Atlantis Endgame (14 page)

Ross's groaned, but then subsided into unconsciousness. Eveleen held her hands up, waiting for the other two to attack, and then stared: they stood, impassive, their sight focused on the wall where the two Time Agents had been standing-Then it dawned on her. "Holographs?" she whispered.

He nodded, raised a finger to his lips.

Of course. The machine had to be recording whatever was said.

They both sprang to the console, which was of course totally incomprehensible. Ross scanned it and then began pressing pads and lights, and when the machine responded with flickers and streams of glyphs, he pressed more pads and lights, then stepped back and delivered a vicious chopping kick down onto the console. There was a musical jangling from within the egg, and several indicators changed color or went dark. Ross kept at it, obviously hoping to at least confuse things.

Then they moved to the door. Eveleen reached for the control mechanism; the door slid open, and they were in the outer room. No one around.

She chanced a word. "Weapon?" She used Ancient Greek.

Ross shook his head. "Useless." He answered in the same tongue.

He paused long enough to do the same thing to the console out there, and then they ran to what had to be the outer door. Again it slid open almost silently, and the two ran up the smoky stone vent to the surface.

"Let's get out of here," Ross said, and they plunged down the path.

CHAPTER 11

BY THE TIME Ross and Eveleen reached the harbor, the day was ending. Four rolling quakes and a brief, fierce thunderstorm full of stinging acid rain had slowed them, but at last they arrived just as the boat sailed up and dropped anchor.

Ross looked around and saw Gordon Ashe coming down the hard-packed trail from Akrotiri.

"Looks like we all had the same idea," Gordon greeted Ross.

"I wish we didn't have to stick with radio silence," Ross said.

Gordon gave his head a shake.

Before he could speak, Ross said, "I know; I know. Baldies could listen in, and identify our time-frame as well as where we are. But you didn't know this. The Baldies are not our only problem."

And, as Stavros and Kosta came up to join them, Ross gave a swift report on his and Eveleen's experiences inside the volcano.

The others listened in tense silence.

Ross finished, "... I watched the Fur Faces while the language test was going on and realized that two of them were damn still for supposedly live beings. Only two of them reacted. Then I watched those weapons, or what we thought were weapons. No firing stud or trigger or anything made me wonder if they were just pointing a handy piece of tech at us, their equivalent of a camera or something, and letting us provide the imaginary firepower. So when they started to tell us that our heart rates had given us away, I figured it was time for do or die. Signaled to Eveleen, and we jumped them."

Ashe turned Eveleen's way. She obviously interpreted his look before Ross could, and said, "We left them unconscious."

"We also did our best to mess up their computer setup, which looked field-rigged; then we hightailed out."

"Holographs," Ashe said, looking grim. "I didn't think of that. And I thought the trail they were leaving was a little thin."

Everyone looked at him.

Ashe sighed, and said, "Linnea and I spent most of yesterday watching a group of Baldies standing right out in the open, occasionally interrogating people. That is, only a couple of them did; the rest just watched. When they suddenly took off, I followed them. A quake knocked me over a bit of a cliff, and when I was able to follow, they had gotten too far ahead, and I lost them. But I realize now their trail didn't look right, so maybe some of them were holos and I ended up following a bunch of phantoms."

"Moving
holos?" Ross asked, scratching his itchy scalp.

Ashe shrugged a shoulder. "Considering the sophisticated level of the rest of their tech, it's entirely possible. A moving projector should be easy enough, if they have a strong enough power source."

Eveleen said soberly, "If you're right, it would indicate that they don't have huge numbers. Not if they have to go to the trouble of falsifying their head count."

"Exactly," Ashe said. "Might even the odds a bit."

"You think they knew you were following them?" asked Eveleen.

"No." He shook his head. "They would have tried to capture me; even with holos they had me outnumbered. I think it was standard procedure to throw off anyone following them. I'll bet they can hide behind holos of the surroundings as well—a perfect way to hide the opening to their base."

"So we can't find it that way."

"Probably not, and anyone poking around that far out from the city would automatically alert them."

"They'll be back," Ross said. "After all, what they're trying to do is flush us out."

"At least, so we guess," Stavros put in. "So far, we ascribe human motivations and reactions to them."

"Oh, they've been human enough in some of their reactions in the past," Ross stated in a grim voice. "Those boys don't play nice, not at all."

"No, they don't," Ashe said. "But we still do not know what game they are playing. Not really."

"My question," Kosta said, wiping back dark curly hair from his brow, "is, are these
Younoprosopoi
their allies, or enemies?"

"A good question, one I'd like an answer to myself," Ashe said.

Eveleen smiled. "I like that.
'Younoprosopoi.'
Is that Modern Greek? It sounds a little like our present Kallistan Greek."

Kosta flashed a grin. "Means 'Fur Faces.' "

Ross said, "Since I was until now the only one who'd ever seen one of these guys, and that was during an attack that we decided later was some sort of triple cross involving the Russians, the Baldies, and at least one Fur Face, what they're doing here is anybody's guess."

"Then let's continue to gather facts. Stav, Kosta. What did you find over at the pre-Kameni Island?"

"Evidence of at least six of those devices, all buried very deeply."

"Did you mark them?"

"We have got markers floating over each," Kosta said.

"Good. Then tomorrow we need to find out if they are in the nearer vents."

"More area to cover," Stav said.

"Start today, then. Take all night."

"I'll go with them," Eveleen offered. "I haven't been on a dive for, oh, a whole six months. I hate to get out of practice."

"An excellent idea." Ashe smiled a little.

Then he turned to Ross, who said first, "You thinking what I'm thinking?"

Ashe shrugged. "I think it's time for some desperate measures. I do not condone undue violence, but perhaps our
Younoprosopoi
friends will not resist our invitation for a little talk."

Stav looked a little confused.

Eveleen said, "Where is Linnea?"

"I was just looking for her," Ashe said. "Before I spotted you coming down the trail and hiked down to meet you here. Answer: I don't know. She was not at that little room you two rented."

"Invitation?" Stav murmured, still looking confused. "Invitation? Is this an idiom with which I am not familiar?"

"No," Eveleen said, casting him a distracted look. "Linnea must be off investigating something," she said. "I can go check, just in case. Maybe one of those women there saw her."

"A good idea," Ashe said, still studying the volcano under its pall of smoke, as if he could see a small figure toiling up and down the trail. "In case whatever she's on the track of requires backup."

"What is this 'invitation'?" Stav asked Ross.

Ross sent a tight grin Ashe's way and then said to the Greek agent, "We're going to do a little alien-napping."

CHAPTER 12

LINNEA HEARD THE singing first.

She emerged onto the cliff outside the oracle's cave, tired and sweaty, to the faint smell of sulfur and the sound of young girls' voices.

The voices rose and fell in a strange chant. It wasn't music, not to a modern, Western-trained ear, but nor was it totally dissonant.

Mesmerizing,
Linnea thought, already mentally writing her monograph . . . except where could she publish it? Project Star was totally secret. She then realized something she had, so far, avoided looking at: that Gordon Ashe, with his fine mind and eternal curiosity, had never published anything. Yet how many fabulous secrets of the human past had he seen?

What does he do?
Linnea thought as she crossed the cliff and stood with the little cluster of waiting people. Does he plant clues so that other archaeologists can find them the customary way? Or does he live with the knowledge of treasures of knowledge permanently suppressed?

Or is the word
permanently
an arrogant assumption? One thing for certain, he had long ago accepted that fame would not be his. (Never mind fortune. Archaeologists don't get rich, even if they are lucky enough to uncover vast quantities of gold and precious gems in rich tombs; governments then thud in with their heavy feet, waving official papers right and left, leaving archaeologists with little but their dwindling stipend and the hopes that they can get credit for their find.)

So, if a trained mind like his had given up the idea of fame, what was the payoff? The satisfaction of a job well done?

That sounds noble but not quite human,
Linnea thought, smiling.

A teenage girl dressed in a brightly colored robe, with a golden necklace of stylized serpents, looked up into Linnea's face. She said something—asked a question.

Linnea suppressed the urge to write down the girl's speech and compare it to Greek as the girl then restated in careful Ancient Greek, "Your quest?"

"I seek Ela," Linnea said in the same Ancient Greek, trying to match accents. "Theti sent me."

"Sent you? Why?"

"I met her in Akrotiri," Linnea explained, and then she offered the cover she'd invented on the long walk uphill. "I am a priestess of the Earth Goddess, only from Kemt. I was sent by the goddess to witness here."

And the girl took it without a blink. "You must come within," she said, gesturing. "We are still finishing the purification, so—" She touched a forefinger to her lips and led the way past the waiting petitioners, who watched with patient attitudes, and curious eyes.

Linnea followed, feeling morally queasy at how easily her lie had been believed. She had always assumed that those who lived around oracles made their living by listening to gossip. Did they really accept directives from outside, just on the word of someone claiming to be sent by their deity?

At least I intend no harm,
Linnea thought.
I will do nothing but observe and learn what I may. And my mission is to save these people from a really horrible fate.

The smell of sulfur intensified as they eased past a great crack between two massive rocks. Short as she was, Linnea had to duck and walk sideways for several yards, until cool air suddenly ruffled against her face and they emerged into a wide cavern with a sudden drop at the left. Linnea did not have to look down to see the rushing water. Above the stream, far above, was another great crack. A shaft of faint golden light, widening slowly, filtered in.

A circle of young girls, all in brightly colored robes with red jackets edged with blue, walked with deliberate step in a circle round what looked like an ancient tree stump, their arms upraised, fingers brought to a point like a beak—or like the head of a serpent, Linnea realized, as she watched the sinuous, dancelike swayings and pouncings of those young arms and hands.

Linnea transferred her gaze to the center of the circle. Had a tree really once grown here? Well, there was light, and below ran water. All that was needed was some bird to drop a seed while flying over that crack.

As the thin shaft of light crept closer to the great tree, Linnea perceived movement in the shadows at the other end of the cave, beyond the circle of the girls and the tree.

Ching! Ching! A girl clashed little copper cymbals, and the chant began again. Between the young bodies, swaying in unison as the girls' voices rose, faintly echoing, Linnea glimpsed a shadowy form all in red.

Two steps, three, and the form resolved into a woman, an older woman, spare of build, her sparse hair bound up in a golden serpent-fillet like those of the girls, her eyes dark and surrounded by wrinkles.

Two older women assisted her. When she neared the circle the young girls did not break their step, only amended it, creating a gap, through which the old woman came on alone.

She approached the great tree stump and climbed up onto it. Linnea couldn't quite see the cut portion, as it was about five feet from the rocky floor, but there seemed to be a seat carved in it, for the priestess sat, just as a thin finger of sunlight touched her hair, lighting the gray to molten silver and shrouding her face in shadow.

The girls finished their chant on a triumphant note and filed back down the narrow crevasse through which Linnea had come. Moments later the sound of the voices floated back: now, apparently, the purification ritual included the petitioners outside.