Outlanders 15 - Doom Dynasty Page 15

  Shizuka ducked her head and in a genuinely re­gretful tone said, "That saddens me, Grant-san. I looked forward to your visit."

  "Why?" he asked bluntly.

  Slowly, Shizuka raised her face. In a voice so low he had to strain to hear it, she said, "There is some­thing magnificent in your spirit, Grant-san…it is com-patible with my own." She placed a hand on his cheek. Despite her gloves, her touch was warm and electric. "I know you feel the same way. I see it in your eyes, hear it in your voice when you speak to me."

  Grant's throat constricted to an almost painful de­gree. He felt his body responding to the woman's proximity. Tentatively, he lifted his left hand and cupped the woman's cheek. In a gravelly whisper he said, "Shizuka—"

  As soon as he spoke her name, she raised herself on tiptoes, dropping her helmet at her feet. She put her arms around him, one hand at the back of his neck, forcing his head down. Grant bent and touched his lips to hers, and she responded hungrily, with an urgent, burning passion.

  Almost without volition, Grant caught her up in his arms, crushing her slim figure to him, and kissed her fiercely on eyes, cheeks, lips and throat. Shizuka re­turned his kisses with those as tempestuous as a storm wind.

  Grant had no idea how long they stood there, locked in a passionate embrace. But when he heard a faint crunch of feet on dry leaves, he reluctantly pushed her away, lifting his face from hers. At first he saw nothing, then he detected a movement in a wedge of shadow, a blurred glimpse of a white-haired head.

  Tension knotted in his stomach like a length of rope, and he gusted out a groaning sigh. Perplexed and a little cross, Shizuka asked breathlessly, "What is it?"

  Carefully, Grant disengaged himself from the woman. "I think it's time we get back to the others."

  Bending to pick up her helmet from where she dropped it, Shizuka said tonelessly, "I heard her, too. You said she wasn't yours."

  "She isn't," Grant replied defensively. "But she thinks I'm hers."

  He started to explain further, but Shizuka said "Oh" in such a way he knew no explanations were necessary. She understood perfectly as only a woman could.

  They returned to the courtyard, Grant keeping a surreptitious eye out for Domi. Although he knew Shizuka's martial skills were more than adequate to protect her from a wild attack from the girl, he wouldn't have been surprised to find his own throat on the receiving end of her knife blade.

  Kane had no intention of remaining in the town until the last Magistrate was permitted to die. Already two of the former prisoners had inflicted so much tor­ture they were exhausted. They sat on the edge of the pool, tired, disheveled, faces drained, blood drenched from fingertips to elbows. He wasn't certain what they had done to the Mags, but he knew sharpened stakes and knives heated to red-hot over a fire played prom­inent roles. He had no idea of where Grant had disappeared to.

  Unable to raise him on the comm-link, he sent Domi to find him and fetch him back. He sought out Brigid and found her in a far corner, on the opposite side of the courtyard from the pool. She sat on a crumbling concrete bench, looking very wan and not a little sick.

  "I think we should pull out as soon as possible, Baptiste," he said. "It'll be easier to cross the desert at night. The water and concentrated food in the kit will get us back to the redoubt if we ration them." When she didn't immediately respond, he added, "If you feel up to it, that is."

  She did not look at him. Her emerald eyes were dulled with fatigue, her face smudged by dirt. "Oh, I'm up to it," she said listlessly. "We've learned all we're likely to learn here."

  "Which is precisely shit," he said, sitting beside her, revolving his helmet in his hands.

  She ran her fingers through her tousled red-gold mane. "That's not quite so."

  "Explain."

  Drawing in a long breath, she held it and released it slowly. "I can only speculate and extrapolate, but given what we know of Baron Cobalt's activities over the past few months, I think he's more concerned with saving himself than maintaining the oligarchy as a whole."

  Kane frowned at her. "I'm not going to argue about that. So, what do you think—since we made the Dulce facility useless to the barons, Cobalt is scrambling around trying to find fresh genetic mate­rial only for himself?"

  She nodded. "Exactly. In my opinion, he's preoc­cupied with consolidating his power base and in order to do that, he has to stay healthy."

  Kane mused, "That may explain why he never sent another Mag squad into the Darks to avenge Abrams's defeat. Revenge is taking a back seat to plain old survival."

  "More than that," Brigid replied. "Certainly, he needs to sustain himself, just like all the other barons. But it's possible he's doing so at the expense of his brother barons. He may be waiting for them to sicken and start dying off so he can conquer their villes."

  "Mebbe," Kane conceded doubtfully. "But mak­ing ambitious moves like that is a pretty blasphemous thing for a baron to do. He'd be spitting not only on the unification program but on the Archon Directorate itself. One of the reasons the barons have observed a balance of power for so long is their fear that the Archons will get pissed and blow the world up again."

  Brigid massaged her temples. "I know. But that presupposes the barons—or Cobalt at least—actually believe in the Archon Directorate anymore. Perhaps they never did."

  Kane noticed her wincing, but he didn't inquire about why. "For the sake of argument," he said, "let's say Baron Cobalt is doing what you say. But where is he processing the raw genetic material for his own private treatments? We know it's not the Ant­hill, and it's for damn sure not that Nazi pesthole in Antarctica. None of the villes have the necessary kind of medical facilities or know-how to perform the ad­vanced genetic therapy the barons need to stay alive. Only Dulce had that."

  "The gateway codes Pollard had on him are prob­ably the answer," Brigid said a touch impatiently.

  Thoughtfully, Kane replied, "I suppose we can in­put them into the controls when we get back to Re­doubt Charlie and see where we end up—"

  Brigid made a snorting, spitting sound of disdain. "And maybe jump into a platoon of Mags or a nest of hybrids. Use your head, Kane."

  "What's your suggestion, then?" Kane shot back.

  "Once we've returned to Cerberus, I'll see if I can match up the code with the index in the Cerberus network database. If we have a redoubt designation, we'll have a location and an idea of what to expect there. That's what I suggest—a modicum of prelim­inary investigation and planning."

  Kane realized he couldn't argue with her reasoned response, and he felt slightly embarrassed. When he noticed she still rubbed the sides of her head, he asked, "Head hurt?"

  "Like hell," she answered. "But it's controllable. DeFore said I was likely to experience headaches for a couple of months, particularly after periods of ex­ertion. It'll pass."

  "I died to get you to sit this op out."

  "I've been convalescing long enough." Her tone had an edge to it, and Kane dropped the subject.

  Once again he silently marveled at Brigid Bap-tiste's stamina. She was one of the toughest people he had ever met. For a woman who had been trained to be an academic, a scholar and had never strayed more than ten miles from the sheltering walls of Co-baltville, her resiliency and resourcefulness never failed to impress him. Over the past year, she had left her tracks in the most distant and alien of climes and walked in very deep, very dangerous waters.

  Both of them had come a very long way—in dis­tances that could not be measured in mere miles— from the night of their first meeting in the residential Enclaves.

  Kane gazed across the courtyard where the Tigers of Heaven prepared a litter for the wounded Ibichi. "What do you think of our new friends?" he asked. "Pretty amazing how their swords cut through ar­mor."

  Brigid shrugged. "They've probably laser sharp­ened the edges to only a few molecules thick. It's an old technique." She angled a questioning eyebrow at him. "Besides, don't you think it's a little premature to call them
friends?"

  "They helped us."

  "Only because we could help them. Pretty much an alliance of convenience all the way around."

  "Sometimes," he declared, "that's how friend-ships are forged. I think you and I are the perfect examples of that"

  Brigid smiled for the first time since they entered the ruins of the town, a lopsided lifting of a corner of her mouth. "Whatever you say, Kane."

  Domi reappeared, stalking with a stiff-legged stride beneath the arch over the entranceway. "Did you find him?" Kane called out to her.

  She didn't answer or even deign to look in his di­rection. She only gestured behind her, a snapping, al­most dismissive wave of one arm. "What the hell is going on with her now?" Kane wondered aloud.

  When Grant entered the courtyard with Shizuka at his side, Brigid nodded toward them. "You should probably ask them."

  Repressing an exasperated groan, Kane pushed himself to his feet and crossed the courtyard to meet the pair. Brigid followed a moment later. "We're ready to move out," Kane said, without preamble.

  Shizuka regarded him in mild surprise. "Now? A night march?"

  "Why not? Easier to walk at night wearing this armor than in the heat of the day."

  "What about the stuff we left in the riverbed?" Grant asked.

  "Leave it," Kane replied. "I don't feel like back­tracking, especially through the field of snakes again."

  The big man nodded. "I guess crossing the desert at night makes sense." He didn't sound happy about it, however.

  Kiyomasa sauntered over to them. His foul humor over killing Pollard quickly rather than shoving red-hot coals in his mouth followed by his testicles seemed to have disappeared. Politely, he said, "We thank you for your help in bringing these murderers to judgment and for rescuing our friends from slav­ery."

  They rescued them from a fate worse than slavery, Kane thought but he said only, "Our pleasure."

  Kiyomasa hesitated, then said in a burst, "New Edo would be most interested in striking an official alliance with you and the powers you represent, Kane-san. Now that you are aware of our existence, perhaps we may be of some service to each other in the future."

  Kane smiled wryly. "I was thinking along much the same lines. But how do we reach New Edo?"

  From inside his breastplate, Kiyomasa produced a folded square of yellow parchment. "I wrote this down a few minutes ago. It is the longitudinal coor­dinates of our island." He handed it to Brigid, saying, "It is Japanese, but I'm sure you can translate the ideograms, since you show such a facility with our language.",

  Brigid wasn't sure if she was being mocked, so she opted to bow and reply, "Ah domo arigato."

  All of the Tigers of Heaven assembled around the three outlanders, Ibicbi included, leaning on a crutch made from a piece of broken rafter. They bowed deeply, murmuring "Arigato" and "Sayonara."

  Domi wasn't interested in taking part in the formal farewells. She had already stalked to the courtyard entrance and stood beneath the arch, her eyes snap­ping with impatience.

  "If the winds of fate wish it to be so, they will blow us to each other very soon," Shizuka whispered to Grant.

  "If the winds of fate will it," he responded in the same low voice. He cast a sideways glance toward Domi, making sure both her blaster and knife were securely leathered. "Among other things."

  Chapter 16

  Front Royal, a ville in Virginia, was not greatly changed since the time of the inaugural Council of Front Royal nearly a century before. Siege damage had been repaired long ago to the ville, restoring its former appearance of a medieval castle. The towers and turrets and observation eyries overlooked a wide, green valley. The weathered bricks and blocks were clean of vines and lichens. The main building, the keep, rose above the walls in a defiant thrust of chis­eled stone, stained-glass windows and forged steel.

  The ville was enclosed by walls nearly half a mile in circumference and fifty feet tall, offering flat but­tresses of impregnable fortifications. The walls in turn were surrounded by a river with only a single bridge that crossed it into a central, cobblestoned plaza.

  As one of the concessions to modern times, pow­erful halogen spotlights were mounted both on the walls and atop the turrets. Projecting from each corner of the walls were Vulcan-Phalanx gun towers, the heavy weapons ready and waiting to fend off any sort of attack.

  Front Royal was not occupied except by a skeleton maintenance staff and a garrison consisting of twenty soldiers. It was not a ville in the conventional sense, but more of a neutral zone, a place where the barons could meet on equal terms. It was the birthplace of the Program of Unification when the nine most pow­erful barons from across the Deathlands put aside their differences and regional jealousies in order to consolidate their collective strength and unite the na­tion under their control. A mysterious emissary named Thrush issued an ultimatum to the barons: ei­ther they would agree to the principles of the unifi­cation program or they would face devastation on a scale unrivaled since the nukecaust. In exchange for their agreement, the barons would have access to pre-dark technology and techniques of social engineering that would further extend their control over an un­suspecting populace.

  In Erica van Sloan's opinion, Front Royal was not much of a substitute for Camp David. That the barons preferred to maintain its quaint, Old World architec­ture, as fake as it was, in lieu of redesigning it to resemble the Administrative Monoliths in the villes was not much of an improvement. The main hall of the keep was immense. Its heavy-beamed ceiling and waxed, oak-paneled walls always danced with the light of a hundred false electric candles in the wrought-iron chandelier.

  The floor was of polished marble in swirling, in­definable patterns. At the far end was a hearth big enough to comfortably sleep four barons and two of the security staff. A yard-long electric log always glowed there.

  Despite its tasteful furnishings, the place was so obviously faux it almost reached the point of being funny. Erica van Sloan could not help but be re­minded of theme parks built to emulate King Arthur's Camelot or some other place that probably never ex­isted outside of the imagination.

  As far as she knew, none of the barons objected to the installation of a mat-trans unit within a shielded cubicle, complete with stripped-down control room, on the opposite side of the main hall. Erica did not think the six-sided elevated chamber with its sky-blue armaglass walls added or detracted from the Old World feel of the big room. It simply stood there, at the far end of the control room, like an ugly conver­sation piece.

  Sitting in her wheelchair in the control room, she tensed—or made an attempt to—when she heard the characteristic high-pitched drone exuding from the emitter array within the platform. The sound was an electronic synthesis between a hurricane howl and bee-swarm hum, dropping to inaudibility as the mat-trans unit cycled through another materialization.

  The noise was nerve-racking, but she didn't bother trying to make out the vague shape shifting on the other side of the translucent armaglass shielding. She knew who would be standing there within the walls, and so she saw no need to sit and wait for the dele­gates to arrive one by one. She was sure the matter-stream and destination codes were locked on their au­tomatic settings.

  Blowing into the air-pipe control, Erica turned her wheelchair from the comp station and rolled toward the conference room. She resolutely avoided looking in the direction of the monitor screens, glass-encased control boards or anything that might reflect her ap­pearance. Behind her she heard the click of solenoids as the heavy slab of armaglass that served as the chamber's door swung open on counterbalanced hinges.

  She knew mist swirled thickly within with thready static electricity discharges arcing within the billow­ing mass. The mist was simply a byproduct of the quantum interface, a plasma wave form that only re­sembled vapor. Before she reached the corridor, the low-pitched hum arose again.

  Bom in 1974 by the old calendar, Erica van Sloan still viewed the matter-transfer machines more akin to magic than
science, like leftover props from the science-fiction films and TV shows she had enjoyed as a child. Unlike similar devices in celluloid fiction, the gateway units had never been responsible for ghastly accidents, like transposing a human subject's head with that of a fly's, or splitting a man into his positive and negative halves. At least as far as she knew.

  She really didn't know the entire history of the quantum interphase mat-trans inducers despite being assigned to Operation Chronos, the sister subdivision of Project Cerberus. As a cybernetic specialist, she understood in theory how the quantum energies re­leased by the gateways transformed organic and in­organic matter to digital information, transmitted it along a hyperdimensional pathway and reassembled it in a receiver unit.

  To accomplish this, the mat-trans units required an inestimable number of maddeningly intricate elec­tronic procedures, all occurring within milliseconds of one another, to minimize the margins for error. The actual matter-to-energy conversion process was se-quenced by an array of computers and microproces­sors, with a number of separate but overlapping op­erational cycles.

  With another exhalation of breath into the control stem, the wheelchair turned right with a squeaking of rubber tires and the buzz of an electric motor. As per the established policy, she encountered no one else. All of the servants and guards were forbidden to enter the bottom level of the keep, particularly when the barons were present

  Erica entered a room that seemed to stretch for a mile. The floor, the walls, the ceiling, all were made of a slick, slightly reflective vanadium alloy. Not only was the sheathing for security purposes, but also it provided protection just in case a Roamer or a Pres­ervationist—or even Kane and Grant—fired a LAW rocket at the keep.

  At the far end was a conference table, a highly polished twelve-foot-diameter oval of rare and expen-sive teak. Erica rolled past the nine chairs around the table, noting expressionlessly that one of the chairs would remain vacant. Another puff of air brought her chair to a halt near the head of the table, where she waited and remembered.