“Although we remain uncertain how much this thing has infiltrated Edwards’s brain itself,” DeFore reminded them both.
“We cannot really ever know that unless we cut Edwards open,” Kazuka said. “Something we are loath to do for obvious reasons.”
When DeFore saw the confusion in Mariah’s face she added quietly, “He’d die.”
“At the end of the twentieth century,” Kazuka summarized from the computer screen, “this type of surgery was being explored as an alternative to radiation treatments for cancer. The precision of the technique—if applied correctly—is its strength.”
The room fell silent for a moment as the three highly educated people considered the moral dilemma they faced.
“You just need to make a decision, don’t you?” Mariah said.
“I don’t like it,” DeFore said. “We run the risk of permanently scrambling Edwards’s brain, turning him into a vegetable or worse, killing him.” She turned to Kazuka.
“Better to act than to do nothing,” Kazuka said. “I vote yes, we perform the surgery.”
The two doctors turned to Mariah.
“You have the deciding vote, Mariah,” DeFore said gently.
“No,” Mariah said. “I’m not a doctor. You guys should—” She stopped when she saw the haunted look in DeFore’s eyes. She remembered Clem lying there, his skull crushed, remembered what had happened to her in Tenth City, when she had been shot in the leg to save her from killing herself by walking into the flames of a crematorium on the instructions of Ullikummis, whose brutal words had seemed to pierce her very skull. She took a deep breath, forcing the welling emotions aside.
“When Ullikummis first landed,” Mariah began, “I had his thoughts forced on me, overlaying my own. I imagine it was a lot like the way the obedience stone is affecting Edwards, a prototype, if you will.
“I remember how that felt,” Mariah continued solemnly, “the way it felt to have my own thoughts
obliterated by the thoughts of someone else. Some
thing
alien. So, I vote yes to the surgery, because if it does kill Edwards—who is my respected colleague and my friend—then death wouldn’t be so bad. Death would be a release.”
The two doctors nodded, accepting Mariah’s impassioned speech. They would operate. Mariah—a geologist and not a medical doctor—only hoped she had made the right decision, because it was one she would have to live with for the rest of her life.
* * *
“W
HAT
IS
IT
?”
B
ALAM
ASKED
.
“Tell me, Balam,” Kane said, avoiding the question, “can the Annunaki clone living things? Humans, say, or hybrids?”
“Their bodies are clone bodies,” Balam said with that superior logic he often employed. “When you met with Enlil and his brethren, you were not looking on the same flesh that walked this planet thousands of years ago. You merely looked at things reborn, perfect copies. Clones by another name.”
Kane stepped aside, letting Balam see into the cell for the first time. “I think he cloned her, or tried to,” he warned.
Balam looked at the thing in the cell, and his face became a stony mask. “Scales,” was all he said.
Kane looked back at the girl in the cell, aware now that his heart was drumming a tarantella against his chest. He willed it to slow, recalling the breathing exercises he had been taught when he had trained as a Magistrate in Cobaltville. The thing in the cell stared at him plaintively before baring her teeth and hissing once again. The teeth were thin and sharp like needles, and they faced inward, cutting into her mouth.
Quav.
Balam was nodding, as if reading Kane’s thoughts. The thing in the cell was his foster daughter, or at least an approximation of her based on a flawed genetic template. She had been changed, twisted, turned into the Annunaki form she might one day blossom into.
Balam reached through the stony bars of the cell, the six long fingers of his hand shaking just slightly as he went to touch the girl.
The girl-thing in the cell hissed, flinging her hands at Balam’s, the talons of her fingers sweeping across the cell bars to rip into his pale flesh. Balam pulled his hand away in surprise, whispering Quav’s name sorrowfully as he did so. There was no recognition in the girl’s uneven eyes, just hate. She was an animal.
Balam stood in the tunnellike corridor, staring at the cell door with his wide, expressive eyes. He was shaking, Kane saw, just a slight quiver to his shoulders. “A clone,” he confirmed, reading the thing’s mind.
“Balam,” Kane said slowly, “I want you to step away. Go back down the corridor and wait for me.”
“Kane, I see no sense in that,” Balam replied. “I am well able to cope with—”
“Just go down the corridor,” Kane cut him off.
Wary of further argument, Balam stepped back, making his way to the far end of the corridor. Beside the cell, Kane brought his right hand up, pointing it toward the thing grasping at him through the narrow stone bars. With a practiced flinch of his wrist tendons, the Sin Eater appeared in Kane’s hand for just a second, launching from its hidden wrist holster and striking his palm comfortably, its guardless trigger meeting with Kane’s crooked index finger. A short burst of fire erupted from the muzzle of the gun, filling the corridor for just a moment with the cacophony of gunfire. Then the weapon had returned to its hiding place, and Kane came walking back down the corridor toward Balam.
At the far end of the corridor, Balam eyed Kane with a faint appreciation. “You killed her. There was no need to do that,” he said.
“Yes, there was,” Kane told him, his mouth a grim line across his tired face. “There may be more of these things, stillborn clones created to emulate Little Quav. No good can possibly come of cloning her.”
“I do not believe he was cloning her,” Balam said. “I suspect he was testing the limits of her endurance. That thing had Annunaki traits, as well as hybrid ones. He is looking to catalyze the change.”
“Test subjects, then.” Kane nodded. “We should stop that.”
“Kane, the chrysalis wasn’t to grow Quav,” Balam said. “It was to test her cells. Ullikummis must be planning to bring forth his mother, Ninlil, from her genetic template. But to do that would require a genetic factory—it would require
Tiamat.
”
“
Tiamat
’s gone,” Kane dismissed. “I saw it with my own eyes. She blew up in the outer atmosphere.”
“Things Annunaki seldom die entirely,” Balam warned.
Kane was thinking faster now, beginning to see the angles involved. “But if
Tiamat
is alive, then how do we find her? She’s a spaceship and space is pretty big.”
“We can use the chair,” Balam stated simply.
Chapter 6
“Where are we, Brigly?” Little Quav asked. She was looking up to Brigid Haight’s ocean-colored eyes as they marched past the pillars of rock that Ullikummis had placed to cordon off the city. All around them, the army of Ullikummis grew from the impossible reaches of the swirling quantum portal, swarming into the deserted city of the dragon.
Brigid flicked her gaze down to take in the girl properly, seeing her sweet face looking up at her with that strange blend of curiosity and hope in her pale eyes. Brigid had been thinking about the colors hidden in the interphase jump, the sky blue with its golden swirls like lightning, the flecks of green and red hidden in its depths. For a moment, she could see that pattern as if it had been burned into her memory, could feel the serenity those colors seemed to bring. In that moment, she didn’t know hate. In that moment, she was not Haight at all.
“What is it, child?” Brigid asked, recovering herself to the here, to the now.
“Where are we, Brigly?” Quav asked once more, looking around her as Ullikummis’s troops hurried past on their way to the dragon’s torso at the core of the dead city.
Brigid reached down with her free hand, running it gently through Little Quav’s downy hair. “You’re almost home, darling,” she said. “Almost home.”
* * *
F
ROM
ATOP
the pale-colored rooftop in the city, Grant and Rosalia watched Ullikummis’s loyal troops swarm into the streets of bone. Grant looked to where the great dragon head loomed above the buildings, waiting emotionlessly in the center of the strange structure. They were perhaps five miles from that central hull, but the pathways to it were labyrinthine, following the addling design of the corpuscles that should flood through the great dragon’s wings. The wings themselves stretched as mighty crescents along the banks of the Euphrates, two great quarter moons poised and ready to take flight.
“So, Magistrate, what are we going to do?” Rosalia asked, as just below them hundreds of troops surged in from the city limits.
“Ullikummis will section off the city,” Grant said, extrapolating from what he had just seen. “Close in on the center where Enlil is housed.
“Of course, he doesn’t know Enlil’s down for the count,” the ex-Mag added sourly. “Ironically, that might have been the one thing that would stop him. I wouldn’t have placed a wager on who would win in a fight between Enlil and Ullikummis.”
“But now?” Rosalia prompted. Down below them, strange stone-skinned dogs howled as they trotted ahead through the streets, leading the way and searching for the best route to the center. The bodies of the hounds were long, and they weaved through the turn-around-again streets like liquid, their stone bodies darting ahead of the surging mob in dark blurs.
Grant pondered Rosalia’s question for a moment. “Now, Ullikummis can take control of whatever’s left of
Tiamat
unchallenged,” he reasoned. “And even though she’s dying, that’s still a whole lot wide of ideal for us.
Tiamat
’s full of Annunaki secrets, evolutionary sequencing codes that encourage perverted genetic tampering. Hell, you saw what the ship did to those people who got caught up in its grasp. They were turned into Annunaki, or at least Annunaki-lite. The ship’s reeling just now, but...”
“Enlil regrew her,” Rosalia realized. “So there’s always the chance that Ullikummis—or someone else—could do the same.”
“Exactly,” Grant confirmed with a brisk nod. “It’ll take too long to get that bombing raid set up. We have to find a way to stop him before he gets there.”
As he spoke, one of the stone dogs trotted up the steps that clung to the side of the building. The dog’s long snout twitched as it sniffed at the air, ears flicking as it listened. It had sensed them, strangers on the rooftop above it. The beast was powerfully built, its torso and limbs corded muscle that writhed like snakes beneath the stone-hard covering of its skin. Reaching the top of the steps, the dog sniffed at the air again, eyes narrowing as it sought a way to get higher. Then, with a grunt, the dog pounced up, hind legs slapping against the opposing wall, using its momentum to reach the roof.
“What th—?” Grant began, but already the dog had spied them and was barreling across the roof.
There was next to no time to react. Grant merely stood his ground, raising his right hand and commanding the Sin Eater into its palm once again, firing a swift burst as the dog leaped at them. A flurry of 9 mm
molybdenum-shelled bullets struck the hound’s stone body, impacting like hailstones against tarmac, bouncing away in the blink of an eye with sparks of angry light.
Then the dog was on Grant, knocking him a half-dozen steps backward and forcing him onto the hard surface of the roof.
Rosalia leaped aside, pulling the Ruger P-85 pistol from its holster at her hip as she whirled in the air. In a moment a triburst of Parabellum bullets drilled through the air, hurtling toward the muscular beast as it jostled for position over Grant, furiously snapping its jaws.
It was a powerful beast, and its body had the length and thickness of a circus strongman. Its legs were long and rangy, its jaw a pronounced snout lined with thick, blunted teeth, each of which was two inches wide. As Rosalia’s bullets ricocheted from the creature’s thick torso, Grant rammed the nose of his Sin Eater into its throat, driving it up and away from him with a powerful thrust.
“Get down, Fido,” Grant snarled, squeezing the trigger of his Sin Eater.
A burst of fire cut the air, the loud shots echoing back to Grant from the high-walled buildings around. The dog grumbled something then fell back, a line of indentations along its neck where the bullets had struck at point-blank range.
With a powerful shove, Grant pushed the beast away from him, sending it rolling across the bone roof.
The hound struggled to recover for a moment as Rosalia fired another shot at it from her Ruger. The bullet struck straight between the beast’s almost human eyes. Then the creature powered itself back to its feet and lunged for Grant once again where he was just pulling himself up off the rooftop. Without stopping to think, Grant threw his arms up and snagged the beast’s
monstrous forepaws, using its own momentum against it as he tossed it over his shoulder and over the side of the roof. He and Rosalia watched as the dog hurtled down to the street, falling amid a crowd of a dozen or so troopers. The loyal troops stopped in place, glaring up at the rooftop with angry eyes.
“Nice one, Magistrate,” Rosalia hissed.
* * *
K
UDO
HURRIED
away from the sounds of the massing army, the childlike form of Domi asleep in his arms. He had served as a Tiger of Heaven for many years, and had never once shown fear despite the dreadful tasks he had been occasioned to perform. Now, however, his voice shook as he spoke to Brewster Philboyd via the portable comm unit.
“I require the interphase portal to be opened at the earliest juncture,” he urged as he ran past the clumped vegetation that lined the area close to the Euphrates. “There are sinister forces massing here. It would not do to wait too long.”
“I have you at about two miles out now,” Philboyd replied. “I’ll track you until you’re a half mile in sight, then we’ll send someone out.”
Kudo slowed his pace just slightly as he spotted figures moving about in the vegetation directly ahead of him. Farmers, or acolytes to Ullikummis, he couldn’t be sure. “Do you have any idea whom that might be, Philboyd?” he asked quietly, speaking into the comm.
Kudo heard Brewster snort. “The way personnel is looking here, it could very likely be me,” he said.
Crouching, Kudo placed the unconscious Domi on the ground before he rose again. “No field operatives with combat experience?” Kudo queried.
“Kane’s out in the field already,” Brewster told him, “while Edwards is out of action. We don’t have anyone. Why do you ask?”
“No matter,” Kudo said, curtailing the conversation. A moment later, he drew the short
wakizashi
blade from its position by his hip, taking a deep, steadying breath as the tempered steel caught the rays of the morning sun. The blade was thirteen inches in length, more like a bread knife than a combat sword, but it was all that Kudo had left. His
katana
had been lost while he was aboard
Tiamat.
The
wakizashi
would have to do—its razor-sharp line was decorated with two Japanese characters forming a simple motto.
Kudo halted, watching as the three figures trekked toward him. He recognized the hooded robe of the lead figure before he heard the woman speak, challenging Kudo with a bark. “Faithless nonbeliever,” she shouted. “Pledge allegiance on the battlefield of Ullikummis.” Behind her, two people dressed in more normal clothes followed, but their expressions were intense as if suffering a fever.
Kudo held his free hand up before him, the short sword clutched behind his body at a downward angle. “Halt,” he instructed. “Come no closer. I mean you no ill will.”
“Faithless one,” the lead woman snarled, “you will pledge your allegiance or you will be converted.”
“I have no time for this,” Kudo warned. “My friend is sick and I will pass. Step aside.” They were still fifteen feet apart in the field of forgotten crops, but there was no cover that he might use. The tallest of the leafy plants in the field came only to his knees.
The robed woman reached to the crude leather pouch hanging at her waist, plucking a handful of stones from its contents. Kudo did not allow her to load her
slingshot. His feet slapped against the hard-packed soil as he ran at her, his lips peeling back to reveal a grimace.
As the enforcer produced her catapult-like device—just a loop of leather that could be loaded with the stones—Kudo ducked and sprang, driving the tip of his tooled blade at her face. The woman launched the first of her stones at him, but he was already too close, weaving in past her attack. Then his blade whizzed past her face, missing her by just a quarter inch.
“I am stone,” the woman hissed, entering the trancelike state that allowed those loyal to Ullikummis to tap his formidable strength.
Kudo had heard of this from the Cerberus crew, but he had not experienced it close-up before. He slashed at her again with his blade, slicing through the fustian robe and plunging its tip into her breast. She just stood there, not even wincing as the knife struck, and Kudo felt the tip of his blade hit something hard. He pulled his hand back and watched as the cut robe parted. Beneath, the woman wore a simple cotton undershirt, and this was ripped, too, in a line where the
wakizashi
had sliced it. And beneath that, her skin was unblemished, with no sign of blood on her exposed flesh.
With the heightened awareness of his surroundings that combat brought, Kudo was conscious that the other two figures were getting nearer, stragglers from Ullikummis’s mighty land army. He spun on his heel, taking them in with a glance before turning back to the woman in the robe. She posed the biggest threat, he realized, since she was what had been dubbed a “firewalker,” those who could enter the trancelike state that made their bodies as hard as stone. Not so long ago, she would have been a normal woman, a wife or mother,
someone’s sister, perhaps. Yet now, here she was, enraptured in the thrall of Ullikummis—a monster from the stars.
The robed woman was loading her slingshot for a second assault, and Kudo sidestepped as the tiny shinglelike stones zipped through the air at him, cutting through the space between the two combatants like bullets. Kudo gasped as one of the stones caught him, slicing through the supple armor at his arm and leaving a bloody line across his deltoid.
With a fierce battle cry, Kudo lunged for the woman again, bringing the
wakizashi
in a short arc like a punch, driving it at her face. There was the crack of bone, a squelch and the woman was staggering backward, the leather slingshot dropping from her hand.
Kudo stood over her as she tripped and slumped to her knees with her hands coming up to her face. His blade had cut straight through her left eyeball, severing the optic nerve and cleaving the eye in two. It wasn’t something he was proud to have done; it was simply the only weak spot he could think of in the woman’s stonelike form.
Kudo turned to the approaching figures of the faithful, the congealing remains of the woman’s eye dripping from his blade. “Step aside and let me pass,” he told them in an ominous tone.
The figures looked at him blankly, uncertain what to do. After a moment they turned their attention to their fallen colleague, tending to her as she sobbed in agony. Her concentration was broken and her ability to tap the stone had departed.
Kudo ignored them, hurrying back to where he had left Domi and plucking her up in his strong arms. A moment later he was on his way, leaving the warriors for Ullikummis to whatever fate they sought. He had no time to deal with these people; he merely needed to get home.
* * *
U
LLIKUMMIS
WATCHED
with pride as the surging crowds of his faithful hurried into the mazelike streets of the settlement that had been dubbed Dragon City. He recalled the armies of a bygone era, over four thousand years before, when thousands of these apekin had been recruited to do the bidding of their betters, the Annunaki, fighting to the death over narrow strips of territory. It had been a vainglorious exercise in those days, a way for the Annunaki to extract tribute from the primitives of this planet of mud and water. And it had served the purpose, too, of reminding the apekin who their betters were and just what they were capable of, when finally the two Annunaki overlords met in a showdown, striking each other savage blows amid the billowing winds and fertile ground of the Euphrates basin.
The tales of those clashes had become legend, recorded on stone tablets, many of which had survived even to this day. It had been artifice, of course, mere show disguising the true nature of the Annunaki squabbles. All that thunder and lightning, the drama of the god wars, had served to tell a story, a narrative that the apekin could follow and believe, never truly comprehending the real nature of those blood battles. Multidimensional beings, the Annunaki were gods and they hated as only gods could hate and they battled as only gods could battle. No apekin—no man—could ever witness the true arenas in which those battles were won or lost.