Offworld (31 page)

When Trisha opened the door, she paused and looked back. "We
should go," she said.

Mae followed her out. When they rounded the corner, she nearly
walked into Trisha from behind, but pulled up at the last second.

Trisha stood still and upright, her hands in the air. A man stood
opposite her, holding a gun. It was a big gun-so big he had to hold
it in both hands-and there was a small knife attached to the front
end of it. He wore a jumpsuit covered in gray and white camouflage.
And his head and face were covered by a gray ski mask. His eyes
were focused and implacable.

"Stay behind me," Trisha said. It took Mae a moment to realize
she was talking to her.

Mae risked tilting her head to one side to look around Trisha; she
had a clear view of the parking lot, and saw Owen standing there
with his hands up, three men identical to the one in front of Trisha
training their guns on him. Fifty feet to the right, Chris stood in the
clearing between the concession stand and the bathrooms, with two
men holding guns to his chest. Chris was only able to raise one arm,
because hed slipped his bad arm back into his sling when they'd
stopped. A third man stood to Chris' right, and he was holding an
old-fashioned walkie-talkie in front of Chris' mouth. Not one of the
men showed his face. All were large, fit, and silent.

Two black jeeps had joined the other empty vehicles in the lot.

Mae felt smaller than she'd ever felt in her life.

One of the men grabbed Chris' raised wrist and brought it clown
in front, next to the one in the immobilizer. His wrists were fastened
together there with something Mae couldn't see.

"Speak," said the man with the walkie-talkie to Chris.

Chris cleared his throat and looked at the radio in the man's hand.
"Who are you people?" he boldly asked.

The walkie-talkie squawked and the static cleared.

Am I speaking with Captain Christopher Burke?" asked the voice
on the other end. It was a man's voice.

Chris made an odd face at what he'd just heard. But he replied,
"That's right."

"Captain Burke," replied the walkie-talkie. "It's an honor. Know
that I have no interest in hurting you or your people. But your actions
could undermine everything I'm trying to accomplish, and I can't
allow that."

"I want to know who you are," Chris repeated.

"My name is Colonel Mark Roston, of the United States Army. And,
Captain, at this moment I'm holding a gun to Terry Kessler's head."

Chris blinked in the darkness.

His only remaining source of light-a floating, tiny ball of light
he could not explain-was moving away of its own free will, and
expected him to follow.

Certain he was still lying on the ground somewhere back in the
tunnel and this was just a lucid dream while he took his final breaths,
he slowly got his feet moving and followed the light deeper into the
tunnel.

Coming closer to the orb, he again got a good look at the strange
symbols emanating from it, arranged in neat lines. If he blurred his
eyes, they almost looked like words or sentences, like text scrolling out
of the orb from every direction. Only when he was close enough to
touch it could he see the strange shapes of these symbols. Chris wished
he would live long enough to discover what they were, and what they
meant.

The astronaut part of his brain wouldn't shut itself off, and he
couldn't help noting the spectacular arrangement of small, spiky stalactites hanging from the cave's apex. It was something he was able
to see now, for the first time, thanks to the tiny ball of light.

The "tiny ball of light"? he thought. I'm following around a floating
sphere of light and I'm thinking about it like it's a normal thing.

I'm honkers. I'm insane and I'm dying. With only this dumb light
here with me.

Maybe I should name it.

I'll call it George.

Hefound this inexplicablyfunny, like an insidejoke only he understood and couldn't stop from grinning.

So, where are we going now, George?

of
He pulled up mid-stride as he got his answer. Directly ahead
him in the (lark, at less than ten paces away, was ... something.

A great, swirling black mass about twenty feet across that looked
kind of like . . . a black hole. His floating friend George zoomed into
it and vanished.

It was stationary, twirling in place just like a black hole, like a rift
in space, or ... some kind of void.

The void?!

Despite everything that was happening, all of the chaos, one
thought drowned out everything else: he'd seen the void during his
missing time on Mars.

For a second, it was all he knew, then with a rush the rest of the
world tumbled hack at him and he remembered what was going on
around him. Soldiers, radio, Terry at gunpoint.

Mark Roston.

It was a familiar name. Chris had never met the man, but he'd
definitely heard the name.

Though his arms were tied in front of him with a plastic zip-tie,
and the muzzles of at least three rifles were aimed at his head, Chris knew the only thing he couldn't show was panic. For his sake. For
his team's sake.

"You have Terry? I'm surprised you haven't shot him yet, Colonel,"
Chris replied into the walkie being held in front of his face. "He's a
pain in the butt."

"Don't think I wasn't tempted," Roston's voice answered back.
"His mouth doesn't stop moving, under any amount of threatening.
I can't imagine how you lived with him for so long. But if I have to
kill him, it'll be for a better reason than that."

"Where are you right now?" Chris asked while eyeing the men
and the vehicles.

"Close enough that I could release Mr. Kessler back to you, if
you were to give me your word that you will get as far away from
Houston as you can, and stay there."

The penny drops, Chris thought. Houston ...

"If you're as smart as you seem to be," said Chris, "you know I'll
never agree to that."

"I'd've been disappointed if you had, because it would mean I'd
misjudged you. Even with your list of accomplishments, Captain, your
cunning is astonishing. The way you escaped from the bridge in Lake
Charles, and then the oil refinery. That operation was conducted by
my very best men."

"Then you should think about getting yourself some new `very
best'."

Chris could imagine a smile on Roston's face when he said,
"Maybe I should."

"What's your part in all this, Colonel? Were you left behind, like we
were ... or are you in on this-the disappearance of mankind?"

"Disappearance," Roston echoed, thoughtful. "Is that what you
call it?"

"What would you call it?"

"It's ... part of a process. A plan. My plan."

Then it was you, Colonel. Somehow, someway ... you did this.

"I don't suppose you'd care to fill me in on where the planet's
population has gone?"

"No need," Roston replied. "When I'm done, no explanation will
be required."

"Colonel, we've reached an impasse," said Chris. He chanced a
quick glance back to where Owen stood as he added, "I think your
only option here is to kill us."

Owen, who was not cuffed or tied as Chris was, met his eyes
with an affirmation of readiness. He made no movement whatsoever;
Chris merely read it in his expression.

"That wouldn't be my first choice," Roston said, a hint of hesitation in his voice. "I'd rather see you reconsider. You've earned an
important place in history, and I don't want to see your biography
end in tragedy."

"What do you want?" Chris asked.

"I want you to open yourself to the possibility that in spite of
everything you've been through over the last few days ... I'm not the
villain. Or even a villain at all. You need to consider that there's more
happening than you're able to understand right now. And I'd like you
to realize that trying to impede my mission is the wrong move."
"

,why is that?"

"We may be from different branches of the service, but I know
all about you, Captain. I followed your career. I know you flew fire
in the war, and I know that you disobeyed an order to take out
civilian targets. As I'm sure you're aware, that particular footnote in
your record is known to no one with clearance below Top Secret.
NASA made sure of that. Personally, I'd have put it at the top of your
astronaut bio and given you a medal to go with it.

"But NASA covered it up so you could go to Mars, chosen ahead
of astronauts with more tenure at NASA or time in space. That kind
of thing can play with a man's head. I'm guessing you've questioned
that decision a thousand times. Am I wrong?"

Chris' expression never softened. He didn't want to answer the
question, but finally he said, "No"

"That's because the men who are asked to risk their lives on behalf
of their country are never the ones who get to decide when, where,
how, or most importantly, why their lives are risked. Any monkey in
a suit and tie can declare war; only soldiers like you and I are able
to wage it. I see a disconnect in this, and although they bury it under
training and duty, the best soldiers in the world see the exact same
discrepancy that I do.

"How many people did you kill during the war, Captain?"

Chris started, disarmed by such a pointed question. What was it
to Roston, anyway, how many he'd killed in the war? "I don't know,
a few. I shot down about fourteen enemy fighters from the cockpit,
but most of them had 'chutes as far as I know. How many did you
kill, Colonel?"

"Thousands," came Roston's grave reply. `And if you get in my
way, I'll add you and your people to that list. As much as I don't want
to, so help me, I'll do it."

Is this guy for real? He killed thousands in the war? He couldn't
have.

Chris stored the words away to analyze later. Right now he
needed a plan. He strained his neck looking around, cautiously
peering into the eyes of the three men surrounding him. They
were all business and held their weapons like they knew exactly
how to use them.

But based on his gut impression of this Colonel Roston, Chris was
willing to gamble that they were under orders not to kill.

"Fair enough," he said, tossing one last look in Owen's direction.
"But for all you seem to know about me, there is one thing you're
wrong about."

"What's that?"

"I'm not the one your men should have tied up."

Owen snatched the automatic rifle pointed at his chest at a point
mid-barrel, and flipped it up, catching the soldier under the chin. He
spun fast and cracked the next man in the head with the end of the
same gun while grabbing the second rifle. He flipped both weapons
around while completing his turn-in-place, until he faced the third
man. He held up the two rifles and crisscrossed their bayonet blades
beneath the man's chin. The two sharp weapons looked like a pair
of scissors pressed against the soldier's neck.