Outlanders 32 Evil Abyss, page 19
Javalara looked over his shoulder at her. "Perhaps now you understand why we so desperately need your help."
"I wouldn't mind seeing this colonel of yours put out of business," Brigid admitted.
“Such is our main objective," Javalara declared sternly.
"But it's not mine."
He nodded. "Your goal is to find your friends and return home. But you cannot achieve your objective without our help and we cannot achieve ours without yours."
"Convenient how it works out that way," Brigid snapped. "Some might see it as nice and neat bit of manipulation. I'd call it blatant opportunism. Or blackmail."
Javalara opened his mouth to reply, then closed it with a snap. Craning his neck, he scanned the sky. His entire body tensed. Maya's plodding gait slowed a trifle and she curled her trunk, trumpeting briefly.
"What is it?" Brigid demanded.
"Keep her your head down," Javalara said, his tone quavering with barely suppressed apprehension. "A vimana is coming"
"A vimana?" she echoed incredulously. Brigid stared at him, nonplussed. Then, despite what the man said, she looked up, her gaze sweeping across the sky. At the same time she heard a faint melodic hum. Slightly to the east of their path she saw a shape gleaming silver against the blue sky. It hovered above a tree line a quarter of a mile or so distant.
"A flying craft from Angkor Thom," Yasovar called from the back of his elephant. "A very old design, dating back to the days of the Rama, as chariots of the gods. What the vimana’s are used for here isn't quite as grand." Brigid knew what vimana were reputed to be, at least in legend. The ship hove closer, and she saw its configurations resembled nothing so much as a bewinged throwing dart. The hull gleamed like mercury in the sunlight. The craft looked graceful, almost beautiful, like a chrome plated dragonfly, its wings glistening with the morning dew.
The faint hum changed in timbre, lowering to a deep, rhythmic throb. Two streaks of fire lanced downward from the vimana’s underbelly. Clumps of jungle erupted into smoke and flame. The boom of the double explosions sounded like a fist beating on a muffled kettle drum. "What the hell!" Brigid exclaimed.
“They must have located a paddy," Javalara said grimly. "They fired missiles with incendiary warheads to destroy the crop."
"This is no way to run a country," Brigid said under her breath in English.
The pointed prow of the vimana swung about, giving the impression the craft was questing for a target. Then it lanced across the sky, skimming over the fields directly toward them.
"We've been spotted," Yasovar said, his voice tight and breathless with anxiety.
"What do we do?" Brigid asked. "Just carry on like nothing is wrong?"
"No," Javalara said. 'They would wonder why we weren't frightened. Crouch low, as if you're supplicating yourself to the vimana."
He spoke sharply to Maya and tugged on her right ear. The elephant lurched to a halt as did Yasovar's. The two animals shifted from foot to foot in nervous agitation. They didn't like the sight of the airship soaring toward them.
Neither did Brigid but when the craft drew closer she saw it was a poor thing in comparison to the Manta ships. It seemed to struggle across the sky rather than glide despite the ribbed wings stretched out on either side of it.
The vimana was less than twenty feet long, the wingspan perhaps double that. The fuselage was a patchwork of metal plates and lacquered wood. An open port in the center of its undercarriage gaped open, and she glimpsed the hollow muzzle of a handheld rocket launcher. The engine droned as the craft dropped in altitude.
Javalara bent over Maya's broad skull, hands clasped at the back of his head. Brigid followed suit, leaning against him. The sound of the vimana's engine suddenly increased in volume and rose in pitch. For a second, a shadow blotted out the sunlight. The craft roared over the elephants, probably at the highest rate of speed of which it was capable.
The downdraft buffeted them, and Brigid nearly tumbled from Maya's back. She clutched Javalara by the waist in order keep seated Yasovar's elephant lifted its trunk and bleated indignantly as dust and plant scraps swirled around them.
"Are they coming back?” Brigid husked out.
After a moment, Javalara said, "No. They're resuming their search pattern. They had their little joke. Those missiles are hard to come by, and they won't waste them on us.”
"Ha ha." Brigid straightened, watching the vimana swoop upward. "I had no idea the level of technology was so high here,"
Yasovar snorted disdainfully, "There are only two such craft in existence, at least in operation. The Cobra Guard uses one."
"What about the other?"
Yasovar didn't answer immediately. After a moment of hesitation, he cut his eyes over to Javalara, who said quietly, other is in our possession. That is one mason we are now hunted by the Cobra Guard."
Angrily, Brigid demanded, "Why didn't you tell me that in the first place?"
"It's a question of security, Baptiste," Javalara stated matter-of-factly "If you were captured by the Cobra Guard before we reached the vimana, you might have told them about it. We still have several miles to travel before we reach it. Then it will carry us the rest of the way to Angkor Thom."
Brigid glared at the back of the man's turbaned head for a long moment, then she uttered a resigned sigh. Javalara was right. At sharply spoken commands from the men, the elephants began trudging down the road again.
As the animals rounded a bend, they shied momentarily from two nearly naked boys who crept from the brush line. The taller of the pair, who looked to be about ten years old, wore a dirty strip of cloth over his right eye. He held the smaller boy by the right hand—or rather the stump where his hand had once been. Both of them were scratched and very brown, their limbs stick thin and bellies swollen from malnutrition. Brigid guessed they were brothers.
The taller boy held out a wooden bowl and chanted, "Food, quills, food."
Brother Yasovar called down, "We are a family of poor woodsmen who cannot spare quills and you are a long way from any place where you might find charity."
"We do not wish to venture too close to the city today," said the boy with the makeshift eye patch.
"Why is that?" Javalara asked, tossing down two sealed packets of cheese, fruit and dried fish.
"Five men are to be hanged today," the smaller boy answered, eyes fixed on the package of food his brother tore open.
"For what crime?" Brigid asked.
If they found Brigid's voice strange, the boys gave no sign of it. Mumbling around a mouthful of banana, the tallest of the pair said; "Not for any crime. As an example. One of them is said to be an outlander who defiled the person of the Devi-Naga."
Brigid stiffened but Javalara turned toward her, a warning finger to his lips. "Do not draw attention to yourself." he whispered.
"Where are you parents?" Yasovar asked.
"Dead," the smaller boy replied dispassionately. "An example was made of them and our farm."
The elephants plodded onward and Javalara muttered grimly, "We have all seen more than our share of examples. Long past time they came to a stop." Brigid glanced back twice at the two naked boys stuffing their mouths with the simple food as if it were ambrosia. Narrowing her eyes against the sting of tears in them, she asked, "Are these public executions held often?"
"Too often," Yasovar replied. 'They're intended to keep the people fearful and docile."
Brigid nodded. "In my experience, it frequently has the opposite effect."
Javalara blew out a disgusted breath. "Not frequently enough, I fear. We had hoped the warlord, General Zhou Tzu, would become aware of these depredations and intervene but so far he has done nothing."
"Is he the enemy of the Cobra Guard?"
"Only if they cross the borders into his country. They have apparently done so, yet he has not retaliated. It is a frustration and a mystery."
"He doesn't sound like much of a warlord," Brigid commented sourly.
Yasovar smiled slightly. "It is a hereditary title, as his hostility to the Devi-Naga. But he does not fight her because it would upset the balance. He safeguards the borders from incursions by Vietnamese and Laotian bandits."
Brigid found the situation puzzling, but rather than request clarification she asked, "Will we arrive in Angkor Thom in time for the executions?"
Brother Javalara studied the angle of the sun in the sky "Perhaps.”
"Will we be able to enter the city dressed as loggers?'
Yasovar took it upon himself to answer. "In this guise we are free to move freely through the land, since we perform a valuable service. Although if the Cobra Guard learns our real identities, they would be swift to act against us. We would join the ranks of the condemned and be three more examples."
"Doesn't anybody ever try to stop these executions?" Brigid asked irritably.
Javalara shrugged. "It would mean instant death for any who tried."
"Not necessarily."
"What do you mean?"
Not answering, Brigid reached into the saddlebag and withdrew her TP-9 autopistol. Brother Javalara, putting her on her honor she would accompany them to Angkor Thom, had returned the weapon before they began their journey. Brigid detested guns in principle, but she wasn't so blinkered by dislike that she was ignorant of circumstances when they had their uses. Swiftly she examined it, popping up out the magazine and testing the slide mechanism. It worked smoothly and she reinserted the ammo clip.
At the metallic, mechanical sounds, Javalara hitched around the elephant's back and regarded her with quizzical eyes. "You apparently didn't hear or understand what I said. It would be death for any who tried to interfere in the executions."
Brigid smiled at him, a cold, stitched-on kind of smile she had seen on Kane's lips more than once. "And you apparently didn't hear or understand what I said, so I'll repeat it. `Not necessarily.’"
Chapter 20
The early-morning sunlight shone down upon the deck of the wooden barge in an intricately dappled pattern, filtered as it was through the leafy boughs intertwined over the river.
Kane stood at the starboard rail, studying the terrain on either bank. It was all thick foliage, growing right down the water's edge. The prow of the flat-bottomed boat cleaved through the rippling water with barely a sound. At the stem, the steersman lay drowsily over the sweep. He was a round-shouldered man with a scarlet kerchief tied around his head, which lent him a piratical air. General Zhou Tzu and the other six members of the little river barge’s crew stood forward, at their morning meal. Once or twice, Kane heard half-whispered words as they conferred and furtive glances were cast his way. The heat was cloyingly oppressive. Sweat gathered on Kane's face. His shirt clung to his back. The air was thick with moisture. He silently swore at himself for allowing Zhou Tzu to persuade him to adopt less conspicuous clothing than a black shadow suit. He wore a white sleeveless cotton shirt, baggy trousers, sandals and a broad-brimmed hat made of woven straw. He knew he looked ridiculous, but without a mirror he could only guess at just how ridiculous. However, he had refused to part with the pack, which contained the items taken from the Manta. It, as well as his Sin Eater and Copperhead, lay on the deck at his feet.
The barge had been floating slowly down river since before the sky had turned golden with dawn. So far, it had passed little more than jungle although Kane had glimpsed the tawny shaped form of a tiger drinking or the water's edge. The huge cat had not raised its muzzle from the water, but watched the craft's passage with pensive, yellow-green eyes. Kane remembered the brave tiger he had been forced to kill in India a short time before and turned away.
Kane was full of impatience, irritation and a gathering premonition of danger. He had slept poorly due to the heat. His mind continually flashed with visions of the snowcapped mountains of Montana. Even the barren ice-fields of Antarctica seemed attractive. He wasn't certain why he had accepted General Zhou Tzu's hospitality other than he really had no choice.
The men Kane had incapacitated in the trading post apparently did not hold grudges, but neither did they seem anxious to treat him as an equal. He noticed they showed a great deal more deference to Nora Pennick, as if she were more than Zhou Tzu's guest.
The warlord had promised they would arrive in the vicinity of Angkor Thom by noon and it was there he hoped to find Brewster Philboyd, and maybe a clue to Brigid's whereabouts.
He tried not to worry about her, but that was impossible. He cursed quietly, damning the gestalt of their relationship that had them depending on each other one minute, then at each other's throat the next.
The memory of the kiss he'd given her when they'd taken the jump back in time to the eve of the nukecaust ghosted across his mind. If was no surprise that he remembered the kiss, but the intensity of the emotions associated with that memory disturbed him.
At the sound of a footfall on the deck planks behind him, Kane whirled, teeth bared, wrist tendons tightening, hand opening to receive the Sin Eater no longer fastened to his forearm.
Nora looked at him wide-eyed, startled by his reaction. She was dressed in a flowing skin slit up one side nearly to her right hip. A black halter top left most of her midriff bare. Her hair, bound by a green scarf, was tucked up under a straw hat. The brim shadowed the distinctly occidental cast of her eyes and features. Her right arm was still crooked in the sling.
"My God, Kane." she said reprovingly. "You're as jumpy as the proverbial cat on the hot tin roof."
"I know," he retorted flatly. "And for the life of me, I can't imagine why. Can you?"
Nora refused to respond to his sarcastic rejoinder. A smile touched her lips, and she gazed up at the sunlight piercing the overhead tangle of branches, liana vines and leaves. Golden brown monkeys scampered among the high pathways. "Green Mansions," she murmured.
He cocked his head at her. "What?"
"The title of a very old book I read as a child in England. The heroine, Rima, was a girl raised in the rain forests of Amazonia. I feel a little like her now."
Kane frowned. "I'd say you're more like a hostage." Nora's back stiffened and she stared at him unblinkingly.."How can you possibly say that? The general rescued me."
"Or captured you," he shot back. "Why is it that Brigid and Brewster just happened to be captured, but you were rescued?"
She pondered the question for a few seconds then said quietly, "I suppose it's all a matter of perspective, isn't it? I don't feel like a hostage or a prisoner."
"What do you feel like?"
She nibbled her lower lip then said, "A recruit in a…..”
"A revolution?"
"Perhaps."
"I thought that was your work at Cerberus."
Nora shook her head. "It is your work, Kane. I was only a houseguest, an émigré, an expatriate. Here I am helping a dedicated man to restore a modicum of freedom to a subjected people."
"Really?" Kane angled a sardonic eyebrow "Once again, I thought that was what we were trying to do in Cerberus."
"There are many different kinds of revolution, Kane."
"As far as I know, every kind of revolution needs the same things; not the least of which, are weapons!'
Haughtily, Nora stated, "I'm not an idiot."
Kane wiped at the perspiration trickling into his eyes. He sighed wearily- "Frankly, I don't know what you are sweetheart."
She fixed her eyes on him. "You never did, Kane. I'm just one of many people you evacuated from the Moon base. Cerberus isn't my home. But I've learned some important things about it."
"Like what?"
"Like there are more weapons there than can possibly be used by the personnel."
Kane gazed at her, eyes widening, then narrowing to slits. He showed his teeth in a hard, humorless grin. "I think I'm starting to get it now. You told your general about the armory, didn't you?”
The Cerberus armory was quite likely the best stocked and thoroughly outfitted weapons stockpile in post-nuke America. Stacked wooden crates and boxes filled with ammunition lined the walls. Glass-fronted cases held racks of automatic assault rifles. There were many makes and models of subguns, as well as dozens of semiautomatic pistols, complete with holsters and belts.
There was also heavy assault weaponry, like bazookas, tripod mounted 20 mm cannons, mortars and rocket launchers. All the ordnance had been laid down in hermetically sealed Continuity of Government installations before the nukecaust. Protected from the ravages of the outraged environment, nearly every piece of munitions and hardware was as pristine as the day it was first manufactured.
Lakesh himself put the arsenal together over several decades, envisioning it as the major supply depot for a rebel army. The army never materialized—at least, not in the fashion Lakesh hoped it would. Therefore, Cerberus was blessed with a surplus of death-dealing equipment that would have turned the most militaristic baron green with envy, or given the most pacifistic of them heart failure—if they indeed possessed hearts.
"What else did you tell him about Cerberus?" Kane demanded.
"Anything and everything he wanted to know," Nora answered with a cool detachment. "I owe him that much."
"And what about the people back in Cerberus?” Kane asked angrily. "What do you owe them?'
"The general couldn't harm them even if he wanted."
"He could harm them by harming us. Just a couple of days ago I was used as a pawn in someone else's game. I don't think I feel like cooperating with another."
Nora's lips tightened. "It's not a game."
"A game, the warlord's gambit. His own words, Nora. He's dragging us into a revolution against, as far as we know, the lawful governing body of this country,”
"General Zhou Tzu is the rightful ruler of this part of Cambodia," Nora declared. "It's by right of descent. His father and his father's father held the title. But now people from the Devi-Naga's territory have been slipping away to join him because they find they cannot live under her dictatorship and that of Colonel Puyang."
Kane swatted a fly off his forearm. "What makes you think General Zhou Tzu doesn't want to be a dictator himself?"
"He believes in a fairly democratic form of government. I have seen it at work. He commands justly and well." Kane barely kept himself from snorting. "You sound like a convert to a religion, Nora. Or a woman in love." He waited for a heated denial. When one was not forthcoming he stared into her expressionless face and groaned. "Oh, for the love of—" He turned away, staring into the foaming brown water of the Siemrap. "You're infatuated with the man but you don't know him."
