Cradle of Destiny, page 21
“You found him?” Morganstern asked.
“I saw him, nearly touched him,” Shizuka answered.
“We didn’t know,” Waylon said. “I’m sorry.”
Shizuka looked at the pair. “It wasn’t your fault. My counterpart moved, as well. She tore off, leaving Grant behind, separating me from him. I was yelling at myself, at her, as much as anything.”
“Well, according to the data stream we received from your hop, we’ve actually managed to home in on Grant himself,” Morganstern said. “Unfortunately, the way that time travel works might prevent any of you from going back after him.”
“Right. The transmitter cannot release a living being into a time period where it already exists,” Shizuka reminded him. “Don’t forget, I’ve been protecting this island for a while, and I’ve been studying what it does.”
“You think that because an earlier incarnation exists at the target site it would interfere with the flow of time?” Waylon asked. “I simply thought it was a case of biological resonance. Since the incarna is actually composed of different cellular structure, we can deposit Shizuka there if we need to.”
“Can I go or not?” Shizuka asked.
“We can send you,” Waylon confirmed. “I have the trawl ready, and we have temporal coordinates.”
A radio handset on the counter beeped, and Waylon picked it up.
“Thunder Isle, Waylon speaking,” the engineer said.
“You’ll do,” came Kane’s voice, rasping over the speaker. “I’m inside the cockpit of an Annunaki scout ship beneath the court of Urudug. Currently, it’s an inert lump, not a spark of energy left in it. I was wondering if you could do something for me.”
“Check to see if we can access whatever memory banks the scout ship possesses?” Waylon asked. “I’m not certain I want to tangle with even a five-thousand-year-old navigation chair, not from what I heard.”
“Put on your man pants, kid,” Kane grunted. “No navigation chair. This thing is old, and anything biological has dried up and mummified centuries ago. However, Baptiste seems to think that we have crystals that have stored information in them.”
“Crystals. Then that should be simple,” Waylon returned. “All I’d have to do is properly calibrate a laser to read the data. Depending on the type of information compression, we’d get a good display.”
“Dynamic,” Kane said, grunting.
“You’re still in the cockpit?” Morganstern asked. “Is the ship in some form of erect storage?”
“You could say that. I have a feeling that Grant decided it would look better if he stood it up. Either that, or he’s worse at parking than I ever thought,” Brigid said over her Commtact. “Kane, I found another panel.”
“I’ll be there,” the Cerberus explorer replied. “Get to work on the data readers, guys.”
“Kane?” Shizuka spoke up, taking the radio.
“You’re better?” Kane responded.
“Yes. Waylon, Daryl and I might have something more to help narrow the scope of our search,” Shizuka said. She related the tumble through time, the near hallucinogenic encounter she’d had with Grant.
“How come she remembers?” Kane asked.
Waylon pushed his glasses up his flat nose. “We sent you to a different dimension than the one that the time trawl utilizes when it’s working properly. You were in a neighborhood which was either a zone of lost signal or was full of static and noise, utilizing a radio analogy.”
“Or Shizuka’s in a pool, while you dumped me in the sewer pipe,” Kane grumbled.
“A sewer pipe where you found our friend,” Brigid admonished. “We had to be thrown in the same wild trajectory as Grant had gone—otherwise we would have had no idea where he was.”
“True,” Kane muttered. “I wouldn’t have been able to get Grant out of the sewer if I were swimming in clean water.”
Brigid cleared her throat. “Shizuka, you have confirmed that Gi Malesh is a woman from your flicker in that time?”
“Yes, and I can see that Grant has lost pieces of his intellect,” Shizuka said. “He seemed to be in full fighting trim, and he recognized me. He’s sitting astride the time. Stretched out, blurred, at least according to how it looked from my vantage point.”
“That being sitting at a right angle to the time and place Grant was,” Kane concluded.
“Yes, though it was more like looking through a pond. He was mostly submerged, with just the back of his head and shoulders poking above the surface,” Shizuka said.
“Which explained why he was able to see you,” Brigid replied. “He was at a vantage point where he could see in time, as well as outside of it.”
“Any idea of what the two of them were doing?” Kane asked.
“Like I said before, Malesh seemed to be in a hurry, and Grant was holding his sword, looking at both of us with concern on his face,” Shizuka explained. “I want to come with you when it’s time to pick up Grant.”
“More likely we need you there,” Kane returned. “According to some of the theories being thrown out by our quantum physicists, adding you to the equation would actually help us hone in on him better.”
“Thank you,” Shizuka replied.
“Waylon, Daryl, good job, you two,” Kane said over the radio. “I owe you.”
THE CERBERUS redoubt’s laser laboratory was uncommonly crowded as Waylon adjusted the filter on the main emitter. One of the crystals taken from the Annunaki ship sat in a cradle a few inches from the lens.
Lakesh, Bry, Bryant, Morganstern, Shizuka, Kane, Domi and Brigid Baptiste were all in attendance, each of them wearing a pair of heavily polarized lenses as protection in case of an errant beam reflecting off an imperfection in the crystal. While the laser wasn’t operating at a voltage necessary to cause injury in the form of heat burns, its candlepower was more than sufficient to destroy the rods and cones that made up the inner eye. Permanent blindness was always a consideration when it came to working with light amplification on even this scale.
Waylon stepped back, then pressed the button on a remote control. The laser hummed to life.
Kane sighed. “I don’t think it’s working. Where’s the beam?”
“This isn’t a targeting laser, Kane. Nor is it the energy weaponry you’ve been encountering of late,” Waylon told him. “Right now, I’m working off some pretty old school technology. You’ve heard of laser disk and DVDs, haven’t you?”
“You mean like the vids in the rec center,” Kane answered. “Yes.”
“This is operating on the same frequency as the vid players. It’s beaming out, agitating the crystal in order to scan the information stored within,” Waylon said. “Where did this crystal come from?”
“It was beneath the helm of the scout ship,” Brigid explained. She repressed a smile at the knowledge that Kane had had to hang upside down to acquire it, grunting and snorting with effort. Had he not been wearing a shadow suit under his jeans, Brigid could easily see him in the role of a plumber from a twentieth-century television comedy, replete with butt cleavage.
“It was a hell of a lot of work,” Kane said. “I just don’t want it to be in vain.”
Waylon looked up at the screen. Mathematical equations were racing across it, and he swallowed. “Daryl, it’s your turn.”
Morganstern stepped to a work terminal that was displaying the same scrolling data. “Thrust vectors and course indications. You found the little black box, Kane.”
“Well, its Annunaki equivalent,” Kane answered. “Are you reading those numbers that fast?”
“You mean you can’t?” Brigid asked, standing beside Morganstern. “This is translating directly from Annunaki numeric and alphabetical symbols.”
“Which is why half of this shit is gibberish,” the mathematician grumbled. “Pardon my language.”
“It’s all right,” Brigid returned. “Lakesh, could you double-check these numbers for me?”
The head scientist of the redoubt came forward as Brigid scribbled down some figures on a notepad. Lakesh’s graying eyebrows inched toward each other in concentration. “The final course manipulation of the ship occurred forty-five hundred years ago, directly under the temple in Eridu. Dear Brigid has the exact coordinate necessary for the time trawl. Your math is good.”
Brigid smirked. “My boyfriend’s is better.”
Morganstern couldn’t hide the reddening of his cheeks. “It’s not often a number cruncher comes in useful.”
“And don’t trip over yourselves thanking the engineer who built a reader of stored alien flight data,” Waylon groaned.
Shizuka took Waylon’s hand and drew him in close for a chaste, gentle kiss on the lips. “Don’t be so whiny.”
Waylon wasn’t blinking again, a crooked smile on his lips. His mathematician friend shook his head and guided the smitten engineer to his chair in the corner of the lab.
“Are we done with all the homework?” Kane asked.
Lakesh nodded. “After reprogramming the interphaser, I’ve set it so that it can work in conjunction with the time trawl. There’s also an additional module I’ve piggybacked onto the system.”
“A way to open a time hole so we can reconstitute Grant with his components,” Kane said.
“You’ll have to be inside the radius so the interphaser can extract Grant from your forearm,” Lakesh said. “Which is why I’ve designed a special carrier for it.”
“A backpack?” Brigid asked, looking at it. “Kane’s going to run around with a pyramid strapped between his shoulder blades.”
“Would you rather wear it?” Kane countered.
“Looks stupid to me,” Brigid replied.
“Only because we need to protect it for its multiple duties. Otherwise, you could just hit the recall and it would come back here,” Lakesh explained.
“Why can’t we reassemble Grant here?” Shizuka inquired. “God, that sounds grisly.”
“Because if Grant and Malesh are going to be in Eridu, then we’ll need to help him attain what he was supposed to do,” Lakesh said. “And that means killing Humbaba and sealing off the Cedar Forest forever.”
Kane looked at the coordinates. They were simply gibberish to him, but they were the key to hurl him to the beginning of human history in order to rescue his friend.
“Come on, people. We have some history to make!”
Chapter 17
Once more, Enkidu was thankful for Grant’s knowledge and skills, if forever frustrated at the lack of identity such memories provided. He and Malesh had been swimming for a mile. Even the outlaw goddess was starting to lose her endurance as they swam to a bubbled dome in the roof of the submerged tunnel. The air from the rubber bladders they carried was life sustaining, but it certainly wasn’t anything that Enkidu wanted to rely on. They’d had to submerge every so often in the underwater cave, a huge corridor that was designed to accommodate skimmers, like the one he had battled two weeks earlier.
There was also a larger class of ship that shunted under the surface to launch from the center of what would later be called the Persian Gulf, or farther out so as not to be seen by the fishermen and seafaring traders of the era. If the enormous scout ships were seen, there was little worry on the part of the Annunaki, who had encouraged superstition. Sea monsters were considered a regular sight in these lands. Indeed, out of boredom, more than a few creatures that Enkidu had assumed were pure myth had been constructed by the Annunaki.
The minotaur he’d battled on the night he first met Malesh was a prime example. Indeed, Humbaba himself was another specimen of genetic dice rolling and feature cobbling, as was the beautiful cat-eyed woman clinging to a rock for a rest. The two people hung on to the crags, proceeding in near absolute darkness.
Only near darkness, thanks to a little bit of knowledge that Enkidu had gleaned from Grant’s years of working beside Brigid Baptiste. The pair had small, aerated nets that had been packed with bioluminescent shrimp. Alone, the creatures would provide very little help, but Enkidu and Malesh had fished to capture dozens. Together, the glowing creatures not only allowed the two to see each other, but also to make certain that they were on their course. The tunnel was an arduous trek, one that would have left less physically capable people limp and useless.
Enkidu knew that he wasn’t sweating, that it was the waters of the Tigris that had soaked him skin and bone. Before making this swim, Enkidu had taken a sharp knife and scraped off the shaggy mass of overgrown hair. He was bald once more, his beard trimmed down to a mustache similar to the one he had when he’d first arrived. The urge had been sparked by a dream as Grant spoke to his tesseract from his place lost in time.
The lost Grant knew what his friends were planning, thanks to the presence of his other tesseract embedded in Kane’s forearm. Enkidu awoke, and groomed himself for a battle that he and Malesh had calculated to be the end of Humbaba’s despotic reign. Enkidu also had a debt to pay to Shamhat. The reptilian Igigi scum was a murderer and torturer, a beast who had broken spirits and turned human beings into slaves. His whip had lashed Enkidu’s back, but the harshest of pain was guilt over his failure, knowing full well the consequences that Shamhat had laid before him.
“I have been almost literally dying for a chance to experience a few things that Humbaba has forbidden,” Shamhat had told him, his tongue sliding over scaly lips, reminding Enkidu more of a toad than a reptilian servant of a god’s son. “But once Humbaba learned of the esteem you held these hairless monkeys in, he loosed me. Please, do not come back, for the joys I will experience will be legendary.”
Enkidu had recovered his breath, his strength replenished by their rest.
“What’s going to be legendary is how far down his neck I can shove his fucking head,” Enkidu growled as water lapped at his nearly naked jaw.
“We must be disciplined, love,” Malesh admonished. “If we give in to emotion, we may get sloppy.”
“I’m not in the mood for sloppy,” Enkidu/Grant returned. “I’m in the mood to make a horrible mess.”
Malesh’s face, illuminated by the glow of her luminescent shrimp, showed a faint smile. “I will admit that I intend to leave Humbaba a gory mess, as well.”
“Besides, my anger seems to give me focus. The fouler my mood, the more likely I am to ignore minor things, like achy muscles from a three-mile swim,” Enkidu said.
Malesh splashed some water at Enkidu’s face. “Wise lover, turning anger into something good.”
Enkidu wanted to reach out to her, but this wasn’t the time or the place. They were hundreds of feet below the ancient city of Eridu, in darkness and in the path of entering and exiting Annunaki spacecraft. He didn’t know if the craft would notice the two swimmers, or even if they would have cared. The multiton displacement of the scout ships, however, would churn the water so violently that neither of the two outlaws could hold their breaths, even if they could quickly return to the surface and not be ground into the silt at the bottom of the channel.
“Are you rested?” Enkidu asked.
She nodded. “You?”
Enkidu didn’t have to answer as he let go of the rock, slicing through the water’s surface for as long as there was room and air for him.
Dread filled his stomach, as he felt he would never see his half-Annunaki goddess again.
HUMBABA SLOUCHED on his throne, the future man’s coat worn about his neck as a cape, since his massive arms and shoulders couldn’t fit even into that oversize garment. He liked the feel of its Kevlar weave and leather on his shoulders and back. So many of the other Annunaki “governors” had a taste in robes, if they wore any human-style clothing at all. Some spiced them with gold threads, or dyed them with fruit juices in reds, blues and purples, among other colors.
Humbaba’s kilts had remained simple, sackcloth in color, but the sight of Enkidu in his ankle-length black jacket, moving at blistering speeds, had inspired a passion for the garment he used as his cloak. Black was the color of a god’s messengers, the ravens and crows, birds that had been manipulated by the Annunaki and the Tuatha de Danann to have the power of speech and memory. The genetic engineering necessary for such improvements was surprisingly little. Only a few of the jet-black creatures had actually been modified, but here and there, such talented mimics had disappeared into the wild, making a bid for freedom and independence. They interacted with other corvids, breeding with them to spread the gifts bestowed upon them. Such dilution would limit the ability of later generations, but the messengers were among the few who had survived their utility to the Annunaki.
He rubbed his cloak between his thumb and forefinger, relishing the feel of the dark material draped around his neck. The black of the ravens had become a powerful symbol in Humbaba’s mind. It was the color of not only cleverness, but also freedom and rebellion. He wouldn’t be a lackey for Enlil, used up and discarded as a corpse. He would escape and begin a life of his own. In his loins lay the seed of the Anhur. He could revive the extinct race, under his own mastery.
The raven-black coat draped over one shoulder gave the son of Enlil a slightly more fearsome feeling. Humbaba had never been a creature to take interest in fashion, but his wardrobe had expanded. Now his kilts and sashes were dyed black like the leathery coat. It felt good, and he had developed a sense of narcissism, in so far as he dressed grimly, adorned to look like a god of death, which fit him.
Shamhat appeared at the side door behind his throne, the Igigi shuffling from foot to foot.
“Any news on my kin, slave master?” Humbaba asked.
Shamhat, still uncomfortable in his master’s presence, had been glad for Enlil’s intervention. The punishment he’d received filled the subterranean palace with shrieks of agony, but only for an hour. Shamhat had even regained control over his legs and sphincter the day after. “Your father’s ire at the wasting of our ships has leavened. I am certain he has agents within the court of Urudug, watching to make certain you do not stray again.”
Humbaba pulled a link of entrails off his long, leonine snout, flipping it at the Igigi. “You mean Father has more than you spying on me?”
