Pirates of the Timestream

by Steve White

  “I see.” Jason filed the last datum away for future reference. He himself was a qualified pilot, but the Kestrel was new to him, and in any event he was rusty.

  The Kestrel extended its landing legs and settled down onto them with a wheeze. Its ventral hatch hummed open and lowered the access ramp to the ground. In any other circumstances, Jason would have been bemused to see two men dressed and tattooed as pirates descend that ramp, armed with laser carbines. They were to all appearances African, which might or might not mean anything in the case of Transhumanists. Their ethnicity did nothing to disguise their membership in the enforcer castes, if one knew the signs.

  “Hands in the air!” one of them snapped. He then ran a sensor over the group. He smiled when it flashed at Jason’s pistol. He took it and smashed the butt against a rock. Zenobia’s dagger was also confiscated. Then they were motioned inside the Kestrel.

  Passing through the open airlock, they entered at the rear of the main cabin. The Kestrel was not a vessel designed for long-term occupancy. At the forward end of the cabin was a small, raised control bridge with seats for a pilot and a copilot/communications officer; otherwise, the cabin held seating for a weapons operator at a small console and for five passengers. Aft of the cabin was a cargo hold, and then the engineering section, including the photon drive used for maneuvering in a significant gravity field once the ship rose above the altitudes where grav repulsion’s efficiency dropped off.

  Under the prodding of the laser carbines, they moved forward toward the bridge, where a man sat on the pilot’s seat to the left, which he had swiveled around, and draped a leg negligently over an armrest. The goon carrying Jason’s pistol handed it to him with a mutter of explanation. He stood up as they approached and smiled down at them.

  Jason recalled Franco, Category Five, Seventy-Sixth Degree, whose acquaintance he had made in fifth-century-B.C. Athens: a leader-caste Transhumanist genetically tailored to fit the Classical Greek ideal of godlike appearance. Now he saw the West African version. If Zenobia had been male, this would have been her.

  Not that affinity of origin implied friendship. The air between their eyes seemed to sizzle with the look they gave each other.

  “You!” she spat.

  “Yes,” the man said lazily. “Romain, Category Three, Eighty-Ninth Degree,” he added in an aside in Jason’s direction. “I considered this important enough to warrant my personal attention. And not just because of the chance to recapture you, Zenobia.” He turned his magnetic dark eyes on Jason. “After your encounter with my men in Port Royal, I had the imagery from their leader’s recorder implant run through this ship’s database, and we were able to identify you. I could hardly believe my good fortune at such a bonus: Jason Thanou himself! We have accounts to settle with you. Oh, yes, a number of them.” His expression was that which a shark would form if it could smile.

  “I suppose I should be flattered,” said Jason. “Just out of curiosity, how did you locate us?”

  “It wasn’t easy, given the amount of ground we had to cover. That’s why you’ve made it this far. But this ship has a long-range version of the kind of sensor you have, or had, in this.” Romain held up Jason’s pistol, with its damaged butt. “So you, as well as Zenobia, unintentionally enabled us to find you, with your brain implant.” He gave a sarcastic tsk-tsk. “Whatever became of your precious Human Integrity Act?”

  With a sick feeling, Jason realized it made sense. His miniaturized version had only been able to detect active bionics at a range of a few yards; the Kestrel could doubtless carry a full-sized model. “Still,” he said, ignoring the last jab, “you went to a lot of trouble. Once again, I feel flattered.”

  “Don’t. We would have done it anyway, just to get this traitor. And now she’s going to have the opportunity to expiate her treason.” Romain’s eyes took on a new avidity as they rested on Zenobia, though he continued to address Jason. “We are in this part of Hispaniola because we are expanding our cult into the Spanish-held eastern part. We are working our way east, just as you were, putting on . . . shows for our new converts. We plan to hold a climactic one near Ocoa, and she will be very useful in it. Yes . . . very useful.”

  Zenobia refused to be baited, or to react in any way; she might as well have been an ebony statue. Romain turned away from her and ran his eyes ever Jason and his followers. “There will be another event before that, and one of you will be able to be of assistance. So you see: even Pugs can lend purpose to their otherwise pointless existence by being useful to us, their supplanters.”

  Jason did his best to emulate Zenobia’s cold impassivity. Behind his expressionlessness, he was reflecting that they were being taken precisely where they had wanted to go. It puzzled him until he remembered that the Transhumanists, aside from a few specialists, weren’t interested in human history—indeed, they prided themselves on their indifference to such irrelevancies. So perhaps Romain, unlike Grenfell, didn’t know in detail the itinerary of Henry Morgan’s movements after the Oxford disaster. If not, Jason devoutly hoped that none of his people would blurt out anything to enlighten him. His ignorance was one of the very few cards they had to play.

  “The fact remains,” he said, taking up where he had left off and pointedly ignoring everything Romain had said, “you’ve gone to a lot of trouble—starting with temporally displacing this ship over seven hundred years. That must have represented a staggering effort even for you.” Romain, as though recognizing a pathetic effort to draw him out, merely grinned lazily. “I can’t help wondering,” Jason continued in tones of casual curiosity, “if it might somehow be connected with the presence of the Teloi in the here-and-now.”

  It was deeply satisfying to see Romain’s grin freeze into startled immobility. Zenobia stared at him wide-eyed. “Then you—”

  “Yes, we know,” Jason sighed. “You see, the Teloi and I go back a long way. I recognized them in your description of a ‘demon,’ as repeated by Henri Boyer. I haven’t told you that because I haven’t wanted to pressure you, hoping that you’d voluntarily come forward with what you know. But you never did. And there’s no point in being coy any longer, is there?” He met her eyes, and for an instant Romain was almost forgotten. “I’m genuinely curious. You’ve been unwilling to say anything about them, even to Henri. In fact, you’ve pretended not to know what I was talking about. Why?”

  “Why do you think? It’s called shame. Shame that I ever took part in Romain’s foul cult that has tried to set them up as gods.”

  “Gods?” Jason glanced at Romain, who had rediscovered his equanimity and was looking on with smiling complacency as Zenobia continued.

  “Yes. It was one of the things I could no longer stomach—one of the things that caused me to run off and start a counter-cult of my own, to try and undo some of the harm I had done. I hoped to establish a tradition that identified them as agents of evil.”

  “Yes,” Romain interjected, “we’ve learned of your activities among the Jamaican Maroons.” His expression turned ugly, and his eyes held the fire that burns behind the eyes of the zealot, whether the zealotry is of religion or of its substitute, ideology. “You, like all of us, were designed to fulfill a specific function in the restoration of the Transhuman Dispensation. You were given your particular abilities and characteristics to enable you to serve a purpose in our great work of transcending the primordial chaos of random evolutionary processes. So in addition to betraying us, you betrayed yourself. You’re lower than a Pug!”

  “Yes, I am,” she flung in his face, “but I’m gradually working up to their level from yours!”

  With a movement of almost invisible swiftness, Romain struck her an open-handed blow across the face, with a force Jason thought must surely break her neck. It rocked her head back, but that was all. She turned back around and looked Romain in the eye with silent defiance. Jaw working, he smashed her across the face again, from the opposite side, even harder, with an even more obscenely loud smack. This time she almost lost her bal
ance, and when she turned to him there was a trickle of blood from a split lip. But she still made no sound, and she held herself straight, and her eyes again met his with cool contempt.

  Jason had previously thought Zenobia was magnificent-looking. He’d had no idea.

  Romain brought his breathing under control. “Secure them in the passenger seats,” he muttered to the goons. “We depart.”

  Jason was strapped into a seat just across from Zenobia. So by turning his head to the left he was able to see as Romain leaned over her and spoke quietly. “In the end, you will be of service to the Movement after all . . . and you know what kind of service. Oh, yes, you know. And your treason will make you even more useful, for when we use you in the rite it will clearly show the power of our cult over yours. Think about that as you await it.” He stood up and paused. “But for the rite we plan first, we will need another. Women or children always seem to make a greater impact, and unfortunately we have no children available.” His eye went to Pauline Da Cunha. “Yes. Her, I think.” Then he turned and went to the pilot seat.

  In the course of the short flight, Jason had no chance to ask Zenobia just exactly what Romain meant. And she sat with a face frozen in horror.

  * * *

  Their flight was a short one, to another upland glade, this one in the low hills only a few miles north of the Bahia de Neiba. Here they waited for a few days while various escaped slaves trickled in.

  Jason, Mondrago and Da Cunha knew all too well the Transhumanists’ utter ruthlessness in dealing with prisoners—knowledge they chose not to share with Nesbit and Grenfell. They engaged in a few whispered discussions on the topic of attempting escape, only to reject it as futile. They were too closely guarded.

  Zenobia remained largely uncommunicative, but Jason was able to sound her out about a few things in their rare moments of relative privacy. In particular, he wanted all the information she could give him about the Transhumanists’ cult and its West African origins.

  “The innumerable deities, or loa, are divided into two classes, or families,” she explained. “The Rada and the Petro. The Rada are the ‘good’ ones, but they’re kind of slow and lazy; they can’t do much for you. The Petro are powerful and fast-acting. They’re also basically wicked, but with the proper rites—including a lot of animal sacrifice—they can be made to do good things for you in exchange for a promise of service.” It seemed to Jason that she hesitated a fraction of a second before the word animal. “The Transhumanists are spreading the notion of a new kind of Petro which is particularly powerful and which, unlike the others, actually appears incarnate to the worshipers.”

  “The Teloi,” Jason nodded. “Why are they willing to play this role? And how can they still be alive? And what are they doing in this part of the planet, anyway?”

  “I don’t know any of that. I was told very little beyond what I needed to know.” And Jason could get no more out of her.

  Finally, one night, the preparations were complete. Several small, thatched houselike structures were set up around an open space containing a large silk-cotton tree, in front of which was a closed wooden coffin. Into this torchlit space the prisoners were herded, naked and bound. All around were the local escaped slaves, staring from the shadows. The adepts—the Transhumanist goons and a few cult members from Saint Domingue to the west—wore red robes and head coverings resembling various animals, and they began to dance to the beat of drums. Then Romain stepped forward and raised his deep, compelling voice—bionically enhanced in the subsonic range like Zenobia’s—in a chant that everyone joined. Jason could not understand the words.

  Gradually the chanting rose in pitch and tempo until it seemed about to climax. Suddenly, Romain raised his arms and all sound stopped. Above the clearing, the stars were occluded by the Kestrel, its invisibility field now deactivated, and a searchlight flooded the clearing. The worshipers moaned ecstatically. By the time they had blinked away the dazzlement of that light and could see again, a robed figure that had not been there before had stepped from the jungle and stood in the clearing.

  The moaning intensified as the throng fell to their faces.

  Jason stared at the seven-and-a-half-foot humanoid, with its crown of shimmering hair that seemed to be spun from silver and gold. Even in the torchlight, there could be no possible doubt that this was a Teloi. The long, sharp-featured face with its uptilted cheekbones and brow ridges and its enormous oblique eyes was unmistakable. But for some reason he couldn’t put his finger on, this one was subtly different from the Teloi he had known in the Bronze Age and in Classical Greece. The species was undoubtedly the same, but the aspect of languid, almost studied decadence that Jason remembered was missing, replaced by a kind of dynamic harshness.

  A dog was brought forth. All four of its paws were chopped off, and it was buried alive, putting an end to its howls and whimpers.

  There was a series of responsive chants which seemed to be signifying that the dog was insufficient. Then Romain and the two goons walked toward the group of bound prisoners. They carried thin cords. They untied Pauline Da Cunha.

  “Zenobia, what’s happening?” she demanded as the goons tied her again, this time with the cords they carried. Zenobia made no reply. She seemed unable to speak.

  Romain stepped in front of Jason and spoke softly in Standard International English. “The cords are thin, but they have the tensile strength of cello strings. They are, you see, made from the well-cured intestines of the previous sacrificial victims, who therefore in a sense bind their successors. Rather poetic.” He smiled and then turned and walked away.

  All at once, Jason understood. He watched as they used the cords to drag the still bewildered Da Cunha to the coffin . . . which served as a low table, onto which they tied her.

  Jason turned a searing look on Zenobia. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he rasped.

  “I couldn’t,” she whispered, not meeting his eyes. Then she looked up and spoke defiantly. “What good would it have done you—or her—to know in advance?”

  Jason had no answer. He turned toward the coffin as the knife descended on the naked figure stretched out on it, and the blood and the screams began.

  * * *

  Afterwards, Jason’s recollections of what happened were never entirely clear. But he forced himself to remember as much as possible. He needed to remember it.

  He and Zenobia were the only ones who watched it all. Mondrago shouted Corsican curses until one of the goons came over and knocked him unconscious. Nesbit soon fainted. Grenfell withdrew into a state of shock and simply hung against his bonds, saliva drooling from a corner of his mouth.

  Jason wanted with all his soul to join them in oblivion. But he made himself watch. He vomited when the quartering commenced, but he still watched. He watched the cooking, and smelled it.

  The new converts were not allowed to share in the meat—that was only for the adepts, and even they consumed only a small amount. This was a sacrifice to the Teloi “god,” and he did most of the eating.

  Finally it was over. Words were spoken and chanted which seemed to indicate that the Teloi found the sacrifice adequate. The hovering Kestrel speared the clearing with another blinding beam of light, under cover of which the Teloi turned and walked back into the jungle.

  Romain walked over to stand before Jason and Zenobia. His face wore a look of dreamy satiety. His mouth gleamed with grease. With his right hand he held a wet mass of guts in front of Zenobia’s face.

  “They’ll be dried and cured, and used to bind you—the prize victim—at the climactic ceremony. As I said, one leads the next.” He turned to Jason and smiled, licking the grease from his lips. “See, I told you. Even Pugs can have their uses.”

  Jason said nothing. His expression did not change. He held Romain’s eyes as long as possible, while imprinting on his memory every smallest detail of that face.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The remains of the sacrifice were burned. As it happened, Pauline Da Cunha’s
TRD, in addition to her deactivated brain implant, was still among those remains, and therefore fell down into the heap of greasy ash where the closed coffin had been. The little light on Jason’s map display would remain there, as a reminder he didn’t need.

  They remained there for a few days. The climactic ceremony of which Romain had spoken was to be held in another upland clearing, this time northeast of the Bahia de Ocoa, only about thirty-five miles as the crow or the Kestrel flew. But Romain wanted to give his adepts time to fan out ahead as “advance men,” spreading the word and gathering the believers. In the meantime, the prisoners were kept outside rather than aboard the Kestrel, bound even when eating tasteless rations twice a day under watchful guard, prey to the insects at all times.

  Grenfell barely seemed to notice the endless, hellish discomfort. He had returned to awareness, but his personality had yet to reassert itself. Most of him was still sheltering in a place where what he had witnessed had never happened.

  Nesbit was different. After regaining consciousness, he had gone through a brief spell of trembling reaction. But since then, the transformation Jason had noticed in the course of their trek seemed to pass to its next stage, as though horror had completed the work that mere hardship had begun. He would, Jason was increasingly certain, hold.

  The other two were simply stoical in their own individual ways. Anyone who hadn’t known Mondrago as Jason did would never have guessed at what was being stored up behind the expressionless façade of a man in whose very genes slumbered the tradition of vendetta. As for Zenobia, she waited in silent inscrutability.

  It was after dark of the second night when the tall figure of the Teloi entered the circle of firelight and approached them. This time, instead of a robe he was wearing a kind of form-fitting jumpsuit that looked utilitarian to an un-Teloi-like degree. His expression held in full the Teloi arrogance, but it was a kind of austere arrogance which somehow wasn’t true to type as Jason knew it. His huge, strange eyes ran over the entire huddled group of seated, bound figures before looking Jason full in the face.