Stackpole, Michael A - Dark Conspiracy 03 (18 page)
Read Stackpole, Michael A - Dark Conspiracy 03 Online
Authors: Evil Triumphant
"True, but I am no longer her father." The Yidam shrugged with all his shoulders. "When I was her father, 1 was known as Vikram and I was not that much different, save my coloration and gold tattoos,
from you or Crowley. Properly attired and at night, I could have passed for human. When the Dark Lords
reopened pathways to Earth, I took refuge in
Kanggenpo,
a Tibetan monastery that shielded me from the Dark Lords' influence. Unfortunately, it placed me atthe center of some very specific and strongly held
belief systems."
"I'm not sure I understand."
"My race is
psychomimetic.
Like a chameleon, we change to resemble the dominant life form in our environment. This ability usually ends early in our life, but my religious sect has isolated a form of
mediation that allows
us to change and improve ourselves. This sort of change, because it leaves us vulnerable to outside
influences, is normally begun in isolation." The Yidam raised his lower set of hands to tap his tusks. "1
hid away in the monastery's
Gonkhang,
the area below the main worship center. It is the traditional home
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of the
Yidam, the temple's guardian spirit. All of the monks—and these monks are strong-willed and
devou
t in the extreme—concentrated their influence on me and changed me from being Vikram—
Rajani's father—to their Yidam."
Will knelt and picked up a loose blue pebble. "But surely you still recognize her as your daughter."
"I do, but my change has been more than morphological. 1 have assumed the physical form of a guardian spirit, and I have learned how to think like one." The Yidam hesitated, then plunged on ahead. "The time spent in the monastery has been a process of transfiguration for me. While I am more than proud of my
daughter and yet love her, I have changed so I can no longer
know
her."
Will let the turquoise stone roll back and forth across his palm. "I...if my son...I do not envy you losing your daughter in that way. I met her once and was impressed by her. You have every right to your pride."
The Yidam smiled and moved down the outcropping to where blue grasses gently swayed in the breeze.
"Thank you. She is yet special to me, as I am sure your son is to you. Though I regret the loss, I did then what had to be done."
"And that is what I am doing here, now." Will tossed the pebble into the distance, then smiled. "I think my grandfather would very much enjoy meeting you. He would not find you odd or puzzling at all, but
would treat you as another facet of the world being made known tc him."
The Yidam snapped a grass stem off and nibbled on it.
"My daughter told me of her adventures since waking from stasis. Your grandfather figured prominently in the accountings, as did Hal and this Sinclair MacNeal. Do you know him?"
Will smiled as the paternal undertow dragged on him. "A bit. He does not remember it, but I was his caddy at a golf tournament once. He is smart and witty. He's also rich."
The Yidam fixed him with a bloody eye. "If you had a daughter, would you want her in love with him?"
The distant thunder of hooves distracted Will for a moment. Down in the plain, the carnivores had attacked the herd, starting a stampede. As he watched, the carnivores—looking a lot like wolves with zebra striping in dark and light blue—coursed and brought down a yellow wildebeest analog. Snarls and howls of victory
echoed through the dusk as dust settled on the plain, and the herd regrouped beyond the carnivores' range.
"I think, had I a daughter like Rajani, I would trust her judgment." Will shrugged. "She is intelligent and able to think for herself."
"Agreed." The Yidam turned his face into the wind and sniffed the air. "The question still stands, however: How would you
feel
about her being in love with him?"
Will suddenly realized what the Yidam was asking. "I would feel exactly how you are feeling now, I think.
Happiness mixed with apprehension has to be the universal state of any father when his daughter chooses a man as her lover. What 1 sense from you is normal. You have not changed so much that your feelings are
inappropriate."
Dropping to his haunches, the Yidam raked the claws of his upper right hand through the earth and brought one of the grass plants up, roots and all. Aside from the blue hue, the plant looked normal to Will. "Tell me,
what do you think of this place?"
The Native American hooked black hair back behind his right ear. "ft looks normal. I heard a theory once that suggested that all plant life on Earth would be blue, except that an algae was that color and absorbed the blue wavelengths from sunlight. For other plants to compete, they had to draw energy from the green wavelengths.
It seems temperate, and the steady breeze is probably enough to power some windmills for electricity."
"I concur."
Will looked at the Yidam. "Is this close enough to Pygmalion's dimension to suit our needs?"
"I believe it is." The Yidam tossed the plant aside and stood. "What we shall do is return to Phoenix and give our compatriots a preliminary report. We can return with measurement devices that will clock the wind and determine other things to see if this is good for us. As you have pointed out, the flora and fauna are close enough to Earth to minimize shock for our other workers."
"Most of them come from Eclipse and have never been outside of Phoenix. You could tell them this is Kenya, and they would believe you." Will smiled. "I think this place would do nicely. Peaceful and beautiful."
"Let's hope ft stays that way." The Yidam reached out for him. "As much as I have changed and as much as this place appeals to me, I cannot think it is the place where I want to die."
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Sinclair MacNeal sat back in his chair and rubbed his eyes. The swivel chair tipped back until the seat hit a 45° angle, and Sin's feet dangled in the footwell of his desk. Aside from the backglow of the computer
screen and the harsh glare of his desk lamp, the office he had been given in the Lorica Tower remained
dark.
He closed his eyes for only a second as numbers scrolled up the screen, but he still saw the glowing
figures racing through his brain. No matter how many times he ran the numbers, the answers came up the
same. While that precision was to be applauded, the numbers it produced meant the expedition to the
dimension code-named Turquoise would be a lot tougher than they had originally imagined.
"A penny for your thoughts, Sinclair."
Sin sat bolt upright and spun his chair around, narrowly avoiding a collision between his kneecaps and
the edge of the desk. Standing in the half-light, a vision of dreamlike seduction, Rajani smiled at him. Her golden hair spilled over the shoulders of her light bluejacket. The padded shoulders helped emphasize her slender waist, while the white blouse contrasted sharply with her jet-black flesh. Her gold-lozenge pupils struck him as reptil-
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ian f
or a second, but her almond eyes and smile bore him no malice. Blue jeans and white sneakers
com
pleted her casual outfit, yet on her it seemed elegant.
Sin smiled openly. "You're the telepath, you tell me what I'm thinking."
Rajani shook her head. "I only want to know if you want me to know."
"Okay. Right now I'm thinking you're a vision of beauty."
That broadened the smile on her face. She looked beyond him toward the computer. "I sensed some
worry when I came in. Is something wrong?"
Sin stretched and stood up. "Not really. The place your father and Will Raven found is probably the best we're going to do for a staging area for the invasion, ft is stable, not overtly harmful and enough like
Earth that we can probably avoid giving our workers nightmares when they get there. For our people, it is close to ideal."
He threw an arm over her shoulders and relished the warmth of her closeness. Sin steered her toward the
office's conversation alcove, then dropped onto the brown leather couch beside her. He put his feet up on the coffee table, displacing a stack of printouts and leaned his head on the back of the couch. "It's perfect for our people."
Rajani tucked one leg under another and leaned back against the couch's padded arm at the other end.
"Then there must be other problems or you would not be so disturbed."
Sin nodded. "Nero Loring gave me the numbers on how much power we'd need to actually activate the
dimensional gateway. It's the rough equivalent of having Hoover Dam running at full, which would be
great if Turquoise had a river we could dam and tap for power."
"It doesn't?"
"Not even close."
"But 1 thought my father said it had wind." Rajani's eyes glowed catlike in the shadows. "We can use wind-generators, can't we?"
"We can, //we want 5000 of them running in a gale." Sin closed his eyes and rubbed wearily at his temples. "It's not quite that bad, but the breeze in Turquoise averaged five miles per hour, and we need at least four times that to give us the minimum amount of power Nero thinks he needs."
He heard her shift around on the couch, then felt her gently tug on his shoulders. "Come here, Sin." She pulled him around and toward her, letting him stretch out on the couch. Her bent knees pressed gently
against either side of his chest as he lay back, and she slowly massaged his neck and shoulders. "There may be a number of solutions to this problem. Vetha has gone off to Plutonia to take a census of the
creatures there and, for all we know, they have some ability that will help us."
Sin slowly rolled his head around as her strong fingers unknotted his muscles. "A bit lower and to the left...yes, right there. Sure, from what Bat said about the Plutonians they'll make fine beasts of burden, which cuts down on our need for heavy equipment. I don't think they have the technical skill to create
more efficient generators, though."
