The Legend That Was Earth

by James P. Hogan

  "Roland groping for words?" she murmured. "I don't believe it."

  "Asshole, then. How's that for a choice of word? I was an asshole."

  "No talking between the prisoners," the Hyadean officer said.

  Cade sensed Marie smiling. Her hand found its way around the metal tubing holding the armrest, to where his was resting. Their little fingers touched and entwined surreptitiously. If only just a little, he felt more at peace.

  About fifteen minutes later, the transport dipped suddenly without warning and went into a steep descent. The officer grabbed a handrail on the wall to steady himself and asked something in Spanish to the guard who seemed to be second in command. The second answered negatively. The officer called out in Hyadean to the vessel's control system. There was no response. He called something else, then broke out a manual control panel that hinged down from the bulkhead. The guards began jabbering in alarm as they clung for balance. "[exclamdown]Silencio!" the officer shouted, tapping frantically at the panel. "[exclamdown]Espera para órdenes!"

  Cade and Marie exchanged ominous looks. "You might just have made that last-words speech in time," Marie whispered. They clutched hands tensely.

  The transport leveled out suddenly, causing more disorder; then there was a bump and a swish that sounded as if they had brushed a treetop, followed by sudden deceleration, throwing everyone forward onto the floor and flattening the officer against the forward wall. Cade was pitched fully between the two seats in front and went down in a heap with the guards. Before anyone could begin untangling themselves, there was the bang of a hole being blown in the side of the cabin, and then something exploded in a blaze of light that left Cade blinded and helpless except for a bizarre reverse-colored image etched into his retina. He was vaguely aware of shouts, scrambling noises, bodies colliding around him. Fragments of vision began coming together again to reveal the door partly burned away and hanging open, two large, helmeted figures silhouetted against the daylight, coming through, and then others, smaller. A guard tried to rise and was clubbed down. Two of the assailants seized Marie. One threw something like a blanket over her head and held her, while one of the larger figures leveled a device at her throat. "No!" Cade screamed. He tried to hurl himself at them, but strong arms gripped him from behind. Then a metallic mesh came down over him, and he felt his head being pushed back.

  "Don't resist!" a Hyadean voice shouted near his ear. "It scrambles signals to the collar! They can still blow your head off!" Cade forced himself to relax and felt some kind of shield being forced up between his neck and the band of metal. Moments later there was a clunk, and the collar came free. The mesh was removed. He looked over, his eyes still dim with aftershock from the light, and saw that Marie was rid of hers too. He turned back to the Hyadean, who was regarding him in what looked like a jaunty stance, hands on hips, while armed Terrans shepherded the dazed guards and their officer out through the ruin of the door. The details cleared slowly to show him in Hyadean combat garb, belt and shoulder harness loaded with pouches and accoutrements, grinning and waiting while Cade's vision cleared sufficiently to recognize him.

  It was Hudro.

  "You were going the wrong way," Hudro said. "We figured you needed help." There had to be a response that would go down in history. Cade couldn't think what it was.

  Meanwhile, the second Hyadean, who was female, had been locating and smashing key parts of the transport's communications equipment. "That's it," she announced. "Let's go."

  "We need to move fast," Hudro told Cade. "The traffic-control system will be flashing alarms already."

  The vessel was tilted among a tangle of vines and trees. They climbed out carefully and crossed an open area, where Terrans in forage caps and jungle gear had the officer and two of the five guards sitting on the ground, disarmed, hands on heads, while two others assisted one who seemed to have hurt a leg. There didn't seem to be any more Hyadeans. The female who was with Hudro frisked the captives for personal communicators and took those too.

  In a clearing a short distance away was an olive-painted military helicopter, rotor running. The two Hyadeans guided Cade and Marie over to it, where a Terran waiting in the doorway helped them aboard. He shouted to the others, who began backing away from the guards, keeping their weapons trained on them. The guards were looking scared. For a sickening moment Cade thought they were about to be gunned down in cold blood. But the rescuers turned to run the last few yards to the waiting helicopter and threw themselves aboard. Hudro shouted something to the pilot, and it began rising. A couple of weapons were thrown back to the guards as the helicopter cleared the treetops. Minutes later, it was skimming over a green ocean of forest.

  "I said that one day I save people," Hudro shouted above the engine noise. "Is good feeling."

  "I'm glad you don't waste time once you make your mind up," Cade yelled back.

  Hudro gestured to introduce the other Hyadean, crouching next to him on the floor, gripping the side netting—the helicopter's cramped side seats didn't admit to Hyadean proportions. She had taken off her helmet to reveal orange-yellow hair and smooth features for a Hyadean. Cade had the feeling that by their standards she would be young and pretty. "This is Yassem. A long time we know each other. It is she who shows me the Terran God. We decide that Hyadeans who bomb Terrans from homes here are criminals. Terran powers that they act with are criminals. We want no more part." He hesitated, then said something to Yassem in Hyadean. She laughed, which Cade remembered meant embarrassment. "I guess is okay to tell you now," Hudro said to Cade. He gripped Yassem's hand. "Until yesterday, Yassem works with Hyadean intelligence service. Communications technical specialist. Is how we meet. We fall over love. Go away, live together as Terrans now. Who knows where? Away. Maybe Asia someplace."

  Marie laid a hand on Yassem's shoulder and smiled. "Good luck," she said.

  "Thank you."

  The rest of the company in the helicopter comprised a mix of tough-looking characters in parkas, sweaters, flak jackets, combat smocks, decked with equipment belts and bandoliers, nursing an assortment of weapons. One who appeared to be the leader—with a black beret worn forward, sunglasses, and a black mustache—was eyeing Cade and Marie curiously from a jump seat on Hudro's other side.

  "Here is Rocco," Hudro supplied, following Cade's gaze. "I know too for long time now. My work with Hyadeans makes me live close with MOPAN bandits, try to spy. But it works backward. I get to know them. Yassem tells me about God, and I learn bandit peoples know God too. So I am on wrong side. Maybe live with bandits for time before go to Asia. Teach defense to Hyadean devil weapons. Many tricks. Makes me the big prize, eh?"

  Rocco acknowledged Cade and Marie with a nod. Cade returned it. "We owe you a big thanks. I never realized we were so well known here already."

  "If Hudro says you're two important people who could make some difference to this war, that's good enough for me," Rocco said.

  "So how did you pull it off?"

  Rocco indicated Hudro and Yassem. "You have to ask them. They got into the system that controls the Hyadean robot flyers. Brought it down where it wasn't supposed to go. We were waiting."

  "Where are you from, Rocco?" Marie asked.

  "It doesn't matter anymore. No family left anywhere. All wiped out in the fighting. Now I just live to fight Globs."

  "Globs?" Cade's brow creased.

  "Globalists," Marie supplied.

  "Forces of governments that work for the criminals," Hudro said. "Is more complicated here than Earth is told."

  "And every day getting more complicated," Rocco said. "What do you think is going to happen in the north?" he asked Cade and Marie. "Places in the western states ordering federal troops out. Air bases being taken over."

  "We hadn't heard about it," Cade said.

  "A lot of people say they're gonna split."

  Cade turned his head to Hudro. "After you left Tevlak's, we tried to send a file to Vrel via his phone. Did it come through?"

  Hudro
nodded. "It comes through. But we cannot send to Chryse. Vrel think he knows somebody in California instead. If they ever get it, I don't know."

  "Where's Vrel now?" Cade asked.

  "Waiting for us. Is with Luodine and Nyarl. When—" Hudro looked away as a call from the pilot up front interrupted. Rocco got up, ducking his head, and shouldered his way forward between the rows of figures hunched over guns and packs. Hudro straightened up on the floor in readiness to rise. Next to Cade, Marie pulled herself closer.

  Rocco came back and shouted down to Hudro. "Segora is under attack. We are being warned off. The pilot wants you up front. We've got incoming radar from somewhere."

  "What's Segora?" Cade asked Hudro as he unfolded up from the floor.

  "Is where we were supposed to land. Maybe have to change plans now." Hudro followed Rocco forward. The guerrillas had become alert, straightening up in their seats to watch something outside. Cade turned to look out of the open hatch, past the machine gun. Several miles away, perhaps, an aircraft shaped like a black arrowhead was climbing away from the ground, followed by a second a short distance behind and to one side. A boiling cloud of black smoke mixed with flame rose behind them. More planes were visible as dots higher up.

  "Air strike," Yassem commented needlessly. Smoke was also coming up from other places among the trees. Whether it was due to air attack, artillery, or conflagrations on the ground was impossible to say. A brilliant pink light flashed past the open gun-hatch; then came the jolting of objects hitting the helicopter's structure. The cold realization came over Cade that they were being shot at. Yassem put her helmet back on and secured it.

  At the front, Rocco turned and shouted back instructions. One of those behind clambered up to man the machine gun, while another hooked up the ammunition belt from the feeder box. Everyone else clung tight as the pilot went into a violent evasive maneuver. Cade was thrown outward from his seat, then hard back on the wall. He and Marie braced their arms on the sides and tried to steady themselves against each other. . . .

  And then nothing.

  * * *

  Fragments of awareness. Blurred smears of sensations coalescing from a vacuum.

  Spinning patches of light. . . . Churning noise. . . . Lurching motion.

  Thirsty. Sweating. Touch of damp fabric.

  Cade was lying down. Every lurch tossed him to the side and back again, causing pain to shoot through his head. His head didn't feel good at all. It felt bloated on one side and numb at the back. The thought came and went hazily. His head was wrapped in something. Stiff. Aching everywhere. . . . None of him felt good at all.

  He heard the whirr of an engine revving, then gears being shifted. The lurching resolved itself into the jolting of a truck on a rough road. He tried to open his eyes but they seemed to be stuck. Even the effort made the shooting pains in his head worse. The thirst was unbearable, as if his throat were filled with dry furnace ash. He groaned.

  Voices somewhere floated incomprehensibly. A hand lifted his head. He winced, feeling as if his neck would break. Something touched his mouth. Water! Not cool, but priceless. He tried to gulp greedily but the hand restrained him, allowing him only to sip. A wet cloth was swabbed over his face and eyes. He tried opening them again and succeeded with an effort. A face was looking down at him. His faculties still hadn't returned sufficiently for him to recognize anything. He sipped more from the water bottle and registered slowly that he was in a truck. Only then did he begin to remember that he had been in a helicopter.

  Another face, blue-gray in hue, materialized behind the first. He flexed his lips. "Vrel?" he managed.

  "No." The face looked concerned. "This is Hudro."

  Oh, right. Vrel hadn't been there. So how come a truck now? "What . . . ? Did we crash?"

  "Was more than a day ago now," Hudro said. "Was fighting at Segora. We were hit."

  Cade contemplated the statement in a detached kind of way. It didn't take on any immediate great significance. His head had been injured, and it hurt. Pink lights. He remembered the gunfire. Then it all started coming back.

  "Marie!" He focused and looked up. "How is Marie?" The Hyadean face stared down at him in what seemed a long silence. "Where is she? What's up?

  "I'm sorry, Mr. Cade," Hudro said. "She didn't make it."

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  THE FLYER SPED LOW on a southwestward course, a few thousand feet above the barren salt wastes of the southern Altiplano. Ahead and to the right, the line was coming into view of the new roadway with its procession of robot trucks carrying produce from the extraction operations north to the Amazon outlet, and a return flow of vehicles either empty or bringing construction materials and supplies. Vrel and Hudro were over an hour out from leaving Tevlak's house and getting close to Uyali.

  "What do you make of it?" Vrel asked Hudro. He meant the news they had heard at Tevlak's that morning of the escalation of sabotage and guerrilla attacks in the Amazon region, and the retaliatory actions by government forces. They were speaking, naturally, in Hyadean.

  "Somebody, somewhere gave them a signal. Someone who has been building up backing and support."

  "The Asians?"

  "They get a lot of the blame publicly, but I'm pretty sure there's more to it. The Asian economy isn't affected that much. A lot of Western finance would like to see a slowdown in the operations here."

  "I thought they were supposed to be with us," Vrel said.

  "It's all complicated . . . trying to understand what goes on. I don't really understand it."

  Vrel watched Hudro staring out through the view panels. His face was troubled. "So what are you going to do?" Vrel asked. There was a pause.

  "There is a girl that I know up in Brazil—it's best if you don't know her name . . ." Hudro seemed to think better of whatever he had been about to say. "We have plans," he ended simply.

  "A Terran girl?"

  "No. She is Hyadean."

  "I know a Terran girl in Los Angeles," Vrel said. "Very pretty. Blond hair, cut like this at the front." He made a line with his hand to indicate a fringe. "Sometimes I think of going off to live a Terran life—like Tevlak."

  "You do?" Hudro seemed more than just casually interested. He was about to say more, when a tone interrupted from the Terran phone that Vrel was carrying. Vrel frowned, took it out, and answered guardedly, "Who is this?"

  "Vrel?" A Terran voice.

  Vrel switched to English. "Yes."

  "It's Roland. No time to talk. I'm downloading the file. You have to get it to Chryse somehow."

  File? It could only mean the file they had recorded with Luodine. Vrel was confused. "What—" he began.

  "Just do it!"

  Hudro was looking at him questioningly. Vrel waved a hand to indicate that he couldn't explain. "Some kind of trouble," he muttered, at the same time keying in the code to direct input to the phone's integral storage. "Ready," he said into it. He could make out noise at the other end: voices shouting; distant bangs and crashes. An indicator showed that the file was coming through. In a few seconds, it was done. "Hello? . . . Hello, Roland?" Vrel tried. But the connection was already gone.

  "Roland? You mean it was Cade? What did he want?" Hudro demanded. "What kind of trouble?"

  "I'm not sure. It sounded as if there was fighting going on there. Roland sent the file. It's here, in the phone. He wants me to get it to Chryse."

  Hudro thought for a few seconds. "Security must have traced them there."

  "How?"

  "I don't know. There are all kinds of ways."

  Vrel tried to think what it meant. If they had been traced to Tevlak's, Cade's and Marie's aliases were already blown. Vrel's association with them would be revealed by the Hyadean flight records from St. Louis to the base in Maryland and from there to Uyali. Thryase had used his diplomatic pull to keep the flyer's movements out of the system, but it was a safe bet that a reception party would be waiting at Vrel's room in the Hyadean sector of Uyali. "I can't go back," he told Hudro. "The
y'll be onto me as well."

  "How can you be sure?"

  "I came in with the two Americans yesterday. It will be in the flight log." Vrel looked at Hudro dubiously. "How sure can you be about you?"

  "Impossible to say."

  "You can't just report to the military desk at Uyali," Vrel said. Hudro's intention had been to find transportation back to his unit in Brazil. "They could be just waiting for you to show up. Maybe that's why you haven't had a recall. Why alert you that something's up? We don't want to land back there at all—not until we've found some way of checking the situation."

  Hudro frowned, obviously not liking Vrel doing his thinking for him. But he couldn't argue. He interrogated the on-board system about other options and directed it to reroute the flyer to a construction area thirty miles north, where a power generating installation was being built. There, they could try to find some kind of ground transportation, which would be less conspicuous.

  Since anything could happen after they landed, the file from Cade needed to be forwarded now. Vrel couldn't use the flyer's system to access the direct net link to Chryse, however. The message protocols would involve his personal ID codes, which were bound to have been watch-listed, and reveal his whereabouts. The only alternative was to use his Terran phone and hope that it was clean. That, of course, couldn't get the file to Chryse. The only way he could think of to do that would be to send it via the mission in Los Angeles. But communications into there were still likely to be subject to surveillance, as would any to his known contacts if he was being sought—which ruled out using Dee or anyone at Cade's house.

  "You'd better come up with something soon. We've got less than five minutes," Hudro said.

  There was a dealer that Dee used for work on her car. Vrel recalled that he was called Vince something. Something to do with ducks. . . . The service manager's name was Stan. He had wanted to introduce Vrel to golf. Vrel thought, tried to remember. . . . Beak? Drake? Bird? No . . . Walk, waddle? Web! That was what they called their funny feet. Vince Web! Vrel called information but didn't know enough Spanish to make himself understood. "Can you connect me to an English-speaking operator?" he pleaded. "Er . . . Operador. Habla inglés."