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  When the young woman first proposed the scheme to him, Lakesh had been extremely doubtful it would work, and duping poor Auerbach seemed exceptionally cold-hearted. But Beth-Li convincingly argued that the harmless deception would prove Kane's feelings for her one way or the other. At length, Lakesh had been persuaded and gave his grudging approval.

  Unfortunately, he couldn't object to Brigid's participation in the subsequent search party without arousing suspicion. Kane had never fully trusted him anyway, particularly after he learned about Lakesh's covert involvement in his upbringing. Lately, even Brigid had expressed skepticism about his plan to create a colony.

  He ran a hand through his hair, which was the color and texture of ash. Her doubt had disappointed him. Kane, despite his high intelligence, tended to view situations in black-and-white, no doubt a carryover from his life as a Magistrate.

  Brigid on the other hand, could swiftly meld thesis, antithesis into a synthesis of diverse, sometimes contradictory concepts. Or at least, she had been capable of that until Kane's simplistic approach to life's vagaries infected her.

  The breeding program was a stopgap measure anyway. Lakesh had feverishly held on to the hope that the path to reversing the postnukecaust horrors lay in reversing the probability-wave dysfunction triggered by Operation Chronos in the late twentieth century.

  It had proved to be a hope so vain, so futile that he could not think of a word in the several languages he spoke fluently to describe it. The very fabric of space-time itself had been deliberately folded, time squared to prevent any change made in the past from affecting the present.

  Lakesh never spoke of his profound despair over the failure of the Omega Path program to anyone. Outwardly, he adopted a cheery demeanor, but inwardly he often wished he was still deep in cryo-sleep, blissfully unaware of what the world had become. His wellspring of hope had run dry, the bucket filled only with the dry dust of defeat.

  More than once over the past couple of months, he railed at himself to accept the inevitable, to live out the rest of his life among the Cerberus exiles, taking what joy he could find. With the replacement parts surgically bequeathed to him upon his resurrection in the Anthill, he might have another twenty years of life, thirty if he took care of himself.

  But he knew Cerberus couldn't remain hidden for that long. In rare, maniacally optimistic moments, he calculated that the redoubt could be concealed for two years. In his more common, pessimistic moments, he figured it would be fortunate to escape discovery for another six months.

  Despite the fresh memory of the tortures inflicted upon him before escaping from Cobaltville, Lakesh couldn't repress a smile at the irony. Salvo had been convinced of the existence of the underground resistance movement called the Preservationists. But the group was an utter fiction, a straw adversary crafted for the barons to fear and chase after, while his true insurrectionist work proceeded elsewhere. Lakesh had learned the techniques of mis- and disinformation many many years ago while working as Project Cerberus overseer for the Totality Concept.

  Salvo had believed that Lakesh was a Preservationist and that he had recruited Kane into their traitorous rank and file. When Baron Cobalt had charged Salvo with the responsibility of apprehending Kane by any means necessary, he presumed those means included the abduction and torture of Lakesh, one of the baron's favorites.

  Kane, Grant, Domi and DeFore had rescued Lakesh and taken him back to Cerberus, but in the process increased the odds the redoubt would be found. Although the installation was listed on all ville records as utterly inoperable, and the Cerberus mat-trans unit was slightly out of phase to prevent detection, Lakesh extrapolated that Baron Cobalt would leave no redoubt unopened in his search for him, conducting a hands-on, physical search of every redoubt. Other than rescuing Lakesh, his trusted adviser, from the grasp of people he believed to be murderous insurgents, Baron Cobalt's monumental vanity and ego were at stake. Kane had twice humiliated the baron, and that was two times too many for a creature who perceived himself as semidivine.

  Despite recent efforts to lay false trails in other redoubts, Lakesh knew the search would eventually narrow to the plateau in the Bitterroots. His options were limited. If he returned to Cobaltville with a tale of having escaped the Preservationists, he feared the baron's suspicions would turn to him. Even if the baron pretended to believe him, he would certainly mistrust him.

  Too many things had happened since the rescue. Kane had mortally wounded Baron Sharpe, and Brigid was suspected of assassinating Baron Ragnar. Baron Cobalt would never accept that a doddering old pedant had managed to wriggle out of the clutches of such ruthless revolutionaries.

  Another option, often discussed but never implemented, was to relay ransom demands to Baron Cobalt for Lakesh's safe return. There had not been enough time over the past couple of months to work out the fiendishly complicated details of such a plan.

  Lakesh took off his thick-lensed spectacles with the hearing aid attached to the right earpiece, and massaged the bridge of his nose. Everything seemed complicated lately, even getting a decent night's sleep.

  Tapping a button on the keyboard, he transferred the vid network to another camera, one trained on a stretch of empty corridor and the door leading to Balam's confinement facility. The creature behind the electronically locked door couldn't be considered as a member of the redoubt. He — or it — was a prisoner, a specimen to be studied, not that more than three years of observation had provided any useful data beyond what had been theorized in the twentieth century.

  A sudden flicker of movement on the screen commanded his attention, dragging his thoughts back from the past. Squinting, Lakesh fumbled for his eyeglasses, seating them on his face. He stared at the figure on the screen first in surprise, then with a growing alarm.

  Banks, the warder of Balam, shuffled down the corridor. That in itself would not have been an unusual sight except it was 3:30 a.m. and the youthful black man was clad only in his underwear.

  As he came closer to the vid lens, Lakesh noticed how his normally trim blocked hair was pushed out of shape on the right side and how his characteristically bright, alert eyes were almost closed, surrounded by puffy bags.

  Obviously, Banks had just risen, awakened from a deep slumber. Lakesh expected him to stop before the door leading to the confinement area, punch in the code and enter. The young man's sense of responsibility toward the imprisoned entity always amused and bemused him. He hadn't been selected for the assignment because of his compassion, but because he possessed the psychic strength to block Balam's telepathic influence.

  Lakesh assumed that after three years of looking after Balam, of preparing his cattle blood and chemical nourishment, Banks looked at him as something of a pet. Lakesh had never cautioned him about adopting that attitude, inasmuch as no one else in the redoubt could stand to be in Balam's presence for more than a couple of minutes.

  Dread rose in Lakesh as Banks passed the door and continued on down the dully gleaming vanadium-alloy corridor. He lifted his bare feet scarcely an eighth of an inch above the floor. He walked out of range of the vid camera.

  Lakesh realized there could only be two places for him to be going — the main sec door or the control complex in which he sat. He doubted Banks had the overpowering urge to step outside for a breath of fresh, predawn air, especially in his underwear. The temperature on the plateau, despite the springtime warmth below, hovered only a degree or two above freezing.

  Lakesh swiveled his chair around as Banks appeared in the doorway, looking at him dully from beneath half-closed eyelids. Swiftly inspecting his slack-jawed face, Lakesh wondered if the young man was sleepwalking.

  Softening his normally reedy voice, Lakesh said, "Good morning, Banks. What gets you up so early?"

  Banks remained standing in the doorway, listing slightly from side to side. A half hiss, half whisper passed his lips like steam escaping from a valve. "Kayyy-nuh."

  Icy fingers tapped the buttons of Lakesh's spine. "What?"
>
  Banks drew in a soft breath and expelled it in another hiss. "Kayyy-nuh. Where… is… Kayyy-nuh?"

  The timbre of his voice sounded utterly flat, totally devoid of any emotion whatsoever, which matched the blank expression on Banks's face. Despite his growing apprehension, Lakesh maintained a quiet, level voice. "Do you mean Kane?"

  "Where?" came the rustling question.

  "He's not here, Banks. You know that."

  Lakesh wet his suddenly dry lips and inquired conversationally, "Why do you ask?"

  Banks's eyelids drooped lower. "Must Kane speak. Must stone warn. Must warn about."

  Lakesh listened, feeling the short hairs on the nape of his neck tingle and lift. Banks spoke slowly, as if he were feeling his away around verbal communication, not quite grasping the rules of grammar and syntax.

  With a surge of both fright and fascination, Lakesh used the armrests of his chair to lever himself to his feet. He blurted, "Balam! You're Balam!"

  10

  Banks didn't react, the blank expression remaining steady. "Kane only. Tell must Kane. Danger in stone. He go. He stop. Only Kayyy-nuh."

  The last word stretched out like taffy from between Banks's slack lips. His knees buckled, and his lean body sagged and would have collapsed had he not fallen against the door frame. Lakesh rushed around the computer station and caught him, manhandling him into a chair.

  Banks shivered uncontrollably, hugging himself. He lifted his head, looking around in bewilderment, eyes blinking rapidly. They focused on Lakesh. "What's going on? What am I doing here?"

  He made a move to rise from the chair, but Lakesh pushed him back gently. Soothingly, he said, "Settle down. You were sleepwalking."

  Banks raised questioning eyebrows. "Me? I've never sleepwalked in my life."

  "There's a first time for everything," Lakesh replied inanely. "What's the last thing you remember?"

  "Going to bed," Banks retorted impatiently.

  "No dreams that you recall?"

  Lines of concentration crossed the young man's forehead. "Not a dream exactly. I remember waking up for a second, thinking there was a bird in my room. Then I went back to sleep. That must have been hours ago."

  Lakesh struggled to keep his voice steady. "What kind of bird?"

  Banks frowned. "A big one… not an eagle… all gray feathers. I think it was an owl. Yeah, a great big owl, flying right at my head. Staring at me."

  His shoulders shook in a shudder. "I remember waking up. Or at least, I think I remember waking up."

  "What do you remember most about the owl?"

  Banks's expression went vacant. "Its eyes. It had great big black eyes. Huge and slanting. But owls don't have black slanting eyes, do they?"

  "Ornithology isn't my field," answered Lakesh, "but no, I don't think they do."

  He waited a moment before inquiring, "By any chance, did the owl's eyes remind you of Balam's?"

  Banks chewed his lower lip, then ducked his head. His "Yeah" carried a note of anxious realization.

  Banks knew almost as much as Lakesh did about Balam and the race he represented, which was very little. The biological studies performed back when the Archons were referred to as PTEs — Pan Terrestrial Entities — were frustratingly incomplete.

  At first, the entities were classified as EBEs — Extraterrestrial Biological Entities — but that designation was later amended, since it may have been premature if not erroneous. When everything known about the Archons was distilled down to its basic components, all the scientific minds devoted to the subject could agree on only one thing — they knew very little.

  Autopsies performed on bodies recovered in the New Mexico desert in the 1940s proved they were composed of the same basic biological matter as humans, although their blood was of the rare Rh type. They were erect-standing bipeds, with disproportionately long arms and oversize craniums.

  The possibility that they originated on another planet was only that, a possibility. Certainly the Archons had never made such a claim, but they never disputed it, either. Nor did they object to being called Archons. The term derived from ancient Gnostic beliefs referring to a parahuman force devoted to imprisoning the spark of the divine in the human soul. Recently, Lakesh began to suspect that an Archon race as such did not exist any longer.

  No clear-cut answers about the Archon Directorate had ever presented themselves. Only its agenda was not open to conjecture; it had been the same for thousands of years. Historically, they made alliances with certain individuals or governments, who in turn reaped the benefits of power and wealth. Following this pattern, the Archons made their advanced technology available to the American military in order to fully develop the Totality Concept. It was the use of that technology, without a full understanding of it, that brought on the nuclear holocaust of 2001.

  The apocalypse fit well with Archon strategy. After a century, with the destruction of social structures and severe depopulation, the Archons allied themselves with the nine most powerful barons. They distributed predark technology and helped to establish the ville political system, all to consolidate their power over Earth and its disenfranchised, spiritually beaten human inhabitants.

  The goal of unifying the world, with all nonessential and nonproductive humans eliminated or hybridized, was so close to completion there was no point in wondering what the Archons actually were.

  Lakesh was no closer to solving the enigma than his ancestors had been thousands of years before when they wrote the Mahabharta and the Ramayana, which described the coming of the "Sons of the Moon and the Sun" in flying machines called vimanas.

  He had once believed the solution to both the riddle of the Archons and humanity's mysterious origins lay in ancient religious codices. Now he had come to accept that he could not penetrate a conspiracy of secrecy that had been maintained for twenty thousand years or more.

  The few surviving sacred texts contained only hints, inferences passed down from generation to generation, not actual answers. Millennia-old documents that might have held the truth had crumbled into dust or were deliberately destroyed.

  Or perhaps no clear-cut truth existed.

  Perhaps the so-called Archon Directorate was simply part of humankind's existence, forever and always, not a curse, not a blessing, not a friend or a foe.

  Lakesh had seen his first representative of the Archons in the Dulce installation, in the early 1990s. Although he watched the entity for less than a minute, lately he had begun to wonder if that Archon might not have been Balam himself. On their mission to Russia, Brigid, Kane and Grant had learned about the discovery of a creature sealed within a cryonic-stasis canister at the site of the Tunguska disaster. According to their source, he had lain buried for over three decades, until the end of World War II. He was revived, spending several years as a guest of the Soviets before being traded to the West. His name was Balam.

  On the British Isles, the self-proclaimed Lord Strongbow confided to them that in the performance of his duties as a liaison officer between the Totality Concept's Mission Snowbird and Project Sigma, he dealt directly with a representative of the Archons, a creature called Balam.

  Obviously, Balam had acted as something of a liaison officer himself, an emissary of the Archon Directive throughout the latter half of the twentieth century. In light of that information, Lakesh was working on the hypothesis that Balam might be the only and perhaps last Archon on Earth.

  And if Balam was indeed the last of his kind, then there was no Archon Directorate, just like there was no real group called the Preservationists.

  Lakesh suppressed a curse. At three o'clock in the morning, all sorts of bleak concepts occurred to him.

  However, one empirically proved element about the Archons was their great psionic abilities. Each of the entities was connected to the others through some hyper-spatial filaments of mind energy, similar to the collective consciousness of certain insect species. Judging by Balam's distressed reaction when Baron Ragnar was murdered, those filaments
even included the hybrids, the Directorate's plenipotentiaries on Earth.

  Banks said slowly, "According to the abduction literature you had me study, one of the hallmarks of Archon telepathic contact and control was the mental transmission of a terrestrial animal with unusually large dark eyes."

  Lakesh nodded. "Using an owl is a classic."

  Voice quivering, Banks stated, "Balam took me over. Possessed me."

  "Another term might be channeled," Lakesh suggested. "You were asleep, your mental defenses down. We've always wondered about the extent of Balam's psionic abilities — now we know a bit more."

  "Why do this to me, after all these years?"

  Lakesh tugged at his long nose absently. "The first question is easy to answer. You've been in close proximity with Balam every day for the past three and a half years. He probably knows your thought processes better than anyone else's in the redoubt… perhaps better than any other human being's on Earth. It was child's play for him to insinuate himself into your sleeping mind."

  Almost unconsciously, Lakesh began to pace back and forth in front of Banks. "As for why now, he never had a reason before. Through you, he made an effort to initiate communication, something the little bastard has never done."

  "Communication?" echoed Banks. "With you?"

  Lakesh shook his head. "Oddly, no. With Kane. That's who you — he — asked for."

  "How come he didn't know Kane is gone? I knew it."

  "Balam didn't, which indicates his psionic manipulation of you was superficial. Which also indicates his abilities have definite limits."

  Banks didn't look particularly relieved to hear that. Doubtfully, he said, "So either he can't go very deep or he didn't need to."

  His eyes narrowed. "But why ask for Kane? If there's anyone in the redoubt who would pay hard jack for the privilege of breaking Balam's neck, it's Kane."