The Killing Machine
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| Author | Jack Vance |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | Demon Princes |
| Genre(s) | Science fiction novel |
| Publisher | |
| Released | 1964 |
| Preceded by | Star King |
| Followed by | The Palace of Love |
The Killing Machine (1964) is the second of Jack Vance's "Demon Princes" novels, in which Kirth Gersen, having brought Malagate the Woe to justice, sets his sights on Kokor Hekkus. The nickname does not refer to Hekkus's own predilection for homicide, but to his fondness for horrific and murderous devices, including a giant robotic executioner that first gained him his nickname.
[edit] Plot summary
To hone his skills, Gersen spends some time as a "weasel". He is sent on a highly sensitive mission in which Kokor Hekkus, another Demon Prince, is reputedly involved. He is given the task of intercepting a “Mr Hoskins”, and he has licence to kill him if necessary. Mr Hoskins is killed, though not by Gersen, who however recovers two pieces of paper that were being exchanged. The one from Hoskins’s contact, Billy Windle, provides information on how to become a “hormagaunt”, a legendary undying monster that steals children and lives on the supposedly mythical planet Thamber; the other contains specifications that Gersen doesn't understand.
During debriefing, Gersen is glumly made aware that Billy Windle was Kokor Hekkus himself. He laments his lost chance, but shortly afterwards he is told that Hekkus is masterminding a series of spectacular kidnappings, not his normal modus operandi. The kidnappees are taken to Interchange, on a planet in the Beyond where transactions between kidnappers and ransomers are facilitated. Gersen learns that the latest victims are the children of a local high-ranking Fellow of the Institute, Duschane Audmar, who as a matter of Institute policy must remain aloof under any circumstances. Gersen volunteers to undertake a fact-finding mission to Interchange to learn more of Hekkus’s activities, and incidentally to ransom the children.
While there, Gersen learns that Hekkus is accumulating funds in order to ransom a lovely young woman named Alusz Iphegenia Eperje-Tokay who claims to be from Thamber; she fled her homeworld when Hekkus became interested in her and settled on Interchange as her only possible refuge, since not even Hekkus would dare to interfere with that organization. As her own "kidnapper", she had set her ransom at a staggering, seemingly impossible ten billion SVU, but Hekkus is undaunted, and begins to raise this immense sum by kidnapping the loved ones of the Oikumene’s hundred wealthiest citizens, ransoming them for a hundred million apiece. Gersen also meets Myron Patch, an engineer from Krokinole. Patch had built Hekkus a “fort” made to look like a giant walking centipede, but when Hekkus pronounced himself dissatisfied with the result, Patch had refused to refund the money already paid to him, and was accordingly kidnapped and shipped to Interchange to recover the sum. Having enough money on hand, Gersen ransoms him as well as the Audmar children, and temporarily takes a controlling interest in his engineering company when they return to Krokinole.
He determines to complete the fort to lure Hekkus within his reach, and has some ideas as to how to correct the faults Hekkus identified. Gersen demands and is paid more money by Hekkus’s agent Seuman Otwal for the alterations, but when it is time to deliver the completed fort, Gersen is apprehended and ordered to repay the money; when he cannot, he is dispatched to Interchange.
While there, Gersen sees an old newspaper article that identifies “Mr Hoskins” as a very senior bank official. He recalls the cryptic fragment of paper he recovered earlier and surmises that it describes the marks that are used to authenticate banknotes. Acting on this information, he successfully forges enough money to free himself, and shortly after, Alusz Iphegenia. As she had in effect kidnapped herself, the money goes to her (less Interchange's fee) – and since she is uninterested, Gersen becomes fabulously wealthy. (Usefully, it is laundered money; Interchange and Hekkus are left with nothing, as his forgeries had been printed with disappearing ink.)
Gersen hopes that Alusz Iphegenia will be able to guide him to Thamber. She has no knowledge of astrogation, but is able to complete a nursery rhyme that allows Gersen to deduce the planet's location.
Thamber is home to a quasi-mediaeval culture, complete with barbarian tribes into whose hands Gersen and Alusz Iphegenia quickly fall. He has to fight the formidable leader of a war-band in order to save her from sex slavery, and they travel together as far as Kokor Hekkus’s castle. There the barbarians easily defeat Hekkus’s conventional foot troops, but when Patch's mechanical fort appears, it proves to mimic one of their own greatest terrors, an animal called a dnazd, and they flee before it. Gersen however had foreseen the possibility of having to fight the robot and had installed an Achilles heel. He disables the war machine and takes its crew prisoner, in the process noting that one of the men aboard, Franz Paderbush, resembles Seuman Otwal and also Billy Windle, in height and build.
He takes the fort as far as the castle of Sion Trumble, at one time Alusz Iphegenia’s fiance. Trumble offers the services of a friend who knows Kokur Hekkus, but the man states that Paderbush is not him. Gersen has his own suspicions. He allows his prisoner to escape, but then forces his way into Trumble’s quarters. There he finds Paderbush in the process of transforming himself into Trumble, for they are one and the same; both are alter-egos of Kokur Hekkus. Hekkus himself has no face, having concealed his hideous un-face beneath a series of cunningly-made masks, and he had for uncounted years played numerous roles on Thamber in order to enact wars and conquests for his own amusement. Gersen identifies himself, reminding Hekkus of the Mount Pleasant raid, and after giving him a few seconds for the news to sink in, summarily executes him. He then returns to the Oikumene accompanied by Alusz Iphegenia, promising to send ships to bring Thamber back into contact with the rest of humanity.
