"You think they knew you were following them?" asked Eveleen.
"No." He shook his head. "They would have tried to capture me; even with holos they had me outnumbered. I think it was standard procedure to throw off anyone following them. I'll bet they can hide behind holos of the surroundings as well—a perfect way to hide the opening to their base."
"So we can't find it that way."
"Probably not, and anyone poking around that far out from the city would automatically alert them."
"They'll be back," Ross said. "After all, what they're trying to do is flush us out."
"At least, so we guess," Stavros put in. "So far, we ascribe human motivations and reactions to them."
"Oh, they've been human enough in some of their reactions in the past," Ross stated in a grim voice. "Those boys don't play nice, not at all."
"No, they don't," Ashe said. "But we still do not know what game they are playing. Not really."
"My question," Kosta said, wiping back dark curly hair from his brow, "is, are these Younoprosopoi their allies, or enemies?"
"A good question, one I'd like an answer to myself," Ashe said.
Eveleen smiled. "I like that.'Younoprosopoi.' Is that Modern Greek? It sounds a little like our present Kallistan Greek."
Kosta flashed a grin. "Means 'Fur Faces.' "
Ross said, "Since I was until now the only one who'd ever seen one of these guys, and that was during an attack that we decided later was some sort of triple cross involving the Russians, the Baldies, and at least one Fur Face, what they're doing here is anybody's guess."
"Then let's continue to gather facts. Stav, Kosta. What did you find over at the pre-Kameni Island?"
"Evidence of at least six of those devices, all buried very deeply."
"Did you mark them?"
"We have got markers floating over each," Kosta said.
"Good. Then tomorrow we need to find out if they are in the nearer vents."
"More area to cover," Stav said.
"Start today, then. Take all night."
"I'll go with them," Eveleen offered. "I haven't been on a dive for, oh, a whole six months. I hate to get out of practice."
"An excellent idea." Ashe smiled a little.
Then he turned to Ross, who said first, "You thinking what I'm thinking?"
Ashe shrugged. "I think it's time for some desperate measures. I do not condone undue violence, but perhaps our Younoprosopoi friends will not resist our invitation for a little talk."
Stav looked a little confused.
Eveleen said, "Where is Linnea?"
"I was just looking for her," Ashe said. "Before I spotted you coming down the trail and hiked down to meet you here. Answer: I don't know. She was not at that little room you two rented."
"Invitation?" Stav murmured, still looking confused. "Invitation? Is this an idiom with which I am not familiar?"
"No," Eveleen said, casting him a distracted look. "Linnea must be off investigating something," she said. "I can go check, just in case. Maybe one of those women there saw her."
"A good idea," Ashe said, still studying the volcano under its pall of smoke, as if he could see a small figure toiling up and down the trail. "In case whatever she's on the track of requires backup."
"What is this 'invitation'?" Stav asked Ross.
Ross sent a tight grin Ashe's way and then said to the Greek agent, "We're going to do a little alien-napping."
CHAPTER 12
LINNEA HEARD THE singing first.
She emerged onto the cliff outside the oracle's cave, tired and sweaty, to the faint smell of sulfur and the sound of young girls' voices.
The voices rose and fell in a strange chant. It wasn't music, not to a modern, Western-trained ear, but nor was it totally dissonant.
Mesmerizing, Linnea thought, already mentally writing her monograph . . . except where could she publish it? Project Star was totally secret. She then realized something she had, so far, avoided looking at: that Gordon Ashe, with his fine mind and eternal curiosity, had never published anything. Yet how many fabulous secrets of the human past had he seen?
What does he do?Linnea thought as she crossed the cliff and stood with the little cluster of waiting people. Does he plant clues so that other archaeologists can find them the customary way? Or does he live with the knowledge of treasures of knowledge permanently suppressed?
Or is the wordpermanently an arrogant assumption? One thing for certain, he had long ago accepted that fame would not be his. (Never mind fortune. Archaeologists don't get rich, even if they are lucky enough to uncover vast quantities of gold and precious gems in rich tombs; governments then thud in with their heavy feet, waving official papers right and left, leaving archaeologists with little but their dwindling stipend and the hopes that they can get credit for their find.)
So, if a trained mind like his had given up the idea of fame, what was the payoff? The satisfaction of a job well done?
That sounds noble but not quite human, Linnea thought, smiling.
A teenage girl dressed in a brightly colored robe, with a golden necklace of stylized serpents, looked up into Linnea's face. She said something—asked a question.
Linnea suppressed the urge to write down the girl's speech and compare it to Greek as the girl then restated in careful Ancient Greek, "Your quest?"
"I seek Ela," Linnea said in the same Ancient Greek, trying to match accents. "Theti sent me."
"Sent you? Why?"
"I met her in Akrotiri," Linnea explained, and then she offered the cover she'd invented on the long walk uphill. "I am a priestess of the Earth Goddess, only from Kemt. I was sent by the goddess to witness here."
And the girl took it without a blink. "You must come within," she said, gesturing. "We are still finishing the purification, so—" She touched a forefinger to her lips and led the way past the waiting petitioners, who watched with patient attitudes, and curious eyes.
Linnea followed, feeling morally queasy at how easily her lie had been believed. She had always assumed that those who lived around oracles made their living by listening to gossip. Did they really accept directives from outside, just on the word of someone claiming to be sent by their deity?
At least I intend no harm, Linnea thought. I will do nothing but observe and learn what I may. And my mission is to save these people from a really horrible fate.
The smell of sulfur intensified as they eased past a great crack between two massive rocks. Short as she was, Linnea had to duck and walk sideways for several yards, until cool air suddenly ruffled against her face and they emerged into a wide cavern with a sudden drop at the left. Linnea did not have to look down to see the rushing water. Above the stream, far above, was another great crack. A shaft of faint golden light, widening slowly, filtered in.
A circle of young girls, all in brightly colored robes with red jackets edged with blue, walked with deliberate step in a circle round what looked like an ancient tree stump, their arms upraised, fingers brought to a point like a beak—or like the head of a serpent, Linnea realized, as she watched the sinuous, dancelike swayings and pouncings of those young arms and hands.
Linnea transferred her gaze to the center of the circle. Had a tree really once grown here? Well, there was light, and below ran water. All that was needed was some bird to drop a seed while flying over that crack.
As the thin shaft of light crept closer to the great tree, Linnea perceived movement in the shadows at the other end of the cave, beyond the circle of the girls and the tree.
Ching! Ching! A girl clashed little copper cymbals, and the chant began again. Between the young bodies, swaying in unison as the girls' voices rose, faintly echoing, Linnea glimpsed a shadowy form all in red.
Two steps, three, and the form resolved into a woman, an older woman, spare of build, her sparse hair bound up in a golden serpent-fillet like those of the girls, her eyes dark and surrounded by wrinkles.
Two older women assisted her. When she neared the c
ircle the young girls did not break their step, only amended it, creating a gap, through which the old woman came on alone.
She approached the great tree stump and climbed up onto it. Linnea couldn't quite see the cut portion, as it was about five feet from the rocky floor, but there seemed to be a seat carved in it, for the priestess sat, just as a thin finger of sunlight touched her hair, lighting the gray to molten silver and shrouding her face in shadow.
The girls finished their chant on a triumphant note and filed back down the narrow crevasse through which Linnea had come. Moments later the sound of the voices floated back: now, apparently, the purification ritual included the petitioners outside.
The priestess sat in her tree-stump throne, breathing slowly, her eyes closed, her hands lying palms up and open on her knees.
Presently a woman walked in, looking about a little fearfully. Her eyes lifted to the great shaft of light, which now fully illuminated the priestess on the throne.
Good theater, Linnea thought, but the skin along her outer arms felt rough.
"Mother Goddess," the woman said in Ancient Greek, as she mounted the gnarled tree roots and joined the seer on the stump. "O Mother Goddess, why do the crops fail, and the sky fill with smoke, and the ground growl at us like a beast hunting prey? What can we do?"
The priestess did not answer. Her eyes stayed closed. A soft hissing sound emerged from the cone of brilliant sunlight, and Linnea realized it was the seer's breathing. Those breaths were long, each slightly louder than the one before, a hiss that sounded very like a snake.
A snake. Just as Linnea identified the sound, the seer straightened up. She seemed to grow, to expand a little, as she lifted her face up toward the sunlight. Still the hissed breathing, in and out, and Linnea became aware of the older priestesses standing along the perimeter of the chamber breathing in the same slow rhythm.
Then, slowly, the seer began to sway, reminding Linnea of the snakelike swayings of the girls during the purification chants. Her head turned from side to side, almost like a blinded snake looking, seeking, reaching. Listening.
Linnea, realizing that, felt prickles again, but she caught herself up, thinking, This is just theater. It's good theater —the very best —but it's all showmanship.
Still, it was three-thousand-year-old showmanship, and as such, it was very well worth watching. And she forced herself to divert from the hindbrain's awe by counting up the elements, one by one, that made the whole seem so unnervingly . . .real.
The far-off girls' voices, chanting in a mesmerizing pattern; the light; the great aged tree stump that had grown so unlikely in this cavern; the rushing water; even the faint whiffs of sulfur. And then the old seer's rhythmic writhing: despite her evident age, she moved now, graceful and supple as one of those young acolytes out front.
At last she spoke, in a voice that startled Linnea. It was a guttural voice, harsh, loud, and because it was in the local language (or was it?) she could not understand a word.
But the petitioner appeared to understand, for she bowed her head, and her tense shoulders slumped.
A priestess moved forward to help her down, and she walked out slowly, her face drawn and worried.
Linnea turned to the nearest priestess, who saw her movement and touched her fingertips to her lips.
One by one the rest of the petitioners came in, and again and again the seer breathed that hissing breath and writhed, her eyes wide open but blind-looking. Again she cried out something in that guttural voice that clawed at Linnea's viscera, and the petitioners departed in silence, not one of them looking happy with the answers that they got.
There were seven of them. If others waited outside, they had been dismissed. The sun had moved, in the meantime, and the golden shaft now left the seer on her throne and painted the rocky floor instead. The seer, in shadow, seemed to shrink in on herself, and without any words spoken two sturdy middle-aged priestesses moved to the sides of the great tree to help her down.
Her eyes were open, but she seemed to be blind. Her hands, once graceful, now fumbled, looking frail and aged.
The priestesses all moved around the empty tree and followed the seer into that back area. Linnea hesitated, and then joined them, moving tentatively, but no one shooed her away or otherwise paid attention to her.
They each ducked under a triangular archway made by two slabs of pumice cracked and shifted apart by unimaginable forces, and Linnea found herself in a back chamber. It was stuffy here; there was no sky-crack to let in air. Reflected light from the tree chamber was dim, revealing rugs on the ground.
The seer was gently helped onto one of these. Everyone stood in silence as she stretched out, breathing slowly again, but without that awful hiss.
After a time she stirred, made a motion to sit, and again two priestesses sprang to help her, their movements tender with unspoken love and respect.
Someone brought in a little oil lamp and set it down before the seer. Its tiny tongue of flame painted golden color on a worn face that now looked sweet, grandmotherly, and very, very weary.
"Thirst," she murmured—in Ancient Greek.
Someone brought her a cup of water, probably from the stream. Someone else brought dried fish and crumbled goat cheese, and a tiny bunch of withered grapes.
The seer munched her way through these foods with no apparent enjoyment. Her brow was slightly puckered, as if she had a massive headache, and she chewed and swallowed as one performing a duty.
At last the food was gone, and all of the water. She sighed, and one of the women gently massaged her temples.
No one spoke, not until one of the girls came in and said, "Maestra, they are all gone."
The woman who had brought the water turned her head. "Thank you, child. Tell the others they are free to eat their meal."
Others among the priestesses stirred now, some passing out fava-seed bread, cheese, grapes. The priestesses talked in low murmurs as the seer had her head rubbed, her eyes closed now. She was surrounded by quiet now, as before she'd been surrounded by that fierce shaft of bright sunlight, the more fierce, Linnea realized, because of all the particulate matter in the air. The sun here before the volcano began smoking and rumbling must have been pure and clear, as clear as the ocean waters.
At last the seer looked up. Her question was the last thing Linnea expected: "What did I say?"
And the chief priestess shook her head sadly. "Nothing. The spirits are still silent."
CHAPTER 13
"UP THIS WAY," Ross said, pointing.
He paused, gazing up the mountain path. A wisp of smoke haze drifted by, borne on the strengthening breeze. The smoke seemed to leech all the color out of the sparse hillside, rendering it unfamiliar, almost alien.
"Or was it?"
"Can you orient on the peninsula?" Ashe asked, after a time.
Ross felt a hot zap of annoyance at his own stupidity. Yes, the smoke had given him a fairly nasty headache, making it difficult to think, but Ashe probably had one as well.
Ross turned around, staring down through the haze toward the peninsula that stretched westward from below Akrotiri. The pre—Kameni Island was barely visible through the murk of smoke and steam, but one thing he could see was the purple clouds headed their way. Even if he hadn't felt fitful puffs of cooler, moisture-laden air pushing through the hot, humid haze, he would have sensed a major storm on the way. From the tightness at the base of his skull, the way the hairs on his arms prickled, it was a storm that carried a full load of artillery in the form of lightning and hail.
"We're going to have to find cover," he said to Ashe.
The man shrugged. "Let's get as high as we can. Maybe dive into some crevasse if we don't find your vent first." Ross nodded once, ignoring the corresponding pang in his head, and turned around again. He remembered orienting himself several times on that previous journey. "Yes. That way," he said, pointing up to the left. They trudged on.
——————————
THE STORM
CAME on with energetic rapidity.
Eveleen and Kosta dropped over the side of the boat away from the coast, so that no one who happened to have field glasses, or the alien equivalent, would see their scuba gear. Stav had erected a tent onboard, which was common enough, especially when the weather was as fierce as it was now.
They unclipped the sled from the hull of the boat and hung on as the small but powerful electric motor pulled them away and down. A strong sense of relief shot through Eveleen as they moved steadily downward. The wind had been getting up, and the water had formed little whitecaps; though they couldn't see beyond the mountain blocking the northern sky, Stav had said with Greek stoicism, "Storm on the way. I'll batten down once you two get under the surface."
Out this far from any others they could speak English, which was a relief. Though the Greek agents still called the mysterious ‘Fur Faces’ Younoprosopoi, and they also called the Baldies Falakri, or Exoyinii. Eveleen found these nicknames more elegant, even though the first one simply meant "bald ones" and the second "aliens." The sobriquet "Baldies" for the hairless aliens of the future sounded kind of silly, but it had stuck over decades. Rather like the way we still call Native Americans "Indians," Eveleen thought as she swam downward, laughing inside. Which probably thoroughly confuses any aliens who spy in our time.
The light changed abruptly. They'd reached the level where shafts shifted and changed, but suddenly they faded and vanished. Eveleen flipped over, holding on to the sled with one hand, and saw the remarkable effect of hail and rain pockmarking the surface. It was a beautiful sight, but she forced herself to turn back. Some day, she resolved, if we get back all right, I will have time to watch a storm from below.
Next to her Kosta turned on his forehead lamp and started surveying the depths in its beam.
Eveleen turned hers on as well and then pulled out the device that Ashe had given her. They couldn't use sonics for this search; there was too much area to be covered and the returns were confused by the water. Ashe's device wasn't much better, but it worked underwater. About all it could do was detect the presence of alien tech within a range of twenty yards; as one might expect when dealing with a technology far beyond most theories contemporary scientists could come up with, it could tell little more. But after much research, and the invention of a different way of looking at quantum mechanics, the brain boys had realized that the power source for Baldie tech involved some sort of temporal distortion, and some smart lab jockey had figured a way to use a piece of the Baldies' own tech to home in on its brethren via that signature. Unfortunately, it was active detection, so they were announcing themselves to the Baldies by using it. But that couldn't be helped. At least they knew where they were—and maybe their actions were causing the devices to be turned off. That was enough, for now.
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