The Annihilators

by Donald Hamilton

  “That’s right, except,” I said when she hesitated. I grimaced. “What you want to know is, do we assume that because the frosting is phony, the whole damn cake is a fake?”

  She smiled briefly. “You put it so picturesquely. But we do have to decide if, just because we know it didn’t happen the way Cortez showed it to us in our dream, it didn’t happen at all.”

  “And what is your considered decision, Dr. Dillman?”

  “I can’t possibly come to a firm conclusion without checking back through all our findings and studying the temple decorations and that terrible mural with this possibility in mind. But I don’t think the fact that the old priest dressed it up with a lot of colorful trappings for our benefit necessarily means…” She stopped, frowning thoughtfully. “There are obviously limits to Cortez’s knowledge, Sam. I mean, he doesn’t really seem to know much about archaeology, or the day-by-day customs of the ancient people from whom he came. Not as much as we know from studying the materials we’ve found in the ruins—and remember, those ruins weren’t uncovered until quite recently. He probably has only an incomplete idea of what they reveal. His knowledge comes from a totally different source. What he knows isn’t what’s carved on the stones out there, it’s what’s been handed down from high priest to high priest over uncounted generations: the meaning of the calendar wheel, for instance, and the ritual of the sacrifice.” She glanced at me. “I wonder how often, how many…”

  “Probably not often and not many,” I said. “If people started disappearing weekly into the sacred cenote with their hearts missing, three at a time, somebody would notice. It could be, even, that the ceremony was revived tonight for the first time in years, maybe even centuries, because the three sacred calendars are approaching that major conjunction we know about, and the people have to start getting ready for it in the old ways, with the old offerings to the gods.”

  She was watching me oddly. “You seem to be… totally unconcerned about having been present at three murders, even if they were ritual murders.”

  I said, “For God’s sake! I’m supposed to weep for Rutterfeld and his creeps, after watching them beat up on that old man?”

  “They were human beings, Sam.”

  “That’s debatable,” I said. “And even if you’re right, we have a recognized oversupply of those; we can spare a few of the less desirable specimens.”

  She said, “Isn’t that a rather dangerous philosophy? What if somebody should decide that you’re one of the undesirables?”

  “Lots of people have,” I said. “But somehow they never quite managed to do anything effective about it.”

  She sighed. “Well, at least you’re a consistent monster. What were we talking about when I got all moral? Oh.” She drew a long breath. “The fact is that these priests, regardless of the psychological or psychic tricks they can play, don’t really have a direct pipeline to the past. What Cortez has is a large body of Melmec tradition, passed on from generation to generation by word of mouth. And in that tradition is the answer to a question he knows concerns us deeply: the question of how his ancestors came to vanish from their great city of Copalque, of how their elaborate civilization came to die. So tonight, in gratitude for the help we’d given him, he passed us that answer; but the old gentleman is a showman accustomed to catering to the tastes of his audience. Not knowing all the details of life back in those far-off days, he just gave us the package in the kind of Hollywood wrappings he thought we were accustomed to. But I think the answer was still there.” She paused and licked her lips and went on: “And the answer isn’t death rays from outer space, or lethal plagues, or violent earthquakes, or secret weapons that the hopeful Russians might be able to adapt to modern use. That’s not what killed off the Melmecs, and presumably the Olmecs and Mayas after them. The answer is… Jonestown.”

  After a little, I said, “That’s the answer Cortez gives. But do you believe him?”

  She hesitated. “A few years back I probably wouldn’t have. But if one modern zealot can persuade nine hundred fairly recent converts to kill themselves on command, which we’ve now seen happen, why shouldn’t an ancient Melmec priest, who dominated his people spiritually all their lives and their parents before them, give the same command to nine thousand and have it obeyed?”

  I said thoughtfully, “Back to Haggard’s Africa, the story goes that the Zulu emperor Chaka once ordered a whole impi—regiment—to commit suicide merely to impress some visitors with his power. The order was obeyed.”

  Frances drew a long breath. “It would explain a great deal. How they knew how the end was coming, as indicated by that graphic mural in the Temple of the Jaguar. They didn’t have to be able to predict the future to paint that; because they knew that was exactly the way they were going to do it when the calendar, and the priests, told them to. We’ve wondered why the great cities were left standing, untouched and deserted, as if the inhabitants had all marched out in a body. Well, according to this theory, they did march out—as far as the Great Court here, and its equivalent elsewhere. At least it’s a better explanation than many that have been proposed; it gives us a new viewpoint from which to review the material in our possession. It tells us what to look for in future digging. And it’s a possibility that hasn’t, to the best of my knowledge, been considered by anybody else. If we find enough confirmation to publish, it should create quite a stir.”

  “In fact,” I said, “it would be a real professional triumph, wouldn’t it? But you don’t seem very happy about it. Why?”

  She turned her gray eyes on me again; and I saw that there was pain in them. “You know why,” she said. “You know why I told you… that about my husband.”

  “I see,” I said slowly. I swallowed something in my throat. “The time has come?”

  She nodded. “We’ve… shared a little too much already, Sam. There’s a little too much… involvement already. There wasn’t supposed to be any. Make it easy for me, please. Tell me to go now. Treat me like, well, a tour guide for the rest of the trip. Please?”

  I said, “Yes, that was the original deal, wasn’t it? Hit and run. A one-night stand.” I looked at, her sitting there barelegged and bare-assed and beautiful in her rumpled red shirt, a very different woman from the severe and unapproachable academic female I’d first seen in Chicago. I drew a long breath and said very carefully, “Well, it’s been nice and I’ll miss you. I’ll miss you very much. But you must do what you feel you have to.”

  “Don’t hate me, Sam. Don’t ever hate me.”

  I regarded her for a moment longer, rather grimly. “Don’t be stupid, Dillman. If I hated you, there’d be no problem, would there? Now just pull on your damn jeans and go, will you, please?”

  She did.

  20

  When I awoke to daylight, I found that most of the events of the night had lost all reality, assuming that they’d ever had any. With sunshine at the window I couldn’t really believe that I’d experienced miracles of telepathic communication, watched a human sacrifice, and solved by means of an induced dream—if you’ll buy that, I told myself, you’ll buy anything—a problem that had baffled generations of trained archaeologists.

  It all seemed very unlikely and really very unimportant beside the one event of the night I did believe. I was aware of an empty sense of loss; and the fact that what I’d lost was another man’s wife didn’t make it any more bearable. She’d been perfectly right about the involvement. I was discovering that it had gone considerably deeper than I’d suspected—strange in a way, because I still remembered very clearly a small girl who’d died, whose memory I could be said to have betrayed, although Elly Brand herself would have laughed at the sentimental notion of being faithful after death.

  I got into yesterday’s grubby jeans, my .38 revolver, and my desert boots; and I found a clean but suitcase-wrinkled guyabera shirt to top off my costume respectably. Frances was already at breakfast with the Putnams when I reached the dining room. All three gave me the same kind of c
asually cheerful good-mornings as I found an empty table overlooking the pool and tucked the big camera bag under it. I gave my order to a pretty waitress, in a crisp huipile. She reminded me of the lovely priestesses who, in’ my dream, had brought my Melmec axemen their cups of death.

  “Do you want company or do you prefer to brood alone?”

  It was Miranda Matson looking bulky and shapeless in a short-sleeved green jumpsuit that, I realized, was actually a faded military coverall with the sleeves partially amputated. The washed-out black-stenciled name and unit of the original owner could still be deciphered, if anybody wanted to take the trouble.

  “I’ve just decided that the last thing in the world I want to do is climb another goddamn pyramid,” I said. “Sit down, sit down.”

  She sat down. “Well, we’ve all got something,” she said easily. “With me it’s horses. Honest. Every so often I have to climb on one of the brutes out in the boonies because it’s the only way to get to the damn story; and every time I tell myself it’s a perfectly friendly and harmless animal, a docile servant of mankind, and every time I’m in a total helpless panic the whole time I’m aboard the crummy beast.” Her pale blue eyes studied me shrewdly out of her wide red face. “Why don’t we ever tell the bastards to shove their lousy nags and pyramids, hey?”

  “Machismo?” I suggested.

  “That may be the answer for you, but what the hell have I got to be macho with? No, cojones aren’t the-answer, Flash, but I’m damned if I know what the answer is. Incidentally, nothing’s come in for you since last night. Apparently the Santa Rosalia status is still quo.” She hesitated. “I’m told our target for today is a place called Labal about fifteen miles from here. A change of plan, I gather, but apparently they’ve got some Jeeps available today and might not be able to get them later.”

  I frowned. “You’re coming with us?”

  “That Ramiro character is trying to set something up for me out there. He said if it worked, somebody would spirit me away to meet Lupe Montano some time during the day while you’re all drooling over old ruins; but I’d better be dressed for a pretty rough trip.” She grimaced: “I hope the trip is the only thing that’s rough, if you know what I mean. Nothing I love like interviewing a bunch of nervous revolutionaries bristling with machine guns.”

  Across the room, I saw Ramiro Sanchez come up to speak to Frances. She excused herself from the table and went off with him, looking businesslike and competent in her expensive jeans, now a bit creased and stained like my lower-class pants, but that’s what jeans are for. Like me, she’d put on a fresh shirt, a blue gingham number dressed up by a blue bandana handkerchief tied around her neck cowboy-fashion. No matter what she wore, threadbare tweeds or soiled jeans, there was always that faint air of elegance about her. To hell with Associate Professor Frances Ransome Dillman, Ph.D.

  Then we were all wandering out toward the front of the hotel where we found six Jeeps waiting. Miranda, who’d put a straw hat the size of a cocktail table on top of her wild white hair, was asked by Sanchez to join him in the lead vehicle. I wound up with the Putnams; and I saw Frances waiting with the Wilders to bring up the rear of the caravan. We took off, soon turning into a rudimentary track chopped through the jungle. It was a long, rough ride and, Miranda or no Miranda, I thought I’d have preferred a horse; they have slightly better springs and shock absorbers for this kind of work. We passed some overgrown temples and small pyramids that had not yet been excavated or restored.

  At last we broke out of the jungle into a large clearing decorated by still another goddamn pyramid, but it was the only one there, thank God; and although surmounted by a rather imposing ruin, it was considerably lower than any of the three I’d already conquered bravely. After we’d milled around a bit getting organized, I got up and down it without either distinguishing myself or disgracing myself, bringing back some pictures and a rather disturbing impression of the scrubby, low, dry jungle surrounding us, a green barbed-wire entanglement of vines and thorns extending clear-to the horizon, unbroken by any sign of civilization except for the rudimentary track that had brought us here and a foot trail taking off at a slight angle to it.

  We scrambled back into the Jeeps for a short ride across the clearing to the local cenote, a very different kind of water hole from the sinister black underground pond I’d visited last night. This was a lovely blue jungle pool with a shelving stone shore on one side, our side, and a perpendicular rock wall on the other. It was really an odd geological area, I reflected, with no surface water to amount to anything, except for these sudden holes scattered arbitrarily through the jungle.

  In addition to the six Jeep-drivers, already having lunch by their vehicles, there were four nonswimmers in the party including me—I didn’t particularly care to leave my clothes, with the revolver, unattended; and imitating a fish isn’t my favorite pastime anyway, perhaps because I do it so unconvincingly. Ramiro Sanchez was not among the swimmers, either; he had disappeared somewhere, perhaps on Miranda’s business. Miranda hadn’t brought a bathing suit. She said she had no desire to make a spectacle of herself, and anybody who wanted to see a walrus could visit a zoo. And Frances was making a big deal of setting out our picnic. I moved over that way casually while the aquatic members of the party splashed and shrieked in the clear blue water like a bunch of kids.

  “Need any help?” I asked.

  Frances jumped nervously and looked around. “Oh, God, don’t sneak up on me like that! No, thank you, Mr. Felton, I think everything’s under”—she licked her lips—“under control.”

  I looked at her and saw the fear and tension inside her. I realized with a shock that she was a woman expecting something terrible to happen, very soon.

  I drew a long breath and said carefully, “Sir Samuel Ffelton at your service, milady. Problems solved upon request. It’s not too late to start trusting people, Dillman.”

  She licked her dry lips. “But it is too late… Please go away, darling. Please!” Her voice changed abruptly. “Thanks, there’s nothing left to be done, Sam, but you can start eating now if you like. Ham or cheese. Fruit for dessert. Beer in that cooler and soft drinks in that one…”

  “Beer sounds good,” said Miranda, who’d come up behind me.

  “I’ll get a couple,” I said.

  When I returned, Frances had moved off. Miranda was looking after her, frowning a little. “That intellectual lady takes her tour duties seriously,” she said. “You’d think she was catering a grand society banquet instead of just supervising a lousy little picnic.”

  I said, “I think we have trouble coming up, Matson. Keep your eyes open, will you?”

  “Drunk or sober, I always do,” she said. “Drunk if I can manage. You like her, don’t you?”

  “Nobody’s wife is safe when I’m around,” I said sourly. “Swill your damn beer and shut up.”

  But in spite of my premonitions of disaster, it turned out to be quite a pleasant picnic on the bank of the cenote, and if there were any virgins’ bones at the bottom of it, their owners did not arise to haunt us.

  Frances said that, actually, this pool had been a disappointment to the divers. Apparently it had not served any serious sacrificial purposes. For important religious festivals, she said, the local residents had apparently made the pilgrimage to the central ceremonial area of Copalque. A paved road had been built for them to travel on even though, she reminded us, the wheel had not yet been invented in this hemisphere, and the horse would not arrive until the Spaniards came a few thousand years later. A small part of the road had now been cleared and restored to give visitors an idea of its construction, she said, and there was a rather interesting arch through which ceremonial processions used to pass. For those who cared to settle their lunches with a short hike, it was about a mile…

  Leaving behind Miranda, who was waiting for word from the vanished Ramiro Sanchez, and the elderly Hendersons, who said they’d rather nap under a tree, the rest of us set off, pausing to be shown a rui
n called the Monastery set upon a small hillock, and an underground water-cistern with a catch-basin that funneled the rain into it during the wet season. There were several such around, Frances said, to supplement the community’s main water supply, the cenote.

  The arch itself was a large rectangular monument vaguely resembling the Arch of Triumph; but the opening in it was the customary corbeled arch, meaning that it was a blunt inverted V kept from collapsing simply by the sheer weight of rubble and stone holding the masonry in place, with no tricky engineering principles involved. It was, however, handsomely decorated, and it looked quite spectacular all alone out there in the jungle, straddling the wide stone road. The foot trail to it was the one I’d seen before lunch from the top of the pyramid.

  “Where did all these names come from?” I asked Frances as we retraced our steps, heading back toward the Labal clearing and the waiting Jeeps. “The Citadel, the Monastery, the Arch of the Emperors. Is that what the Melmecs called them?”

  Frances shook her head. “We don’t really know what the Melmecs called them. In many cases we just adopted the names used by the locals who knew about these ruins. Otherwise, well, we just made them up for purposes of reference.”

  Her voice was steady enough, but her pale face was damp and shiny, although the day was not very hot. She was clearly under terrible strain, and her eyes would not look at me. Okay, it was getting close, whatever it was.

  As we once more approached the ruin called the Monastery, I fell back, letting one of the schoolteachers, McElder, take over the place of honor beside Frances. Making like a photographer, camera at the ready, I scrambled up the man-made hill to the ruin; but that was not high enough. I found a place near the rear, where the heavy wall of the building had crumbled, leaving a nasty slope of rubble which I didn’t trust a bit; but it let me gain six or eight feet of additional elevation, enough to see over the surrounding jungle.