by James Axler
Placing his hands on the back of the chair on either side of Lakesh's shoulders, Kane thrust his face down and close to Lakesh's.
"Something unprecedented is about to happen right now," he said in a low, deadly tone. "A sneaky old fart is about to fly across this room with only a boot on his scrawny ass as the propellant."
Lakesh blinked at him from behind the lens of his glasses, completely baffled by Kane's words. Then annoyance replaced the confusion.
"You're angry with me again," he said waspishly. "Nothing new about that. But a situation developed here that is so extraordinary…"
"Nothing new about that, either," Kane interrupted.
"He's not exaggerating, Kane. Hear him out," Brigid urged.
Kane straightened up, scowling down into Lakesh's deeply seamed face. "What is it this time? Have you located a new bunch of freaks to shoot at us? Another space station you want us to visit? Just tell me — we live only to risk our lives for you, you know."
Lakesh wisely chose to overlook the sarcasm. "It has to do with Balam. He asked to speak to you."
Kane was shocked into speechlessness for a long moment. All he could think of to say was a faint. "What?"
Swiftly, curtly, Lakesh related his brief communication with Balam and how it had come about through Banks.
"A stone?" rumbled Grant. "What the hell is so dangerous about a stone?"
"Not just a stone, but one in the shape of a trapezohedron." Lakesh used his gnarled fingers to trace a geometric form in the air. "That was the image Balam imparted."
"Does it mean anything to you?" Brigid asked.
"It didn't at first."
"And now?" inquired Kane.
Contemplatively, Lakesh answered, "Certain ancient cultures attached mystical significance to a kind of very rare rock — tektites."
"I thought tektites were meteor fragments," Brigid said.
"That's the standard mineralogist's view, yes. But actually, nobody was ever certain where tektites came from. More than one contained isotopes of untraceable radioactive material and had very unusual magnetic readings."
"How unusual?" Kane demanded.
"They were antimagnetic, with a polarity capable of suppressing gravity… or affecting the electromagnetic field of the human brain."
"That still doesn't sound like anything to scare anybody," Grant argued. "If Balam is an anybody."
Lakesh heaved himself out his chair. "I concur. So let us pay him a visit and settle the question."
Kane lifted a hand. "Hold on. I'm not about to let that little gray bastard crawl around in my head just so he can tell me about some scary rocks."
"Kane," Brigid began, "you're missing the point as usual. Whatever Balam wants to talk about, this is the first time he's ever initiated a communication. And he wants you, not Banks — whom he knows best. Not even Lakesh — whom he blames for his captivity. Only you."
Lakesh's head bobbed in vehement agreement on his wattled neck. "Precisely, friend Kane. This is the kind of breakthrough we've been waiting for, hoping for. Balam is our only direct feed for data about the Directorate."
"You'll understand if I'm less than honored by his request," he retorted.
Lakesh and Brigid stared at him expectantly.
Kane drew in a slow, thoughtful breath. "How do you know he doesn't want to take me over, make me his slave? Or fry my brain?"
"If he had that ability and intent, he would've done it long ago." Lakesh adopted a reasonable, persuasive tone. "He was only able to gain control of Banks when he was at the deepest stage of sleep and he didn't — or couldn't — read his mind completely. Otherwise, he would've known what Banks knew — that you weren't here."
Kane cast a questioning glance toward Grant. The broad yoke of the big man's shoulders lifted in a shrug. "Makes sense to me. Just talking to it — him — is important, even if all he wants is to discuss his rock collection."
Turning to Brigid, Kane asked, "What about you, Baptiste? What do you think?"
Surprise that he had solicited her opinion flickered in her eyes. "I agree with Lakesh and Grant. We've been trying to establish a dialogue for months. I doubt there's much risk involved."
Grant patted the bulge of his holstered Sin Eater beneath his coat sleeve. "We'll all go with you. If he gets out of line, I'll shoot through the glass and blow his oversize brains out."
Lakesh muttered tensely, "Friend Grant, I don't think such an extreme action will be at all necessary."
Grant grunted. "I don't think it, either. But since I'm not sure, the blaster goes with us."
12
Kane peered through the glass wall, seeing only his distorted reflection and dripping beads of condensation. "I'm here, you little prick," he announced. "Show yourself."
Standing in a semicircle behind him, Lakesh, Banks, Grant and Brigid shifted uncomfortably. Banks admonished quietly, "You don't have to insult him."
Kane looked toward him, eyebrows angled quizzically "You think I'll hurt his feelings? You don't really believe he has any to hurt, do you?"
"I don't know," Banks retorted. "But if he can feel fear, it stands to reason he can feel humiliation. And if he can feel humiliation, he can feel anger…"
The young man's words suddenly blurred into an articulate cry, half alarm, half pain. He staggered back a pace, catching himself on the edge of a trestle table.
Lakesh was instantly at his side. "What is it?"
Simultaneously, Kane became aware of a fluttering movement on the periphery of his vision, behind the glass pane. He whipped his head around, seeing the suggestion of a billowing mist in the far recesses of the cell.
In a groaning voice tight with effort, Banks said, "It's Balam — he wants to speak through me."
With a click and whir, Grant's Sin Eater sprang into his hand. Eyes slitted, he aimed it at the transparent panel, finger hovering over the trigger. Shifting the barrel back and forth, he grated, "I can't see him."
"No!" Banks's voice was an anguished bleat. "No, he's not forcing me. He's asking my permission."
Lakesh put an arm around the technician's shoulders. "It's up to you, Banks. At least he's asking."
A dew of perspiration filmed his forehead. Squeezing his eyes shut, Banks said, "It's not like this morning… he's not trying to take me over, animate me. He's requesting a melding of… of perceptions, of intellectual resources."
Grant looked back and forth from Banks to the cell. A shudder racked Banks's body, and he uttered a faint, strangulated cry. He bowed his head for an instant, then slowly lifted it, pushing himself to his full height. Opening his eyes, he swept everyone in the room with a calm, dispassionate gaze that finally fixed on Kane.
He met the gaze and he felt his flesh prickle as if a thousand microscopic ants marched over his skin. Somehow, he glimpsed Balam's huge, slanted black eyes superimposed over those of Banks.
"Kane," Banks said mildly. "Balam is here with me, speaking with my voice, drawing on my knowledge of language and his familiarity with all of you."
Lakesh, Grant and Brigid drew back from him.
Feeling a little foolish but more than a little enthralled, Kane asked, "What do you want from me?"
"Your intervention."
"In what?" inquired Brigid.
Banks-Balam didn't remove his eyes from Kane's face. "Please, don't distract me. This binary state is difficult to maintain. My mental equilibrium must not be disturbed, or the meld will be lost. I must stay focused."
Brigid frowned at the rebuke, but said nothing more.
"You have often speculated about me and my kind," Banks-Balam stated. "It would not be an exaggeration to say that questions about the so-called Archon Directorate have consumed you."
Kane nodded. "It's not an exaggeration. You have no idea how many times I thought about beating the truth out of you — him."
Banks-Balam returned the nod, graciously inclining his head. "Actually, I do have an idea. Somewhere on the order of five hundred separate desir
es, and twice that many passing whims."
"Then you should be grateful I never acted on them," Kane said harshly.
"Such tactics would have availed you nothing. You would not have learned anything."
"Am I going to learn something now?"
"Yes. You believe that the Archons are all part of a collective hive consciousness, all linked mentally in this fashion."
"That's not true?" Kane inquired.
"As far as your limited perceptions can be expanded, it is true enough. However, if we so-called Archons were truly products of one linked group consciousness, all the individual components would be as mindless and interchangeable as ants and bees. Drones driven only by instinct."
"If you say so," muttered Kane.
"As in any form of electromagnetic energy exchange, there are broadcasters and receivers. And conductors."
Lakesh stiffened, eyebrows climbing toward his high hairline, over the rims of his spectacles. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again.
Banks-Balam apparently guessed — or sensed — the question he wanted to ask. "No, I am not a conductor. If you will relax, Kane, close your eyes and open your mind, I will show you what the conductor is."
Kane hesitated, glancing from one face to another. Grant scowled, Brigid looked doubtful and Lakesh smiled encouragingly. With a mental shrug, Kane slowly exhaled and let his lids drop over his eyes. Nothing happened. He was very aware of the electronic sounds from the control console, even his own breathing. He waited for a few seconds and was on the verge of opening his eyes when an image crowded into his mind.
He saw floating geometric patterns, orbiting one another. They rushed together and locked in position to form a black trapezohedron, a stone with glowing striations.
"Do you see it?" came the soft query.
"Yes. A black rock or an ore."
"It is that, yes, but it is far more — or less. It does not fit atomically with any of the tables your science understands. You would be unable to study it because only part of it exists within your concept of matter in space."
Kane opened his eyes, but disturbingly, the vision of the black yet somehow shining trapezohedron remained fixed in his mind. He saw it vividly every time he blinked.
"It was brought here so long ago that it would far exceed your conception of time."
Kane asked coldly, "Back when our race was wild and bloody and young?"
A slight smile creased Banks-Balam's face at the ironic reference. "Exactly."
"Exactly" repeated Kane impatiently, icily. "Exactly what is it? You called it a conductor. Is it a device disguised as a rock or the other way around?"
"It is both and it is neither. It is a creation, pure matter crafted from scientific principles understood millennia ago, then forgotten. Through it, the pulse-flows of thought energy converge. Through it, the flux lines of possibility, of probability, of eternity, of alternity meet."
"Which," Kane said flatly, "tells me absolutely nothing."
As if Kane had not commented, Banks-Balam continued, "It is more than an artifact — it is a key to doors that were sealed aeons ago. They were sealed for a good purpose. Now they may be thrown wide and all the works of man and non-man will be undone. Time and reality are elastic, but they are in delicate balance. When the balance is altered, then changes will come — terrible and permanent."
Kane listened, not to the words themselves but to the sense of urgency and conviction behind them, to the implications of vast dark forces flowing like an inexorable tide — a tide even Balam feared.
"What is it you want me to do?" he demanded.
Banks-Balam blinked and wiped at the perspiration on his face. A tremor shook his hand. His voice sounded hoarse. "The meld is weakening. I do not wish to inflict further strain on this vessel of communication. He has always shown me kindness and compassion."
The remark startled Kane, startled them all, but he snapped, "Get to it, then."
"The form in which the stone was crafted was not arbitrary. It served a function. It was altered over the centuries, facets of it removed and scattered across the face of the Earth. Each fragment acts as a lodestone for the others. They will always lead to one another. One of the fragments has been seized by a thief, and will draw the thief to the others. He thinks he has found a prize, a means to power. You must prevent him from reaching his objective, Kane. I trust only you."
Kane's eyes widened in astonishment. "Me? You trust me?"
Banks-Balam drew trembling fingers over his sweaty brow. His breathing came in short, labored rasps. "I trust a predator to know what to do against another predator. Fang pitted against claw, blood spilled for blood. Violence met with violence. Your father possessed these same instincts, else I would not be here.
"I know your hatred of me is deep, and I understand how you blame me for what was done to this world, to your race. I am content to accept your hatred and blame, regardless of how misplaced it is. However, if you wish to help this world and your race, you will do as I bid."
Kane clenched his teeth, then tightened his fists as the memory of his father — frozen forever in cryo-sleep, unaware of the vile uses to which his body was put — drove away the image of the black stone. He took a threatening half step forward, momentary rage blotting out the realization that he could not harm Balam without harming Banks.
It was all very convenient, very strategic.
"Where are these fragments?" he demanded, pitching his voice low to disguise the vibration of fury in it. "Who is the thief?"
"That will be made clear to you in short order, as the thief attempts to recover the piece in this hemisphere, on this continent."
"Where is it?"
"The place of the dead animals," Banks-Balam replied faintly. "In the Hall of the Frozen Past."
In angry bafflement, Kane growled, "Talk sense, you little son of a bitch. Where the hell is the Hall of the Frozen Past?"
Banks's body abruptly slumped, his knees buckling. Lakesh and Grant secured grips on the young man's arms and kept him upright. A rattling, protracted gasp tore from his throat, and for a moment he shook so violently it was almost a convulsion.
He managed to get his legs under him and stand up, leaning heavily against the edge of the trestle table. His sweat-damp face glistened in the dim light, and his eyes were dulled by fatigue. He stared around without focusing for a few seconds, then put a hand to the left side of his head, wincing in pain.
"Feels like my brain is about to pop out of my skull." He cleared his throat noisily "I need a couple of gallons of water to drink, too."
Brigid eyed him keenly "How much do you remember?"
"All of it. I felt like I was an observer, standing in the wings on the stage of my mind." His lips twitched in an uncertain, wry smile. "I coached Balam whenever he needed help with his lines, when he wasn't sure of the right words. He doesn't care for verbal communication. He thinks it's inefficient."
Kane swung around to stare at the glass-fronted cell, eyes trying to pierce the red gloom. "The little bastard learned fast. The question is, do we believe him?"
"Of course!" Lakesh exclaimed, sounding slightly scandalized. "Why wouldn't we?"
"No reason," Grant said tonelessly. "Except that he's a deceiver, an inhuman manipulator who helped to orchestrate the nukecaust and the death of 99.9 percent of the human race, and that his kind tried to hybridize or enslave the remaining one-tenth of a percent. Other than that, I guess his word is unimpeachable."
Banks pulled away from Grant and Lakesh and half stumbled over to the sink. Ignoring the cup on the countertop, he turned on the faucet and bent over it, allowing the stream of water to flow directly into his mouth. All of them watched as he swallowed and swallowed, drinking mouthful after mouthful. Finally, he pushed himself up, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "That's better."
"I suppose," ventured Brigid, "we can try to cross-reference what Balam said about black stones with the historical records in the database. That might
yield some results, give us a better idea of what he was talking about."
"If he wants my help," Kane declared, "he's going to have to offer something substantial in return."
"He claimed by helping him, you'd be helping humanity," Lakesh argued.
Kane scoffed. "That old saw."
Addressing Banks, Brigid asked, "If your thought processes were melded with Balam's, then you must have sensed what he was feeling and thinking. Was he trying to deceive us?"
Banks shook his head. "I don't think so. He's legitimately afraid of the black stone. The fear was very close to the surface."
"Did you pick up anything about the Archons?" Lakesh nearly quivered with excitement. "Anything, no matter how trivial?"
Banks frowned in concentration. "No, not really. Balam has a very regimented, compartmentalized mind, locked into specific channels. I don't know if he was deliberately shielding that information from me or just completely focused on the main topic."
He inhaled a weary breath. "I did pick up scraps of feelings, like emotional echoes." Nodding toward Kane, he said, "He has a great respect for you, an admiration almost. And a trust."
"Anything else?" Brigid asked.
Banks closed his eyes. In a husky half whisper, he replied, "Sadness. A deep, terrible sadness."
Grant snorted. "I'll bet. For himself."
Banks shook his head. "No… for all of us."
13
"Don't you understand, Kane? Humanity is vanishing. Every passing day marks one more step toward our extinction."
Lakesh paced his small office, thin arms locked behind his back. "The hybrids multiply while our own procreation is circumscribed either by the laws of the barons or environmental conditions."
Leaning against the wall, arms folded over his chest, Kane said darkly, "We've had this discussion before."
After shaving, showering and changing into a white bodysuit, the duty uniform of Cerberus personnel, Kane had cornered Lakesh in his lair, determined to settle the issue of the old man's breeding program once and for all.