Outlanders 22 Dragon Eye, page 1
Prologue
Domi returned the red-eyed glare of the slavering three-headed hound on the wall. She wondered briefly if their fangs were bared in snarls or grins. At the moment, she felt like doing both.
Grasping the green lever set into the wall beside the illustration of Cerberus, she pulled it to a midpoint positron. With a rumble and whine of buried hydraulics and gears, the massive sec door began folding aside, opening like an accordion. The door was so heavy, it took nearly half a minute for it to open just enough to allow her to step out onto the mountain plateau.
Sunrise flooded the broad plateau with a golden radiance, striking highlights from the scraps of the chain-link fence enclosing the perimeter. The air smelled fresh, rich with the hint of spring growth wafting up from the foothills far below. It still earned a chill and she shivered.
Domi aimed at the sound of a footfall behind her. Lakesh stepped through the opening in the sec door, smoothing down his hair, still disheveled from sleep. He gazed reproachfully at her with bleary eyes.
"Darlingest one," he said severely, "you could have waited for me. I'm not my best for early in the morning. Besides, what can be so important that you rouse me literally at the crack of dawn and tell me to follow you out here?"
Quietly, as if she feared waking the other residents of the redoubt, she said, "We have guests arriving." Lakesh's eyes went wide in surprise, then narrowed with a wary skepticism. "How can you possibly know that?”
"A trans-comm call came in a little while ago," she replied, "Farrell received it. He woke me up to tell me he couldn't find you."
"A trans-comm call?" Lakesh echoed incredulously. ''From whom?''
“Sky Dog"
Lakesh nodded in understanding. Sky Dog and his band of Sioux and Cheyenne were the Cerberus redoubt's nearest neighbors—its only neighbors for that matter. Only a year or so before, direct contact had been established between the redoubt's personnel and the tribes people. Kane had managed to turn a potentially tragic misunderstanding into an alliance with Sky Dog.
Not so much a chief as a shaman, a warrior priest, Sky Dog was Cobaltville-bred like Kane, Grant and Brigid. Unlike them, he had been exiled from the ville while still a youth, due to his Lakota ancestry. He joined a band of Cheyenne and Sioux living in the foothills of the Bitterroot Range and eventually earned a position of high authority and respect among them.
Kane, on one of his visits, had entrusted the man with one of the trans-comm units. Though its range was limited to a couple of miles, it was better than no means of communication at all.
"So when Sky Dog made the call," Lakesh said, "he was already in sight of our front door"
"Why is he coming here at such an ungodly hour?" "He's bringing..." Domi paused as if groping for the proper term. "Something that belongs to Kane." Lakesh frowned, becoming annoyed at the vague information Domi was supplying. "Something he left in the village during one of his trips down there? That makes no sense. Whatever it was, it couldn't have been that important."
Domi turned to favor him with an intense stare he found discomfiting. "No, Lakesh," she said softly, "it's not something he left in the village. It's something Kane never talked about with anybody here. He never talked about it with me, either, but that's because I already knew about it. Or I knew that possibly this day might come."
Lakesh shivered, but it wasn't due to the chill in the air. Fingers of dread knotted in his stomach. "This involves your captivity in Area 51, doesn't it?" She nodded once, a short jerk of her white-haired head, and she fell silent. Lakesh waited for her to say more. He was on the verge of demanding further explanation, when the steady clop-clop of hooves on asphalt reached his ears.
Domi tensed, watching the point where the plateau narrowed down into the road. The sound grew louder and Lakesh realized two horses were approaching, coming up the incline. Silhouetted against the rising sun, two figures mounted on horseback appeared at the edge of the plateau.
"Sky Dog," Domi murmured.
Lakesh had never met the shaman, permitting Kane to act as both ambassador and liaison. He squinted at the second figure astride a pony. Even in the uncertain light, he could are the figure was very slight of build, almost childlike. A blanket lay draped over the head and shoulders.
"Who is that other one?" Lakesh asked.
Domi didn't answer. She strode quickly forward to meet them. Sky Dog reined his horse to a halt and gestured to her. "Hou, mita cola, Domi. It's been a while."
Domi acknowledged the comment with a jittery smile. She moved swiftly to the other mounted person and spoke in such low murmurs, Lakesh couldn't catch a single word. He glanced up at Sky Dog. The man's face was lean and sharply planed with wide cheekbones and narrow eyes the color of obsidian. Shiny black hair plaited in two braids fell almost to his waist. Behind his right ear a single white eagle feather dangled.
"I'm Sky Dog," he said pleasantly. "I don't believe I've had the pleasure,"
Lakesh stepped forward, .extending a hand. "My name is Lakesh. I've heard a lot about you, sir." Sky Dog's eyes flashed with surprise. "Same here, Lakesh. I have to confess you don't look anything like the man I expected:'
He clasped Lakesh's hand tightly. Lakesh winced a bit at the strength of the man's grip and replied, "I've had what used to be called a makeover. What brings you here?"
Sky Dog's face registered surprise a second time. "You mean you don't know?"
He jerked his head toward the blanket-swathed figure whom Domi was helping dismount. "She showed up in my village two days ago, begging to be brought here. She claimed she knew all of you, particularly Kane. She said it was a matter of life and death." Lakesh gazed suspiciously at the figure. "Whose life?"
When the blanket dropped, his suspicious gaze became a gape of goggle-eyed shock. The hybrid female was small, smaller even than Domi. Her huge, up-slanting eyes of clear crystal blue gave Lakesh a silent appraisal. They looked haunted. White hair the texture of silk threads fell from her domed-shaped skull and curled inward at her slender shoulders.
Her compact, tiny-breasted form was encased in a silvery-gray, skintight bodysuit, which only accentuated the distended condition of her belly. Lakesh's experience with pregnant women was exceptionally slight, but he guessed she was at least six months along.
Holding her belly with both long-fingered hands, she said in a high, almost childlike voice, "This life. My name is Quavell, and I have traveled a very long way in order to save it."
Lakesh stared at the woman's interlinked fingers and the belly swelling beneath them as if he had never seen anything like either before. Distantly, he realized that not only had he never seen a pregnant hybrid, but also the possibility that one might exist never occurred to him, so his fascination was understandable if a bit rude.
Domi cleared her throat peremptorily, and Lakesh's eyes flicked toward her. Standing beside Quavell, he was struck by the resemblance between the two women. A curvaceous white wraith, barely five feet tall, Domi's flesh was the color of a beautiful pearl and her ragged mop of hair the hue of bone. Although petite, she was exquisitely formed.
On either side of a high-bridged nose, her eyes gleamed like polished rubies. She wore a black T-shirt and a pair of red, high-cut shorts that showed off her pale, gamin-slim legs.
In a halting voice, Lakesh said to Quavell, "Forgive me staring. I've never seen a hybrid in your condition. You look like a child."
The corners of Quavell's lips quirked in what he interpreted as a patronizing smile. "I am sixty-seven of your years old, Mohandas Lakesh Singh. You do not look your age, either."
Lakesh's hand reflexively went up to touch his glossy black hair. His restored youth—or more accurately, his restored early middle age—was the only tangible result of his encounter with Sam, the self- proclaimed imperator of the baronies. He still remembered with vivid clarity how Sam, who resembled a ten-year-old boy, had accomplished the miracle by the simple laying on of hands.
Lakesh knew the process was far more complex than that, but he could engage only in fairly futile speculation as to how it had been accomplished. He assumed Sam possessed the ability to transfer his biological energy to other organic matter, which in turn stimulated the entire human cellular structure. Beyond that, Lakesh could only guess. He theorized the energy transfer might have rejuvenated the MHC in the six chromosomal structures, which resulted in turning back the hands of the metabolic clock persuading the cells to reproduce and repair themselves.
Regardless of how Sam had done it, Lakesh knew his youth and vitality was not bestowed without a price. At this juncture he didn't know what he would eventually have to pay out. So far, the restoration had been beneficial; particularly since his sex drive had also been stimulated—kicked into overdrive, actually, if Domi's opinion was to be taken seriously.
Sky Dog swung off his horse, commenting, "Apparently nothing and no one up here in the Darks is what they appear to be." He nodded toward Domi. "The last time I saw you, you were only a black scorch mark."
Domi acknowledged the observation with a wry grin. "I got better!'
"So Unktomi Shunkaha told me.” Sky Dog used Kane's Lakota name, which meant 'Trickster Wolf." Hands on his hips, Sky Dog surveyed the plateau and the great gray peak towering over it. "From below, this looks nothing like the Cerberus redoubt."
"It's not supposed to," Lakesh replied distractedly. When the Cerberus facility was built in the late twentieth century, it was designed with maximum impenetrability and secrecy in mind. Although they couldn't be noticed from the plateau, an elaborate system of heat-sensing warning devices, night-vision vid cameras and motion-trigger alarms surrounded the mountain peak.
Planted within rocky clefts of the peak and concealed by camouflage netting were the uplinks with an orbiting Vela-class reconnaissance satellite and a Comsat. It could be safely assumed that no one or nothing could approach Cerberus undetected by land or by air—not that there was much reason to do so. The few people who lived in the region held the Bitterroot Range, colloquially known as the Darks, in superstitious regard. Due to their mysteriously shadowed forests and deep, dangerous ravines, a sinister body of myths had grown up around the Darks. Every exile in the redoubt went to great pains to maintain the enduring myths about evil spirits that lurked in the mountain passes to devour body and soul.
The redoubt was constructed primarily of vanadium alloy, and all design and construction specs had been aimed at making the seat of the Totality Concept's Project Cerberus a self-sufficient community of at least a hundred people, although Lakesh preferred to think of the tri-level, thirty-acre facility as a sanctuary. The redoubt contained a frightfully well-equipped armory and two dozen self-contained apartments, a cafeteria, a decontamination center, an infirmary, a swimming pool and even detention cells on the bottom level.
The Cerberus redoubt had weathered the nukecaust of January 20, 2001 and all the earth changes that came after. Its radiation shielding was still intact, and its nuclear generators still provided an almost eternal source of power. The facility also had a limestone filtration system that continually recycled the complex's water supply.
Blue eyes still fixed on Quavell, Lakesh asked, "How did you get to Sky Dog's village—and from where?"
Matter-of-factly, Quavell answered, "I drove in an overland conveyance you refer to as a Sandcat. I came from Nevada."
"Groom Lake?" Lakesh's tone was a mixture of surprise and incredulity. "You drove from Area 51 all by yourself in your condition?"
Quavell shrugged as if the matter were of little importance. "I must speak with Kane."
Lakesh hesitated a moment before replying, "He is not here at present."
She cocked her head at him, a quizzical gesture he found eerily familiar. "When will he return?"
"I couldn't say, madam."
"Where is he?" A touch of impatience, a hint of the hybrid arrogance he had grown to know and despise, edged her voice.
Lakesh didn't know what to say or even how much to tell her, so he elected to stay silent. To his surprise, Domi stated, "The Moon."
Quavell's mild expression showed no more reaction to Domi's declaration than if she had said, "In the shower."
Sky Dog's response was not so restrained. He swept Domi with a slit-eyed stare, then tilted his head back, scanning the orange-pink tapestry of the dawn sky. "Did I hear you right?" he demanded. "Did you say the Moon?"
Lakesh shrugged. "She did. He, Grant and Brigid are on the Moon. Or at least I hope they are, since that was their intended destination."
Sky Dog's normally stoic expression molded itself into one of disbelief. "How did they get there?" "It's a long story."
Lakesh extended a hand toward Quavell. "Please come inside. It probably wouldn't be out of order to schedule an examination With DeFore, our resident expert in medical matters."
Quavell didn't remove her hands from her belly, but she stepped forward. "I am in perfect health, else I would not have been able to make the cross-country journey. I would like something to eat, however."
Sky Dog grunted disapprovingly. "She didn't care for my people's cuisine."
"As I told you," Quavell said, crossing the tarmac toward the open sec door, "my refusal to partake of your food had little if anything to do with matters of palate. It has to do with differing metabolisms." Lakesh caught the shaman's eye. "You're welcome, too, of course. Give me a few minutes, and I'll arrange the fifty-cent tour of the installation. You've certainly earned it."
Sky Dog nodded gravely. "Thank you I'll put the animals out to graze and hobble them. I'll join you in a bit."
Lakesh escorted Quavell and Domi through the sec door and into the redoubt. Quavell eyed the lurid illustration of the three-headed black hound painted on the wall. Fire and blood gushed between yellow fangs, the crimson eyes glared bright and baleful. Underneath it, in ornate Gothic script was written one word, Cerberus.
"The guardian of the gates of Hell," she said quietly. "Appropriate symbolism inasmuch as Project Cerberus was devoted to ripping asunder the gates of the quantum stream."
Lakesh felt his eyebrows crawling toward his hair line at the woman's casual encapsulation of what was once one of the most deep, dark secrets of the twentieth century. He had assumed that only the elite of the ville societies, the barons, their personal staffs and members of the Trust were even aware of the project's code name, much less what it entailed.
Domi took Quavell by the elbow and guided her down the twenty-foot-wide, vanadium-sheathed corridor "To the cafeteria or the infirmary first?" she asked Lakesh over her shoulder.
Lakesh caught up with the two women and put himself in front of them. He put out a hand and they came to sudden halts. In a soft, grim voice he said, "I didn't want to show bad manners in front of Sky Dog, but now that we are alone I demand some answers.”
Quavell looked up into his face, her crystal blue eyes as placid as the surface of a frozen-over lake. "Actually, you want only one. Am I carrying Kane's child?"
"Are you?"
Quavell smiled in way that was almost pitying. "That's one reason I am here, Mohandas Lakesh Singh. We'll find out together, if your resident expert in medical matters is truly an expert."
Lakesh's eyebrows knitted at the bridge of his nose. "You didn't make a long, dangerous journey by yourself to settle an issue of patrimony, Quavell. What are the other reasons?"
The smile tied Quavell's lips. "The old ways die slow and hard." Her voice was scarcely above a rustling whisper. "But they die at last. I am here to make sure the child I carry does not perish with them."
Chapter 1
The Moan, The Great North Chasm
With one hand on the rock Wail, Grant moved through the cavern. The wall curved gradually to the left, and he saw the source of the light. A misty blue glow permeated a gallery, seeming to emanate from the walls like fog. He entered cautiously, noting the glow was a kind of phosphorescence.
As he walked deeper into the gallery, he saw droplets of condensation beading his helmet's faceplate. It took his oxygen-starved brain a moment to understand the implications, and he came to a sudden halt. He gazed around, seeing the gleam of moisture on stone and vaporous steam arising from points all over the Blue Gallery, as he had named it. The steam wafted up from what appeared to be a peat bog at the far end of the gallery and the sight rooted him in his tracks. Grant recalled what Philboyd had said about volcanism in the Moon, and he wondered if he had stumbled into a little pocket of such activity, like a hot spring.
Grant realized if there was steam, then there was some sort of atmosphere. After a few seconds of trying to ponder the pros and cons, he undid the seals on his helmet and tentatively lifted it off. He sniffed the air experimentally and despite his impaired sense of smell, a stench like a thousand open cesspits assaulted his nostrils. The air was thick, clammy and fetid, but it was breathable. However, the stench was so repulsive he wasn't sure if he didn't prefer suffocating inside his helmet.
Nevertheless, he stood there and inhaled slowly through his mouth, enriching his lungs. By degrees, his fierce headache ebbed, even though a sulfurous taste coated his tongue. He had no idea how there could be an atmosphere of any sort within the Moon, but he wasn't inclined to investigate the mystery. He would leave that up to Brigid. A muted, stealthy sound reached his ears. A breathable atmosphere also conducted sound, and he tried to quiet his respiration. Dim shapes came into view, moving out through the haze from the right. Dropping to his hands and knees, Grant crawled headlong into the peat bog, algae occluding his vision. He struck out for the far side, moving through the muck as quietly as he could. His boots struck solid footing, and he pushed himself across the pond. The bottom rose beneath him, slanting upward, and he lifted his head onto the bank. The patrol was behind him, and they were also turned away. Grant crawled up onto the cavern floor and kept to the shadows as much as possible. Stealthily, he slipped through the haze-shrouded gallery. Keeping always within the shadows of the outcroppings, he crept soundlessly over the cavern floor. He breathed more easily when he couldn't see so much as an outline of the patrol.
