The Shores of Death by Michael Moorcock Page A

pressure on the strap and he was rising again. He opened the kit-box and unclipped the hypo-gun. With this in his hand, he came level with the cliff at Take looked over it.
    He pressed the gun’s stud and the needle-thin jet, pumped at tremendous pressure, caught Take on his thigh. But it did not penetrate. Take stepped backwards.
    “You cannot harm me, Clovis Marca. I wish that you could.”
    Marca landed on the cliff, close to the immobile Alodios. “Why did you try to kill me? ”
    “It was an act of mercy. Once you were in Sharvis’s power, you would never have escaped. Have I made my point—will you still continue? ”
    “The only point you have made is to prove yourself a madman, unable to act rationally. How can I believe you? ”
    Take turned and walked into Alodios’s hut. Wanting an answer, Marca followed him. Inside, Take looked at an unfinished mobile. Behind it were several paintings. On a desk were notes, figurines. In a corner was a jumble of equipment — sculpture’s tools mainly — a welder, electro-knife, pieces of metal. Sight of it only made his memory of Alodios’s tormented eyes stronger and more horrifying.
    Take stopped and picked up a piece of worked metal from the pile. It was thin and long. One end broadened into an oddly graceful design. One side had an edge to it.
    “Take—why not come with me to see Sharvis? You know his weaknesses, what sort of trick he might play. Wouldn’t that be a good compromise. Your advice would be of use . . . ”
    “I would only return there to destroy him if I had the means,” Take stepped forward, his body moving so rapidly that it was almost a blurr to Marca. He swung the metal around. Marca felt it bite into his neck—and then he was dead.
    Take stopped and picked up the blood-stained piece of metal. “I’m grateful for the second opportunity, Clovis Marca. And I am sure you would have been, too.”

eleven Resurrection

    T he wreckage shoneand vibrated still, but it was tangled, useless, torn down by a thousand hands. Fastina stared at it heavy-hearted. They had destroyed Narvo’s transmitter.
    Narvo himself was in hiding, declared a traitor by Aimer’s new government. She was ignored, though Aimer had proposed to her twice since he had been elected—by a popular vote—to his position of First Citizen of Earth.
    In some ways she had welcomed this decisive move— because at least Earth had a leader it felt confident in. But now Aimer had begun turning away the refugees from the outer planets and, panic-striken, the refugees were banding together, threatening to establish themselves on Earth by force if necessary.
    In fact, for the first time in 500 years, the unthinkable threatened to become reality—throughout the Earth, across the worlds, there was talk of violence and vengeance, and everywhere were the unmistakable indications of a war about to boil. Five hundred years of peace had not been sufficient, after all, to make people forget how to dispute without recourse to war.
    And if a war developed, as she could see it would, who would continue the work on Pluto and Mercury? Would the victors have the resources afterwards? She could see, clearly, that if war did come about, then humanity’s chances of survival would become even smaller than they were at present.
    She climbed into her air carriage and drifted upwards, away from the shining wreckage.
    On her advice, realising that he had no support, Narvo had moved his house to the Atlantic. Nearly all 30th century houses were designed so that they could be sited on a sea-bed if the owner felt like it. Now it was proving useful.
    Her aircar was also designed for use under water. As she flew over the ocean, she blew out the necessary code on her sonarkey and the car’s force-bubble enclosed it. She headed down into the water.
    Once beneath the surface, she felt safer. Although there was quite a lot of submarine traffic these days, they were off the routes. Only a careful search of die whole