The Tenth Legion (Book 6, Progeny of Evolution) (29 page)

* * * *

They’d been at
the Oom dig for over two weeks. Whatever Ed had decided to do about
Bobby, he kept to himself. Finding and interpreting the steles
returned to top priority.

Every night,
Ed participated alongside Lorna in a ceremony where they sat in the
light of a kerosene lamp, waiting for the twins to start their
routine. At first, the happy couple anticipated the ritual with
excitement, but with time, movement became more frequent, and
intense. The experience wore on Lorna, while thrilling Ed every
time. For his sake, she bore the inconvenience with good
spirits.

Also, every
night, Lorna went to bed expecting Cithara to visit her dreams, but
there was no contact. The excavation team continued their
meticulous work. The site lay a few dozen yards off a paved
secondary road. For centuries, an olive grove had covered the
location, but when the owner discovered a sealed jar containing
scrolls from the second century of the Christian era, an American
museum bought the land, and launched the dig. They removed most of
the olive trees, crisscrossing the property with a precise grid of
tight yarn. The brown soil, cut vertically and horizontally into
stepped terraces as if by a great carving knife, allowed the team
to sift through the layers of time. After almost two years, they
uncovered Cithara’s meditation room.

The day they
arrived, Lorna toured the space. The wall images were faded, but
she recognized them. An irregular band of thick soot from centuries
of temple fires covered the top half of the walls. After almost two
millennia, the room smelled the same.

“This is the
place,” she announced, feeling the priestess’s spirit close at
hand.

“We found no
steles,” the director of the dig said. “We combed the room for
hidden compartments, even used ground penetrating radar. All we
have are fragments of tablets scattered around the temple. We
believe they’re pieces of a crude calendar. There’s nothing special
about them.”

“We’ll find
the answers,” Lorna said on that day.

* * * *

A week later,
they were still looking.

“We’re so
close,” Lorna told Ed, despair creeping into her voice. “I can’t
believe Cithara would desert us.”

“The answer
must be something else. Perhaps she’s not ready, or the time’s not
right,” Ed answered.

“I hope
so…”

Cithara knelt
before a newer version of the altar at Oom. The wall drawings
showed clear, bright colors, the smoke stains ringing the walls a
light gray. “You have come,” Lorna stated, “And not a moment too
soon.”

Observing the
priestess, Lorna gazed upon an older version of Cithara than she’d
seen before. Her hair had streaks of gray. Knots at the joints of
her fingers announced the arthritis peculiar to vampires in old
age. Cithara stumbled when she tried to get up. Lorna rushed to her
aid, but, of course, couldn’t touch her.

In reflex,
Cithara waved away the impossible offer of assistance. “I am all
right.” She rose up on bent, trembling legs. “The novices feed me
as much as they can spare from their own blood, but the quantity no
longer suffices. Soon, I will join my Aliff.”

“
Nonsense.
You will have many more good decades.”

A distant,
meditative glimmer came to Cithara’s eyes. “You are kind, but I
know the truth. I have lived almost three centuries. Everything
must die, to be reborn, thus to continue the cycle.”

“
If we
cannot determine the second threat, there’ll be no more cycle,”
Lorna said. “We’re here to find the steles. Do you know where they
are?”

“
You will
know them when you see them. To you alone will they speak just like
the room with the round bed did.”

“You were
there?”

“I’m with you
always.”

Ed snorted and
rolled away, waking Lorna and breaking the bond with Cithara. The
twins conducted the nightly rampage in her belly. Realizing a
return to sleep was out, she walked to the entrance of their tent,
pulled back the flap, and surveyed the sleeping camp. A gentle
breeze wafted between the rows of dark tents. Somewhere, a horse
neighed fitfully, probably catching a wolf’s scent. There were a
good number of packs in these parts, but the men on guard wouldn’t
let any near. Under the bright moon, a worker stumbled from his
tent to the latrine at the other edge of the camp. Lorna continued
to compare what Cithara said in the dream with the accomplishments
of the dig thus far.

The calendar
fragments!

“Quick, get
up,” Lorna said, pushing against the inertia of Ed’s
sleep-saturated form.

“What?” His
grumpy grunt announced an unwillingness to move. “What’s going
on?”

“The answer
has something to do with the calendar fragments.”

Now he sat up,
with predatory alert. “How do you know? Did you talk to your
priestess?”

“Yes. She said
I’d recognize them when I saw them. I think we need to put the
pieces together.”

By dawn, the
archeologists had cleared a flat space in one of the larger tents,
and had pieced together a quarter or so of the calendar fragments.
The director objected to Ed’s directive, citing potential damage to
the artifacts, but since the corporation paid the bills, with
reluctance he followed orders.

The fragments
arranged themselves into three tablets.

“As you can
see,” the director said, with the patronizing tone the experts take
with a superior who is not trained in their discipline. “There’s
nothing but panels of a routine calendar.”

Unimpressed by
the dismissive explanation, Ed turned to Lorna, showing he trusted
her instincts more. “I don’t care. Keep assembling them. Fit every
piece you find. Work double shifts if you have to.”

The director
shrugged. “As you wish.” He departed with the attitude of the
selfless scientist in the clutches of an ignorant benefactor about
to wreak havoc on the art of discovery.

Five days
later, three six-foot-by-three-foot stone slabs covered the tent
floor.

“There are
about ten pieces missing,” the director said. “Not bad, considering
the total is over six hundred.” Putting his head down, he continued
in a mumble. “You were correct, Ms. Winters. There is a star map in
the arrangement.”

“You spoke
your mind. No fault in that.” Ed smirked at Lorna’s appropriation
from among his favorite expressions. “The next step is to take a
photograph from straight above each of them,” she added.

The director
turned to Ed for confirmation of the order. He nodded. “Do what she
says, please.”

An hour later
they projected the photos on the best computer screen in camp..
Lorna arranged them side by side on the monitor. Using the
computer’s graphics suit, she examined them in every combination of
orientation or sequence.

“See
anything?” Ed asked after a few minutes.

Lorna rubbed a
smooth chin. “Yes. I think so.”

“And?”

She pointed to
the first one. “There’s the sun, and there’s the earth.”

The director
did a double take. “The sun’s at the center, a fact unknown in
Roman times.”

“Look at the
second one,” Lorna said.

“The sun’s
larger.” Ed observed.

“I’m no expert
on the subject, but it seems to me the sun is bulging out on the
side facing the earth,” the director added.

“Now check out
the third one,” Lorna said.

The two men
scrutinized the picture of the last tablet. In a deliberate motion,
like the movement of a large weight, they turned back to her. She
imagined an accompanying grind of heavy mechanisms. Ed spoke first.
“The sun absorbed the earth.”

“Not exactly,”
the director said. “I think we’re seeing more like some kind of
coronal mass ejection, a CME.”

“What’s
that?”

“Well, again
I’m reciting from what I read in scientific journals, but a CME is
an eruption of radiation from the sun. If large enough, it could
reach earth with devastating results.”

“How
devastating?” Ed asked.

“Theoretically, if powerful enough, one could scour the earth of
all life.”

Ed gasped
involuntarily. “Didn’t the prophecy say…?”

“Yes, it
did.”

“What’s the
star in the corner?” Ed asked, touching a small asterisk-shaped
engraving in the stone.

The director
adjusted his glasses, studying the three tablets. “Judging from the
relative position among the steles, it has to be one of the other
planets, maybe Mars.”

Ed traced a
finger over the other engraved symbols. “Could these be
constellations?”

“Most likely,”
the director answered. “There’s software able to pinpoint the date
the symbols represent.”

“The date of
World’s End,” Lorna said. “Imagine that.”

The director
laughed. “Is this going to be another 2012 scare?”

Lorna returned
the laugh, despite the sinking feeling in her stomach. “Probably
so.”

Ed and Lorna
tried not to show alarm or even concern when they took departure
for their tent. Ed scanned the photographs back to headquarters
with orders to determine the dates depicted.

Less than an
hour later, they had part of the answer. The alignments indicated,
with 99.9999 percent probability, dates in 2107, 2333, and 2767. A
companion report predicted increased solar activity beginning in
2106 but not any worse than past peaks.

“Are you sure
this is what’s going to happen?” Ed asked.

“God, I’m not
sure of anything, but it makes the most sense.”

“How can we
move six billion people to Mars?” Ed asked himself aloud.

“We can’t. If
this is going to happen, we need to save what we realistically
can.”

The same
night, Cithara appeared again
.

“
Touch the
stones,” said a young Cithara, emerged not more than a year. “They
will show you the fate of the world.”

“
Your image
is faded. What’s happening?” Lorna asked.

“
This will
be our last meeting. The worlds we inhabit are on disparate paths.
They allow us a final contact.”

“
I won’t
see you again?” Lorna asked.

“
Not in
this cycle of time. Now, hear me well. Touch the stones. They will
show you the fate of the world,” the fading image of Cithara
flickered once, in a demonstration of intensity, like a flame right
before extinguishing forever, and then she disappeared.

Lorna got up
without disturbing Ed. Something told her she needed to do this
alone. In the sterile light of the fluorescent lamps, the three
steles reflected sandy brown. Sitting in front of the third one,
she placed a hand on it.

An electrical
pulse seemed to shoot from the stone and up her arm.

From the
vantage point of a hill, she overlooked a large city at night. A
great live oak arrayed above and around her. The long, curved
branches formed a thick canopy that almost reached the ground. She
crouched down to get a clear view of the city below. Tall, thin
buildings challenged the night sky with audacious illumination, a
million twinkling lights. Automobile headlamps filled the major
roads radiating from the skyline.

A golden glow
grew in the east. Too early for sunrise, something told her. In a
moment, the illumination became brighter, washing the city in full
daylight. The busy movement of traffic continued, unfazed. Perhaps
the occupants of the vehicles were confused, even a little alarmed,
but not enough to stop and observe. In the vast diversity of
structures, countless faces must’ve turned toward the mysterious
radiance. Growing into a blinding whiteness, the light, carrying
millions of roentgens, swept over them.

Death occurred
almost instantly. The cars, the buildings, the surrounding homes,
along with humans of all three kinds, blended into the light.
Vegetation seemed unaffected, but weeks later, it would show the
inevitable effects. Worldwide, leaves wilted and turned brown.
Trunks hardened into lifeless husks.

Lorna regarded
with horrified fascination while the earth’s rotation advanced the
wave toward her. As the blinding whiteness neared, it separated
into countless individual flashes. Her feet seemed rooted to the
ground. Not many places on earth, if any, offered safety. The
massive tree couldn’t provide a tissue’s worth of shelter against
the onrushing torrent. Why did such a magnificent creation have to
perish?

“
God save
us!” she cried. The tidal wave of radiation overwhelmed
her.

Pulling her
hands away, she returned to the present. Ed stood behind her.

“What is it?”
He kneaded her shoulders. “What did you see?”

Turning, with
tears in her eyes, she said. “The end of the world. I witnessed the
end of the world.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

F
rom Oom, upon
Lorna’s recommendation as Deputy Security Director, they went
straight to the island.

“It has the
Operations Center, and it’s the company’s most secure facility,”
she explained.

Ethan, Toby,
and Karla met them in Ed’s office, adjacent to his old bedroom.
Fond memories centered on the rich, leathery smell of the books
arranged in neat rows on polished, wood shelves, mingled with the
crisp odors of electronic equipment hard at work in the next room.
The model airplanes, artifacts maintained in memory of a beloved
father touched her—all good.

“Ed and I’ll
stay in the adjoining bedroom,” Lorna said, rejecting Ethan’s
suggestion they take the First Parents’ room with the commodious
round bed. Ed’s cell offered better proximity to the Operations
Center. The memories didn’t hurt, either.

“Dibs on the
Greats’ room,” Toby said. “Jamie and the girls arrive tonight.
Jamie’s always wanted to try out the round bed.”