The Oracle, page 15
The village of Delphi is cut into the slopes of the hill well below the mountain plateau. German patrols regularly walk the tracks above the homes, looking for smugglers and resistance fighters, but they’ll shout a warning before firing.
Karl follows an old track leading to the market square in the village center. He is avoiding the main entrance to the village, as that’s where the machine gun nest is located, looking out over the road. Karl doesn’t want nervous soldiers getting trigger-happy. As it is, he’d expect the communists to be taking pot shots to provoke a response and reveal the German defenses. As much as Karl doesn’t want to be shot, being shot by his own troops would mark a bitter end to his life. From the upper track, he can reach the German Command.
What is he going to tell them about the professor? The Oracle? Sophia?
Nothing.
There’s nothing to be done, so nothing needs to be said. Sophia may not trust Karl, but he’s determined to give her every advantage he can to allow her to slip away.
As Karl approaches the homes on the outskirts of the village, he gets a glimpse of the market square. The trucks have pulled up on one side. They’re parked in a row, which is unusual. Although air raids are rare, Wehrmacht drivers are instructed to park vehicles well away from each other and, wherever possible, to use natural cover to hide their vehicles from Allied fighters. There are trees on the southern side of the market. The trucks should have been parked there in the shade.
And there are no patrols. Karl should be able to see German soldiers walking in pairs through the village. He reaches a checkpoint. Sandbags define a dugout obscured by bushes, but there’s no one on guard.
Something’s wrong.
The Germans are gone. They’ve withdrawn early.
Karl is walking down one of the alleys leading to the lower streets and the market square before he realizes what’s happening: reprisals. Greek freedom fighters push villagers with their hands bound behind them into the square. They’re making a public statement about collaborators. They’re settling scores.
The Wehrmacht is gone. He’s too late. The Germans have left, heading northwest along the valley. The trucks he saw were German, but they weren’t driven by Germans, they weren’t carrying Germans. Those three trucks must have been abandoned in the withdrawal from Arachova at the higher, southern end of the valley.
Karl has his rifle shouldered. He feels numb.
The alleys in Delphi aren’t straight. They’re organic, having emerged over hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Fences of various heights hem them in. Backyards and kitchen windows open onto the narrow cobblestones. Even with the sun high overhead, marking noon, shadows still stretch from the overhangs.
Karl stands there stunned, only just now realizing he’s still well behind the front line, unsure of what he should do. He needs to link up with German forces, but he’ll never catch up to them on foot.
Down in the market, a Greek fighter stops and looks up the alley, staring at Karl, curious and confused. The fighter is wearing dark blue trousers, a light blue shirt and a white singlet visible in the V-shaped opening of his baggy shirt. He’s carrying a German MP40 submachine gun. The stock is folded away, but the extended magazine protruding from the magwell is new. It’s still black, whereas the rest of the submachine gun has lost its luster, being scratched and worn. A leather strap leads from the submachine gun up over his shoulder, allowing him to rest his arm on top of the gun for support. And it’s then that it strikes Karl. He’s relaxed. Karl has never thought about the enemy like this before, but they’re human—they’re all human, Germans, British, Americans, Greeks, Communists and Fascists alike. They may drive machines of death like the Panzerspähwagen or carry Lugers, rifles, and submachine guns, but they are not these machines. They think. They feel. And this Greek fighter is not expecting a German soldier to come walking down the alley. He’s expecting to see another fellow communist who’s stolen a German Mauser rifle. Looking at Karl, he sees someone with a bandage wrapped around his chest, with blood seeping through his dirty singlet, and a rifle slung casually over his shoulder. He sees a friend.
Karl waves, raising a single hand and appearing friendly. He even smiles, not that the fighter would be able to see that with the sun bearing down on him as he’s peering into the shadows.
It feels entirely wrong and disingenuous. It’s a lie, but it’s all Karl can do to survive. The fighter waves back and walks on. Karl’s heart is beating so hard it’s about to burst through his bandages.
Karl panics. He darts into a doorway. Before he knows what’s happening, he turns a rusting steel knob and pushes open a solid wooden door. Suddenly, he’s in a narrow kitchen leading to a dining room overlooking the market square. A woman is standing near the window. She has her daughter in front of her. She’s terrified. Her eyes go wide. With her left hand, she holds her daughter tight, keeping her on the far side of an old wooden table. The woman’s right hand grips the girl’s mouth, keeping her from screaming.
Lace curtains flutter in the breeze coming in through the open window.
The woman is terrified, but there’s something about her eyes. The dynamic is wrong. Karl would struggle to explain how he knows, but her body language screams of existential fear. She’s expecting to be dragged into the square along with her daughter.
Karl speaks in Greek. He touches his chest, saying, “German.”
The woman bites her lips.
“German, bad,” he says before pointing at the window and adding. “Communist, worse.”
She nods, standing perfectly still. It’s as though she’s trying to disappear. For his part, Karl’s glad she’s not screaming for help, but it seems she believes him. As much as the locals despised the Germans, they were predictable.
And it’s then that it strikes him. He realizes what’s missing from this situation.
“Your husband?”
The woman can’t bring herself to reply. She looks sideways at the window and then back at him.
“He’s out there?” Karl asks, walking over to the window and pulling back the curtains, wanting to get a good look at the square. “They’re going to kill him?”
She nods, keeping her distance from him.
Karl looks at the washed-out square bathed in harsh sunlight. Bloodstains and bullet holes mark the far wall. Bodies are being dragged away and stacked on a wooden cart. Horses neigh, upset by the smell of fresh blood. They pull at the reins of their communist master standing beside them, stilling them as the bodies are piled high on the wooden flatbed.
And it’s then he sees her.
“Sophia…”
Like the other prisoners, she has a Hessian sack draped over her head and her hands tied in front of her, but her stature and torn dress remove any doubt about her identity. And the Omphalos? Where is the Omphalos? It’s gone.
It takes Karl a moment to understand what is unfolding in the market square. Several men dressed in black sit on a low wooden stage normally used for stacking crates full of produce. They’re passing judgment on groups of prisoners, deciding who lives and who dies. Guards stand at the various roads and alleys around the market square armed with MP40 submachine guns, making sure no one runs. The prisoners have been divided into groups of ten to twenty, probably based on categories of grievance. Sophia has her hands tied with a thick rope. She’s marched over to the wall. And for the first time in his life, Karl wants to kill someone. It’s not a matter of hatred or anger or bloodlust. It’s a question of justice. These men are cowards. There is no honor in killing the innocent. Karl’s not thinking clearly. His own safety is meaningless. Regardless of what happens to him or Sophia, someone out there is about to die.
“Which one is your husband?” he asks the woman.
“T—The yellow shirt,” the woman says, pointing from the shadows. There are three or four people between the woman’s husband and Sophia, but they’re in the same group and are being lined up against the bloodied wall. The executioners are using standard bolt-action rifles. They’re joking around with each other, smoking cigarettes as guards push prisoners against the wall, forcing them to kneel as they beg for their lives.
“You should leave,” Karl says to the woman, shifting the wooden chairs away from the table.
He grabs a pillow from the sofa in the lounge and puts it on the broad table. The woman backs up by the door, but to his surprise, she doesn’t leave. She stands in the kitchen beside the door leading to the alleyway and watches as Karl lies on the table, resting his chest on the pillow with the rifle in his outstretched arms.
Karl pulls the rifle hard into his shoulder. He pulls back on the bolt of his rifle and loads a round into the chamber. Outside, there’s yelling. An engine starts. Children are crying. Women are wailing. Karl shuts out all the noise. The only sound he hears is that of his own breathing.
Karl can’t shoot everyone. Hell, he’ll be doing well if he hits anyone at all. At best, he’ll kill one or two of the executioners, but Karl’s not trying to kill everyone. He wants to cause chaos. That’s the only thing that will save Sophia and this woman’s husband. Even then, it’s not guaranteed, but the communists are overconfident. Killing villagers like this—in the open, during the day, in front of their families—is sending a message to every other village in the valley. But the communists aren’t the only ones who can send a message.
Karl slows his breathing. He rests his finger on the trigger. Looking through the iron sights on his rifle, he aims out of the open window, staying in the shadows, keeping the barrel of his rifle out of view. He lines up the rear sight with the post at the front of the rifle and aims low. Birds wing their way through the clear blue sky. The curtain flutters in the breeze.
Karl is a lousy shot, or so his instructors told him back at camp. He never hit a target—not once. He’d fire, and tufts of dirt would go flying. His instructors would berate him, standing over him and critiquing his technique. They’d scold him for his incompetence, but what they never knew was that he never meant to hit anything. For him, it was a game—a game he refused to play. Now, though, all the instruction comes flooding back. He flexes his muscles, ready to absorb the kick of the recoil, but he refuses to be rigid. His position, lying prone on the table, allows him to hold the rifle on target. He breathes out, knowing this is when his body is most relaxed.
And then he squeezes the trigger—gently.
The crack of gunfire is deafening within the house, but Karl doesn’t hesitate. Before the first body has fallen, he works the bolt action without moving the butt of the rifle from his shoulder, keeping his eyes fixed down the sight of the gun.
Blood splatters across the ground. The shooter in front of Sophia crumples to the cobblestones, falling to his knees before keeling over and looking up at the sky with lifeless eyes. Pandemonium erupts. People run for cover, unsure where the gunfire is coming from.
A second shot rings out, killing the confused guard standing in front of the woman’s husband. He was looking around, trying to identify the direction of the incoming fire. His head lashes back. A piece of his skull skids across the cobblestones. Blood squirts on the ground, turning the pale, sun-drenched dirt and dust bright red. His body is still squirming as Karl reloads again.
Hearing the gunfire and confused yelling from the guards, the prisoners pull the sacks from their heads and run. They have their arms tied in front of them, but they’re on the move.
The guard blocking the road leading out to the countryside is armed with an MP40 submachine gun. He swings it down from his shoulder, leveling it at Sophia and the others running toward him.
Karl fires.
The recoil shoves the butt of the rifle hard into his shoulder, but he’s already in the process of reloading.
He hits the guard in the throat. The old man wheels to one side. Deep red blood sprays from the torn artery on the side of his neck, and he keels over.
Karl fires again at another nearby communist fighter, but he misses. The bullet, though, strikes one of several glass bottles sitting on a barrel off to one side of him, shattering it. The communist fighter returns fire, unleashing a volley of shots from his submachine gun, but he’s firing wide. It seems he thinks the shots are coming from someone near the trees. Without realizing it, he distracts the other communists, and they scatter, unsure where the sniper is lying in hiding.
Karl reloads within a fraction of a second and shifts his aim, wanting to spread his rifle fire and cause as much mayhem as possible. Someone climbs into one of the trucks. They drive toward the other entrance to the market, the one coming in from the east. Karl fires, but he misses the driver. The windscreen shatters. The driver panics and clips a wooden stall. Splinters of broken wood burst into the air along with straw and hay. Greek communist fighters run for cover. And with that, Karl is up and running for the door to the alley. The woman and her child have already left. The door is open.
Karl reloads as he steps out into the alley, but nothing slides into the breach. He’s out of ammunition. He fumbles with the bolt action, pulling it open and dropping the empty clip on the cobblestones in the alleyway. With trembling hands, he slams a loaded clip into the open action and cycles the bolt, loading another round. Time conspires against him. Seconds feel like hours. He’s exposed. Vulnerable. He’s expecting to be shot at any second.
There’s yelling behind him. Karl fires toward the market, but he fires from the hip. He’s not trying to hit anyone, just to distract them—delay them. Several communist fighters run after him, firing wildly and adding to the chaos.
As he rounds a corner in the alley, he pulls a grenade from his belt, but he doesn’t stop to throw it. Instead, he pulls the ignition cord and drops it in the gutter. At the moment, his best strategy is confusion. Sooner or later, the communists are going to realize he’s a lone shooter. For now, he wants them to think he’s part of a patrol or some larger force. No one is in a hurry to die. They’ll back off if they think part of the town is still held by the Germans. As vicious as the communist fighters are, they know they lack the discipline and tactics of the German Army and won’t be in a hurry to run into an ambush.
A thundering explosion resounds from the alleyway as the stick grenade detonates. Dust is blown into the street. There’s screaming. Someone was injured—a man, from the sound of his howl.
Karl has one more grenade. A soldier wiser than him would keep it in reserve, but Karl is bluffing. His only chance for escaping the village alive is if the communists feel the need to regroup. As it is, there’s gunfire behind him, but it sounds distant. The echoing booms are being deflected by the buildings, so it’s not direct.
As he runs with the rifle bouncing on his shoulder, Karl pulls the ignition cord on his second and last grenade and hoists it in the air, throwing it blindly onto the rooftops of the houses surrounding the market square. He needs noise. Lots of noise. He needs the communists to take cover. The grenade explodes as he reaches the outskirts of the village.
Karl emerges on the upper slopes of the village on a path leading to the local monastery. The rest of those escaping the market square have headed downhill, following the slope toward the valley and the coast beyond. As tempting as it is to join them, that would draw him away from the retreating German Army. His troops are heading north toward Albania. Somehow, Karl needs to catch up to them.
On he runs, wondering if he’s about to be shot in the back like a deer in the forest. He’s expecting to tumble to the dirt as a bullet tears through his heart and lungs from behind. To run quicker, Karl switches to holding his rifle by the center of the stock. He sprints as fast as he can. His legs are pumping. His lungs are bursting. He’s expecting to be shot in the back, but he keeps running and makes it to the trees on the far side of the village. He stops in the shade of an olive tree and fires one last shot blindly back at Delphi, striking a stucco wall. Karl leans forward, sucking in the hot air around him. His lungs scream as he struggles to catch his breath.
Time.
That’s what he needs.
Time and distance. Karl needs to keep moving.
Dozens of people are ahead of him, running for their lives, racing between the trees. Most of them still have their hands bound, but this is good. There are too many escapees for the communists to catch. And they still don’t know quite what happened.
Karl is still catching his breath, peering back at the village from behind a tree, when he feels the hard steel of a gun barrel push into the center of his back.
A male voice says, “Drop the rifle.”
The Institute for First Contact
An unscheduled signal is received from deep space. It’s detailed, containing trillions of bits of information, being duplicated across multiple frequencies, each slightly delayed from the other to allow for error correction. The overall signal is clear and clean, having been relayed down to the planet from orbital dishes built from the remnants of asteroids.
Tor Mah is alerted via electronic implants stimulating his thinking, rousing him from hibernation.
Winter has been long.
The planet Pythia orbits its blinding blue-white star on a highly elliptical path, giving it distinct seasons. Summers are short, hot, and full of frantic activity. By the time the summer solstice has come, the surface of the planet has been scalded by stellar radiation. Water vaporizes, killing life on the surface, forcing the inhabitants to retreat to the honeycomb of caves winding beneath the rocky crust. Autumn and spring are when the plants grow and animals roam the land. These seasons are four times longer than summer. Game is hunted. Harvests are gathered. Winter, though, is the longest of all the Pythian seasons, bringing temperatures cold enough to freeze gases out of the atmosphere, forming icy crusts that seal the caves. Thermal springs and internal heating sustain life beneath the surface, but only in a semi-dormant state. Energy needs to be conserved.
