Authors: Arwen Elys Dayton
Tags: #Science Fiction, #Fiction, #General, #Adventure
Resurrection (31 page)
Pruit sat on the edge of the bed, her feet on the floor and her head resting in her hands. Her expression was blank, and she felt blank inside as well. Failure. This is what it felt like. Cold deadness. She could not cry or scream or do anything that might be an emotional release. There was no emotion. There was only the dread she had always felt.
She had sat numbly on the plane as they flew back from Geneva. Eddie had left her in silence. They were back in their Cairo hotel room now, and he was pacing slowly in front of her. She ignored him.
She had lost the Eschless Funnel. It had been there, in the Mechanic’s hands, only yards from her, and she had lost it. The only copy of that most secret of secrets had burned before her eyes, and she had been unable to stop it. Worse than that, she had brought on its destruction, for she had set Jean-Claude free and given him the strength to take out his revenge.
Back on Herrod, they were digging deeper holes to bury themselves in when the Lucien attacked. Her father and mother and brother, did they know about the Lucien now? Had the Sentinel begun telling the population what was coming? Telling them that, in a matter of years, they would all be dead? She wanted to feel the energizing burn of hatred for the Lucien, but even that was denied her.
Suddenly, Eddie stopped pacing and crouched down in front of her, putting his hands on her knees and forcing her to look at him.
“Pruit, that wasn’t the only copy of the technology.”
It took her a moment to remember English and understand his words. “What?”
“The Engineer. He knows the Eschless Funnel. He built the ship they used to get here. The last copy is in his head.”
“I’ve already thought of that, Eddie. But he’s no help to us now.” Her voice was flat.
“Maybe…maybe you can fix him. On your ship.”
“I’ve thought of that too,” she said. “But I have no access to my ship. My landing pod is destroyed.”
“We can get to your ship,” he said, becoming excited. “Somehow we can do it. We’ve already sent missions to Mars. We can reach Jupiter.”
“How long?” She was not really interested. She knew how primitive Earth’s space capabilities were.
“Ten years, maybe. The US will do it, when they know your ship is there. Callen can help us; we’ll talk to my father. We’ll use your fullsuit to prove who you are.”
“I don’t have ten years, Eddie!” she snapped, finally roused to anger. “The Lucien attack is in fifteen years! Even if we could get to Jupiter, even if we could fix the Engineer, that leaves no time to get the information home.”
Eddie stared at her for a moment; then he stood up and slapped her across the face. Pruit looked at him, shocked.
“What’s the matter with you?” he yelled. “Would you rather give up?”
Pruit just stared at him, feeling her cheek smarting.
“We’ll find a way!” he yelled. “We’ll find a way. You’re Pruit Pax. You don’t give up!”
She looked up at Eddie, seeing a man transformed. Where was the frivolous, lazy dilettante she had first met at the Cairo airport? He seemed to have disappeared and been replaced by this man, her mission partner. Suddenly, Pruit laughed.
“Why are you laughing?” he said, still angry.
“I don’t know.” She laughed again. The dread was receding. She did not have to face it alone. Eddie was with her.
Eddie studied her; then his anger disappeared, and his face broke into a smile. He slid next to her on the bed and took her into his arms.
“I’ve never heard you laugh,” he whispered.
“Well, you’ve never slapped me before,” she said, hugging him tightly.
Eddie smiled into her neck. “We’ll find a way to do this.”
“I know.” She drew back and looked into his face. “I know.” They kissed each other tenderly.
There was a knock on the door, interrupting them. They drew away from each other slowly, both reluctant to end the embrace. Then Pruit moved across the room to look through the peekhole, expecting a maid. Instead, standing just outside, was Adaiz. She drew back from the door.
“Who is it?” Eddie whispered, seeing her expression.
Pruit silently moved to the desk and picked up her guns, slipping them onto her hands. “The human Lucien.”
“What do you want?” she called in Soulene.
“I want to make you an offer,” Adaiz said, replying in the same language, his lisp coming through slightly.
Pruit studied him through the peekhole. She could see the twin bulges of knife and gun at his waist. But she was well armed. She had been inside this man’s head, and she was having difficulty maintaining a feeling of enmity. She could kill him, if need be, but she was willing to hear him out. Behind her, Eddie took hold of his own knife and gun. She opened the door.
Adaiz stood in the hallway, one arm on the doorframe, looking in at her. She gestured him inside with one armed hand, then kicked the door shut behind him. Adaiz glanced around the room, taking in Eddie and Pruit and the furniture with a cursory glance. He walked to the bed and sat down heavily onto the edge, in just the spot where Pruit had been.
Adaiz ran his hands over his short hair. He sighed and looked at Pruit.
“I have what you want,” he said. “At least, I know where it is. I can give it to you. I, a Lucien, will give it to you, my Kinley enemy. But, first, I would like to know what you have to offer me.”
Pruit studied him. He was not suggesting treason. He was suggesting something else. She knew the answer, knew precisely what he wanted and what she could give. She wanted the same thing, had ever since their minds had been joined. “I can offer you understanding,” she said. “For you, for me. For both of our races.”
Adaiz smiled. Another natural smile. This time the expression showed a blend of exhaustion and satisfaction. “Good,” he said. “That is what I hoped for.”
Pruit, Eddie, Adaiz-Ari, the Doctor, and the Engineer passed through the underground corridor leading to the sleepers’ cave. They had arrived there together, after a day-long drive through the desert. At the end of the passage, Pruit entered the combination, and they moved through the two sets of doors and into the cave itself. Yellow lights came on around the walls to illuminate the space.
Adaiz stepped in front of Pruit and surveyed the room, his eyes coming to rest on the coffin-shaped stasis tanks. He pointed to one of the tanks. “This tank belonged to the Engineer.” It was a statement, not a question.
“Yes,” Pruit said.
Adaiz walked up to the tank and examined it. Behind him, the Engineer began to shift his weight excitedly. Adaiz smiled at him. “The Engineer was warned by the…the man with blond hair—” Adaiz began.
“The Lion?” the Doctor asked.
“Yes, the Lion. The Lion warned him that the data crystals would be tempting.” He knelt down beside the stasis tank and began to study the large, dark pedestal on which it rested. “There was another man, a man who was somehow a god?” The words sounded funny as he said them, but he knew they were correct.
“The Captain,” the Doctor said.
“Yes, the Captain. The Engineer thought he might be tempted to break into the cave, so he kept the entrance codes secret. Only the courier ship sent to Herrod had them.” Adaiz ran his hands along the pedestal beneath the tank. Pruit came up beside him and knelt down nearby. “The Lion warned him about the Mechanic as well. So he made sure the Mechanic would remain safely asleep.” He paused and turned to the Doctor. “How was the Mechanic able to wake?”
“He changed the programming. It must have been right before we went into stasis. Somehow he changed the number of the tank that was supposed to wake.”
“Ah, that’s too bad.” He said it sincerely. He had seen the Engineer’s mind and knew the man would be distressed that he had failed to prevent this small, but profound treason. His hands were now feeling along the edges of the pedestal. “At any rate, the Engineer knew the crystals had to be protected. If rescue never came, they would need them to start a new life. And if rescue did come, he thought the Kinley might have lost some of their technology during the war, and the crystals could fill in the gaps. Either way, he wanted to make sure they would remain in the cave.”
Adaiz ran his hands along the seam where the metalrock pedestal met the metalrock floor. Then he paused. He pressed on the side of the pedestal and moved his hands slightly in a jiggling motion.
As Pruit watched, the side of the pedestal seemed to retract a tiny fraction of an inch; then part of the smooth surface sprang up. Pruit caught her breath. The opened flap was about three feet wide and a foot high. Behind it, she could see several rows of small boxes.
“So he made copies of every crystal,” Adaiz said. “Secretly. Even his wife did not know.” He pulled out one of the boxes from behind the flap and handed it to Pruit.
She took the box and touched a seam that ran along its side. The top smoothly flipped up. Inside was a row of data crystals, neatly packed.
“Great Life!” Pruit cried. “They were right under our noses.”
She and Adaiz quickly pulled the rest of the boxes from the hiding place. There were twenty in all. Written on the underside of each lid was the name of the scientific discipline contained in the crystals of that box. Pruit opened them all until she found what she was looking for. Under the lid of one, the words read, “All Ship Systems.” She smiled.
2564 BC
Year 43 of Kinley Earth Survey
…may a place be made for me in the solar bark on the day when the god ferries across, and may I be received into the presence of Osiris in the Land of Vindication…
—Egyptian Book of the Dead
King Khufu lay in his bed, his body doubled up upon itself, the covers tangled around his legs. He was hot and cold at the same time, the two discomforts vying for his attention. His skin was clammy, and his muscles had been lost, over the past months, to fever weakness.
He was thirty-eight years old, a conqueror and a bringer of peace, a man whose physical strength had always been a source of great personal pride. His body had been as fit as any soldier in his armies until the past year. Then, after a military trip to the Sinai, he had been stricken with a stomach ailment. His doctors had tried every cure known to them, but none had been effective beyond briefly lessening the pain.
In recent months, the ailment had spread, consuming his entire digestive tract and even destroying his lungs. He could breathe only with effort and knew that he was near the end of life. It would be only a matter of days before death took him.
“Sire, we are ready.”
Khufu was startled by the voice. He had thought he was alone in the room. He moved his head with effort and saw his Chief Retainer standing at the foot of the bed, dressed in a long, formal robe. Two of the king’s valets stood nearby, also dressed formally. They were holding up a robe for Khufu.
Khufu nodded. “Yes,” he said, coughing as he did so and feeling a hot stab of pain in his chest. “It is time. Let me go.”
The servants wrapped him in the robe, then secured the false beard of kingship around his chin. The Chief Retainer placed a crown upon his head, the high double crown that represented his rule of all of Egypt. It felt too heavy.
Then they carried him to a litter and bore him silently through the palace. Men and women bowed as he passed, saying nothing. Khufu had already made his good-byes. The coronation of his son had been planned for months, and he had made him co-regent when his illness first took hold. Khufu’s wife and the other women of his harem had begun to mourn him already.
Outside, Khufu was met by an honor guard of soldiers and moved to his long-distance litter. He slipped in and out of consciousness as the litter carried him through his gardens, through Memphis, then into the open land beyond.
By afternoon, he had arrived at the pyramid, the monument his father had built for him, the beacon that would guide the celestial barque to its landing spot. The curtains of the litter were opened, and Khufu squinted in the sharp sunlight. The pyramid stood before him, alone on its great plateau, a white edifice crowned with a golden pyrmidion. It was the most beautiful creation he had ever seen, breathtaking every time he laid eyes upon it. Its beauty was marred only by a brown swath running up one side, where a vertical course of casing stones had been removed to allow access to the inside.
The pyramid had been finished for more than twenty-five years. It was a symbol of the reign of Khufu, just as his father had promised. After the murder of Osiris, Khufu had ordered the construction to go on as planned. He had made only one change: He placed a stone sarcophagus in the central room. That was to be his own resting place.
The priests of Osiris and the priestesses of Isis were lined in two long columns, leading the way from the king’s litter up to a scaffolding in front of the pyramid. They chanted incantations as Khufu passed, singing the code words he would need to be accepted onto the divine barque. Khufu mumbled these to himself as he walked.
His family was not present, for he had wished them to look forward only, to the glorious future of Khufu’s line, and not to dwell on the unpleasantness of this day. He did not wish the elaborate rituals of a typical royal burial, for he was not dying, only going to sleep. Those present were merely well-wishers, seeing him off to a long voyage.
The scaffolding reached from the base of the pyramid to a point in its middle. There, where the casing stones had been removed, was an entranceway leading to the great chamber inside. Khufu was carried up the scaffolding, then helped across a long wooden ramp into the pyramid.
When he had crossed inside, the atmosphere changed immediately. The warmth of the sun disappeared as though extinguished. The inner corridors were lit only by small oil lamps, which released soot into the already stale air. It did not matter. He would be breathing the air for only a few minutes.
