Angel of Doom (19 page)

“They haven't had us surrender our side arms, but let me ask,” Kane responded.

Again, Kane was informing Brigid of the cockiness of his hosts.

“Vanth said she doesn't care what you bring. Just remember, we can't fit more than a grasshopper into the Manta with both of us packed into it,” Kane offered.

And
there
was the tidbit of information Brigid had been waiting for. Vanth's confidence allowed her to repeat the term “locust” in speaking with Kane and Grant. When Kane mentioned “grasshopper,” which locusts were a species of, Brigid had all the confirmation she needed about Vanth. It was a casual thing to say, though, and one that was actually true, as the Mantas were meant to be single-seat scram jets. Such a casual reference was easy to pass off.

Brigid, however, did not have any doubts that Vanth would get the hint. The demigoddess was a contemporary of the Annunaki overlords, and as such, had survived their schemes. Enlil and the rest were devils of subterfuge, and as guileless seeming Kane's comment was, it wouldn't have escaped her notice. And if there was such a possibility, Brigid had to err on the side of caution.

“I'll bring my pistol,” Brigid returned. “And I'll make sure my ankle's taped up well enough.”

Anything to make Vanth think she was at less than optimum capability would be a card in her favor. It would also give her options. She thought of what she could do with the taped ankle. Metal could be disguised as a kind of splint or brace.

“Sounds good to me,” Kane replied.

Brigid said her goodbye and disconnected from Kane's transmission. Of course, Lakesh and the rest of the home crew back at Cerberus had been listening in on the conversation.

“Send me an interphaser,” Brigid requested over the Commtact back to Cerberus.

That was code in itself. The interphaser was a piece of technology worth ten times its weight in gold, enabling anyone in possession of it the capacity to travel across worlds. As such, Lakesh was loathe to part with the device, especially since it was, in essence, an ever-developing prototype. When not overseeing the redoubt or applying his intelligence to the crises the CAT teams encountered, he was consistently tinkering with it. There were several proprietary bits of technology within the pyramid-shaped object, things that were hard to duplicate, but also there was the concern of others gaining control of it. Groups such as the Millennium Consortium, or the voodoo cult led by Papa Hurbon, could easily utilize the interphaser to conquer large areas.

Fortunately, since Brigid didn't need to use the interphaser to reach the parallax point, what
could
be delivered was something else. A fail-safe device that could tempt Vanth, all the while pretending that it was perhaps damaged in the flight.

And if the goddess was someone trustworthy…well, then, Brigid could continue on stating that they'd need to bring in another interphaser, while the small but deadly bomb in a rigged interphaser housing was left disarmed. If it was such an instance that Vanth was going to bring a deadly invasion into the world, the faux was designed to blow up with sufficient force to kill an overlord. Maybe, just maybe, it would prove enough to also slam the door on an interdimensional horde of attackers. Of course, detonating the bomb would be a final desperate act on Brigid's own part, likely killing her, her allies and dozens, maybe even hundreds of the thralls of Vanth.

The worlds of H. L. Mencken flashed through Brigid's mind at that thought. “To die for an idea; it is unquestionably
noble
. But how much
nobler
it would be if men died for ideas that were true!”

In all the struggles of the Cerberus explorers, she realized there was a truth—that men should be free from tyranny. The tyranny of first the hybrids, then their evolution into the overlords, was the first of many such unjust reigns that she was willing to die to stop. There were others that arrived. Cults, the predation of bandits and other such coldbloods, and especially the technocracy known as the Millennium Consortium, were all examples of the kind of man's own inhumanity to itself.

So if she had to be blown to oblivion to stop Vanth, then so be it.

“Nobler to die for an idea that is true,” she mused.

* * *

W
ITH A FLASH
across his windshield, Kane knew for certain that he'd reentered the atmosphere and was swinging the supersonic Manta into Greek airspace. He checked on his scanners, watching to see if perhaps he'd been shadowed by Charun or Vanth, but for now he was alone in the sky.

Brigid was at the temple of the Oracle, standing beside a small pyramidal device. He frowned, realizing that it was an interphaser. Bringing one of those into the presence of Vanth and Charun was not a good thing.

He recalled when the last of the pure Tuatha de Danaan on Earth, the mad god Maccan, came for the interphaser. Maccan's assault on Cerberus had left several dead and scores injured, including Domi, who had been tortured in Lakesh's presence to make him give up the interphaser.

The device was something he'd needed to return to his home dimension, thanks to a linkage in the great Martian pyramid. Grant, Kane and Brigid had rushed to Mars, dealing with little, mutated trans-adapts, pint-size humanoids designed for surviving in less atmosphere-rich
environments, as well as being proportionately denser and stronger than a normal human.

With an army of such mutants in the Mars base, and Maccan himself setting up the interphaser to head home and then bring back an army of his followers, the trio had found themselves in a truly dangerous situation. Only by forcing Maccan's ancient glove weapon—the Silver Hand of Naudha—to unleash its power inside the pyramid had they managed to stop the scheme. The ancient building collapsed as the Silver Hand's power bolts tore through the roof, all while the Cerberus adventurers raced to the mat-trans to take them back home to Earth.

If one god was a threat with the interphaser, then letting Vanth and Charun have access to it would be even worse; at least that's what Kane assumed. Then again, Brigid was rarely a woman who did anything without purpose and plan. The tiny pyramid was an interphaser
housing
, but there was little guarantee that it had any of the proper components within. This could be a damaged prototype or something worse.

Kane swung the Manta over the center of the temple's remains, landing it among the Doric columns that were all that remained of the ancient structure. The ruins were large enough to land the compact scram jet, even with Brigid present.

He popped the cockpit for her. “So, you're bringing that along?”

“Yeah. Try not to fly too recklessly. The interphaser is used to just transporting itself and recalling immediately. Being jostled isn't in its best interests,” Brigid admonished, climbing up and handing him the device.

Kane looked at the casing. It felt heavier than normal, but then Brigid caught his eye.

“Don't think of it,” she told him.

And almost immediately Kane's thoughts became a
little fuzzier, clearing a moment later as the interphaser was cradled in his arms like a baby. “You sure this can take entering and exiting orbit?”

“If not, I can tinker with it,” Brigid stated. “It's just a backup plan that might help our godling friends.”

Kane nodded. He still knew enough to feel distrust of the Stygian aliens, those doubts forward in his mind…but something had slithered back into his subconscious.

Brigid squeezed herself in behind the pilot's couch, grumbling and complaining all the way. She was a tall, well-built woman, so slithering into such a tight spot was nothing fun for her. He turned and handed her the interphaser, wondering why his arms felt so achy and weak as he lifted it.

Kane dismissed it as tension and uncertainty. They were facing off with two alien humanoids that seemed to be capable of stealing a person's soul and breaching the barriers between universes. He wanted to talk to Brigid about this, but something in him whispered that she didn't want to know about his doubts and worries.

He ground his molars, feeling completely off balance, even as he went over the checklist for takeoff. It may have been overly redundant, as he'd just done it a few minutes ago before takeoff to the trip here, but he was a pilot. Not as good as Grant was, which was why he wanted to go over every variable, every condition, of the aircraft before risking his and Brigid's lives on takeoff.

The more he concentrated on the every day, the mundane, the better his mind and stomach felt. He wanted to ask Brigid if she had anything to do with this, but once again, a fog of obfuscation had him forgetting what he was going to ask a few moments later. It was a mental roller coaster, and one he wanted to get off of, but even wishing he could talk with someone else about it was making him feel worse.

“Kane?”

He turned and looked back to her. “Is Vanth attacking my brain?”

He managed to squeeze the words out, but it was as if his throat was a thin slit of cloth and as he pushed each syllable through, the canvas tore, threads popping, his larynx growing more and more raw with the effort.

“No. No,” she said. She touched the side of his face, squirming to look him squarely in the eyes.

“What's wrong with me? My memory is going all crazy and I can't concentrate,” Kane asked. “It feels like I'm not alone inside my head.”

“Concentrate on me,” Brigid told him. “I should have known that your will was too strong, that you were too aware of yourself to be able to ignore my posthypnotic suggestions.”

With that statement he began to calm. “Posthypnotic suggestions. You've been helping me keep my thoughts aligned.”

“But you are too smart. Too in touch with your own thought patterns that you were feeding into a loop of recognizing the dissonance, and then aggravating yourself more as your subconscious went to work burying it,” Brigid said. “Your point man's instinct comes from your ability to see through the filter of your subconscious and pick up on actual details, not the usual tricks of consciousness that inform our daily perceptions.”

Kane blinked, but kept his focus on her. Parts of him were upset with her, rooting around in his head, but then, he'd actually been one of the people for the act of altering his thoughts, protecting the Cerberus expedition from the intrusive powers of Vanth. It was merely his ego rebelling at the thought of his mind being manipulated by another.

“I've broken your conditioning by merely mentioning posthypnotic,” Brigid offered. “Should we try this again?”

“I don't think so. If anything, it might make things worse for me, even if you managed to find a way to get me out of my loop of confusion,” Kane said. “Who knows, she might not scan me casually…”

“Except you're returning with new stuff, new information,” Brigid countered.

“Like the interphaser housing…being heavier,” Kane agreed. He narrowed his eyes. “If we spend too much time here discussing this, she'll wonder where we disappeared to.”

He finished his checklist and, satisfied that the Manta was ready to go, he glanced back. “All right, we're off. Make sure I don't bang the interphaser around too much, okay?”

Brigid took a relieved-sounding breath. “I've never been so happy to hear you play dumb.”

Kane tilted his head. “What're you talking about, Baptiste?”

“Never mind,” she concluded, sighing with exasperation.

Kane's lips pulled into a tight, self-satisfied smile.

The four people in the CAT Beta squad had seen the departure of Kane's Manta from the mountainside and realized that something was up. From the direction that it flew in, Domi was certain Kane and Grant had ingratiated themselves into the house of the Etruscan godlings. That was always a good thing in Domi's mind; she didn't have to worry about putting on a false front to engage in the tiresome games of intrigue and false politeness with the alien entities. She was here, in the wilderness, where she was comfortable.

She was glad for the launch. Now she could start looking for a sign to track from where the robots had brought the captured Manta. With grim determination, she followed the back trail of the two Gear Skeletons as they trundled from the improvised launch pad on the side of the hill. Shadowing them was an exercise in the basics, as neither of the gigantic mechanisms was the quietest of devices, nor did their ponderous tread land lightly on the ground.

Even so, she didn't want to be lulled into a false sense of security, so she acted as if they were possessed of the sharpest hearing and the keenest of eyes. She stayed to the foliage and shadows, crawling along to pace them, but always keeping aware of where her next hand- or foothold should be, so as not to crunch a leaf or snap a branch.

The others were behind, keeping a distant watch, just
in case someone, somehow, picked up the feral huntress's trail. Edwards and Sinclair both had long-range rifles to provide her with overwatch, and they had night-vision and infrared capabilities that would pick up such a creature in pursuit of her.

So far, things were quiet. Of course, they were on radio silence, but Domi knew that if she did develop a tail, the others would fire. No matter what kind of silencer technology was developed, there was no way to make a rifle report quiet. She'd hear it.

Of course, if she heard it, then so would the gods within the mountain temple.

Domi focused on the mission at hand, living in the moment, as was her nature. All of that was how she managed to stay alive for her two decades of life so far, even in the face of inhuman opponents. Keep the basics, always move with absolute certainty and keep your eyes and ears peeled.

No technology, no tricks, were substitutes for the hard-won skills she'd developed.

The pair of giants reached a set of crags and an outcropping along the bottom of the hill. From a distance, it seemed like a natural formation and a casual glance would have mistaken it for a normally formed cave. As the robots continued on, Domi could tell that it was an entrance, with stones and slabs of solid rock positioned to conceal a metal-walled frame. The size of the “cave entrance” was also an indicator of the unnatural status of the opening, as the fifteen-foot-tall giants strolled through the doors as if it were nothing. Domi set her shadow suit to duplicate the rocky terrain, because it would be hard to hide herself among the barren hillside without a little bit of technological assistance.