Aftermath

30

Celine awoke to music, faint, far-off, and very familiar. That driving bass and those dissonant brass chords had given her energy on a thousand mornings. It was the anthem for their expedition: Mars, from Gustav Hoist’s suite The Planets. The team had chosen it together after final selection. She listened to its urgent pulse for twenty seconds before she recalled where she was.

Earth. At last. But a changed Earth. Zoe, Alta, and Ludwig, companions for more than five years, dead. A difficult landing, followed by a bizarre encounter. The past twenty-four hours had been one prolonged nightmare.

She listened, grieving for lost friends, until the final chords. Music for the Mars expedition. So why was it playing here, deep underground in the lair of the Legion of Argos? Pearl Lazenby disapproved of all space travel.

Celine opened her eyes. If the music had given her strength on a thousand mornings, it must do so one more time. She sat up. Before going to bed she and Wilmer had pushed their cots together. Then she had fallen asleep so quickly that it made no difference. She glanced across at him in the faint light coming in from under the door.

He was sound asleep on his back, his mouth open. She looked at him fondly. It took more than music to budge Wilmer. He woke in the morning only for food. In the first few weeks of their relationship it had also been for sex — Celine was a morning person — but he had complained so abominably about being wakened and about his need for calories that she soon gave up the effort. Anyway, fifteen minutes from the start she would be on her own in bed. Wilmer’s idea of afterplay in the morning was a stack of blueberry pancakes and a quart of milk.

She slipped out of bed and went to peek into the other room. Jenny was asleep. Reza was over in a corner, eyes closed and meditating in the lotus posture. There was no point in talking to either one.

Celine put her shoes on — she was otherwise fully dressed — and went across to the door. Rather to her surprise, it was unlocked. As she opened it she saw why. There was no place for a lock, but with her first step outside a gray-clad figure rose like a ghost from the floor.

“You are awake.” No greeting, no cheery good morning. It was a male, younger than any she had seen so far. In the dim light and with his oversized uniform he looked about fourteen. He held his semiautomatic rifle as though it made him more nervous than it was likely to make anyone else.

“I am awake,” Celine said. “My companions are still asleep. What time is it?”

For a second, she wondered if even that information was restricted. But at last the youth said, “It is almost seven o’clock.”

“Then it is time for breakfast. We had no real dinner last night. How do we get food?”

That seemed to baffle him. He rubbed his chin, which was sprouting faint downy signs of a beard, and hesitated.

“I will have to get someone to bring you food.”

“And I need to use the bathroom.”

He turned his face away and looked very uncomfortable. “I will get someone to deal with — that problem. I was placed here only to make sure that no one came out through this door.”

“But I just did come out through it.”

The attempt at a lighter tone was a waste of time. He stared at her and said again, “I will have to get someone else. Do not go anywhere. I will bring someone who can answer your questions.”

He marched away along the corridor. Celine called after him, “Why are they playing that music?”

He turned his head. “In honor of the surviving members of the returned Mars expedition.” He did not stop, and Celine’s call, “But that’s us,” received no response.

She went back inside and poked Wilmer hard in the ribs. He grunted and burrowed under the blankets. “What do you make of that, cobber?” The heap of bedclothes did not move. “Everyone here agrees that we defiled Heaven by going into space. Pearl Lazenby told us so herself. Now they’re playing music to celebrate our safe return. Are we heroes or villains?”

Jenny appeared in the doorway, rubbing her eyes. “We’re villains,” she said. “You don’t guard heroes to keep them from wandering around.”

“You tried it?”

“In the middle of the night. The guard was asleep on the floor. I’m afraid I trod on him. I guess I’m lucky he didn’t shoot me.”

“No. He’d have to get somebody else to shoot you. But if we’re villains, why were they playing the Mars music in our honor?”

“I heard that. I thought I must be dreaming. If they’re playing anything, though, it’s on orders from Pearl Lazenby. They don’t blink in this place without her approval.”

Celine sat on her cot. “If that music was played in all the corridors and tunnels, a lot of her followers will be wondering why.”

“As we are.” Jenny sat down next to Celine. “She must have a plan. She wants to use us in some way.”

“Which would mean she intends to keep us, and not let us go.”

“I hope you’re wrong.” Jenny rubbed at her thigh muscles. “We’re weaker than anyone here, and I don’t think I could walk a kilometer in this gravity. But I want out. If Pearl Lazenby is running a puppet show, I won’t—”

She broke off, because a woman in her early thirties was coming in through the door. She had a round face, straight black hair cut short, and a kindly expression. She was dressed in a plain gray blouse and pants. Incongruously, she had an automatic pistol stuck in her waistband. A ruddy-faced older man weighing at least three hundred pounds waddled in behind her. Like Eli, his chest and cuffs bore an emblem of scarlet claws. His was more elaborate, a triplet of talons surrounding and clutching the central blue-green globe. On his belt he wore a holster containing a revolver, so ancient that Celine had never seen one like it except in museums.

“Good morning.” The man’s wheezy tone, unlike Eli’s the night before, was polite and deferential. “My name is Samuel. I understand that you would like the use of a bathroom, and then breakfast.”

“We would.”

“Then you women will go along with Naomi to the bathroom facilities. She will then escort you to breakfast. She is suffering a penance of silence, so please do not try to talk to her.” He waved a plump hand, and the woman nodded at Celine and Jenny.

“You will meet your menfolk later.” Samuel’s voice became hushed and positively oily. “I noticed someone in meditation in the other room. I assume that he is the one with the powers of prophecy, of special interest to the Eye of God. Naturally, I will respect or even anticipate his wishes in every way possible.”

“Actually, no. That’s not him.” Celine didn’t like being demoted to a second-class citizen, even politely. “The man you saw is Reza. The man you want is Wilmer. That one.” She pointed to the untidy heap in the bedclothes as she and Jenny followed Naomi toward the door. “You’ll have to wake him up. Good luck with that. He’s not at his best in the morning.”

Facilities at the Legion of Argos headquarters looked crude, but they worked fine. Celine had forgotten how good a torrent of hot water could feel, beating down on your head and shoulders under a full Earth gravity. She stayed and wallowed for ten minutes, and came out to find that her clothes had disappeared. They had been replaced with new underwear, shirt, and pants, all white and all just a fraction too big. Her shoes were where she had left them. Jenny was waiting, dressed in an identical outfit. With the silent Naomi leading the way they moved side by side down a long narrow hall to an automated cafeteria, where trays of food were dispensed from a moving belt.

“Notice something?” While Naomi was picking up her tray, Celine had her first chance for a private word with Jenny. Just because Naomi did not speak did not mean she did not listen — and report.

“If you’re worried about what was in your pockets,” Jenny said. “Don’t. I grabbed everything before they took our clothes. They say they’re just cleaning them.”

“Not that. I mean the people we’ve seen. No blacks, no Hispanics, no Orientals. I think the Legion of Argos is a whites-only group. You, Wilmer, and Reza certainly qualify. I’m borderline, but Pearl Lazenby’s attitude last night suggests I’m acceptable.”

Naomi was approaching. Celine and Jenny settled down to a silent meal.

Celine had plenty to think about. More and more, she felt certain that the members of the Legion of Argos from the top down were mental cases. Prophecies, penances, holy cleansings, arbitrary murders to settle grievances, ethnic entry requirements, guns everywhere, regimented behavior, visitors who were effectively prisoners — all the signs of a paramilitary religious cult. And added to that, Eli’s exultant “there will be no turning back, no quarter given.” The cult was approaching a point of no return. The right word from Pearl Lazenby, and the members would move to violent action.

The Mars expedition had to get out of this underground labyrinth, as fast as possible. And they had to make sure that other people were warned.

Was she overreacting, worrying too much? If so, she could see no penalty to that. What she could see were practical problems.

First, where were they? It would do no good to escape to the surface and find you were lost in a wilderness. None of them was in any condition to trek miles over rough terrain. Reza had brought them down, to his best guess, somewhere north of Richmond, Virginia. The big question was their longitude. Were they east or west of the Shenandoah Mountains?

Second, where would they go if they did escape? Her instinctive answer was Washington. There the Mars expedition was sure to be taken seriously. Anything they said would be given plenty of attention — unless the country had totally disintegrated under the impact of Supernova Alpha, in which case nothing they said or did would make much difference.

Celine felt a tap on her arm. It was Naomi, pointing to the old-fashioned watch on her wrist and then to Celine’s plate. A question. Had she finished eating?

She nodded. “I’m all done. But I thought that our male companions were going to join us for breakfast.”

Naomi shrugged. It occurred to Celine that the assignment of a mute guide might be quite deliberate. Maybe her mining for information the previous night had not been so subtle as she imagined.

“Our unctuous friend only told us we’d meet them ’later,’ “ Jenny volunteered. “He was careful not to say when.”

“Which could mean anything from a minute to a year from now.” Celine turned to Naomi. “Unless you are to take us somewhere else, I would like to see more of the Legion of Argos headquarters. It seems fascinating. We arrived last night, very tired, and we were able to take in very little.”

It was worth a try, but Naomi shook her head. She tapped her watch, stood up, and beckoned them to follow. As they replaced their trays before leaving the dining room, Jenny whispered to Celine, “I was no help, was I. You want to get a good look at this place.”

“Sure. If we’re to find a way out . . .”

Naomi was with them again, urging them on, and for the moment Celine could say no more. The Legion member walked between her and Jenny, down another long corridor. There seemed an endless number of them, poorly lit and branching off at regular intervals.

Suddenly they were in a hurry. Naomi marched faster on a twisting, turning path. It was not the sort of tour that Celine had in mind, and she itched for a map of the whole place. Pearl Lazenby and her disciples surely had them. If they had been digging for twenty years, as Eli said, the whole countryside must be honeycombed. The corridor they were in now looked like an old working mine, drilled through grayish white rock and shored up in places with iron beams. As it narrowed they had to walk in single file, Celine in front and Naomi in the rear.

The tunnel took a final turn and Celine emerged into an open chamber, hundreds of feet across and with a knobby ceiling of whitish pink far above. The floor was white, uneven, and gritty beneath her feet. The illumination came from standing light fixtures, scattered here and there. She realized that they had entered a natural limestone cavern. A broad platform stood at the far end, with scores of rows of seats facing it.

Naomi walked past Celine and led the way forward along a central cleared aisle. The platform held a long wooden table and five chairs. Naomi indicated to Celine and Jenny that they were to ascend the dais and take the seats at each end. When they were in position she went to sit in the back row of facing seats.

Jenny looked along the table at Celine. “What now?”

She spoke softly, but the stone-walled chamber caught her voice, carrying it to the farthest corners and bringing her words echoing back.

Celine did not dare to answer that if Reza, their best geologist, could get a look at a cavern like this he might be able to make a good guess at their location. It was no longer the danger of Naomi alone overhearing what they said. The room was filling with gray-uniformed people, walking in through half a dozen entrances and quietly taking their seats. Every person in the front rows wore the scarlet talon on cuffs and breast. One woman set up a camera in the central aisle, sighting it on the platform. When she seemed happy with the setting she turned and extended one arm upward. The audience rose and stood waiting.

To stand or not to stand? Celine knew that Jenny’s eye was on her. She decided to remain seated and argue with anyone who didn’t seem to like it. To make sure that she would not be influenced by possible gestures from the audience, she leaned back and studied the cavern ceiling.

It had been modified from its natural form. Broken stubs of stalactites, painstakingly trimmed, stood out from the surface. Looking closely, Celine could see that the ceiling was not the uniform color of its first impression. Thousands of little scarlet talons had been painted on the original white limestone, blending from a distance to create the illusion of a continuous surface of light pink.

She glanced out at the audience. They were ignoring her, looking past the platform at something behind Celine and Jenny. She heard footsteps, and resisted the urge to turn until a hand touched her shoulder. Then she looked up and saw Wilmer settling into the next seat. Like her, he was outfitted in a clean white uniform. Next to him, in the middle, was Pearl Lazenby, and beyond her Reza was sitting down by Jenny.

Pearl Lazenby wore a long white sleeveless dress, dotted with the scarlet talons and blue-green globes. She gestured to her followers, and they settled into their seats. She remained standing.

“I know that many of you are becoming impatient.” She began without preamble, in an easy, conversational tone. “How long, you ask, before our role in the holy cleansing, so long awaited, can begin? When I returned among you, the Eye of God promised another portent. Until that time, we could not act. The Eye of God told you that we would receive a message directly from Heaven, brought to us by a human messenger. Most of you probably assumed that I would be the messenger. That is not the case.”

With the filled seats damping the echo, the chamber formed a natural auditorium. Pearl Lazenby’s voice carried easily, without amplification, to every part.

“Eight years ago, the governments of this world conspired to create an abomination. Not content to contaminate God’s realm close to Earth with human presence, they decided to invade another sphere. The nations would cooperate in building a ship to carry humans to the planet Mars, where another part of God’s creation would be despoiled.

“And so the Mars expedition was born. Conceived in folly, executed in sacrilege, doomed to failure. Before the expedition was over, even as the Eye of God had prophesied, the hand of the Almighty smote the impious nations. They writhe as I speak in chaos and confusion. The time of the Legion of Argos is close to hand. Yet the Eye of God knew, and foretold, that a final message must be delivered before we can rise in wrath and righteous action.”

Yesterday, Pearl Lazenby had seemed to Celine like a sincere but misguided woman, no different from any of the millions of professed psychics, clairvoyants, and seers scattered around the world. Certainly, she did not seem the person to create and lead a million-strong movement of religious extremists. But yesterday, as Pearl Lazenby had told them, was an unusual day for her as well as them. She was recently returned from judicial sleep, and she had been exhausted.

Today Celine could hear the difference. She would even say that she could feel it. There was no scientific explanation for the gift that some humans have, to take and hold and move a crowd. But the gift was real. Pearl Lazenby had that power, more than anyone Celine had ever met. It was an electric force, beyond words, reaching out to envelop her audience.

And the underlying message was very disturbing: anything connected with the Mars expedition is evil. The nations that conceived the expedition are already shattered. Now the four survivors of the expedition are sitting at the table with Pearl Lazenby.

Were they going to be offered in some barbaric ritual sacrifice? The audience remained silent, but Celine could see violence and vengeance on their faces.

“The promised messengers have arrived.” Pearl Lazenby opened her arms wide, palms down, to take in the others at the table. “They are here with me. These are the four surviving members of the Mars expedition: Celine Tanaka, Wilmer Oldfield, Reza Armani, and Jenny Kopal. But” — she spoke over a rising mutter from the audience — “do not make the mistake of judging them guilty, as the people who promoted and funded the Mars expedition are guilty. These four are brave and innocent victims, dupes of their secret masters. They took great risks, and they have endured great hardships. Their companions and closest friends died.

“But they have survived, to bring their message direct from Heaven. This is the sign, the message we have awaited. You have been patient, and now our time is close, our tide approaches the flood. Within one week I promise action. Already, the word has gone forth to prepare and to congregate here. The message from Heaven tells that the great space stations, those sacrilegious insults circling and observing for so long above our heads, have been destroyed. The people who operated them are all dead, and we are at last free from intrusive eyes. We pray for their poor damned souls, even as we bless the hand of God that destroyed them. And we welcome into our midst these four messengers from the realm of Heaven. It was surely foreordained that their return to Earth would bring them directly here, to the sanctuary of the Legion of Argos. Nothing would give me more pleasure than to see them unite with our cause. I ask you to express your gratitude and pay tribute to the surviving members of the Mars expedition.”

Every person in the chamber rose to applaud. They stood clapping for many seconds, while Celine sat and stared straight ahead. During the long months of the Mars return she had sometimes imagined a scene where she and her companions were safe home on Earth, basking in a standing ovation. She would never have believed that it might take place on a wounded planet, in a natural cavern far underground, with an applauding audience of religious and racist maniacs.

Wilmer reached out and tapped her shoulder. He had risen to his feet, and Pearl Lazenby was motioning to Celine to do the same. Jenny was standing, and so was Reza.

Well, what the hell. It was quite clear that Pearl Lazenby was using their arrival for her own purposes, but adulation beat lynching any day of the week.

Celine stood up. As the noise in the chamber reached a new crescendo, she confirmed her resolve to get away from the Legion of Argos as soon as possible. If you had to go along with the madness for a while, it was a small price to pay for escape. Just so long as you didn’t catch it yourself.

Celine raised her hand, smiled, and acknowledged the applause of the audience.