Voyagers II - The Alien Within (31 page)

The plane banked and Stoner looked out the window, surprised to see the sky over Athens clear and clean. He remembered attending a scientific conference in Athens, a lifetime ago, and being shocked at the gray-brown pall of filth that hung over the city. Down in the streets, choked with honking, growling automobiles, he had learned where the pollution dome originated. The noxious fumes were eating away the ancient marble monuments of the Acropolis.

Dr. Richards had told him that cars had gone electric or to clean hydrogen fuels. Stoner could see the result as the plane circled over the ancient rock of the Acropolis. The streets below were just as clogged with traffic as he remembered, but the air was crystalline. And there stood the Parthenon, the most glorious structure in human history, Stoner told himself—and the presence within himself.

Built by the ancient Athenians, nearly destroyed by war, eroded by pollution, the many columns of the Parthenon still stood proud and beautiful, glowing in the morning sun. Stoner saw scaffolding was being erected at one end of the ancient temple. Repairs? Restoration?

Then the plane banked again, and the Acropolis was swept from his sight. He settled back in his seat and listened to the thump of the landing gear being lowered, felt the plane swaying slightly in the gusty wind as the pilot lined up for her final approach to the runway.

An Linh stirred. Her eyes opened.

“Are we there?” she asked, like a little girl.

“Yes, almost,” said Stoner.

He had still not made up his mind about her. He knew that the work he had to do with Markov did not involve her. Yet he could not leave her in Athens, alone, penniless, and probably still being hunted by agents of Vanguard Industries. Stoner told himself that he would find Jo, get her to take An Linh under her protection. A tall order, he knew. Jo had wanted to run An Linh out of the corporation. But a life was at stake now, and he was certain that Jo would see things differently once he explained them to her.

For the time being, then, An Linh would have to stay with him. All the way to Moscow. She ought to strike some sparks of interest from Markov, he thought, smiling inwardly. We’ll see just how old Kirill really feels once he sees her.

And there he was, standing in front of the hangar as the twin jet rolled to a stop. One hand leaning on his cane, Markov seemed to be peering intently at the plane, trying to make out Stoner’s face in the thick windows. Aged, stooped, his goatee ragged and wispy, his hair white and pitifully thin, still Markov managed to look like an eager schoolboy as he waited for the plane’s hatch to open and his old friend to come out and join him.

For a moment Stoner felt the same happy impatience. But then it all dissolved, ebbed away, and the deadened calm enveloped him once again. He thought, with all the passion of a computer readout, that it was unfair of the alien to suppress even welcome emotions. But the thought itself was a mere observation, not even a complaint.

There is important work for me to do, he told himself. I must be free to exert every ounce of strength and will in me to accomplish this task. As he unbuckled his safety belt and got up from his seat, he heard in the dim recesses of his memory his old tae kwan do instructor urging him, “Focus. Focus! Strength and skill mean nothing if they are not focused entirely on the object at hand.”

The plane’s cabin was so small that he had to bend over to get down the aisle. He ducked through the hatch and clambered down the shaky aluminum ladder to the concrete ramp in front of the hangar. The golden sun of Greece felt good, the morning air was warm without being humid.

And Kirill Markov’s eyes lit up when he saw Stoner. Twirling his cane in one hand, he advanced toward Stoner, who half ran to his old friend and clasped him in his arms. The Russian pounded Stoner’s back with his free hand, but it felt like the feeble taps of an old man.

“Keith, you look like an Old Testament prophet in that beard: fierce and uncompromising,” said Markov.

“I’ll shave it off.”

“No, no! Keep it! It looks good. Dark and threatening. They’ll understand it in Moscow.”

Stoner laughed, then saw that Markov’s eyes had already shifted to look past him toward An Linh, who was approaching them. Even in the shapeless, oversized blue coveralls of the IPF she looked radiantly beautiful.

“And who is this?”

Turning, Stoner introduced, “This is An Linh Laguerre, my friend and companion. An Linh, permit me to introduce Professor Kirill Markov, head of the Soviet Academy of Sciences.”

Markov immediately switched to French. “
Enchanté, mademoiselle
.”

“Thank you,” said An Linh. “I am delighted to make your acquaintance.”

“Your beauty outshines the sun,” Markov continued in French. “Aphrodite herself would be jealous of you.”

“He’s a linguist,” Stoner said to An Linh, “and a hopeless romantic.”

“Who could not be romantic in the face of such loveliness?” Markov retorted. He extended his free arm for An Linh. “Come, you must tell the whole story of your life as we wing our way to Moscow.”

“We’re going right now?” Stoner asked.

“Yes. That’s our plane, there.”

“We’ve just spent twelve hours inside a plane.”

Markov’s brows knit together. “When did you learn to speak French?”

Stoner made himself shrug.

“You can speak Russian, also?”

“Yes.”

Without letting go of An Linh’s arm, Markov turned very serious. “Keith, nothing would please me more than to spend a few days in Athens with you and this lovely lady. But we are expected in Moscow immediately.”

“I see,” Stoner said. “And I promised you I would go, didn’t I?”

“Yes, you did.”

Stoner cast his eyes toward the horizon. From the spot where he stood, nothing could be seen of the city or its ancient citadel. But the sky was blue, the sun warm, the air clean and fresh.

“Besides,” Markov said, “there is a surprise for you waiting aboard the plane.”

Stoner looked at his old friend; his aged face was smiling, his eyes sparkled with anticipation.

“A surprise?” he asked.

Markov’s smile broadened. He asked An Linh, “I hope this won’t be too much of an imposition on you, dear lady. Perhaps after a few days in Moscow, you will permit me to show you Leningrad. Or we might fly back here to Athens, if you wish. Or to Paris!”

“You are too kind,” she said graciously.

“Yes, it’s so. Kindness is one of my many faults. I am romantic, kind, generous, and sweet. Not like this big oaf of an American. Take away his good looks and intelligence, and what have you got? Hardly anything!”

An Linh laughed and Stoner grinned. Markov continued his bantering chatter as he led them toward the waiting plane with the red star painted on its raked-back tail.

Another aluminum can, Stoner thought wearily as they climbed into the plane. But from the brief look he had at its outside, it was probably a supersonic jet. A swing-wing design that could make it to Moscow in only a couple of hours at most.

The interior was even more luxurious than the IPF’s jet. Huge padded chairs covered in leather. They swiveled and tilted back so far that they could be used as sleeping couches.

Stoner began, “So where’s the surprise?…”

One of the big swivel chairs turned around, and he saw Jo sitting in it, dressed in a clinging metallic sheath of gleaming silver, its miniskirt showing her long legs to good advantage. The smile on her face froze when she saw An Linh.

“Jo!”

“Hello, Keith.” Her dark eyes never left An Linh’s.

“What are you doing here?”

“I called her and asked her to join us,” Markov explained.

“That’s wonderful,” Stoner said. He went to the chair next to Jo’s.

Markov showed An Linh to a chair, and as soon as they were all seated, a uniformed steward brought them a tray of vodka, fruit juices, ice, and chilled wine. Stoner took juice, Jo and An Linh both had wine, and Markov knocked back a pony of vodka.

Stoner could see that the Russian had no idea of the enmity between the two women. He could feel it, though, like the heat of molten lava flowing from a volcano.

A voice on the intercom from the flight deck told them to buckle their seat belts, face their seats forward, and lock them in place while the plane taxied to the runway and took off.

“I didn’t expect to see you here,” Stoner said to Jo.

“I didn’t expect you to have her with you,” she replied, her voice low with suppressed anger.

Markov sensed the tension, too, as he chattered to An Linh, “You will love Moscow. There’s only a few feet of snow on the streets….”

“I love winter sports,” she countered, her eyes on the back of Jo’s chair.

“And the sun actually peeked through the clouds for a few moments a day or so ago,” he continued. “No one has seen a polar bear prowling the streets for weeks now, and the wolf problem is almost under control.”

He wanted An Linh to laugh, or at least to smile at him. Instead she merely said, “I’m looking forward to seeing your wonderful city.”

“I have a lot to tell you,” Stoner said to Jo. “There’s a lot that you’re not aware of.”

“I’ll bet,” she snapped. Then she turned away from him and stared out her window. Stoner decided not to press her. Not here. Not now. Instead, he marveled at the palpable fury he felt radiating from her. This is more than a business rivalry, he realized. Is she angry because she thinks An Linh was after her husband? Or is she enraged because An Linh is with me?

Both, he thought. All of the above. He had never paid any attention to the competitions between women. Now he wondered how to calm Jo’s temper, how to keep it from wrecking the mission he had given himself.

The plane arrowed into the air, and Stoner watched the narrow wings, unpainted aluminum, slide back until they almost touched the fuselage. He pressed his forehead against the cold window glass and saw deeply blue water below. The wine-dark Aegean, he thought. Where Odysseus sailed. The ruins of Troy are off somewhere to the east. The ruins of Knossos and Gizeh and Ephesus are dotted around the shores of these seas. What will be found of our civilization two thousand, five thousand, ten thousand years from now? Maybe we’ve forestalled nuclear holocaust, but there are other ways to tear a civilization to pieces. The ancients did it by hand, stone by stone, death by death. They didn’t need nuclear weapons to destroy Carthage, or Thebes, or even Rome.

He glanced at Jo. Her back was still turned to him. Markov was busily courting An Linh, and Stoner was glad that Jo probably could not understand French. He remembered the legend of Theseus and Ariadne, and the history of Cleopatra and the women of the Roman court. Why must women always scheme and compete against one another? He wondered. Men compete, but that’s always for the attention of women, when you come down to it. Conquer an empire or write a sonnet, it’s really so that you can get the women you want to notice you and come to your bed. But women compete, too, viciously. For what? They’re the ones who decide which men will mate with them. They have the power to decide who will father their children….

And then it struck him. Woman compete not merely to get the men whom they desire as mates. They compete for power and security so that their children can be raised in safety. He remembered the Indian woman he had met at the Gare de Lyon, and what she had told him about her duty to her children:

I must protect them as best I can
.

That’s what it’s all about, he realized. It may be buried so deep in their genes that they don’t understand it consciously, but that’s why women instinctively compete against each other. To get the best mates, the ones with the most wealth, the most power, the most wisdom. Not for themselves. For their children. Even the unborn ones. To protect their children. It’s an innate part of their makeup, and a species where the females don’t have such an instinct is a species that will die off and become extinct.

The other presence in his mind seemed to ponder that thought for a while, then accept it. Stoner could feel some of the tension in him relax.

Meanwhile, Markov was trying to entertain An Linh, trying to ease the tension in the only way he knew how. “Leningrad is a different city altogether,” he was telling her. “A beautiful city, truly beautiful, with splendid buildings and an art museum that you could spend a lifetime in and still not see everything.”

“It sounds wonderful.” She had swiveled her chair around to face Markov’s. “I would love to see it.”

Another steward appeared, his hands empty, a slightly sardonic smile on his face.

“I have an announcement to make,” he said. In English.

Stoner felt puzzled, almost annoyed. Trouble, he said to himself. This is trouble.

An Linh looked up and felt the blood freeze in her veins. “Cliff!” she gasped.

“Hullo, pet,” said Cliff Baker. “I’m afraid it’s my sad duty to inform the four of you that this plane will not arrive in Moscow on schedule. In fact, it’s not going to arrive in Moscow at all.”

Two hours stretched to four, and then to eight. At the high latitudes where they were flying, the sun soon dipped to the horizon and slowly sank out of sight.

When Cliff Baker had announced that their plane had been taken over by the World Liberation Movement, Stoner had thought of the chances of talking to him, persuading him to let them fly to Moscow as originally planned. But Baker was either aware of Stoner’s abilities or just naturally cautious. After his cryptic announcement he locked himself in the flight deck with the plane’s pilot and copilot.

Stoner turned his chair toward An Linh. She looked stunned.

“He’s not dead,” Stoner said to her.

“I never thought I’d see him again,” she said, her voice hollow with shock.

“Apparently he’s escaped from Vanguard. Perhaps the World Liberation Movement freed him.”

“Escaped from Vanguard?” Jo asked. “What do you mean?”

Markov demanded, “Who is this man? How can he hijack a Soviet airplane? Where is he taking us?”

For several hours they talked back and forth, Stoner and An Linh taking turns telling their stories to Jo and Markov.

“I had no idea that Everett…” Jo stopped herself, her face suddenly twisted with anguish. Stoner could see she was fighting to hold back tears of frustrated rage.

“Nobody’s blaming you for any of this,” he said gently.

She shook her head. “My God, I thought I knew what was going on in Vanguard, but I’ve been nothing but a figurehead! Just a stupid little girl, playing at being the corporation president!”

“You are far from being stupid,” Markov said. “This man Nillson must be as devious as a snake.”

“He’s frightening,” An Linh agreed. “Terrifying.”

“Nillson isn’t our problem at the moment,” said Stoner. “We appear to be the unwilling guests of the World Liberation Movement. I wonder where they’re taking us?”

“And why?” Markov added.

“That’s obvious,” Jo replied. “They want you, Keith. The rest of us are extraneous.”

“Do you mean expendable?” asked Markov.

Jo shrugged, and the four of them lapsed into silence.

The plane landed once, at an airstrip that seemed empty and abandoned, dust blown, in the kind of dry, brown, barren country that reminded Stoner of Tyuratam, in the Kazakh S.S.R. A pair of fuel trucks rolled up to their plane, and a team of coveralled men quickly, efficiently connected hoses to the fuel tanks in the plane’s belly.

“They’re not going to let us out here,” Stoner said.

Markov, leaning across him to stare out at the refueling operation, muttered, “Kazakhs, or I’ll swallow my beard. They’re in on this.”

“Where are we?” Jo asked.

“Halfway to Tibet,” said Markov, “from the looks of things out there.”

Within minutes they were airborne again. A dreary silence filled the plane’s cabin. The steward who had first served them drinks brought out trays of hot dinners. Stoner saw that the others ate listlessly, picking at the precooked food. It was bland and hardly recognizable, but it felt warm and good to Stoner.

As the sun set and the engines droned on with no sign of their ultimate destination, one by one the others drifted off to sleep. Stoner sat up, though, and stared out at the dark night sky. Far off in the distance he could see the pale flickerings of the Northern Lights, and he remembered those wildly hectic weeks when the alien starship had announced its presence by making the skies dance all across the Earth, night after night after night.

We’re heading east, Stoner told himself. To China? I doubt that we can get that far without another refueling. Whoever this World Liberation Movement is, they have things very neatly arranged. An abandoned military airstrip has a refueling team waiting for us. The plane deviates from its scheduled course and there are no problems with ground controllers. We’re crossing vast stretches of Soviet airspace and there hasn’t been a single interceptor buzzing us.

He thought of the radar operators, air traffic controllers, fuel depot managers, truck drivers, and hundreds of other people who must be part of this hijacking operation. Stoner felt impressed. This World Liberation Movement has organization and discipline. And
money
. You can’t pull off an operation like this without lots of bribes, no matter how much confusion and turmoil is racking the Soviet Union. They’ve had to pay off lots of people, and that takes large amounts of cash.

Leaning back in the leather-covered reclining chair, Stoner realized that the WLM’s operations in Africa required huge sums of money as well. Money to purchase arms, money to buy food, money to bribe politicians and customs inspectors. Mao Tse-tung said that power comes out of the barrel of a gun. But you have to have money to buy the gun. It even takes a certain amount of money to steal a gun.

The plane droned on, and when dawn lit the sky at last, Stoner saw vast and rugged ranges of mountains stretching out below. Peaks of rock straining up toward them, pitiless winds blowing the snow from the crags in long streamers of glistening white. Ice choking the ravines between the mountains, glaring in the morning sun, where fog and icy clouds did not hide the rocky landscape.

Jo awoke, stretching and yawning, got up and headed for the toilet at the rear of the plane. She came back a few minutes later and smiled at Stoner.

“I’ve got a month’s supply of clothes in the cargo hold, but I can’t get at them.”

He gave the glittering, silvery dress an admiring look. “You’re fine,” he said.

“And what about you,” Jo asked, sitting down again. “How are you doing?”

“I’m okay. Curious about where they’re taking us.”

“Not afraid?”

He made a small shrug. “Not yet.”

“I guess as long as we’re in the air we’re all right. It’s when we land that the trouble will start.”

“I’ll protect you, Jo.”

“And Kirill?”

“Yes, of course.”

“And her?”

“Her, too,” he said.

Jo lapsed into a tight-lipped silence.

“There’s nothing between us,” he told her. “She’s been on the run, trying to get away from your charming husband. I’ve been sort of a big brother to her.”

“She loves you.”

He felt himself smile. “How do you know that?”

“It’s obvious.”

“She thinks she does, yes. She also thought she was in love with this guy Baker, the one who seems to be in charge of this hijacking.”

Jo said nothing.

“Are you still angry with her?” Stoner asked.

For a moment she did not reply. Then, “No, I suppose not. But I don’t trust her.”

It was Stoner’s turn for silence. He searched Jo’s dark eyes and saw such a turmoil of emotions in them that he could not fathom her intentions.

Markov woke slowly, snuffling and gargling like an old man. He
is
an old man, Stoner reminded himself. His snorts and coughs awoke An Linh, who seemed startled. Her eyes flew open, her hands gripped the armrests of her chair. Then she remembered where she was and, with a deep intake of breath, regained her composure.

The steward came out from the flight deck again, smiling politely. Stoner realized that he was young, probably not much more than twenty. Not very tall, either, but well built; he had the grace of a trained gymnast.

“We will land soon,” he announced in studied English. “I will prepare breakfast for you.”

“Where?” Jo demanded.

Markov echoed, “Yes, exactly where are we going to land?”

The steward kept the smile on his face. “Truly, I do not know. It is not necessary for me to know.”

“You’re a Russian,” Markov said in his native language. “How can you allow this outrage to take place?”

“I am a Latvian, Academician Markov. Despite nearly a century of being ruled by our Bigger Brothers, we Letts have never accepted the idea that Russians are our natural masters.”

The steward went back to the galley. Markov gave an exaggerated shrug of helplessness.

As they ate their cold breakfasts, Stoner could feel the plane being readied for landing. The engines throttled back, the wings slid forward. By the time the steward collected their emptied trays, the plane had noticeably lost altitude. Jagged rocky peaks loomed on both sides now. Stoner and the others saw glittering fields of snow gliding past. The air was bumpy down among the mountains. The plane slewed and jounced badly.

Flaps down. Wheels down. Stoner glanced at his friends. They all had their seat belts tightly fastened. An Linh was gripping the armrests of her chair with white-knuckled intensity. Markov was pasty-faced with fright, staring at the rocks hurtling past, seemingly only a few feet from the windows. Jo seemed more relaxed, her head thrown back against the seat rest, her eyes straight ahead, fixed on the metal bulkhead at the front of the cabin.

There was nothing but snowy ground beneath them, coming up fast. Then the plane leveled off and seemed to coast. Suddenly Stoner saw the dark asphalt of a runway beneath them, and the plane banged down hard, bounced, then settled onto its wheels and rolled along, the engines suddenly roaring mightily with reversed thrust. Without warning they plunged into darkness. The glaring bright snowscape outside the windows disappeared like an electric lamp being snapped off, and they were rushing down a tunnel, the thunder of the engines magnified into a hideous echoing bellow.

An airport built into the side of a mountain, Stoner told himself. I’ll bet they have snowplows outside already busy blowing snow back onto the landing strip so no one can see it from the air.

The plane slowed, and a glow of light brightened the windows. By the time they had stopped, Stoner could see a vast cavern lit by strings of lamps high overhead. A team of technicians stood outside, most of them Orientals, dressed in nondescript coveralls. Six carried handguns strapped to their hips.

“Wherever we are,” Markov said loudly, trying to cover the quaver in his voice, “we’re here.”

The door to the flight deck opened, and Cliff Baker ducked through. “Sorry to have put you through such a tedious long flight,” he said, grinning slightly. “Welcome to Altai Base.”

“What is Altai Base?” Markov demanded.

“Why have you brought us here?” asked Jo. “How long do you intend to keep us?”

Instead of answering, Baker strode down the aisle and went to the hatch. He yanked at the lever control, and the hatch swung open.

“End of the line,” he said. “Everybody out.”

Stoner unbuckled his seat belt and got to his feet. The others did the same. They shuffled slowly, reluctantly, to the hatch.

An Linh was in the lead. As she came up to the hatch, Baker gave her a crooked grin.

“What’s the matter, pet? Not happy to see me?”

“I thought you were dead, Cliff,” she said, her voice low and trembling. “I thought they had killed you.”

“They almost did.” He nodded toward Jo. “Her hubby damned near did kill me. Made me wish I was dead, for a while there. But don’t you worry, love. I’m all right now. And I’m going to get back at them. All of them. Starting with her.”