voice answered. “You don’t know me, but that doesn’t matter. Hide your eyes—we’re going to lift the screen.”
    Corson put away his gun and in the darkness felt for Antonella’s hand.
    “Do as he says. Does the name mean anything to you?”
    She whispered, “I don’t know anybody called ‘Colonel’!"
    “That’s a rank, a military rank. His name is Veran. I don’t know him any more than you do, but—”
    Like a lightning flash. Between his fingers Corson saw at first only a blank whiteness, which shortly dissolved into a horde of needles as red as blood that drove through his closed lids. When he was able to open his eyes properly he saw that the floater was hovering in a forest glade. It was broad day. They were surrounded by men in gray uniforms, carrying unknown weapons. Beyond the ring of soldiers he could make out two machines, or two mounds of something, whose details were blurred to his suffering eyes. There were two more like them on each side, and when he turned his head he found two more still at his back. More soldiers were standing guard on them.
    Tanks?
    Then one of the things moved, and Corson almost cried out.
    Those “mounds” were Monsters!
    Monsters exactly like the one which the Archimedes had been sent to turn loose on Uria. Creatures so terrifying that human beings of Corson’s day, in that age when war had impoverished language, had been able to invent no other name for them but Monster.
    Corson glanced at Antonella. Tight-lipped, she was keeping up a pretty good front.
    Now a man in a green uniform left the group of gray-clad soldiers and approached the floater. Three meters away he drew himself up stiffly and said in a sharp voice, “Colonel Veran! Miraculously escaped with the rump of the 623rd Cavalry Regiment from the Aergistal disaster. Thanks to you, Corson. Your idea of setting up a beacon saved our lives. What’s more I see you’ve managed to get hold of a hostage. Fine. We shall interrogate her later.”
    “I was never—” Corson began. Then he fell silent. If this alarming person felt he owed Corson a debt, let him go on thinking so.
    He jumped down from the floater. It was only then that he noticed the soldiers’ uniforms were torn and stained, and there were deep dents in the blackened masks which covered their faces. Oddly, none of the men in sight appeared to be wounded, even slightly. The reason sprang to Corson’s mind from his past experience.
    Casualties get finished off . . .
    That name “Aergistal” meant nothing to him. These uniforms were none he recognized. The rank which translated into Pangal as “colonel” must have been used for fifteen thousand years at least. This Colonel Veran might have emerged from any battle fought between Corson’s time and the present, although the fact that his men used trained Monsters did indicate that he must come from a period fairly long after Corson’s own. How long would it have taken to communicate with the Monsters, train them, following the first tentative experiments by the Solar Powers—ten years, a hundred, a thousand?
    “What was your rank?” demanded Colonel Veran.
    Instinctively Corson straightened to attention. But he was grotesquely aware of the unmilitary nature of his dress. And of the situation. He and Veran were no more than ghosts at this point in time. As for Antonella, she had not yet been bom.
    “Lieutenant,” he said in a dull voice.
    “I promote you captain,” Veran said solemnly, “by virtue of the authority bestowed on me by His Serene Highness the Ptar of Murphy!”
    His voice became relatively cordial as he added, “Of course you’ll be made a field marshal when we’ve won the war. For the moment I can’t grant you a rank higher than captain because you’ve served in a foreign army. Speaking of which, you must be very