Outlanders - Ghost Walk, page 5
Glancing around, Kane saw the ridge of gravelly dunes that bracketed the settlement barely half a mile away. He said, “We’re close. Be there soon.”
“What was that explosion?”
“Our way of swatting bugs,” Grant replied dryly. “When did the Commtacts start working again?”
“I don’t know,” Brigid replied. “The EM interference is still around, but it’s not as pronounced. Brewster is still picking up an energy signature on the sensor. There’s some sort of generalized power source around here, so I suggest you double-time back to us.” Brigid closed the channel and Grant said grimly, “I don’t feel much like running anymore.” Kane shrugged. “Me, neither. But you heard the lady.” The two men sighed with weary exasperation and began jogging across the moonlight-splashed landscape. Both of them cast apprehensive glances over their shoulders, but saw no sign of anything small, glowing or green. They reached the little settlement within ten minutes and found Brigid, Philboyd and CAT Alpha, tense, anxious and ready to move out. Two of the away team sup- ported the man who called himself Mr. Gray between them. He looked pale and frightened. Brigid had already retrieved the interphaser’s cushioned and waterproof carrying case from its hiding place in one of the abandoned dwellings. “I thought I told you to wait for us at the parallax point,” Kane said to her by way of a greeting. Brigid lifted one shoulder in a dismissive shrug. “There wasn’t enough time to get there. Besides, I didn’t know that you weren’t going to get yourselves lost out there.” Kane only smiled, not in the least offended by her mendacity, knowing it was her way of concealing her genuine concern and worry. At the beginning of their relationship, it was very difficult for Kane and Brigid not to give offense to one another. Both people were gifted in their own way. Most of what was important to people in the early twenty-third century came easily to Kane—survival skills, prevailing in the face of adversity and cunning against enemies. But he could also be reckless, high-strung to the point of instability and given to fits of rage. Brigid, on the other hand, was compulsively tidy and ordered, with a brilliant analytical mind. However, her clinical nature, the cool scientific detachment upon which she prided herself, sometimes blocked an understanding of the obvious human factor in any given situation. Accommodating their contrasting personalities, Kane and Brigid now worked very well as a team, playing off each other’s strengths rather than magnifying their individual weaknesses. Philboyd swept the sensor wand of the energy analyzer in the direction of the mesa. Despite his swollen lips, he frowned. “There’s definitely a low-level pattern out there…it spikes, then flat-lines, then spikes again.” “It’s probably a good idea to get out of here during a flatline period,” Grant said uneasily. For once, Philboyd didn’t seem inclined to argue. Turning on his heel, he said, “Let’s do it, then. I’m looking forward to soaking in a hot bath.” Kane worked his right arm up and down, kneading his shoulder socket. “Me, too.”
“What about me?” Gray asked hoarsely. Kane regarded him bleakly. “If we leave you here, you could die of blood loss or exposure. Besides, we can always use a source of information.”
Gray tried to tilt his head at a defiant angle. “You’ll get nothing out of me.” Kane showed the edges of his teeth in a wolfish smile. “We’ll see.”
The Cerberus personnel marched out of the settlement, pretending not to notice a few locals peering at them from the windows of their hovels, their eyes gleaming like those of feral animals in the gloom. They were a small, dark people, furtive and apparently fleet of foot, since they had avoided being pressed into a work gang by the Millennial Consortium.
Kane made a rather exaggerated show of paying them no attention. It was always a chancy business communicating with Outlanders, particularly in settlements that had been isolated since the nukecaust of two centuries ago. He retained vividly unpleasant memories of the violent encounters in various Outland settlements over the years. In the Outlands, people were divided into small, regional clans. Communications with other groups were stifled, education impeded and rivalries bred. The internecine struggles in the Outlands had not only been condoned by the baronies, but also encouraged to continue. Outlanders, or anyone who chose or was forced to live outside ville society, were accustomed to living on the edge of death. Grim necessity had taught them the skills to survive, even thrive in the post-nuke environment. They may have been the great-great-great-grandchildren of civilized men and women, but they had no choice but to embrace lives of semi-barbarism. The people who lived outside the direct influence of the villes, who worked the farms, toiled in the fields, or simply roamed from place to place, were reviled and hated. No one worried about an Outlander or even cared. They were the outcasts of the new feudalism, the cheap, expendable labor forces, even the cannon fodder when circumstances warranted. In return, they feared and hated anyone not of their clan.
Brigid moved forward to walk beside Kane. “It might not be a good idea to take Gray back to the redoubt.”
“Why not? Aren’t we always in need of intel about the Millennial Consortium?”
“Yes,” she admitted. “But as far as we know, Gray may have a tracking transponder on him, much like ours.”
“I think the consortium already knows where we live,” Kane replied dryly. “But by the same token, we don’t know anything about the central headquarters for their group. Or even if they have one.”
Brigid considered his words for a silent few seconds, then nodded. “I suppose it’s worth the risk to learn more about them.”
The parallax point lay less than half a klick outside the settlement, marked by the circular ruins of a kiva, an adobe structure built centuries ago, according to Brigid, by the Hopi Indians. In the center of the kiva lay a thick sandstone disk, its surface deeply engraved with elaborate geometric designs, a complex series of interlocking symbols that formed a spiral of concentric rings over twelve feet in diameter. The design cut into the stone was an ancient geodetic marker, carved into the naked rock as a two-dimensional representation of multidimensional space. The Cerberus exiles had seen similar markers in the past, in diverse places such as Iraq, China and even South America. Kane didn’t completely understand the scientific principles of geomantic vortex points, but he respected their power, as had the ancient peoples who engraved the rock. A few years before, during the investigation of the Operation Chronos installation on Thunder Isle, a special encoded program named Parallax Points was discovered. Lakesh learned that the Parallax Points program was actually a map, a geodetic index, of all the vortex points on the planet. Each newly discovered set of co-ordinates was fed into the interphaser’s targeting computer. With the new data, the interphaser became more than a miniaturized version of a gateway unit, even though it employed much of the same hardware and operating principles. The mat-trans gateways functioned by tapping into the quantum stream, the invisible pathways that crisscrossed outside of perceived physical space and terminated in wormholes. The interphaser interacted with the energy within a naturally occurring vortex and caused a temporary overlapping of two dimensions. The vortex then became an intersection point, a discontinuous quantum jump, beyond relativistic space-time. Evidence indicated there were many vortex nodes, centers of intense energy, located in the same proximity on each of the planets of the solar system, and those points correlated to vortex centers on Earth. The power points of the planet, places that naturally generated specific types of energy, possessed positive and projective frequencies, while others were negative and receptive. Brigid stepped into the center of the disk and kneeled down, unzipping and unsealing the interphaser’s carrying case. Her movements were practiced and deliberate. When she lifted out the gleaming device, the shape of the interphaser resembled a very squat, broad-based pyramid made of smooth, gleaming alloy. Only one foot in overall height, its width did not exceed ten inches. From the base protruded a small blocky power unit and a keypad. When making transits to and from the Cerberus redoubt, they always used the mat-trans chamber as the origin point because it could be hermetically sealed. The interphaser’s targeting computer had been programmed with the precise coordinates of the mat-trans unit as Destination Zero. A touch of a single key on the interphaser’s control pad would automatically return the device to the jump chamber, but sometimes the phase harmonics needed to be fine-tuned. The adjustments were normally within Brigid’s purview. Unlike the mat-trans gateway jumps, phasing along a hyperdimensional conduit was more akin to stepping from one room into another—if the rooms were thou- sands of miles apart. A veil of light expanded from the apex of the pyramidion, stretching outward in a wavering parabola, giving the illusion of a Chinese hand fan spreading wide, with the interphaser acting as the centerpiece. A faint hiss touched Kane’s ears. Involuntarily, he reached up to adjust his Commtact. At the same time, Philboyd’s shoulders stiffened as he stared at the LCD window on his energy. Dispassionately, he intoned, “Uh-oh.” Everyone looked up and saw the clot of green glowing orbs lancing across the sky toward them. Kane’s Sin Eater slid into his palm and he said with feigned indifference, “Get us out of here, Baptiste.” She cast him an irritated glance, then her gaze went beyond him to the swarm hovering overhead. Her fingers quickly tapped the inset activation toggles on the keypad, and a wavering funnel of waxy light fanned up from the apex of the pyramid. It looked like a veil of backlit fog, sparkling with tiny shimmering stars. Eyeing the glowing fireflies overhead, Philboyd said nervously, “They seem to be attracted to the energy.” Grant unholstered his Sin Eater. “Everybody get on the marker. Be ready to make the transit.”
As CAT Alpha moved to obey, the cloud of orbs dived downward. The Sin Eaters stuttered deafeningly, the slugs racing upward. The rounds fired by Kane and Grant seemed to tear a ragged hole in the flock of glowing orbs. The objects flew in a tightening circle around the sandstone disk like a cyclone cloud. Kane didn’t try to track any of the orbs individually. He maintained his finger’s pressure on the trigger stud, bright brass arcing out of the pistol’s ejector port. Something hot stung his face and a flare of green blinded him. His skin burned, and the fine hairs in his nostrils seemed to vibrate. At the edges of his hearing he heard a whining buzz that quickly built to a high-pitched hiss. Fire coursed along his nervous system as his entire body was engulfed by a wave of shock, followed by red-hued agony. And black silence.
Chapter 8
Whenever he was either bored or restless, Mohandas Lakesh Singh made the evening internal security sweep, a practice that consisted of little more than checking the images displayed on various monitor screens. Although Lakesh didn’t feel particularly bored this evening, he felt distinctly restless as he strode down the main corridor of the Cerberus redoubt. Every time Brigid Baptiste, Kane, Grant or any Cerberus personnel were out on a mission, he tended to fret, but also felt slightly ridiculous about it. At one time he suspected his mother-hen tendencies stemmed from guilt, but lately he attributed them to control issues. Still, despite their frequent disagreements and arguments, he felt that Kane, Brigid and Grant were his family. In most ways, the exiles of the Cerberus redoubt enjoyed emotional bonds that were stronger than those of blood kin. A well-built man of medium height, with thick, glossy, black hair, an unlined dark olive complexion and a long, aquiline nose, Lakesh looked no older than fifty, despite a few strands of distinguished gray streaking his temples. He resembled a middle-aged man of East Indian extraction in reasonably good health. In reality, he had celebrated his 251st birthday several months earlier. Lakesh quickly walked down the twenty-foot-wide passageway made of softly gleaming vanadium alloy and shaped like a square with an arch on top. Great curving ribs of metal and massive girders supported the high rock roof. He passed a few people who greeted him either with a deferential nod or with a respectful “Good evening, Dr. Singh.” He appreciated the respect. For many years he received very little of it, nor had he felt he deserved it. As a youthful genius, Lakesh had been drafted into the web of conspiracy the architects of the Totality Concept had spun during the last couple of decades of the twentieth century. A multi-degreed physicist and cyberneticist, he served as the administrator for Project Cerberus, a position that ensured his survival during the global megacull of January 2001. Like the Manitius Moonbase refugees, he had spent most of the intervening two hundred years in cryostasis. Lakesh reached the partially open sec door, which folded open like an accordion. Because the panels of vanadium were so heavy, only rarely was the door closed completely, since it required several minutes to open again.
Although the official designations of all Totality Concept-related redoubts were based on the phonetic alphabet, almost no one who had ever been stationed in the facility referred to the redoubt by its official code name of Bravo. The mixture of civilian scientists and military personnel simply called it Cerberus, and to commemorate that name, a large, luridly colored illustration of the triple-headed black hound was painted on the wall beneath the controls to the massive security door. A spiked metal collar bound the single muscular neck, fire and blood gushed out from between yellow fangs and the crimson eyes glared bright and baleful. Underneath the image, in overly ornate Gothic script was written Cerberus. Although he couldn’t be positive, Lakesh suspected that one of the original military personnel assigned to the redoubt, a certain Corporal James Mooney, was the artist. The exaggerated exuberance of the rendering seemed taken directly from the comic books the young man was obsessed with collecting. Lakesh had never considered having the illustration removed. For one thing, the paints were indelible and for another, it was Corporal Mooney’s form of immortality. Besides, the image of Cerberus, the guardian of the gates of hell, represented a visual symbol of the work to which Lakesh had devoted his life.
Constructed in the mid-1990s, no expense had been spared to make the re- doubt, the seat of Project Cerberus, a masterpiece of concealment and impenetrability. The Cerberus process, a subdivision of Overproject Whisper, had been a primary component of the Totality Concept. The researches to which Project Cerberus and its personnel had been devoted were locating and traveling hyperdimensional pathways through the quantum stream. The thirty-acre, three-level installation had come through the nukecaust with its operating systems and radiation shielding in good condition. The redoubt contained two dozen self-contained apartments, a cafeteria, a frightfully well equipped armory, a medical infirmary, a gymnasium complete with a swimming pool and even holding cells on the bottom level. When Lakesh had secretly reactivated the installation some thirty years earlier, the repairs he made had been minor, primarily cosmetic in nature. Over a period of time, he had installed an elaborate system of heat-sensing warning devices, night-vision video cameras and motion-trigger alarms on the surrounding plateau. He had been forced to work completely alone, so the upgrades had taken several years to complete. However, the remote location of the redoubt in Montana’s Bitterroot Range had kept his work from being discovered by the baronial authorities. In the generations since the nukecaust, a sinister mythology had been ascribed to the mountains, with their mysteriously shadowed forests and hell-deep, dangerous ravines. The wilderness area was virtually unpopulated. The nearest settlement was located in the flatlands and consisted of a small band of Indians led by a shaman named Sky Dog. When Lakesh had been revived from stasis and drafted to serve the nine god- kings who assumed lordship over the Earth, he realized the horrific magnitude of their plan to conquer humanity. Lakesh had tried many times since his resurrection to arrest the tide of extinction inexorably engulfing the human race. First had been his attempts to manipulate the human genetic samples in storage, preserved in vitro since before the nukecaust, to provide the hybridization program with a supply of the best DNA. He had hoped to create an underground resistance movement of superior human beings to oppose the barons. A revolutionary force needed a headquarters, and the Cerberus redoubt seemed the most serviceable.
Lakesh stepped over the threshold and onto the plateau, inhaling deeply of the chill mountain air and then repressing a shiver. The temperature was fairly mild for so late in the autumn, but he had been born in the tropical climate of Kashmir, India, and even after 250-plus years, his internal thermostat was still stuck there. The emerging stars glittered in frosty wheels above the gray granite peak towering high overhead. The sprawling plateau was broad enough for the entire population of the redoubt to assemble without getting near the rusted remains of the chain-link fence enclosing it. The flat expanse of tarmac was bordered on one side by a grassy slope rising to rocky outcroppings and on the other by an abyss that plummeted vertically for nearly a thousand feet to the rushing waters of the Clark Fork River. Lakesh tucked his hands into the pockets of his long coat and surveyed the plateau. Surrounded by a wilderness of trees, house-sized boulders and grass, a narrow road looped and curved away from it, twisting down like a path cut by a broken-backed snake writhing in its death throes. One side of the road butted up against the great, overhanging crags and the other bordered sheer cliffs. The plateau still glistened with the residue of a late-afternoon sleet storm, making the uneven areas slippery underfoot as he crossed the plateau. The sleet had sifted in thin blankets over the grave sites on the slope of the far side of the plateau. The headstones shone damply in the starlight. The fabricated markers bore only last names: Cotta, Dylan, Adrian and many more. Most of them were a little over two years old, inscribed with the names of the Moonbase émigrés who had died defending Cerberus from the assault staged by Overlord Enlil. The plateau itself was still pockmarked by the craters inflicted in that attack. Lakesh saw Domi standing at the foot of one grave. The headstone read simply Quavell. A sprig of fresh wildflowers lay atop the marker. Judging by the color of the flowers, he figured Domi had gone down into the lower slopes, since the petals were still bright.
