Legend

VI

The Swarm scout ship was trying a desperate maneuver, heading in toward the system’s star. It was going to use the gravitational acceleration gained to slingshot around and out of the solar system, hopefully outrunning the three Talons in pursuit. It passed Venus’s orbit with a slight lead over the Airlia ships that had discovered it hiding behind the Earth’s moon.

The Swarm inside the scout ship knew the Talons’ capabilities and recognized that the numbers at current trajectory were not favorable for escape. It chose a more drastic measure, edging inward toward the sun beyond the limits of what wisdom would dictate. The Swarm knew its survival was not important — what was critical was that a message be sent out to the closest Battle Core, and that required gaining some distance from the pursuing ships and getting far enough away from the interference of the solar system in order to send its transmission.

On board the mothership, Artad watched the chase and knew exactly what the Swarm was trying to do. There was no hesitation as he ordered one of the Talons to follow directly while the other two were to loop around the star at the minimum safe distance.

As the scout ship and Talon dived deeper into the sun’s gravity well, the Talon opened fire. Golden bolts of energyshot from the needle nose of the craft toward the scout ship. One struck, sending the scout ship tumbling for several seconds before the Swarm regained control of the damaged vessel. Other bolts were absorbed into the sun. Responding to the incoming power, a solar flare suddenly boiled up from the surface of the sun and enveloped both ships in a bright explosion of light. When it disappeared, both ships were gone.

Artad ordered the surviving two Talons to return to the mothership, then he turned his attention to the image on the screen.

“Did you see?” he asked Aspasia.

“Yes.”

Artad scanned the instruments on the console in front of him. “It does not appear that the Swarm ship was able to get a message out before it was destroyed. However, that does not mean it did not get an initial message out prior to our discovering it. If the Swarm was behind the reprogramming of the Master Guardian via tentacle infiltration of one of your people, then it has been in this system a very long time.”

Aspasia held up a six-fingered hand. “I propose a truce to deal with this problem.”

“You propose?” Artad glared at the image of the High Commissioner. “It is your failures that have led to this.”

“Accept the reality of the situation,” Harrah cut in. “You have always let emotions rule you, Artad, and that was, and is, your greatest shortcoming.”

Artad slammed a hand down on the side of his chair and glared at the screen. “How dare you—”

“If the Swarm come,” Aspasia said, “they will not care who is at fault. They will kill us all.”

“What do you propose?” Artad demanded.

Donnchadh slid the dagger’s black blade across the throat of the Guide, then stepped back to avoid the spurt of blood that issued forth from the severed jugular. She felt no guilt — one who had been turned into a Guide was a creature she no longer considered human. In fact, she was freeing whatever core human part remained trapped inside the unfortunate soul’s mind. She removed the medallion from around its neck, the ring from its finger, and added them to the ones already in the small leather satchel she’d taken from the others she’d killed.

She was weaving a bloody path into the palace, not caring how many corpses she left behind. As soon as she’d climbed out of the ditch and entered the city proper, she’d been in the midst of confusion. People ran to and fro, some with their belongings, others with nothing. Some were heading toward the palace spire crying out in supplication, others away from it. A voice was echoing out of loudspeakers listing name after name, directing them to report to the palace. Looking up, she spotted half a dozen golden saucers bracketing the spire. The key to the uproar, though, was the massive black mothership that hovered over the top of the temple spire. Its shadow covered the entire city. Something unprecedented was happening and for those humans who lived under the unchanging thrall of the Airlia, such a development was terrifying. The Airlia had beat routine and consistency into those who served them for generation after generation.

Donnchadh was taking advantage of the confusion to wreak a small measure of vengeance and get closer to the center of activity to discover exactly what was happening. She made her way onto the large plaza in front of the spire and halted at the near edge in the shadows of a building.

Thousands were gathered in the plaza. Prayers were being chanted by the masses, incense was burning, and rich offerings were being made to the Guides who manned the gates atthe far end of the plaza at the base of the spire. Donnchadh quickly saw, though, that no one was being allowed in unless they were on a list held by a high priest who stood to the rear of the Guides. A desperate man tried to push his way past the Guides and he was cut down without hesitation. In panic those behind him tried to retreat, but the pressure from the thousands behind kept them in place.

Looking up, Donnchadh could see that a narrow metal gangway ran from an opening near the top of the spire to the mothership. She entered the building behind her and tried to get a higher angle so she could see what was on the gangway. It was too close and not tall enough. She was forced to back away from the center of the city, to the high city wall, before she could get a glimpse.

At first, the gangway was deserted except for a pair of Guides standing guard. Soon, however, they got out of the way as several high priests bustled across and entered the cargo door on the mothership. Donnchadh’s breath drew in as four priests appeared out of the spire, two by two, each carrying on their inside shoulders a wooden pole. The two poles supported an object covered by a white shroud. Behind the four priests and what they carried was another high priest, this one garbed in a white linen robe over which he wore a blue sleeveless tunic, fringed in gold. Over the shirt was a coat of many colors, fastened at the shoulders with precious stones. The priest had two pockets over each breast, and even from the distance Donnchadh could make out a slight green glow coming from each pocket. The high priest wore a crown consisting of three bands of metal and his mouth was moving, as if he were chanting, although the words did not carry to her position. It was the accouterment of the Supreme High Priest.

Donnchadh knew she had to be witnessing the removal of the Ark containing the Grail from the temple. Others hadclearly seen it too as a collective moan issued forth from those watching. They knew from what the high priests had preached that if the Ark and Grail were being removed, then they were being abandoned. The word spread quickly across the city, reaching those in the plaza who were not able to see what was happening high above them.

As soon as the Ark was inside the mothership, people poured forth from the spire, two by two, some running, rushing to be inside the mothership. The chosen ones, Donnchadh thought, but chosen for what? Was the temple being abandoned? Why?

The sound of fighting echoed back to Donnchadh as more of those surrounding the spire tried to make their way into the temple and were beaten back by the Guides. A golden orb extended from the pinnacle of the spire and Donnchadh knew what was going to happen next. Golden bolts shot forth from the orb, striking the surrounding area, killing dozens with each blast. The plaza in front of the temple quickly cleared and the doors were bolted shut. At the top, the boarding continued and Donnchadh envisioned a long line of the chosen spiraling up the long ramp that she had climbed so many years ago with Jobb and Gwalcmai.

There was only one reason why this would be happening, Donnchadh realized. The Airlia would not simply abandon this base and leave it empty. It was not their way. On her planet, each outpost that the Airlia had retreated from had been brutally destroyed as soon as it was cleared. It had been a scorched-earth policy on a planetwide scale.

Donnchadh turned away from the spire. She noted that the shield wall surrounding the inner island had been turned off — probably when the mothership had arrived from wherever it had been hidden. She pondered that development as she made her way out of the city. If the shield was off, whatever the threat had been was no longer feared. Had the Airlia here defeated whoever had come? She knew where to find Gwalcmai now that the shield wall was down. He was just outside the metal grate, waiting in the canoe.

“Look,” Gwalcmai said, pointing up as she climbed on board.

The gangway retracted into the mothership and the door slid shut. The mothership moved smoothly and without sound to a position a kilometer and a half above the palace. Larger cargo doors in the front of the Airlia craft opened. Two golden saucers exited a door just above the base of the palace. Below them, caught in a tractor beam, was an object that Donnchadh had heard of but never seen — the one on her world had been destroyed in the nuclear explosion that took out the palace — a massive crouching Black Sphinx, over a hundred meters long from the tip of the paws to the rear. The Hall of Records. It was supposed to have been the place where the Ark and Grail were securely stored.

The two saucers flew the sphinx into the cargo bay and set it down. As soon as they released it, they raced back to the palace and made several more trips, each time carrying a twenty-foot-high golden pyramid.

“They’re bringing out the guardians,” Gwalcmai noted.

“They’re deploying to Stage Two,” Donnchadh said. “Dispersing.” She stiffened as one of the saucers came out of the temple with a red pyramid caught in its beam. “The Master Guardian.”

“That means they’re really abandoning this place,” Gwalcmai said.

“We need to get out of here.” Donnchadh grabbed an oar and began paddling.

As they reached the innermost ring, the cargo bay on the mothership closed and the huge craft began to move away to the southeast. They leapt out of the canoe and raced across the land to the next circle of water. Even as they slowly madetheir way across the land, the mothership disappeared from sight.

Aspasia sat in the command chair in his mothership. His tactical display indicated that Artad was in orbit, shadowing his movements to make sure he complied with the terms of the truce the two had agreed on. It was a patchwork solution to a problem both had contributed to. If the Swarm had transmitted the location of this star system to a Battle Core, then there was only a slight chance they could survive — and that slight chance would revolve around making themselves as scarce as possible and making it appear that the Airlia had abandoned the system. The ruins of the transmitter on Mars would help in that matter. A Battle Core might harvest the humans and be satisfied with that. Even if the Swarm had not sent a message out, Artad’s precipitous destruction of the interstellar array on Mars had made an already bad situation worse and implicated him in Aspasia’s isolation. There was no way either could return to the empire without getting to at least Phase IV of the seed program on Earth. That would take at least ten thousand revolutions of this planet around its star. A long time for the humans, but not so long for the Airlia, especially given the fact they had the deep sleep tubes.

Aspasia watched as the mothership passed over a strait connecting two oceans — what would be known as the Atlantic and Mediterranean and the rocks on either side would be called the Pillars of Hercules — and flew along the northern coast of Africa almost to the eastern end of the continent, where it paused above a lush land with a large river coursing through the center and emptying into the Mediterranean. On the entire planet, this was the place where Aspasia’s scientists had decided human life could best develop. Because of that report he had sent his chief engineer, Rostau, to prepare the site many years previously for part of Phase II. This was going to be a bit different, but the site would serve nicely.

They flew upriver to a point where a stone plateau projected up on the west side of the river. Aspasia had the mothership halted. A weapon fired from the nose of the massive ship, cutting into the rock, burning out a large hole at a spot that Rostau had predetermined and programmed into the ship’s weapons. Two saucers emerged from the forward cargo bay, the Black Sphinx in tow. They carefully lowered it into the still-smoking hole, far enough down that even the high top of the head was not above ground level. They quickly followed it with the red pyramid.

Aspasia watched all this while six of his subordinates entered the control room and came to a halt in front of him, heads bowed, awaiting his commands. Isis. Osiris. Horus. Amun. Khons. Seb. Three female. Three male. All young and in the prime of their long lives.

“It is almost dark,” Aspasia said in the language of the Airlia. He pointed one of his six fingers upward. “Artad is above us. Watching to make sure we fulfill the parameters of the Atlantis Truce. I have no doubt that he will violate it; is already violating it in fact. He will try to destroy me while I sleep. It will be your job to watch out for any strike he might make. It will come from a direction you might not expect, so you must be vigilant.”

“And if the Swarm—” Isis began.

“If the Swarm comes for the harvest, then you die. If another scout comes, you destroy it. Is that clear?”

As Aspasia spoke, the mothership descended until it was just above the stone plateau. A gangplank was extended from one of the cargo bays in the bottom of the ship to the ground. On the screen, they could see four high priests unloading the Ark.

“I am leaving you the most valuable thing we have — the Grail. Seal it inside the Hall of Records. Guard it with your lives. ”

“And the key to the Hall?” Osiris asked.

Aspasia held up a golden scepter, a foot long and two inches in diameter. The top of it was made in the image of a lion with ruby red eyes. “ The key remains with me.” They all knew that meant that while they might have the Grail with them, they could not access it.

There was no response and Aspasia looked each of the six in the eyes for a moment before moving on to the next issue. “Listen to me.” He tapped several hexagonals on the control console on the left arm of his chair. “We were not idle all those years although it appeared to most that we were. I had this place prepared for implementation of Phase II. There are tunnels below this plateau, some connecting with the place we have just placed the Hall of Records. You will find them on the plans prepared by Rostau. There are also chambers prepared where you can live quite well. Deep sleep tubes. Food. A fission power source that will last you as long as you could possibly need. All of this was built and put in place by Rostau long ago.”

What Aspasia did not tell them was that Rostau had done more than just prepare tunnels and chambers for Phase II. He had placed some other things down there — precautions and contingencies.

On the screen at the front of the control room was the image of about a thousand humans streaming off the mothership onto the plateau. Most were high priests or Guides — the most dedicated of those who had served the Airlia on Atlantis.

“They are yours to serve you,” Aspasia said. He held up a black tube. “In here are plans for the surface that should be implemented according to the time schedule inside. The humans can do the work if taught properly.”

“Plans for what?” Isis inquired.

“To send a signal into space now that the array is gone .”

Isis frowned. “How can humans make something that—”

“Do not question me,” Aspasia snapped. “If we send the first signal to the empire, we will have the upper hand over Artad. We can use the recordings of his assault on us to say he had an improper motivation to do what he did.” Saying the last part, Aspasia glanced over his shoulder at Harrah. “Go now, ” he ordered. “Artad will follow me away from here.”

With slight bows, the six left the control room. As soon as Aspasia was informed that the six were on the gangplank he ordered the mothership to lift. The six, hunched over and wearing dark robes, jumped free as the massive craft accelerated upward. Crouching among the humans, the Airlia made their way to the secret chamber they had been directed to, where they could live. They disappeared to their underground lair, leaving the humans on the surface to fend for themselves for the time being. At least until Artad implemented his part of the Atlantis Truce.

They had begun what would fade into myth as the First Age of Egypt. The time of the rule of the Gods.

Aspasia directed the mothership to the east to fulfill the second part of his preparations. The mothership was flying so low, less than two hundred meters above the ground, that its drive field literally plowed a furrow through the sand below. They passed over desert, then an isthmus that connected two continents. The Red Sea was to the right and the Mediterranean to the left. Directly below was a shallow tidal sea mostly covered with reeds, known to the desert people as the Bitter Sea.

The gravitational field sent the water surging to either side and dug into the mud below. Two ten-meter-wide parallel tracks of mud were left in the mothership’s wake across the middle of the Bitter Sea. As the ship flew over the desolate Sinai Peninsula it came to a halt over a tall peak. Aguardian computer was off-loaded along with other pieces of machinery and placed in chambers that Rostau had dug deep inside the mountain many years ago as part of contingency planning.

Aspasia himself exited the ship along with a quartet of his subordinates, who carried a black tube on their shoulders. They went to a chamber far inside the mountain and set the tube down, hooking it up to machinery already in place. Aspasia watched as they swung the lid up, exposing the body of an adult human male. The man’s skin was clear and unblemished. His eyes stared upward vacantly with no indication of intelligence behind them. Yet his chest slowly rose and fell, indicating life.

This was something that Artad had agreed to as part of the truce, although Aspasia did not plan to do it exactly as directed.

Aspasia moved forward and stood next to the coffin. A band was placed around his head and secured in place. An Airlia standing at the control console pressed several hexagonals. Microprobes went from the band into Aspasia’s brain. They transferred his memories, his personality, his essence into the machine, where it was stored. The microprobes were withdrawn and Aspasia removed the band. He couldn’t help but run his hand along his forehead, expecting to find blood, even though the probes were so small he hadn’t even felt them go in.

Aspasia walked over to the tube and looked down at the human body. It was an empty vessel, ready to receive what he had just stored. Aspasia took a ka and placed it in the appropriate slot on the machine. A light flashed and he knew the ka now held all of his essence up to the moment of transfer. He set a time on the tube and left the chamber, sealing the door behind him.

Aspasia suspected that Artad would be recording this location and what was being placed here. A contingency for the success of the mission. Aspasia boarded the mothership and it lifted, fulfilling the tasks assigned him by the Atlantis truce. Flying almost to the other side of the world, it stopped over on an island in the Pacific Ocean that boasted three volcanoes. Aspasia placed another guardian computer deep inside an extinct volcano and then off-loaded a handful of humans to populate the island. One of his subordinates, Rapa, also secreted himself among the humans in order to rule them. One day it would be called Easter Island, but before that it would be known as Rapa Nui.

From Easter Island the mothership flew to South America, where another guardian and more humans were relocated high in the Andes. He also had one of his subordinates, Virachoca, sneak off the ship to rule the humans. The mothership stopped several more times on its way around the planet, dispersing humans, making up for some of the losses incurred by the meteor shower, like a farmer replanting his fields after a storm devastated his crop. This is what had been agreed upon with Artad — what had not been agreed was that Aspasia would leave some of his agents in place with those humans.

Finally, the mothership came to a place on the North American continent, over a desolate and deserted spot. Using the mothership’s weapons, Aspasia dug out a large hole in the side of a tall mountain — large enough for the mothership to fit through. Then he carefully edged the nose in and burned out a chamber from the solid rock. He had Rostau and his engineers reinforce the chamber and emplace metal struts on the floor. He guided the mothership inside and set it down on the waiting struts.

All the remaining Airlia exited the craft. A single saucer waited outside. Rostau began building a stone wall supported on the inside by metal, to cover the entrance to the cavern. While he was doing this, other Airlia were spreading sensordeflecting webbing along the top of the cavern.

Aspasia activated a low-power beacon on the mothership, then exited via the small tunnel Rostau left open. The tunnel was then blocked. The mothership was sealed away and shielded from detection.

Aspasia got on board the saucer and flew back to Atlantis.

He had sown the seeds that would haunt the world for the next ten thousand years.

Donnchadh felt an overwhelming sense of frustration with her fellow humans. Gwalcmai and she were on the outer ring of Atlantis. They’d been there for a day, vainly trying to obtain passage away from Atlantis. Many ships had left as soon as they saw the mothership departing and while Donnchadh and her partner had been making their way outward, across the rings of water and land that made up Atlantis. By the time they made it to the outer ports, those who were smart enough to leave had gone. Those who remained were caught in the throes of hesitation and fear. As time passed and nothing untoward appeared to be happening, the fear was turning to complacency.

In fact, surprisingly, many from the outer rings had made their way inward, toward the temple. Thousands were gathered in the plaza in front of the temple spire, supplicating the unseen Gods, swearing their fealty. When they received no reply, they prayed harder and louder, as if that would make a difference. There were no Guides or high priests in evidence and the doors to the temple were locked shut.

Donnchadh and Gwalcmai were finally able to find a ship manned by those from the northern part of the island on which they had originally secreted their spaceship. The price demanded by the ship’s captain was outrageous, but Donnchadh willingly paid it. The captain did insist that they wait till the following morning to depart, as his crew feared leaving in the dark. Although it was against her better judgment, Donnchadh agreed, a large part of her wanting to see how things played out in Atlantis.

When dawn broke, all were startled to see a mothership hovering high over the temple spire. It must have arrived sometime during the night. As the sun rose, the large craft slowly descended to the cries of prayers from the humans below. What those humans didn’t know was that this was not Aspasia’s ship, but Artad’s, coming to enact the last part of the first stage of the Atlantis Truce.

Surprisingly, the mothership did not dock with the temple spire, but slid to the side, coming down over a large field outside the city walls. A cargo door opened and a gangplank extended to the ground. From his vantage point halfway up the ship’s mast, Gwalcmai could see this and he relayed these happenings to Donnchadh.

“What is happening now?” Donnchadh asked. “Is anyone coming out?”

“No,” Gwalcmai said. “There is no activity. Some people are gathering round the field, but no activity on the mothership.”

Donnchadh frowned. She turned to the ship’s captain. “It is time for us to go. The sun is up.”

The captain merely nodded at her, then issued orders to his men. The lines were untied from the dock and oars were manned. To the slow, steady beat of the ship’s master’s drum, they moved away from the dock.

“Two men are going up the gangplank,” Gwalcmai reported. “They’ve gone inside.”

Once they were clear of the dock and shore, the captain issued orders and the sail was unfurled. Gwalcmai swungaside as the boom came down the mast, narrowly missing him. He put his free hand over his eyes.

“They’ve come back out,” he said. “They’re gesturing for others to come on board.”

“I would go faster,” Donnchadh said to the captain.

“The people are rushing the ship,” Gwalcmai reported. “Thousands of them.” He looked down. “What is happening?”

“One of the Airlia is gathering his crop,” Donnchadh said.

Aspasia had returned to Atlantis during the night on the saucer. He’d gathered the last of the Airlia under his command in a hangar underneath the palace, where they boarded the seven Talons he had recalled to Earth. In the command center of his Talon, Aspasia could see, via monitors in the spire, Artad’s mothership loading humans on board. That was not part of the truce, but Aspasia knew that Artad had watched his dispersal and was countering it in his own way. Move — countermove. Even as he watched, the gangplank suddenly began to withdraw into the ship and the cargo door abruptly shut, cutting in half a few desperate souls clinging to the ship.

“Lift,” Aspasia ordered.

The roof of the hangar slid open and the Talons shot up, away from Earth.

Donnchadh could see the departing Talons as easily as Gwalcmai. They could also see the mothership gaining altitude.

“Come down,” she called out to her husband.

The ship was now about five kilometers away from the outer ring of Atlantis. On the land, people looked up at the massive mothership above them in fear, all sensing that something was going to happen. Supplicant priests who had not been converted or taken by Aspasia led crowds in desperate prayers. Warriors held up spears, swords, and shields in fruitless displays of defiance. The few remaining ships rapidly put to sea, their decks crowded with those who had realized too late their plight.

Donnchadh and Gwalcmai stood side by side near the stern of the ship, watching and waiting. They could feel in the air the same thing the people on Atlantis did — an electric charge as if a large thunderstorm were coming.

Donnchadh drew a sharp breath as a bright golden light raced along the black surface of the mothership from rear to front. She had seen this before and knew what was coming.

“Faster,” she called out to the captain.

The golden light seemed to gather at the nose of the mothership, then pulsed downward in a half-mile-wide beam, passing through the city and into the ground below with no apparent effect.

Once more the light ran along the outside of the mothership, gathered, then pulsed down. And again. Donnchadh found herself counting, the scientist in her taking notes. Ten times.

Then there was absolute stillness for several seconds.

Donnchadh’s hand found Gwalcmai’s. She squeezed tight.

The earth beneath Atlantis exploded.

Aspasia had a view of what was happening on the front screen of the control room of his Talon. He’d watched Artad’s mothership fire ten times, knowing exactly what was coming. The Airlia had extensively studied the evolution of planetary structure. The weapon Artad was using against Atlantis had been designed to tap into the power that resided deep inside the planet and bring it upward.

The shock wave from the explosion killed almost everyone on the island instantly. The handful who survived the initial blast died horrible deaths as a wave of magma sprayed forth in a fiery froth. The entire landmass that had been Atlantis initially lifted upward almost two hundred meters from the explosion, then imploded. The ocean absorbed both the explosion and implosion, giving birth to a tsunami of unbelievable scale.

On the view screen there was nothing left of Atlantis.

Gwalcmai saw what was coming. “Put your stern directly into the wave,” he yelled to the two men holding the tiller. A ship behind them was hit on an angle and flipped over, disappearing into the wall of water. The rear of their ship lifted as the base of the front of the tsunami reached them. Hit square on, it rode up the front, the angle growing steeper and steeper. Gwalcmai wrapped an arm around Donnchadh’s waist while he grabbed the railing with the other to prevent them from sliding overboard.

Donnchadh watched helplessly as a screaming sailor tumbled past and disappeared overboard. She felt Gwalcmai’s grip get even tighter around her waist as she held on to the railing with her own hands. They seemed to be rising forever. Donnchadh looked up — the crest was still over a hundred meters above them and they had already gone up, as best she could tell, about seven hundred meters.

“I love you,” she yelled to Gwalcmai.

He nodded, then swung his head from side to side to clear the wet hair from his eyes. “We’ll make it.”

And they did, slowly going from almost vertical to horizontal, riding the top of the massive wave.

“Hold on,” Gwalcmai yelled, not only to Donnchadh but to the sailors clinging to whatever protection they had managed to find.

The ship began to slide down the less steep side of the wave. It took well over a minute before they were finally off the wave. It was moving away from them, a wall of water that took up the entire horizon. All around the ship, the ocean was littered with bodies and debris. Gwalcmai slowly let go of Donnchadh’s waist. They both looked over the stern of the ship. Where Atlantis had been there was nothing but debris-filled water.

Donnchadh turned to Gwalcmai and spoke to him in their native tongue. “A truce, Gwalcmai.”

Gwalcmai nodded. “They are neutralized here. They are no longer Gods.”

“For the time being.”

“Time is a valuable commodity, Donnchadh. We didn’t have it, but maybe things will be different here. We have helped accomplish the first stage of our mission. The Airlia have fought among themselves and both sides, in essence, have lost.”

Donnchadh frowned. “But neither side has been defeated. And you know this truce is a farce. Both will try to use Guides and Shadows to—”

Gwalcmai held a hand up. “We’ve done what we can. Which is more than we could have hoped for. We have gained time for the people on this world. And we will be around to help in the final war when it does come.”

Donnchadh realized he was right. They had accomplished much for only being two against those who ruled as Gods. Gwalcmai went to the ship’s captain and issued him instructions, directing that they head toward the northeast.

When he returned to Donnchadh he saw that she was looking up and he knew what was on her mind. “He has long since died.”

“I know,” Donnchadh acknowledged, “but I can still mourn.”

“Mourning is all that seems to come of this.”

Donnchadh nodded. “There will be more grief before it is all over.”

Aspasia had the Talon’s visual sensors zoom in on the planet that was receding behind them. He could see Artad’s mothership passing over the massive wave that was moving out in a perfect circle from where Atlantis had been. The wave was moving at almost six hundred kilometers an hour.

The first land it hit was the western tip of Africa. As the water grew shallower the wave slowed, but that energy was translated in water displacement and the tsunami grew taller, doubling in height by the time it hit the shoreline.

For those onshore, the first indication of something amiss was the water actually withdrawing from the land, baring the sea bottom to the sun. Fish were caught by the sudden disappearance of the water and lay flopping in the mud. Some humans went out to gather this unexpected bounty, not knowing their doom was racing toward them.

The air was filled with the sound of a thousand thunder-storms. Then the wall of water appeared. It swept ashore first in western Africa, then all around the Atlantic coastline as the circle expanded. It surged inland, in some places penetrating over 150 kilometers before finally coming to rest. Some of the wave even passed through what would be called the Pillars of Hercules into the Mediterranean, causing devastation throughout that basin.

The tsunami, greatly diminished, even made it around the capes on the southern tips of America and Africa and into the other oceans, circling the globe. So worldwide was the effect that the legend of the Great Flood would pass into legend among all peoples of the world.

Aspasia cared little about what the water had done. His sensors tracked Artad’s mothership as it crossed Europe. It came to a halt above a tall peak in the land that was located between Asia, Europe, and Africa, where it off-loaded the thousands on board. After the people had dispersed, the pilot of the vessel did as Aspasia had done in North America— hollowing out a cavern inside the mountain and caching the massive ship inside.

Even though his Talon was drawing farther and farther away from the planet, the sensors were able to pick up a half dozen golden saucers zooming off to the east, disappearing around the edge of the planet. Aspasia had no doubt he was witnessing some plan Artad had set in motion to keep his own side in play through the truce. It was the Airlia way.

Many people must have died.” Donnchadh was lying next to Gwalcmai, his arm around her, near the stern of the boat. The sail flapped in the light breeze, propelling the ship to the northwest.

“Yes.” Gwalcmai said no more and they were quiet for a while, both looking up at the stars.

“Do you think—” Donnchadh began, but Gwalcmai gently put a hand over her mouth.

“Shhh,” he whispered. “This is what we came here to do. Some dead now versus many dead later. This is going to be a very long war. Very long. And it’s just begun.”