Outlanders 11 armageddon.., p.13
Outlanders 11 Armageddon Axis, page 13
"What the hell is he doing here?" demanded Grant.
Without looking at him, Lakesh replied calmly. "He came over a transit line around dawn yesterday. He's refused to say from where exactly or why or even leave the platform. He threatened to use that grenade if we tried to force him out. He'll only talk to Brigid."
"I'm here," she said, shouldering between Kane and Grant.
The transadapt's swart face split with a huge welcoming grin, exposing discolored stumpy teeth. "Hi, Miss Brigid. Do you remember me?"
She regarded him keenly and found with a sense of dismay she could not find his face in her memory. "I'm afraid I don't."
The little man tapped the crown of his head. "My name is Leland. You conked me real good on Cydonia, hit me with Sindri's cane."
Brigid nodded in recognition. "Now I recall you. Did Sindri send you here?"
Leland nodded. "He needs help, an' he said to tell you he's sorry and to give you this."
He inserted dirt-encrusted fingers into a breast pocket of his coverall, oblivious to the bores of the Sin Eaters staring at him like hollow eyes. He brought out a small, slip-sleeved CD-ROM and held it up toward her. "Look at this It'll explain everything."
As he spoke, Leland's words slurred slightly. His black eyes bore a glassy sheen.
DeFore said quietly, "He's suffering from the increased atmospheric pressure and richer oxygen content."
Bending down, Brigid took the disk, eyed the gren and said in a level tone, "If you want my help, I'll need you to disarm that gren."
Leland blinked, as if surprised about the presence of the device clutched within his toes. "Sorry. Almost forgot about it."
His toe-thumb tapped the primer button, and the blinking light went out. He opened his toes, and the metal ovoid rolled clinking over the floor hexagons. Grant and Kane began a forward lunge toward Leland, intent on immobilizing him, but Brigid spread her arms and held them back.
"Knock it off," she said crossly. "What are you going to do, double-team a man not even half your size?"
"Those transadapts are stronger than they look, remember?" Kane shot back a little defensively, but he came to a halt.
Grant reached down and scooped up the gren, eyeing it closely. "A DM-54 implode with an electronic detonator, manufactured around 1999. The proverbial handful of hell. Damn rare. I doubt we have more than a dozen in the arsenal."
He cast Leland a suspicious stare. "There were no weapons in the Cydonia Compound, so where'd you get this?"
Leland only glared at him.
"I imagine he got it from the same source that supplied our dozen," Lakesh commented quietly. Grant swiveled his head toward him. "What do you mean?"
Lakesh shook his head and addressed Leland. "Do u feel secure enough to leave the chamber now?" Leland blinked expectantly at Brigid. She said reassuringly, "You're safe. Consider yourself our guest."
Kane snorted scornfully, but Leland ignored him, pushing himself erect. He walked across the jump chamber, listing slightly. The knuckles of his hands nearly dragged on the floor plates. Grant stepped aside as Brigid led the little man out into the ready room. "Is there anything you want?"
"Need to go to the head," Leland piped. "Been at least three days since I took a leak. It's starting to get serious."
Brigid asked Banks, "Would you mind showing him the proper facilities?"
Banks quirked an eyebrow, first at her then at Leland. He smiled. "Once the nursemaid of aliens, always the nursemaid of aliens, I guess. My lot in life."
Handing the SA-80 over to Cotta, he started off across the room. "Come with me, Leland."
Leland shambled after him, muttering sullenly, "I'm no alien. I may be a Martian, but that don't make me no alien."
Kane, Grant, Lakesh and DeFore emerged from the mat-trans unit. Turning to face them, Brigid lightly tapped the compact computer disk against the palm of one hand. "I guess there's no longer any need to wonder if we'll ever hear from Sindri again."
Chapter 13
Kane had figured that if he and his partners ever collided with Sindri again, it would be through happenstance. It hadn't occurred to him Sindri would dispatch an emissary in order to actively seek out their aid. In his more tolerant, fair-minded moments, Kane admitted to himself it was almost their fault they had met Sindri in the first place.
While exploring an anomaly in the network of functioning mat-trans units, Lakesh, Brigid and Kane found the corpse of a transadapt killed by a Mag squad. A post-mortem performed upon the troll revealed he was not a mutant or a hybrid but a human being modified to live in an environment with a rarefied atmosphere and low gravity.
After a bit of investigation, Lakesh traced the quantum conduit used by the transadapt to a point in outer space—a predark space station on the far side of the moon known as Parallax Red
Kane, Grant and Brigid jumped to the station, which was overseen by an ingenious gnome of a man calling himself Sindri, after the master forger of the troll race in Norse mythology.
Sindri impressed them all with his wit, his charm and his probing intellect. They were particularly impressed by the startling story he told about Parallax Red and its connection to a human colony on Mars. Originally Parallax Red was a covert joint undertaking between America and Russia, under the authority of the Totality Concept' s Overproject Majestic. Envisioned as an elite community with a maximum population of five thousand, the station was intended as a utopia for the best of Earth transported to space. And not only did it establish a permanent military presence in space, but it also provided a staging point for launching deep-space exploratory craft.
Once Project Cerberus began mass-producing the mat-trans gateways as modular units, conventional spacecraft were rendered obsolete, since the gateways allow instantaneous movement of personnel and materiel back and forth from Earth. Additionally, experiments were conducted regarding the teleportation of gateway components through space along carrier- wave guides, which allowed travel to the inner planets of the solar system without using conventional spacecraft.
Construction of the Cydonia One Compound on Mars began in late 1990. Earth-normal gravity was maintained in the compound by using a network of synthetic-gravity generators. The descendants of the first Martian colonists were engineered to adapt to the planet's environment. Thus was born the first generation of "transadapts," capable of existing in very cold temperatures and drawing oxygen from a thinner atmosphere. The load-bearing function of the spine and legs was altered, with the legs becoming a second
pair of arms. The transadapts were engineered to have a relatively short life span, with few living past thirty years. The transadapts were developed in secret in the Cydonia Compound using raw genetic material provided by people taken forcibly from Earth—an ugly twist on the UFO-abduction myths.
However, because of the chaos engendered by the nukecaust and the damage the space station sustained, both the fledgling colony and Parallax Red were forgotten. The personnel of the station had no choice but to move permanently to Mars, where they formed a caste-based society built on the labor of the transadapts.
As the twenty-first century became the twenty- second, the transadapt population of the Cydonia Compound continued to grow, eventually outnumbering the human population by well over three to one. Only their much shorter life spans prevented them from completely controlling the colony.
Genetic testing determined Sindri was the offspring of a transadapt mother and human-colonist father. As an adult, Sindri discovered a crisis in fertility was looming, and he urged an exodus back to Earth before the entire human population of the colony became extinct. Rather than accepting Sindri's proposal, the dwindling number of human colonists used a medical treatment disguised as necessary vaccinations to make the transadapts barren.
Sindri led an open, bloody revolution against the human population of Cydonia. At the end of a month, all of the human colonists and three-quarters of the transadapts had perished by violence.
Delving into the compound's computer database, Sindri found the location of a hidden mat-trans unit and its one active jump-line--the Parallax Red space station. He and a group of his people occupied it, restoring atmosphere to part of it.
Still obsessed with transplanting the survivors of the Martian colony to Earth, Sindri realized their only chance for survival was to successfully hybridize their genetic structure with those of native Terrans, so the women at least could reproduce. When Kane, Grant and Brigid arrived on Parallax Red via the gateway, Sindri saw them as both fonts of information about Earth and the salvation of the transadapts.
Though his plans for genetic hybridization were unsuccessful and his space station almost destroyed when Kane, Brigid and Grant escaped back to Cerberus, Sindri was undaunted. The day following their return to Cerberus, the ingenious dwarf had sent them, via the mat-trans unit, his signature walking stick. The theatrical gesture told them he was still alive and could overcome their security locks.
Lakesh still had no idea of how he managed to do it. Since that day, several months ago, all of them had wondered at one time or another if they would confront him again.
Curiously, despite what Sindri had planned and had done to them, Kane couldn't dredge up much genuine hatred for him Brigid had referred to him as a warped little man with ambitions to challenge God. He was certainly that, but he had also proved himself to be a cunning adversary operating on his own skewed code of honor.
Also—though Kane would have never admitted it to anyone—he felt a grudging admiration for the little madman and his childlike enthusiasm for wreaking havoc.
At the master console, Brigid inserted the CD- ROM into the drive. Light flashed and pixels crawled across the four-foot VGA monitor screen, then images flickered, overlaid by a strobing blue glow like the sputter of dying neon.
Crashes of static mixed with unintelligible voices screaming and shouting, Then came the unmistakable staccato crackle of autofire.
The flickering pattern coalesced into a scene dimly illuminated and shot through with snowy pixel patterns. Barely visible was a wide corridor sheathed in dully gleaming metal. Shadow shapes glided along it.
Pinpoints of flame twinkled, and again came the hammering of blasterfire. A blur of images skittered across the screen as if whoever held the camera ducked and dodged. A well modulated voice with a sonorous tenor quality to it filtered through the speaker. "Fall back, fall back!"
Kane recognized the voice and felt his spine stiffen.
The viewpoint panned sideways and stopped with a lurch, bobbing unsteadily up and down. An extreme close-up of a man's face filled the screen, viewed from slightly below. His thick, dark blond hair was swept back from an unusually high forehead. The tape accurately recorded his big eyes of clear, clean blue, wide and wild now with fear and with other emotions deeper than mere fright.
"The high pissant himself," Grant growled.
Kane had seen Sindri's chiseled features alight with laughter and twisted with rage, but never contorted into the expression of terror he saw on the screen. Since there was no other object in the scene by which to judge perspective, it wasn't apparent the man was only a shade more than three feet tall.
Seeming to stare right into the control center directly at Brigid, Sindri half shouted over the gunfire in the background, "Miss Brigid, I make this appeal to you in the hope you will urge your companions to render me aid."
Absently, Kane noted how little puffs of vapor accompanied Sindri's words, as if he spoke from a meat locker.
"I realize none of you have any reason to care about what happens to me and my people, but what we've stumbled onto here will directly—and tragically—affect the lives of everyone in the world."
"Where is 'here'?" Brigid murmured. She cast a swift glance at the Mercator-relief map.
"We've been running and fighting for our lives for the past two days. I don't know if this recording will even reach you, but I'm sending Leland to the gateway with it and I pray he makes it through."
The blasterfire increased in both volume and intensity. Sindri looked feverishly over his shoulder. High-pitched voices rose in a babble of panicked shrieks and shouts.
"They're making another move to cut us off!" Sindri blurted. "They're not people—"
The image shifted swiftly to show a view of the corridor. Due to the poor lighting and the shaky camera work, only blurred dark figures appeared on the screen. They ran, dodged, triggered blasters. Cordite smoke floated in flat planes like scraps of dingy chiffon.
Kane made out two stunted, dwarfish bodies sprawled on the floor. Blood, black in the dim light, oozed across the alloy. Standing figures moved into view, wielding what appeared to be AK-47 assault rifles. They wore dark coats and trousers, their white shirts gleaming against the gloom like ghosts.
Behind them a figure gestured, but the shouted orders couldn't be heard over the drumming of autofire and the screams of the transadapts. For a splinter of an instant, Kane glimpsed flaccid lips and eroded flesh.
Abruptly, blackness swallowed the image, but not before he discerned the silhouetted contours of a woman's bosom.
Releasing her breath in a prolonged sigh, Brigid looked toward the Mercator map again. No lights blinked anywhere on its surface. "Where did this happen?"
Lakesh's response was an almost inaudible rustle. "South Dakota."
Grant swiveled his head toward the old man. "What redoubt is there?"
"It isn't a redoubt, not exactly...." His voice trailed off.
Brigid pushed her chair back from the console, eyeing him suspiciously. "I don't recall an indexed gateway unit there."
Lakesh nodded, eyes behind the lenses of his glasses at once vacant and haunted. "That's because it's not part of the Cerberus network."
"But you do know where it is," Brigid declared.
Lakesh leaned forward. "Give me a playback."
Brigid frowned slightly at Lakesh's blatant stonewalling, then touched the keyboard. Images once more flickered across the monitor screen. When it backtracked to the scene in the corridor, Lakesh said, "Normal play."
Brigid did as he requested. The indistinct image of the woman in the background reappeared. Lakesh said tensely, "Freeze it there. Digitally augment and enhance."
By stroking the appropriate sequence of keys, Brigid enlarged the figure. Not much could be done about the poor illumination, but the computer program highlighted features and reduced interference.
Brigid manipulated the keys until a three-quarters view of the woman's profile filled the screen. Her face was lovely, well molded and contoured with soft, full lips and the one visible eye a deep blue.
"That's not the same woman," Kane objected. "We saw her from a different angle." Brigid's fingers continued tapping the keyboard, and in slow, fitful jerks the woman's head turned. The program automatically reduced the shadows obscuring the image until it achieved a full frontal view.
Brigid bit back an exclamation of horror. Grant winced. Lakesh did not react at all.
The right side of the woman's face bore dark, roughened skin sagging like wax exposed to intense heat. The corner of her mouth dipped down like a dewlap, and her eye was lusterless and milky Her hair on that side did not flow—it sprouted from her head in stiffened tendrils between bald patches through which the inflamed scalp showed.
The vision of feminine beauty juxtaposed with deformity was so unsettling, so bizarre that Kane asked uneasily, "Are you sure that thing is working like it's supposed to?"
Brigid didn't answer, staring transfixed at the distorted image, so Kane turned to Lakesh. "That can't be right, can it?"
Inhaling a deep breath, Lakesh tore his gaze away from the screen, took two faltering back steps, turned around and vomited.
Chapter 14
After that, no one cared to linger around the master console. Over his croaking protestations, DeFore led Lakesh away to the dispensary. He claimed he was fine, but everyone saw the clammy film of sweat glistening on his face and the unsteadiness in his legs.
Brigid ejected the disk and frowned at it. "Seeing that woman—or whatever she was—stressed him out."
"He's seen as bad as that before and probably been responsible for worse," Grant remarked darkly.
"What the hell kind of trouble has Sindri gotten himself into?" Kane demanded. "And why would he think we'd give a shit about it?"
Before Brigid could venture a guess, Banks returned to the control complex with Leland. A relieved smile creased the troll's face. Worriedly, Banks said, "We just passed DeFore and Lakesh. Is he sick?"
"We don't know," Brigid answered. She gestured to a chair several yards away from the puddle on the floor. "Leland, sit over there. I want to ask you some questions."
"Okey doke." Obligingly the little man shambled over to the chair and hopped up onto it. He gazed up at Brigid with something akin to adoration shining in his eyes.
"I hope you don't hold that crack on the head against me," she said.
"Oh, no. I deserved it. I was half-drunk because of too much oxygen." He shifted his gimlet gaze toward Kane. "Sindri said you made that happen, monkeying around with the airflow."
Folding his arms over his chest, Kane shot back, "Sindri was right. If it wouldn't have killed us, too, I'd have cut off the oxygen supply to the entire compound. Consider your ugly little ass fortunate."
Leland clenched his fists and feet, favoring Kane with a gargoyle sneer of defiance. To Grant he said, "And you killed Elle."
"I didn't mean to," Grant responded dispassionately. "Casualties of war. What was she to you?"
Leland shrugged negligently, as if he had lost interest in the topic. "She gave me blow jobs sometimes."
Kane noticed Brigid wince and he had trouble repressing a shiver of revulsion himself as the memory of the bulldog-faced transadapt woman drifted through his mind. A new thought struck him According to the autopsy performed on the troll they found in Redoubt Papa, the male transadapts didn't have conventional reproductive organs....
His revulsion returned twofold, and he chased the grotesque thought away.
