The Truth

CHAPTER 19: THE PRESENT

The green crystal was set in the wire mesh basket and the Airlia climbed on board the vehicle. It headed out of the bowl as the cables began to retract, lifting the crystal upward above the array.

Turcotte regained consciousness to find Yakov’s bearded face leaning over him. He immediately closed his eyes. Yakov laughed.

“Wake up, my friend. We are getting close to Mars. Closer than anyone has ever been.”

“Anyone from Earth,” Turcotte muttered as he reluctantly opened his eyes and sat up. He was in the room they had commandeered for their sleeping area. “What happened?”

“Captain Manning brought you back just in time. You were out of oxygen.” Yakov pointed. Turcotte’s TASC suit was on the floor. There was a rip in the upper right chest. “You were lucky.”

“Duncan?” Turcotte asked. Looking down, he saw a large purplish bruise on his skin, beneath the place where the suit had absorbed the force of the Swarm’s weapon, another minor injury to add to all the others.

“She is still in the tube. She appears to be in some sort of deep sleep and I didn’t see a need to disturb her.”

Turcotte knew Yakov didn’t trust Duncan and the reality was that he didn’t see a need to have to deal with her right now. Turcotte thought differently.

“We brought the ship into one of the large cargo bays,” Yakov continued. “The Swarm orb is dead.”

That was one thing Turcotte had had no doubts about. Everything else, however, was up in the air. “How far out are we from Mars?” Turcotte headed for the door.

“Two hours.” “Artad’s Talon?”

“Arriving at Mars in a few minutes.” “Kincaid got anything further on the array?” “He thinks it’s just about complete.”

Turcotte felt a moment of panic as they headed toward the control room. “‘Just about’? How just about? Can they transmit?”

“There’s been no indication of that yet, but Kincaid doesn’t really know. He says all three pylons are complete and they are bringing something up in the center of the array on cables. Some sort of green crystal. Probably a power source or means of focusing power for the transmission is Kincaid’s best guess.”

They entered the control room. Captain Manning was there along with Kincaid, Quinn, and Leahy. Turcotte nodded at the Space Command captain, silently acknowledging his thanks.

Turcotte immediately turned to Leahy. “How far out can you hit the array with the Tesla gun?” “I can’t.”

That stopped Turcotte. “What?”

“The second shot fried the central coil. I don’t have the material on board to make another one.” Turcotte stared at her in silence for a few seconds, processing this piece of bad news. Then he shifted to Manning. “How far out before we can nuke it?”

The Space Command captain shifted his feet nervously. “The nukes weren’t our idea. The Pentagon delivered them figuring we could use some firepower. They’re actually Tomahawk cruise missiles and the problem with that is—”

“A Tomahawk has an oxygen-fueled rocket engine,” Turcotte completed the sentence. “We can lob them, using the mothership’s velocity and direction,” Manning suggested.

“I don’t think Artad is just going to allow us to do a bombing run,” Turcotte said. “The Talon could pick them off at will as they come in on a straight trajectory.” He looked at Yakov. “Can you show us what we’re facing?”

Yakov tapped the control panel and a large display came alive with a view of Mars. The Red Planet hung against the darkness of space. Yakov continued tapping the same key and Mars grew larger with each touch.

“It is the only way I know how to do this,” Yakov said apologetically.

Soon the fourth planet filled the screen, but Yakov continued to zoom in. “I’ve got us heading directly toward Mons Olympus,” he explained.

There was no mistaking the massive mountain as it first became visible. The base was hundreds of miles wide, gently sloping up to the top of the extinct volcano.

“What’s that?” Leahy asked, as a line from the base extending inward became apparent. Kincaid answered. “That’s the track the Airlia mech-machines made from Cydonia to the transmitter site.” He stepped closer and pointed. “There’s the transmitter.”

Yakov stopped hitting the controls as the large bowl carved out of the side of the volcano just short of the top became clear. The three pylons towered over the bowl. And in the center there was a glowing green dot.

“That’s what they just put in place,” Kincaid said, tapping the dot. “So is it ready to transmit?” Turcotte asked.

“Hell, I have no idea,” Kincaid said. “I don’t even exactly know how it works. We use our version of this at Arecibo in Puerto Rico as a receiver, which is a passive activity. If this thing in the center is a power source, then they must be close. If it isn’t, then they still need to get power from something. I would assume sending a message as far as they need to would require a tremendous amount of power.”

Guesswork. Turcotte stared at the screen. Had he made a mistake going after the Swarm first? He realized the answer would be yes if Artad got a message off in the next two hours. He shook off his uncertainty.

“Anyone have other options than trying to lob some nukes on that thing?” “We could land the mothership on top of it,” Yakov suggested.

“While Artad attacks us with the Talon?” Turcotte threw back. “Can a Talon hurt this ship?” Yakov replied in turn.

“Can we take the chance?” Even as he asked, Turcotte realized they were going nowhere fast. He stared at the array. “We’ve got two problems. The array and Artad. Our priority is destroying the array. Then we can deal with Artad. The problem is that Artad doesn’t want us to do that, so we’ll probably have to deal with him first.”

There was no answer. Turcotte threw the variables up in his mind. Artad. The Array. The mothership. The nukes. The TASC suits. Then he realized they had an additional card up their sleeves.

“I’ve got an idea.”

The cables pulled tight and halted. The green crystal was centrally located above the center of the dish. Along the crest of the dish, the Cydonia Airlia stood, looking down at what they had done.

Their sense of accomplishment disappeared, though, as a long, lean, slightly curving black form appeared overhead.

Nurse Cummings massaged Kelly Reynolds’s left leg, making sure that blood got to the unused muscles. They were on the roof of the main tower of Tripler, with the south coast of Hawaii laid out in all its splendor. The doctors were still pessimistic about the possibility of Reynolds recovering, but Cummings saw no reason why the woman shouldn’t. As far as she was concerned there was nothing wrong with Reynolds that more rest, nutrients, and sunshine couldn’t cure.

A young doctor, one of the team that had basically written Reynolds off, came onto the roof to smoke. He saw Cummings with Reynolds and appeared embarrassed. Whether because he had given up on a patient, or she had caught him smoking, Cummings wasn’t sure.

As he puffed furtively a short distance away, Cummings switched from the left leg to the right. The calf was barely larger than the bone, most of the muscle having been consumed by the body as it had attempted to keep itself alive during the stay under Easter Island.

Cummings pressed her fingers into the flesh, massaging what little muscle she could find. Out of the corner of her eye she caught a movement and she looked up quickly. But Reynolds’s eyes were still closed and she was still, a strap going around her chest and forehead, holding her upright in the wheelchair. As she went back to work, Cummings kept her attention split between leg and upper body. “There!” Cummings cried out.

The startled doctor quickly stubbed out the cigarette. “What?” “Did you see that? Did you?” “See what?”

“Her hand. It moved. She lifted her forefinger.”

The doctor shook his head. “She can’t. Her brain has—” His words came to an abrupt halt as Reynolds’s right forefinger lifted a half inch off the armrest of the chair. “I don’t believe it.”

Cummings leaned close to Reynolds’s ear. “Do it again.” The finger lifted once more. “She understands.”

The doctor put his stethoscope to Reynolds’s thin chest. “Her heart rate is accelerated.”

“Of course,” Cummings said. “She’s putting everything she has into moving that finger.” She peered at Reynolds’s face, noting the quivering around the eyelids. “She’ll be talking soon. Very soon.”

Artad exited the Talon with a dozen Kortad backing him up. As soon as he was clear of the airlock, the ship rose into the Martian sky and took up an overwatch position ten kilometers above Mons Olympus.

The Airlia who had finished the array were in front of him. As he approached, they prostrated themselves. Their leader, whom Artad had known briefly many years previously, dropped to one knee.

“We have prepared the array for you.”

They had prepared the array for him because they had no other choice, Artad knew. They could not call back to the empire and ask for help after their role in the civil war here so many years ago. They were criminals, traitors, who could only throw themselves on his mercy.

“Is it ready to transmit?”

“Shortly. It is powering up.” The Airlia got to his feet and led the way to a tracked vehicle that was linked to the array with numerous cables.

Artad paused before following. He looked about. He saw the army of mech-machines that had been stopped in their tracks when the humans took over the Master Guardian and shut down the subordinate guardians. The magnitude of the loss of a master along with its Excalibur control was staggering. His reprimand when the fleet arrived would be great. And after over ten thousand years, what would his status be? He didn’t even know what the status of the empire was. He assumed it was strong, as it had existed for many times that length of time. But what if—

Artad looked up. He knew the mothership was en route, with humans on board coming to stop him. And the Master Guardian was on board the mothership. Their arrogance was beyond belief.

It would be a much better message if it contained a more positive summary than the current status report, Artad realized.

They had a plan. It wasn’t the best, but Turcotte had served in Special Forces and he knew there was no such thing as a best plan, other than staying home and pulling the covers over one’s head.

They were just under an hour out. Everyone else was in the control room, watching the array. Turcotte knew watching wouldn’t make the time go by any quicker. He went down the main corridor until he reached the crossway leading to the hangar bay in which they had brought the ship with Duncan on board. Turcotte went into the bay and up the ramp into the ship.

Duncan was in the tube, eyes closed. A light on the side of the tube was green. Turcotte had to assume that meant it was functioning correctly, although he could not see her chest rise and fall. Her breathing must be down to an extremely slow rate, he figured.

Turcotte went over to the other tube. The light on this one was red. The man’s face was slack, the eyes full of a dullness Turcotte had seen too many times before — he was dead, of that there was no doubt.

Turcotte swung the lid open and examined the body. The skin was flawless, with no scars or other marks. The man appeared to be in his late teens or early twenties, in excellent physical shape at the time of death. He didn’t even have any calluses on the bottoms of his feet. It was as if the man had never left the tube.

Which he hadn’t, Turcotte knew. He’d seen a tube like this before. Deep under Mount Sinai. The one Aspasia’s Shadow had used to regenerate his new body. Apparently it had two functions, he realized, glancing over at Duncan’s tube. It not only could regenerate a new body, it also could put someone in deep sleep — a necessary thing, he supposed, for travel in deep space.

Turcotte looked about. The interior was sparse, emphasizing function over comfort, much like a present-day submarine. He walked to the front, where two chairs faced a control console. He sat down in the right-hand seat. It felt familiar, which irritated him. What had been in his brain? He had a good idea who had put it there.

He scanned the console. If the seat felt familiar, then perhaps other things would strike a chord. A flat screen to the right, set at an angle in the console, caught his attention. There were five buttons with markings below it. He reached and tapped one. The screen flickered, then came alive.

In rapid succession a series of scenes played out on the screen. Turcotte saw Duncan and her companion aboard a mothership, leaving their homeworld and son. Departing the mothership outside the solar system. Landing on Earth. Burying the ship at what would become Stonehenge. Raising the first “stones” there.

Then he caught quick glimpses of the two of them throughout Earth history.

On a wonderful island with a huge palace in the center that he assumed had to be Atlantis. They were dressed in local garb and ambushing an Airlia in the streets and killing him.

On a ship, pulling away from the island kingdom as it was destroyed by a mothership.

Returning to the buried spaceship, regenerating new bodies, transferring their essences via the ka, and emerging.

In Egypt, sneaking around in the dark, again killing an Airlia in ambush. A confrontation along the Roads of Rostau with what appeared to be Ones Who Wait, Airlia-Human half-breeds.

Regenerating.

Greece. In the newly completed Parthenon, watching and listening to orators. In a field, killing someone — a One Who Waits — who tried to ambush them. Regenerating.

Rome. In the stands of the Coliseum watching gladiators hack at each other with swords.

The scenes began to flicker by so quickly he could barely comprehend a tenth of what he was seeing. Every forty years or so the two would return to Stonehenge and transfer to a new body. The same form of “immortality” that Aspasia’s Shadow had had. So she had lied to him from the very beginning, which did not surprise Turcotte at this point.

He saw the two of them at Camelot. Aspasia’s Shadow as Mordred. Artad’s Shadow as Arthur. Duncan in the court, dressed in a white robe. The man in armor, next to the king.

Turcotte had an idea what was behind what he was seeing. Duncan and her partner had operated covertly, trying to manipulate the Airlia and their minions.

Then he saw a brutal battle, the dead and dying littering a field. Swords and spears covered in blood. Duncan’s partner taking a sword blow to the chest from someone wielding Excalibur. His ka damaged. Duncan dragging him on a travois back to Stonehenge, unable to pass his essence on to the regenerated body. Turcotte glanced over his shoulder at the tube holding the dead man.

Looking back, he saw Duncan in the mothership cavern at Area 51, but it was unopened, dark. She was sealing it with explosives. So she had tried to hide the truth, Turcotte realized. Why? And the answer came to him as quickly as he posed the question — because man wasn’t ready to challenge the Airlia yet.

Duncan in the ship. Standing over a man strapped to a table. Turcotte started as he recognized himself as the man on the table. She was doing something to his head. Turcotte’s hand reached up and touched where the MRI had detected the implant.

Turcotte stopped the screen and turned toward the tube holding Duncan. Quinn was right — she had never been who she said she was. He felt betrayed — as close as the two of them had gotten, she had still lied. Of course, would he have been willing to accept the truth at any point? Hell, he still didn’t know the entire story. Who were the Airlia? More importantly, who were we? Turcotte wondered.

He went over to Duncan’s tube. He looked at the buttons, then hit one that seemed likely. There was a puff of air escaping the tube, and the lid slowly lifted. He checked his watch. They were twenty minutes out from Mars. Artad might have already sent his message.

Duncan opened her eyes. She blinked for a few moments, reorienting herself. The severed arm was already half-grown back, the edge a mixture of raw red and pulsing black as the Airlia virus reconstituted the cells.

“Mike—” Duncan sat up, reaching her good hand out.

Turcotte took a step back, shaking his head. “We’re past that. You lied and manipulated me.” She sighed and sat still for a few moments, before replying. “I had to.”

“Why?”

She glanced over at the other tube. “I am sorry. I was alone for so long. And I needed help. After the mothership was uncovered and Majestic formed, I knew I couldn’t keep it under cover anymore. And that I couldn’t do it by myself.

“The Airlia. The truth. I knew a battle, this battle that we’ve fought, was coming.” “And what is the truth?” Turcotte asked.

She shook her head. “I’ve blocked it from myself.” “What?”

She climbed out of the tube without his aid, using her one hand to support herself. “These tubes — we took them from the Airlia when we defeated them on my planet. They can grow a new body. Transfer memories and personalities — the essence of a person, via the ka. They also can be used for deep sleep. But you can program them too. After he”—she once more looked at the other tube—“his name was Gwalcmai, my husband, I buried him near Stonehenge — that’s the body that couldn’t be reborn, I knew it was all on my shoulders. I also knew where my home world was. And the Ones Who Wait, the Guides, they were after me. Aspasia’s Shadow tried to track me down several times. So I blocked my own memory using the tube. Sealed off parts. My past. My home world. My memories of him. Of my son.”

Turcotte suddenly realized the pain she’d been in to do such a thing. He understood the need to seal off the information she couldn’t give up, but she’d also cut off memories that would cause her emotional pain.

“I want to know—” Turcotte began, but he was interrupted by Yakov appearing in the hatchway. “We’re less than ten minutes out. You need to suit up.” The Russian was staring hard at Duncan.

“What are you going to do?” Duncan asked. “We need you to help us,” Turcotte said.

“Of course.”

Turcotte took a step closer to her. “Not ‘of course.’ This is our plan. To free our planet from the influence of the Airlia once and for all. I killed the Swarm orb and freed you. If we can destroy this array and kill Artad, we’ve succeeded. Many people have died so far in this war. We need to end it now. I don’t know what your hidden agenda has been and I don’t care. Will you do what I tell you to?”

Duncan nodded. “My — our goal — was the same.” “All right. Here’s the plan.”