While Stavros had directed the battening down, Kosta had fired up the microwave and brought out some frozen food from the emergency rations cache. They all had earned a good meal, and it was quite unlikely they would be able to forage on the island anymore. As they ate, each took turns talking about their experiences since the last time they"d met-a time that seemed to Eveleen at least a week ago.
Now they sat crowded on the half-deck below the canopy, Eveleen and Ross together on a hammock, the Greeks perched on barrels that masked advanced tech, and Gordon Ashe on the only fold-down chair.
"What have we got?" Ashe asked again, looking around at the four faces.
Eveleen sipped gratefully from her mug of hot coffee and said, "n.o.body saw Linnea, so she"s still missing."
"And we will make searching for her top priority," Ashe responded. "Next?"
Ross said, "If we can believe the Kayu, we have a week to make certain the entropy device is not reversed. The Baldies have to know that."
"And will be acting accordingly. We"ll get back to them," Ashe said.
"Do you believe the Kayu?" Eveleen asked.
"Yes, I believe them. At least, I can can perceive no benefit to be gained from their going to all the trouble to contact us just to lie." perceive no benefit to be gained from their going to all the trouble to contact us just to lie."
The others nodded, looking tired and strained.
"So we will say we have seven days to keep the Baldies busy. After that, the blow could happen anytime; both sides will be scrambling to leave."
Eveleen winced, thinking of the many threats implied in his flat statement.
"We have the globe ship," Kosta said.
"A globe ship," said Ross. "Could be there were only two Baldies and the rest holos, or maybe there"s another?"
"There"s rarely been more than one in any other encounter, has there? I mean with Baldies real-time?" asked Eveleen. "If I remember right, the science team decided they were spread really thin; otherwise, with their tech advantages, they"d have taken over long ago."
"If you believe the Kayu, the Baldies aren"t interested in conquest, just stopping s.p.a.ce flight. But I still believe they are indeed spread thin, so I"m betting your undersea globe ship is the only one in this time/s.p.a.ce. So here are our three main areas of action, as I see it," Ashe said, holding up his hand. "We have to keep the globe ship out of the Baldies" hands to prevent them from damping the oscillations and again shunting off the energy building up to the big blow."
"We"re going to have to stay out of their mitts," Ross said. "That won"t be easy. They have the seek-and-find tech, and what little we"ve got is easy for them to detect."
"And we"re alone on the island now, or nearly," Eveleen said. "And I"m including Linnea. The Kallistans have evacuated, as the archaeologists predicted. That leaves just us and the Baldies-"
"And the Kayu," Ashe put in.
"Right," she said. "And the Kayu. But the Baldies are the ones who are going to know that anything that moves and isn"t them is a target."
Ross shook his head. "I still wonder about that "they value life" talk that the Kayu tried to hand us."
Eveleen said, "Perhaps the Baldies warned the oracle. After all, someone had to, or how did they know to get the people out?"
Ross shrugged. "Gordon and I were with the Kayu, so they certainly didn"t. But maybe one or the other of them had some way of warning those priestesses." He frowned, then recalled his flight down. "At any rate, there"s one more gang out there, unless they did manage to get the boat. Out from the brush behind the warehouses came a slew of guys ..." He went on to describe the attack on the fishing boat.
Eveleen rubbed her forehead. "Wait a minute. Behind the warehouse?"
"Yes," Ross said. "I was just wondering whether these might have been responsible for the attack on our camp, and not the Baldies, when we first landed."
"We will have to keep these men in mind, but there is nothing to be done about them now." Ashe sat back, cradling his coffee in his hands. "To return to our first dilemma, it makes sense that either or both sets of aliens had that cave wired. If they were studying the Kallistans at all, it seems to me that the first place you"d go is where all of them go, to their oracle. Listening to what went on there must have given them the local languages, at least, and clues to customs as well."
Eveleen snapped her fingers. "So their egg-computer has what Linnea wanted so badly: a full dictionary of words corresponding to Linear A!"
Ross nodded once. "Ah. And what can be wired for sound can go both ways. Maybe they broadcast Voices" for the Kallistan priestesses to hear."
"Well, if the Baldies tried to save the Kallistans, and I hope they did, why have they shot at us in the past?" Eveleen asked.
"Well, if they"re hyperecologists of some sort, as the Kayu said, maybe they think of it as pruning," Ashe replied, finishing off his coffee. "We"re spinning out in guesswork. Too much of that without facts is just a waste of time. I suggest we all get some shut-eye while we can. At least this storm ought to mask searches, giving us some time for rest. As soon as it"s light, you two had better secure that globe ship." He nodded at the Greek agents. "Once we have it, we can explore it on our time, and maybe figure out a way to permanently disable their entropy adjusters."
Kosta grunted in agreement and tossed the dregs of his coffee overboard.
They all settled down then. Eveleen realized her head ached. Trying to keep quiet she reached into the pouch she wore under her flaring skirt, pulled out some sinus tabs.
Now what? The prospect of trying to swallow them in a dry mouth made her stomach churn.
Lightning flared, a vivid purple slash across the sky. She saw a hand reach toward her from one of the other hammocks, holding out a cup of purified water. In grateful silence she took it, swallowed the tabs. Thunder banged and crashed, dying away in a ragged grumble; she heard someone else popping tabs from a seal-pac.
She pa.s.sed the cup on, felt fingers take it.
Then she lay back down, and despite the storm doing its best to battle the volcano for mastery of sky, earth, and water, she fell deeply asleep.
JUST ABOUT THE time Eveleen fell asleep, Linnea woke up, gasping. Rain slashed down out of the sky, a pitiless downpour. By the flare of lightning Linnea saw that all the priestesses were now awake, two of them bending over a third.
What could they do? Where could they go? At least the air was not cold. They would not freeze. But as a fairly severe aftershock rumbled below the ground, louder than the thunder, Linnea worried about landslides. Mudslides, caused by those frightening steam vents.
A hot, sharp smell brought her head around. Fire, the most ancient threat of all, made her scrabble back in the mud. Moments later vague shapes appeared. Lightning flared again, and then lights snapped into being. Linnea blinked, dazzled.
"Come. Rise and come this way." The voice was tenor, flat, the accent in the Ancient Greek impossible to guess at.
The lights shifted to a trail that steamed, despite the pouring rain. Am I hallucinating? Am I hallucinating? Linnea thought. Linnea thought.
"Ah!" A woman"s voice gave a soft cry of anguish, and Linnea turned again.
The lights snapped over to the priestesses, revealing Ela and one other holding up the older woman who Linnea had decided was second in command to the seer. The seer herself was on her feet, her clothing sodden with mud. She looked old and frail and very unhappy.
"Her arm," Ela said in a frightened voice. "She fell, and hurt her arm, when the ground shook."
"She must walk," came one of those flat tenor voices.
That"s not Ross, or Stavros, or Kosta, and it certainly isn"t Gordon, Linnea thought. She said in tentative Ancient Greek, "Who is it?" Linnea thought. She said in tentative Ancient Greek, "Who is it?"
The figures remained behind the lights, perceptible as no more than shadows. Lightning flared again, but Linnea had been looking at the ground. She turned her head, too late.
Thunder crashed right overhead, making her teeth ache. Another lightning bolt illuminated the scene. Linnea watched the ground again, the abnormally flat ground: someone, she realized, had cleared a new path. But the ground was smoking. Was it some freak of the volcano? No, the edges were straight, as though a beam of heat had cut through the rock and soil.
She stepped tentatively forward onto the steaming soil. The soles of her sandals did not burn, so she led the way, the priestesses coming slowly behind. Behind them were the rescuers, shining their lights ahead, down the path that they had made.
For a long time they walked, as the warm, dust-laden acid rain washed the mud from their clothing, stinging their eyes.
The world revolved gently, and Linnea staggered once or twice, trying to breathe deeply against the dizziness. The playing lights, the rain thrumming against nose and mouth, didn"t help. Every time the poor woman behind her gasped in pain, Linnea"s insides tightened.
Crazy hopes ran through her mind. Were their rescuers perhaps from the Project? Maybe the Project of the future? Linnea couldn"t recall anyone talking about weapons that burned away landslides, creating a flat pathway. But she was sure they hadn"t told her anything they didn"t think she needed to know.
Only now she did need to know.
On and on.
The entire trip was conducted in silence, until at last a cliff loomed, blacker than the surrounding night. One moment rain pattered, loud, in their ears, and then it withdrew into a hissing curtain behind them, and Linnea could breathe. She realized that they had entered a cave of some sort. Faint bluish light glowed at one end, through a rough archway.
A hand touched the back of her shoulder, urging her toward their light. She obeyed the unspoken command, and was glad to do so. Light, shelter, maybe food? Oh, and clean, dry clothing?
But. . . what about these women? Linnea thought, her expectations withering away. The Project would surely not permit anyone to see modern technical gear, electric lights, and machine-st.i.tched towels and clothes? Linnea thought, her expectations withering away. The Project would surely not permit anyone to see modern technical gear, electric lights, and machine-st.i.tched towels and clothes?
Through another archway, into a round room that was again lit by bluish light. Linnea had just enough time to see that there was nothing in it but shapeless cloth of some sort on the floor, and then she turned around as the others entered.
The last priestess walked in, and Ela and the others eased the wounded woman down. Linnea ignored them, trying to empty her mind, staring at the two figures in the doorway: two figures who were slim, of medium height, their fine features quite hairless, their clothing a shimmery suit of bluish purple.
Baldies.
They had not been rescued; they had been captured, by the Baldies.
Then a door slid soundlessly shut, locking them in. She released her breath; they hadn"t singled her out. She remembered the warnings about those blue suits and telepathy. Perhaps the fear of the women around her had masked her own thoughts; perhaps their suits couldn"t distinguish thoughts in people close together, especially when all of them had to be radiating fear quite powerfully.
"Where are we?" someone asked softly.
"I do not recognize this place," the seer replied, her voice tremulous. "I very much fear that our own house might have fallen in the shaking."
Linnea hesitated, unsure about speaking. What could she say?
CHAPTER 20.
"I THINK," ASHE said, "we"ll just have to a.s.sume that the Kayu are either dead or in hiding. There is no way to get back up that mountain to the cave where we met them, and even if we did, what would we do or say?"
"We might get them to explain how they think the Baldies are respectful of life," Ross muttered.
Ashe"s mouth twitched. "You just can"t leave that alone, can you? I admit that the same question has crossed my mind as well. But we"ll have to leave that one for leisure moments. Right now, let"s go down today"s checklist."
It was morning, the full glare of morning. Steam rose from shingle on the beach and from the ruins of Akrotiri, drying in the sunlight half a mile away. They had been shaken awake by a quake sharp enough to rock the boat.
Still, they had landed directly below the ruins of the city. There was no human sound beyond what they made; the harbor, so busy the day before, was empty, the only life the cawing seabirds overhead. Farther up the mountain, swallows darted and chased, their tails streaming.
Ross clipped his radio to the outside of his belt. Now that the need for disguise was over, he wore baggy work pants with st.u.r.dy pockets. Eveleen and Stavros stood there in diving gear, Stav with a foot propped on the taffrail. Kosta had changed to a rough linen work shirt and baggy pants.
"Do we all understand the codes?" Ashe went on, tapping his radio.
"Understood," Kosta stated.
"Got it," Ross said.
Eveleen nodded once, biting her lip. Behind her, Stavros half-raised a hand in agreement.
Ashe looked around. "We transmit only when we have to, and we transmit only the codes, and only on the move. If we discover we need to refine the codes, they can wait until tomorrow. Got it?"
Again a round of nods.
"All right, then. Stavros, will you issue the weapons?"
In silence Stavros removed three modified energy weapons from the locker below. These weapons were the reason Eveleen was on the diving team and not on the search team. She would defend herself with the expertise of the martial artist, but she was not certain she could bring herself to use one of these energy weapons and had said so up front.
Ashe turned to her now. "You two know what to do, right?"
"Get the globe ship into a hidden cove, camouflage it, and if we have time, try to get inside."
"Good. Just be back here by sunset, so we can gather with no lights showing. If this place becomes unsafe, we"ll let one another know," Ashe repeated, looking from one to another.
Again they nodded, and that was it. Ashe and Ross maneuvered the smaller rowboat out and splashed it into the water. Then they and Kosta climbed over, Ross settling into the stern, the others sitting side by side and manning the oars as Ross kept lookout.
No one spoke. Ross sent a private glance at his wife, to catch a smile in return and a tiny wave of her hand. Then she turned away, reaching for her scuba gear. Stav said something to her in a voice too low for him to hear.
Ross shifted his gaze to the coastline stretching away to the west. It was quite a sight: the sh.o.r.e was lined with an unappetizing tangle of sea brack and dead fish. Unappetizing to humans, at least. An astonishing variety of birds dove and cried and cawed, each flap or peck sending up dark clouds of flies. The smell of sulfur, brine, and rotting fish made Ross breathe through his mouth.
ASHE AND KOSTA rowed swiftly. Ross kept scanning the coast, not just for slim hairless figures but for suspicious blurs: over breakfast they"d discussed the possibility of holographic "stealthing." If the Baldies could project false images, they might be able to hide themselves from plain sight. He also watched for any revealing gleams or glitters.
As they dragged their boat up onto the shingle and covered it with a layer of seaweed, nothing was in evidence but birds and fish and flies.
Then the three separated, Ashe to investigate over the hills to the north, Kosta up the road to the city and as far as he felt safe, and Ross to try the pathway to the oracle, again as far as it was feasible to do so.
Ross set out at a quick pace, despite the steamy heat radiating from rain-washed stones scattered about. An aftershock caused him to pause, watchful. He could hear the shifting of the earth below ground; it sounded a lot like a train racing along a subway line one level below, only somehow more sinister-a grim reminder of the magma explosion building toward zero hour.
Up ahead he spotted at least two major landslides. The trail still could be picked out, but he was going to have to do some detouring.
"I can make it," he muttered, shading his eyes. "But if anyone is under those tons of mud, it"s not going to be me who finds them."
He grimaced, shook his head to clear it of such thoughts, and set out at a faster pace.
STAVROS AND EVELEEN stayed silent as the ship plied its way parallel to the cliffs, heading east. His job was to keep as close to the rocks as he could without crashing into unseen ones below the surface; hers was to use the field gla.s.ses and scan constantly for Baldies. Close as they were-sometimes she could have reached out and touched the rough rock, stippled with the remains of sh.e.l.ls from millions of years in the past-she still felt horribly exposed.