Outlanders 20 Prodigal Chalice, page 2
As a young genius, Lakesh had been heavily recruited and finally drafted into the treachery that had been the Totality Concept. His fields of physics and cybernetics placed him with Project Cerberus, the division that dealt with matter transfer via hyperdimensional travel.
Lakesh glanced at the mat-trans unit at the other end of the room. The brown armaglass walls gleamed dully. His research had been partially responsible for the final design of the mat-trans units. They had been secretly built and scattered around the world, hidden away in redoubts just like the one here at Cerberus, allowing for instantaneous transportation of people and materials.
But the gifts of the Archons hadn't come without price. The Archons brought about the world war that had destroyed all the superpowers and plunged human civilization back into the Dark Ages.
That human civilization, however, had proved incredibly resourceful. For the past two centuries, the survivors of sky-dark had been crawling back up to the top of the food chain.
Immediately after the nukecaust, Lakesh had volunteered to be cryogenically frozen and placed in the Anthill, the Totality Concept's largest hidden facility. He was supposed to be part of the subsequent Program of Unification, an effort designed solely to take over what was left of the world.
Once he had been revived, Lakesh saw the errors in his judgment. As senior archivist in Cobaltville, he had spent years plotting against the ruthless designs of the Archons. It had taken almost fifty years to find a group of people with enough strength, cunning and resources to stand against the baronial alliance. And the group he had gone to such pains to select often did not agree with the goals he set or the means with which he chose to pursue them.
Lakesh glanced at the Mercator map again. The world was so big, and yet there had to be some way to set everything aright that he had unwittingly helped go so horribly wrong. That guilt colored everything he did, and his confidence that he would find a way kept him going on day after day.
This day was one of the days Lakesh felt trapped. The, need to be out and doing something was incredible.
He paced the room and tried to work off some of the excess nervous energy.
"You're going to give yourself a coronary if you keep that pacing up," an amused female voice stated.
Recognizing the voice immediately, Lakesh turned and faced the woman. "Good afternoon, my dear Dr. DeFore. Welcome to my sanctum sanctorum."
DeFore smiled warily. 'Said the spider to the fly."' She wore the one-piece white uniform common throughout the redoubt. She was deeply bronzed by natural coloration, and it contrasted sharply with her braided, ash-blond hair. She was buxom and stocky.
Lakesh frowned at the woman. Their relationship was awkward at best. Like Kane and the others, DeFore did not take well to the his organized leadership and centralized control.
"I must assure you, Dr. DeFore, sarcasm does not well suit you."
"Let's split the difference and call it a genetic deficiency because I find my sarcasm very entertaining. The only thing I find lacking is a good audience." DeFore glanced at him and smiled. "However, I usually find a dearth of ammunition."
"As you can see, I am quite busy. If there's anything you need..."
"There's some scuttlebutt going around the redoubt about the latest mission you sent Kane and the others on," DeFore said.
Lakesh stiffened in displeasure. "I see. And you're down here to assuage curiosity on the behalf of the other people here."
"No, I'm here acting in a professional capacity." DeFore crossed her arms over her breasts and glanced at the mat-trans unit. "When I found out Kane and the others had jumped out of here through that thing, I figured I'd come down here and see what kind of damage to expect when they jump back through." She looked at Lakesh. "They are jumping back, aren't they?"
"My dear doctor, I appreciate your enthusiasm for your professional responsibilities, but I assure you this is nothing more than a—what do Kane and Grant call these sorties?"
"A soft-probe recon," Donald Bry called from his workstation. He was the leading tech at the redoubt and usually oversaw all of the group's away missions. He was a small man in a white lab coat with rounded shoulders and copper- colored hair.
"Do you see, my dear doctor?" Lakesh asked. "Even the name is innocuous."
DeFore changed her attention to Bry. "Where are they?"
"Almost as close to what used to be Houston as they can get," Bry said, "without stepping off into the Gulf of Mexico." He watched the comp screen in front of him.
"And they're well?" DeFore asked.
"Dr. DeFore, if Kane and the others weren't all right, surely you would realize they would already have been down to visit you in the med bay," Lakesh said irritably. He never liked being questioned, especially about things that he intended to keep private. Despite the fact Cerberus personnel all ultimately worked toward the same goals—those goals being, for the most part, the goals that Lakesh designed—not all of them needed daily updates.
"I figured that depended a lot on how many pieces of themselves they had to find first," DeFore stated.
Lakesh let out a long breath. "I'm afraid, Dr. DeFore, that I no longer find your sarcasm inviting in any manner whatsoever."
"I just want to know more about what's going on," DeFore said.
"You'll know when you need to know, my dear doctor.”
"All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.' Is that what you're implying?" DeFore gazed steadily at Lakesh with arched brows.
A brief spate of quiet and contained laughter came from Bry at his workstation, but he quickly covered it by feigning a cough.
Lakesh shook his head. He really didn't want to deal with this now. Ever since Kane had arrived at the redoubt, his rebellious ways had seemed to spread. Everything would work so much easier if all those involved would simply recognize the fact that someone needed to be in control.
"The quote," DeFore said, "is from a book called Animal Farm. It was written by a man named George Orwell, and he had a view of society that I find very appropriate to your way of conducting operations here at Cerberus redoubt."
Lakesh said nothing.
"If you're not familiar with the book," DeFore suggested, "I'll lend you a copy. In fact, you may find that it's getting very popular around here."
"Dr. DeFore, really, I would expect you to find better uses for your time."
"Than reading?" DeFore shook her head. "No, I don't think I can give that up. I find it entirely too enlightening."
Deciding that discretion was the better part of valor, Lakesh capitulated. He gazed up meaningfully at the huge Mercator map. "As you're aware, this map shows the locations of all known mat-trans chambers throughout the world."
"If you're so sure that all of the gateways are shown on this map, then why did you send Kane and the others down to the Gulf of Mexico to investigate a mat-trans unit?"
"If you had all the answers, then why did you come here with questions?"
"You can't believe every rumor that goes through this place," DeFore said.
"Obviously, if people have so much time on their hands for idle chatter, I don't have enough for them to do. Perhaps you would like to help me correct that oversight."
"What is so important about this mat-trans unit?" DeFore asked. "I know that Kane would not have wasted his time or risked his ass on this mission if you hadn't made a believer out of him."
"Actually, friend Kane made a believer out of me this time," Lakesh admitted. "A few weeks ago, friend Bry noticed that an until-now malfunctioning mat-trans unit suddenly went on-line. It's not located in any of the nine baronies."
"Then what are Kane and the others doing down around the Gulf?" DeFore asked. "That's in Samariumville, and definitely one of the baronies."
"Jumping straight to the now-functioning mat-trans unit that we want to investigate didn't seem like such a good idea to Kane and Grant," Lakesh said.
Bry spoke up unexpectedly, still with a little humor in his voice. "They especially didn't like the idea after the probe we sent through was destroyed. Kind of put a damper on the whole picnic."
"Instead," Lakesh said, "Kane and Grant, along with Brigid and darlingest Domi, chose to pursue their investigation in another manner. One that they hoped would be less risky." He walked over to the Mercator map and pointed to a redoubt located west of what had been the Texas-Louisiana state line. "The redoubt here was located on the Grande River. It's little used by any of the baronies because it's located in harsh territory filled with deadly dangers."
"And this is the safest route?"
"This is the route that Kane and Grant elected to travel from." Actually, DeFore's comments reawakened Lakesh's own misgivings about the course of action. The redoubt by the Grande River was not safe by any means. Of late, the area around Redoubt Delta had become a hotbed of slavery.
Seeking to replenish slaves in the Tartarus Pits at Cobaltville, Baron Cobalt had underwritten a massive slave-procuring operation west of the Redoubt Delta area and close to the coastline. To meet the increased supply issues, villes had sprung up in the area.
The Grande River redoubt wasn't used for the slave transportation routes, and in fact was seldom used at all. Crews were outfitted and sent north through what had been Oklahoma and on into Colorado. The Redoubt Delta slavery operation wasn't the only one going on. Several others had been established in the Western Isles and along the Atlantic coastline in Sharpeville.
Slavery operations based in the northern reaches of Cobaltville, Mandeville and Snakefishville staged raids into Ragnarville on a semi-regular basis, taking advantage of the fact that Baron Ragnar had been killed by TARA and the barony was leaderless and in a state of flux.
"Baron Cobalt only runs Magistrates and equipment through the Grande River redoubt two or three times a month," Lakesh said. "It's not used often, and I do have access when it's in use. It was simple to arrange a jump to the Grande River redoubt without Baron Cobalt's knowledge."
"So where is this mysterious mat-trans unit?" DeFore asked.
"It's on the northeastern side of the Yucatan Peninsula," Lakesh said, "in the Gulf of Mexico area. Friend Kane and friend Grant intend to liberate a sailcraft along the coastline and sail it to the Yucatan Peninsula to investigate."
"How much do we know about those areas down there?" DeFore asked.
"Historically, the Yucatan Peninsula is a fascinating place." Lakesh smiled, warming to the subject. "It was the land of the Maya. Most scholars believe the Maya originated sometime between 2600 and 1000 B.C. Most believe that the original people who came to be called the Maya migrated from North America. That is, of course, after they originally migrated from Asia across the Bering Strait when a land bridge connected Alaska and Siberia. In the beginning, what scholars called the Preclassic period, the Maya people were not organized. However, some time during that age, they started to band together, and when they did they recognized chiefs and kings. The idea of royalty followed after that. Their society quickly became very similar to the European nations. They had warriors, nobles, architects, administrators, merchants and farmers, as well as other classes. Later, during the classic period, the Maya people made a number of advances in construction, cosmology, art and science."
DeFore looked at Lakesh. "Weren't the Maya people the ones who believed in Quetzalcoatl?"
"No, that was the Toltecs and Aztecs," Lakesh replied. "He was also called the feathered, or plumed, serpent god. The Aztecs believed Cortez was Quetzalcoatl returning to fulfill an ancient prophecy."
"But it was only the arrival of the Spaniards," DeFore said.
"Exactly," Lakesh agreed. "The Maya called him Kulkulcan, and he was also known as the feathered or plumed serpent. The Toltec of Tula, which was an ancient city in a country called Hidalgo before the nukecaust, moved south into Campeche, the same area that Kane and Grant are headed into. Kulkulcan became their leader in occupied Chichen Itza. Chichen Itza is centrally located in the Yucatan Peninsula and was built around two large cenotes."
"I'm not familiar with that term."
"Cenotes are natural wells," Lakesh supplied. "Chichen Itza is believed to have been an astronomical observatory."
"Didn't the Maya also believe in human sacrifice?" DeFore asked.
"Yes," Lakesh answered.
DeFore studied the Mercator map some more. "I don't suppose there's any chance that Kane and the others will run into any Maya?"
"My dear doctor, there's very little chance of that. Campeche was, until skydark, a tourist area and a source of oil. As I recall, considerable interest was directed to that area because of the offshore oil rigs out in the Gulf. The people who depended on the tourist trade hated the oil refineries that sprang up in the area. The Gulf is also home to a lot of hurricane activity, and there were several accidents involving offshore rigs that affected the wildlife in the area, as well as the tourist trade." Lakesh shook his head. "The people in that area had probably lost most of their cultural attachments long before the nukecaust. After two hundred years of barbarism since that time, I'd think the last thing our friends have to worry about is becoming a human sacrifice to Mayan gods."
"Then what's your interest in the mat-trans unit in Campeche?" DeFore asked.
"A nonfunctioning mat-trans unit simply does not go back on-line after more than two hundred years."
"Are you sure that it hasn't been functional in the past two hundred years?"
Lakesh hesitated. He hated being uncertain, and he hated even more being uncertain in front of others. "No, I can't say that."
"Then why worry about one mat-trans unit going on-line?"
Lakesh shrugged. "I don't think either friend Kane or myself is especially worried about this mat-trans unit, but it could be a good thing to know."
"Do the barons know about this?" DeFore asked.
"Not that I'm aware of, my dear doctor." Lakesh knew DeFore was referring to the eavesdropping system Bry had established through the communications linkup with the Comsat satellite Cerberus had access to.
It was the same system and same satellite they used to track information from the subcutaneous transponders implanted within Cerberus personnel, which relayed location, as well as heart rate, respiration, blood count and brain-wave patterns.
Bry had been working on a system for a long time, and had recently developed an undetected method of patching into the wireless communication channels all of the baronies had in one form or another. The success rate wasn't one hundred percent, but they had been able to eavesdrop on some of the villes and some of the baron-sanctioned operations in the Outlands. They monitored different frequencies on a daily basis. Lately, all the talk among the different baronies had been skewed toward rebuilding much of what they had lost.
"Lakesh!"
Turning toward Bry, noting instantly the agitation in the little man's voice, Lakesh scanned the comp screen at the workstation. "What is it, friend Bry?" he asked.
"It's Kane," Bry said. His stubby fingers rattled the keyboard in front of him. "His heart just stopped."
Chapter 3
Brigid Baptiste ran for her life, but she also ran for the lives of the mother hunched protectively over her child in the center of the clearing.
Pumping her arms, sprinting for all she was worth, Brigid heard the detonations of rounds cycling through different weapons, amazed at how she could identify nearly all of them. She had been born with an eidetic memory that had proved itself basically photographic over the years, so remembering something when she had seen it or heard it wasn't astounding. What was astounding was how much she had been exposed to over the past two years.
As an archivist, she had led a very sheltered life in some respects. She knew about the black-clad Magistrates who patrolled Cobaltville, but she'd had little interaction with them. And she'd had even less interaction with the slaves who toiled in the Tartarus Pits.
Since joining up with Kane and Grant and accompanying them on some of their missions away from Cerberus redoubt, she had learned a lot about cruelty and death. She had learned a lot as an archivist reading all the files for Baron Cobalt. However, that training was nothing like the face-to-face confrontations that Kane and Grant lived.
While hiding in the brush waiting for the proper moment to ambush the slavers, Brigid had felt guilty when the mother stood up for her child. Brigid had known Kane and Grant were delaying for a reason, but waiting had proved hard when she thought it was going to cost the life of the mother.
And maybe Kane would have waited.
That was one of the major differences between them. There was no doubt in Brigid that Kane would save the slaves if at all possible, but she also knew his Magistrate training would allow for sacrifices to be made—if necessary for the greater good.
Now, closing in on the mother and her child, and listening to the drum of gunfire all around her, Brigid knew she had made more than one mistake in the past two minutes. The woman and her child had been left deliberately.
Brigid's breath burned the back of her throat as she ran. Pulling up short, feeling the thick mud skid from under her boots, she looked at the fearful mother holding her child.
Quickly, Brigid aimed her Copperhead at the chain linking the woman and her child to the dead man beside her. The Copperhead danced in Brigid's hands as she squeezed the trigger and held it down. The bullets sparked against the chain, making it jump, but shattered the links
Brigid grabbed the woman by the shoulder and pulled her to her feet. "Go," she ordered. "Get out of here. Get your son out of here."
"Brigid!"
Recognizing Kane's voice, Brigid looked up just in time to see a horseman bearing down on her.
The slaver hauled up his right arm and pointed a revolver at Brigid. A snarling smile covered his face, partially obscured by the horse's flying mane. He was young, but he had a mouthful of splintered and missing teeth. Huge clods spewed out behind the horse as its hooves raked mud from the drying swamp.
