Outlanders 39 hydras rin.., p.4
Outlanders 39 Hydra's Ring, page 4
The disk eased to a hissing halt. As it did, she heard the heavy boom of artillery fire, interwoven with the staccato hammering of autofire. She stepped out into a dimly lit passageway, Seng Kao following an instant later. She looked around warily, drawing a 9 mm Makarov pistol from the red sash.
Although the emergency lift had deposited them on the ground level of the pyramid, they were in a section that only someone possessing an intimate knowledge of the layout could easily find. She suspected Wei Qiang of possessing that knowledge, but she hadn't devoted the time to formulate a theory on how he came by that information. The most obvious answer was too mad— and frightening—to entertain.
Thumping explosions compressed her ears, and the corridor shuddered from the jolt of the shock waves. The vibrations of the multiple detonations triggered a shower of dirt and grit from above, sifting over her head and shoulders.
"Our enemies have breached your fortress," Seng Kao declared grimly.
Erica raced down the corridor, Seng Kao at her heels, their feet clattering loudly on the flat stone tiles. The passage was feebly lit by neon strips recessed into the ceiling. She turned right down a narrow hall that dead- ended against a tall set of double doors. They hung open, and she rushed between them into a room of black—the walls, floor and ceiling were the color of ebony, like a view of deep space.
Erica sensed Seng Kao's hesitation and she spoke to him in pai-hu, the simplest of the Chinese dialects detached from Mandarin and the only one in which she was fluent—cursing and insults. She hissed, "Ben dan! Fool! Nuo fu! Coward! Tong zing! Faggot!"
At that, the man rushed forward to join her, apologizing breathlessly in the same dialect.
The room wasn't completely without light. A transparent sphere six feet in diameter occupied the center of the room from floor to ceiling. The slowly revolving globe glittered with thousands of pinpoints of light, scattered seemingly at random, but all connected by glowing lines. She knew the orb was actually a three-dimensional representation of the electromagnetic power grid of the planet, as well as a targeting device.
Erica understood Seng Kao's reluctance to enter and cross the room, since it was a forbidden area of the Dragon Mother's fortress, a transgression punishable by death. Only one trooper had been executed over the past couple of years, and she had turned the manner of death over to Sam, who killed the man in a slow, painful way. He had kept the trooper fully conscious and alert to every sensation of his body. When he expired many hours later, eviscerated and mad from agony, the object lesson had been become an article of faith among the other soldiers.
Seng Kao followed her through a wide archway and came to a halt, blinking owlishly at the furnishings of the room. Under other circumstances, Erica might have been amused by the man's reaction.
Sam always referred to it as the Hall of Memory, and she never had reason to question that description. From the center of the floor rose a twelve-foot-tall, round sandstone pillar bearing ornate carvings of birds and animal heads. It was bracketed by two large sculptures, one a feathered jaguar and the other a serpent with wings. Silk tapestries depicting Asian ideographs hung from the walls. There were other tapestries, all bearing twisting geometric designs such as mandalas.
Ceramic effigy jars and elegantly crafted vessels depicting animal-headed gods and goddesses from the Egyptian pantheon were stacked in neat pyramids. Arrayed on a long shelf on the opposite wall were a dozen ushabtis figures, small statuettes representing laborers in the Land of the Dead.
Each and every item appeared to be in perfect condition and each and every item was beyond the ability of the mind to catalogue. The huge room was an archaeologist's paradise, less a museum than a representative sampling from every human culture ever influenced by the Annunaki, the Tuatha de Danaan and the race known as the Archons.
"Guard the door," Erica commanded, handing him her pistol. "Let no one come near, not even our own men."
She rushed across the room to a far wall covered with shelves that held containers and boxes of wood, stone, gold, hammered silver and an abundance of jade. Some of the boxes were set with precious gems, others unadorned and all were stacked helter-skelter.
While Seng Kao stood by the entrance, Erica frantically lifted the lids of the containers and discarded them with no regard to their contents. Coins and jewels of all sizes and colors scattered and rolled across the floor.
The distant rattle of autofire ceased. Only a few cracking, single-shot reports floated down the corridor, followed by the faint tramp of marching feet.
Tensely, Seng Kao began, "My lady—"
Erica interrupted him by uttering a short, sharp cry of triumph. Turning toward her, Seng Kao saw Erica striding swiftly toward him with an ornately carved wooden box tucked under an arm. She swept past him out into the corridor, saying only, "Hurry!"
They raced down the passageway, their footsteps echoing like the beat of faraway drums. The two people rounded a corner and reached the gateway unit, rising from an elevated platform. Six upright slabs of armaglass formed a translucent wall around it. The armaglass glistened as if ingots of gold had been melted down and applied to it like molten paint.
Erica pulled open the door on its counterbalanced hinges and pushed Seng Kao inside the chamber, his boots ringing hollowly on the metal- hexagonal floor plates. The pattern was repeated on the ceiling.
She remained outside, quickly punching in a destination lock code on the keypad affixed to the door. Although Seng Kao had traveled via the mat-trans units before, he never grew accustomed to the concept, much less the practice. He said plaintively, "My lady—"
Erica opened the box under her arm and removed an object from within it, pressing it into his left hand while she took the pistol from his right. "You won't need that where you're going," she stated tersely. "It's best you arrive unarmed. And when you do, show them the ring and tell them I have the other seven. Say I ask their help."
Seng Kao gazed down with confused, disconcerted eyes at the ring of corroded copper in his hand. The band, resembling several intertwined serpents, was very wide. He noted absently that whoever had owned the ring in the past had to have been a giant, since its girth .was several sizes too great for any normal human finger to hold.
"My lady," he said with a growing alarm. "Tell who about the other seven what?"
Erica stepped back and began swinging the door shut. "You'll know who to tell when you get there. Tell them I have the other seven Hydra rings. You have one, and Wei Qiang wears the ninth. Explain what has happened and if they want to become involved, to seek me in Yichang."
Seng Kao opened his mouth to protest, but the door closed with a solid chock, the lock solenoids catching and triggering the automatic jump mechanism. He cried out, "But what of you, Tui Chui Jian? What of you?"
She didn't answer. Even through the armaglass Erica saw the disks in the floor and ceiling of the chamber beginning to shimmer. A vibrating hum arose from within the platform, climbing rapidly to a high-pitched whine.
Erica van Sloan didn't wait to see if the dematerialization cycle completed successfully. Pressing the wooden box between her left arm and ribs, the Makarov in her right fist, she dashed out of the room and down another corridor. She heard the distant thudding of grenades, the sharp crackle of machine guns and the heavier thud of rifle fire.
The floor became smoother and the square-cut blocks of stone on the walls gave to way a seamless expanse. The ceiling rounded overhead like an arch, winding gently to the left in an ever-widening curve. Behind her, she heard men shouting in Chinese, yelling something about finding the white whore. She didn't wonder whom they were talking about.
The passageway suddenly opened into a vast, domed space, a natural cavern beneath the pyramid itself. The unfinished stone of its ceiling gleamed here and there with clusters of crystals and geodes. The floor dipped down in a gradual incline and at the center, surrounded by a collar of interlocking silver slabs, lay a pool about fifty feet in circumference.
The inner rim was lined with an edging of crystal points that glowed with a dull iridescence. Sam had always called the pool the Heart of the Earth and in many ways it was, since it was a nexus point, a convergence of geomantic energy.
The pool served as a cardinal point in the world grid harmonics, a part of an ancient network of pyramids built at key places around the world to tap Earth's natural geomantic energies. She knew there were a number of hubs throughout Asia such as Angkor Wat in Cambodia and Chomolunga in Tibet, but none with the concentration of sheer power that lay beneath the Xian pyramid.
Only a few of the ceiling crystals sparkled with light. Some glowed steadily, others flickered feebly and still others were only multifaceted lumps of mineral. She knew that if all of them shone with the same light level, the interior of the cavern would have blazed as blindingly as a naked star.
Panting, Erica remained by the entrance, placing the box between her feet as she tried to catch her breath. She eyed the crystalline formations and the misty phosphorescence wafting within the pool with something akin to anger.
To her frustration and regret, she had never been able to manipulate the geomantic energies pent up within the Heart of the World, or even figure out how they interacted with the targeting sphere.
Although she understood the principles, she lacked Sam's psionic talents to engage the process. He had promised to teach her the proper methodology, but like so many of his other promises, it was only a lie to gain her trust and cooperation for the furtherance of his monstrous plans.
In the year since Sam's true nature had asserted itself, Erica made a promise of her own—that if she could not learn how to harness the Heart of the World, then no one else would have the opportunity, either.
Assuming a combat stance, holding the pistol in a two-handed grip, she brought the block of C-4 into target acquisition, aligning it with the front and rear sights of her Makarov. The package of plastic explosive was exactly where she had affixed it months ago, jammed between a huge chunk of geode and a stalactite a score of yards away. It had a percussion-charge detonator, and a hard jolt was all that was required to set it off.
Erica took a half breath, held it and squeezed the trigger. The report of the pistol was a flat, lackluster crack, as of the snapping of a wet twig in the distance.
There was nothing lackluster about the reaction when the 9 mm round penetrated the percussion charge. The ceiling of the cavern dissolved in a blinding flash, a clap of eardrum-compressing thunder and a blooming burst of hell-hued light.
A hurricane of hot air struck Erica in the face, driving her breath painfully back into her nostrils. The wave of concussive force sent her staggering, her cloak billowing out behind her as if she faced a stiff wind.
A seething avalanche of rock slabs cascaded from the roof of the cavern. Great stalactites and crystal shards crashed onto the area around the pool, smashing and crushing the collar of interlocking silver slabs encircling it.
Inestimable tons of marble, granite, mica and flint poured into the throat of the pool, filling it, clogging it, covering it. Small boulders rolled and bounced across the cavern. Squinting through the whirling clouds of dust and grit to make sure the Heart of the World was thoroughly buried, Erica picked up the wooden box and backed away from the entrance.
Dimly, above the grinding rumble of settling stone, Erica heard a series of pops. Bullets tore white gouges in the stonework above her head, sprinkling her hair with rock particles. She slid backward into the shadows, grimacing at the ricochets whining all around.
At the far end of the passageway dark shapes shifted through the planes of dust and smoke, little red flares twinkling in the gloom. Voices shouting in angry Chinese interwove around the autofire.
Taking a firm grip on the pistol, she stretched out her arm and fired in a steady roll at the indistinct figures milling in the corridor. She heard screams of pain and panic even over the gunshots. Then the slide of the Makarov snapped back into the locked and empty position. She flung herself behind the shield of a corner as the yellow-uniformed soldiers returned the fire. A sleet storm of bullets crashed into the stone, chipping out long, dust-spurting gouges.
More than one voice was raised in an infuriated scream about not allowing the dragon whore, Tui Chui Jian, to escape.
A cold smile creased Erica van Sloan's lips as she eased deeper into the shadows of the passageway, clutching at the wooden box. The rings rattled within it. "Too late, assholes," she whispered. "Too late."
Chapter 5
Mohandas Lakesh Singh was fuming. He was fuming and walking fast and talking all at the same time, which required a great deal of effort. Mainly he seemed to be cursing under his breath.
"That damned silly little twit," he muttered, the vanadium-sheathed walls of the corridor muting his voice. "She tricked me, sent me off on a fool's errand to the gymnasium. She tricked me!"
Brigid Baptiste, walking beside him, didn't even bother repressing a laugh. "Serves you right, Lakesh. You played tricks on a lot of people, me included, to get them here in the first place. Just because Domi turned the tables on you for once is no reason to throw a fit."
"I'm not throwing a fit," he snapped. "I'm expressing a victim's right to redress a grave grievance. The weekly security briefing was scheduled for today at noon, and Domi's nincompoopery has thrown my plans for the rest of the day seriously off model."
Brigid laughed again.
Lakesh scowled at her. He was a well-built man of medium height, with thick, glossy black hair, a dark olive complexion and a long, aquiline nose. He looked no older than fifty, despite strands of gray threading his temples. In reality, he was less than a year shy of celebrating his 250th birthday. He wore a one-piece white zippered bodysuit, the unisex duty uniform of the Cerberus redoubt.
"I'm pleased you take such pleasure in my discomfiture," he said sourly, his cultured voice underscored by a lilting East Indian accent.
"Like Kane keeps saying," Brigid replied, "you take yourself way too seriously way too often."
She was a tall woman less than half an inch shy of matching Lakesh's five feet ten inches. Her fair complexion was lightly dusted with freckles across her nose and cheeks, and her big feline-slanted eyes weren't just green, they were the color of brightly polished emeralds. Her high forehead gave the impression of a probing intellect whereas her full underlip hinted at an appreciation of the sensual.
A thick mane of red-gold hair fell in loose, lava-flow waves almost to her waist. She wore a military-gray T-shirt and jeans, which accentuated her full-breasted, willowy figure. Her bare arms rippled with hard, toned muscle.
They turned a corner and walked side by side down the twenty-foot-wide main corridor of the Cerberus redoubt, underneath great curving ribs of metal that supported the high rock roof.
Bright midsummer sunshine flooded through the square entrance, causing both of them to squint. The massive security door inset into the base of the mountain peak opened in accordion fashion and, because of the weight of the individual vanadium panels, the door was usually left partially ajar during daylight hours. Opening and shutting it completely required several minutes.
From the plateau outside the entrance wafted the murmur of several voices, Domi's among them. Lakesh heard her laugh, and by degrees his scowl turned into a rueful grin.
Turning toward Brigid, he inquired, "I suppose upon reflection my whole life has just been one big trick, hasn't it?"
Brigid nodded in smiling agreement. "So you'd better learn to relax and enjoy it while you can."
They continued walking toward the open door, passing the three heads of Cerberus. A large, luridly colored illustration of the triple-headed black hound of Greek myth was painted on the wall beneath the sec door controls. Fire and blood gushed out from between yellow fangs, the crimson eyes glaring bright and baleful. Underneath the image, in overly ornate Gothic script was written the single word Cerberus.
Brigid recalled when she asked about the artist shortly after her arrival at the redoubt some three years ago, Lakesh opined that one of the original military personnel assigned to the redoubt had rendered the painting. Although he couldn't be positive, Lakesh suspected a Corporal Mooney was the artist, since its exaggerated exuberance seemed right out of the comic books he was obsessed with collecting.
Lakesh had never considered having it removed. For one thing, the paints were indelible and for another, it was Corporal Mooney's form of immortality. Besides, the image of Cerberus, the guardian of the gates of Hell, represented a visual symbol of the work to which Lakesh had devoted his life. The three-headed hound was an appropriate totem for the installation that, for a handful of years, housed the primary subdivision of the Totality Concept's Overproject Whisper, Project Cerberus.
As a youthful genius, Lakesh had been drafted into the web of conspiracy spun by the overseers of the Totality Concept during the last couple of decades of the twentieth century. A multi-degreed physicist and cyberneticist, he served as the administrator for Project Cerberus, a position that had earned him survival during the global mega-cull of January 2001. Like a number of other survivors, he spent most of the intervening two hundred years suspended in a form of cryostasis.
Brigid and Lakesh walked out onto the broad, tarmac-covered plateau. Behind and above them, the mountain peak raised gray stone crags and broken turrets to the blue noonday Montana sky.
On their left, the plateau debouched into grassy, wild flower carpeted slopes, and the bright sun gleamed on the white headstones marking over a dozen grave sites. The fabricated markers bore only last names: Avery, Cotta, Dylan, Adrian and many more. Ten of them were barely a year old, inscribed with the names of the Moon base émigrés who had died defending Cerberus from the assault staged by Overlord Enlil. The surface of the plateau itself was still pockmarked by the craters inflicted by that attack.
On the far side of the plateau, the asphalt dropped away into an abyss nearly a thousand feet deep, plunging down to a riverbed. A two-lane blacktop road curled down to the flatlands, paralleling the forested slopes of the Bitterroot Range. The ragged remains of a chain-link fence rattled between rusted metal stanchions that bordered the lip overhanging the chasm.
