“Let’s go,” Sheldon said to Sophie, but the young woman was frozen in place.
“Now,” he commanded and she obeyed.
“Goodbye, Mac,” she said gently but the giant didn’t reply. He had turned his back to them again and was now on his knees, digging a hole in the ground with his bare hands. And so, she left Ross behind and carried on with Sheldon Ayers, her sole guardian, moving on towards a goal that now seemed unattainable.
Chapter 23
If I say to you that we are equals, because I allow you to be my equal, then my statement contradicts itself and you have gained nothing. Equality is gained by force, when you leave the other party no option but respect.
Commander Thomas Liam Anderson
It was with great difficulty that Tamisa regained full consciousness. The first time she woke up, she didn’t have a chance to realize where she was, or what had happened, before she passed out again. This transpired several times. She oscillated between sleep and wakefulness, but her periods of consciousness lasted merely a few seconds. The first time she could stay awake for more than a minute, she looked around and saw that she was in the infirmary of the Enforcement Unit spacecraft. She slipped back into oblivion with at least a feeling of relief.
When she woke up again, she saw that she was strapped to the bed, but she didn’t have the power to call anyone. The next time, she saw that she didn’t need to call anyone, because Tahara was there at a respectful distance, watching over her.
“Ma’am?” he said, but sleep reclaimed her before she could gather the strength to reply.
Death is either man’s final journey, or his last destination. Nevertheless, death should be final and it should come last. Once that journey is over and one has reached that destination, one is not supposed to return. In her state, neither asleep nor awake, Tamisa’s tired brain tried to remember the events: Villo’s dead body staring out into a distance that did not exist - her anger - the woman’s battered face - a gift.
Somehow, the mindguard had managed to link their minds together as she died. Tamisa not only witnessed the woman’s death, with all the pain and the fear it entailed, she was part of it. She lived it. The pain and the fear were her own. The desperation of being thrown into the final abyss. The horror that ultimately ends in blissful peace - in the absence of emotion. Only, for Tamisa, it did not end. It was as though she was, at the same time, dead and alive. She experienced the trauma of death without the sweet relief of whatever awaited beyond.
Isabel Mensah’s final gift for Tamisa Faber had been death - her own death - which Tamisa was forced to experience alongside her.
The human mind was not designed to experience death. Death was the finality of everything. It could not be processed by the brain, nor accepted by the mind. Mensah’s telepathic connection hit Tamisa with brutal force. She sprung up and grabbed her face in her hands as if she wanted to tear it off, screaming in horror as her colleagues could do nothing more but helplessly watch and wonder. Enforcers helpless for the first time. Because of her. She fell to the ground, fell on her ass – how humiliating – clutching her head, overcome with grief and overwhelming pain. The infernal pressure of a death in which she was forced to partake.
She couldn’t abandon herself to the void, as human life was designed to do, so instead, the void became part of her. Tamisa was unmanageable, screaming and banging the back of her head on the wall behind her. She was unresponsive. There was nothing her colleagues could do but immobilize her and take her to the infirmary, where she was strapped down and sedated with the hope that at least a small part of her mind was still salvageable.
When she regained consciousness, she told Tahara what had happened and, in return, he told her what had taken place after she had had her ‘seizure’. She found out that the team, now without Villo and herself, had turned to Dieter Muench, but the man had refused command. He had wanted to wait and see if Tamisa would recover. He had faith in her, he told the others that he believed she will pull through. Hearing that brought tears to Tamisa’s eyes. Only then, did she think to ask: “Akio, how long was I out?”
Her heart was racing. How long had she been in that state? Could it have been days? Weeks? Could it have been months? Had the mission already failed? She quickly regained her composure when she deduced that, since she was still in the ship’s infirmary, it couldn’t have been more than a few days. Then, she realized that, since she wasn’t intubated, or connected to any other sort of feeding mechanism, it couldn’t have been very long. Then why was Tahara staring at her so strangely?
“Akio, damn it! How long has it been?”
He swallowed, as if he had trouble pronouncing the words. “Three… uh… three and a half hours, ma’am.”
Tamisa couldn’t believe it. Her body was telling her that she had been lying in that bed for an eternity. Only three and a half hours?
He saw her very evident confusion. “I know, we… we really thought, I mean we weren’t even sure you were ever going to be back… as yourself, you know. The reaction was so violent it looked like… well, it looked like your brain had gone into overload and fried itself. We weren’t even expecting you to ever recover… Well, some of us weren’t. Muench said you’d snap out of it. But it looked awful… the seizure I mean. And we pumped you full of sedatives, by all accounts…. Tammy…. Uh, ma’am… I’ve never seen anyone -”
“Untie me, Akio, quickly,” Tamisa ordered.
“Tammy, I’m really not sure if that is such a good -”
“That’s Field Unit Commander Faber and that was an order!”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The man complied, but not wholeheartedly. He helped her to her feet and Tamisa found that she could barely stand. Akio seemed surprised that she could stand at all. He expected her to lean on him but she pushed him away and took a few shaky steps. She almost lost balance and had to lean against a wall instead. Her body quickly protested to this overconfident strain and she had to throw up. That didn’t stop her. The second it was over, she struggled back to an upright position and exited the infirmary. Akio sprang after her, afraid that she would collapse any moment.
“Field Unit Commander Faber,” he said. “I mentioned before that Muench refused to take command and gave a standing order to wait for your recovery, but he did give one other order.”
“He told Kernis to track Maclaine Ross’ neurosignature,” she guessed.
“That’s right,” the young man said with admiration. Clearly, he had not expected her mental capacity to be fully functional yet. Clearly, he had been proven wrong. Tamisa had to struggle to suppress a smirk.
When she entered the holochamber, where Kernis was involved in a deep conversation with Muench and an enforcer named Adrian Lucas, everyone turned towards her, looking like they had seen a ghost. The only man who didn’t seem surprised was Muench. He greeted her with a proud smile.
“Field Unit Commander,” he said, wasting no second. “We tracked down Ross.”
“Where is Villo?”
The man hesitated for a few seconds. “We brought him back to the ship. His body is in a vacuum container and will be transported back to Terra Antiqua when we leave. There, he will be given his proper military burial.”
Tamisa felt her heart break at the word burial, but her face remained impassive. “All right… Ross… I’m listening.”
Kernis took over: “For a short while he disappeared from our radars, so to speak. We assume he must have used an underground tunnel to escape. We were about to dispatch Lucas back to the building to investigate, but there was no need. Only a few minutes later, his neural signature resurfaced somewhere close to the town’s landfill. He began to move rapidly towards the woods and kept a fast pace for thirty minutes. Afterwards, he reached an open space, probably a meadow, and they stopped.”
“They,” Tamisa echoed. “So we’re assuming Sheldon Ayers and Sophie Gaumont are with him.”
“A logical assumption. We’ve analyzed the blood and brain tissue f
rom the house and determined it belongs to Jason Elden, but we didn’t find the body. We think Ross took it with him.”
“Why?”
“To bury it,” said Muench this time. “Ross and Elden were both practicing Christians. I figure that’s why Ross bothered to burden himself with the lifeless carcass of his young employee.”
“I assume we’ve dispatched a ground vehicle after them.”
“Affirmative. They’re close by and awaiting your orders.”
“Ross has not moved since he stopped,” said Kernis. “We’re not sure what he’s doing but I think he is burying the body.”
“That’s crazy,” Tamisa said, almost amused. She was already starting to feel a bit better. “All right, tell the men not to make a move unless he does. Tell them I’m coming over there.”
“I don’t think you need to hurry,” Kernis said. “He wouldn’t have stopped and risked losing distance if Ayers and Gaumont were still with him. I think he’s on to us.”
“How’s that?”
“I think he knows that we are tracking him with the neuralfield scanners. Sheldon Ayers and Sophie Gaumont are probably no longer with him.”
Tamisa looked unconvinced.
“If he did realize that he’s the only one of them we can track,” the timekeeper continued, “then he will know that they are at greater risk with him than without him. My conclusion is that they will continue on their own.”
“So what’s he doing now?”
“Waiting.”
“For us?”
“I think so.”
Tamisa had fire in her eyes. Though she looked pale and fragile, at the same time, she appeared ferocious, like a demon or a wraith.
“Let’s not keep him waiting then,” the demon said.
●
They reached the first land vehicle shortly. Ross was still at a considerable distance but Tamisa decided to continue on foot, until she was close enough to see him. He had his large back turned to them and, from his movements, they couldn’t really tell what he was doing.
Tamisa used a pair of old hologoggles; her retinal insertions were useless in the desert. She got a close-up view and saw that he was planting something into the ground. When he took a step back, she could see that it was a cross, made from two tree branches. All five of the Enforcers who were with her proceeded towards him with their energy weapons armed and pointed at his massive frame. They only started to approach him when Tamisa gave the signal. Now they obeyed her entirely, without reserve.
As they drew nearer, Ross still had his back to them. If at first they thought he had not heard them, now they were close enough to be sure that he had. He was simply not paying any attention to them.
“Maclaine Ross,“ Dieter Muench shouted. “By order of Commander Thomas Liam Anderson, under the power granted to us by the Council of Presidents, I hereby command you to turn around with your hands up!”
Ross did not obey. He fell on his knees near the self-dug grave. When he spoke, he did not address them.
“Heavenly Father, You have not made us for darkness and death, but for life with you forever.”
The enforcers looked at each other confused. Muench repeated the order.
“Without You, we have nothing to hope for; with You, we have nothing to fear.”
Muench armed his weapon and the others followed. Tamisa raised her right fist in the air. She immediately had their undivided attention.
“No,” she whispered, “let him finish. Don’t shoot!” Nobody questioned her order.
“Speak to us now Your words of eternal life.”
The giant’s speech carried an unexplained graveness. Even nature seemed to have gone still, as if anticipating his every word. A strange chill ran down the spines of the enforcers, all but Tamisa, who patiently waited. Patiently and emotionlessly.
“Lift us from anxiety and guilt, to the light and peace of Your presence,”
The trees rattled in a murmur that sounded like they were silently repeating his words.
“And set the glory of Your love before us; through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.”
“Amen!” the trees responded. Ross stood up and slowly turned around. He looked at each of his captors, pausing upon the face of Tamisa Faber. For a fraction of a second, the universe was engulfed in a respectful silence. Then, Tamisa’s voice was heard: “Now you can shoot!”
The weightlessness of the moment was broken by the sound of all of the weapons going off at the same time.
Chapter 24
The mindguard must be in complete control of his every thought, just like an acrobat needs to be able to command every single muscle in his body. If this control is not impeccable, a seemingly insignificant misstep can be of fatal consequence. For, just like an acrobat soars above the heads of his mesmerized audience, so too does the intellect of a mindguard soar high above the minds of other men. But for a mindguard, the fall would be greater, because the distance is so much more vast. While the audience can still perceive the acrobat and watch him in awe as he performs his incredible feats of balance, the mind of a mindguard is beyond the comprehension of the normal man. He is so far above, that he cannot be observed as he performs his incredible feats of the mind. Only their result becomes evident.
Samuel Weixman, Strengths and Limitations of the Mindguard
It had been hours since either Sheldon or Sophie had said anything. The last time they had spoken to each other was right after they left Ross.
“So, where to?” Sophie had asked. “Shouldn’t we use the portable gateway generator and get the hell off this planet?”
“I’d like to put some distance between us and them first. Ideally find a cave and dial out from there. Perhaps they won’t be able to detect the energy emission and figure out our destination. We need to change the route.”
“You think they know our route?”
“Maybe they broke into the archives.”
“Isn’t that illegal?”
“No more than using neuralfield scanners. Anyway, they can’t track us now.”
“What do you think happened to Mac?”
She had received no answer to that question. Sheldon had remained silent for the rest of their hike, and the girl had not disturbed him since. He figured she was probably waiting for him to speak first, but his mind was distracted.
Many thoughts preoccupied his extraordinary brain, all of them at the same time. The most pressing, was the need to generate a new route from the stellar map he had memorized. He was also trying to figure out what he was going to do once he dropped her off and had to return to his own life, assuming there was even a life left to which to return. He was essentially a fugitive, hounded by the enforcers. The only thing that gave him the slightest chance to evade them, was that he was a prototech. That made him hard to track down even if they used genetic trackers. But it would only be a matter of time until they eventually caught him.
Sheldon’s mind was also distracted by the thick surrounding forest. The gloomy trees were barely spread apart enough to allow them to pass through, and the innumerable trunks and thick boughs overhead gave the impression that anyone could be concealed behind them. He was acutely aware that he was now not only Sophie’s mindguard, but her bodyguard as well.
They were tired and the long night of Noriado 2 was starting to take a toll on their bodies. Sheldon knew that they would soon have to either find a good place from which to generate a Muench-Henriksen gateway or find shelter for a few hours. His mind was in the midst of an exhausting whirlwind of activity, which was necessary for Sophie’s protection and the completion of the mission.
The most distracting element was his grandfather, Kinsey, who had materialized seated at the foot of an old tree. He arose at Sheldon and Sophie’s approach, and walked onward by their side. Well aware that Sophie could not see their third companion, Sheldon remained silent and ignored him. He did not want to alarm her more than she was already. At first, the hallucination didn’t speak, which made it
easier for Sheldon to ignore it.
By now, he noticed that the apparitions were brought about by stress or the absence of external stimuli. The stress of the last few hours and the repetitive act of walking through the woods, had left his mind free to race against itself. That had summoned up the vision of his grandfather. When the old man started speaking, Sheldon had to make a great effort to not get distracted. The man’s voice was not the gentle and loving whisper that Sheldon remembered, but a hoarse bark, filled with contempt, as if his grandfather’s ghost had itself been possessed by an evil spirit.
“You are late, Sheldon Ayers,” snarled the old man. “And it is dusk already. I always told you to go to bed at dusk and no harm will come to you.”
Kinsey Ayers had never said such a thing. Clearly, the mirage was not a faithful reproduction of Sheldon’s grandfather, but a mocking parody of the great man. As if to punctuate that thought, Kinsey Ayers tilted his head back and produced a laugh that would have had the fiercest hyena trembling in fear.
In his life, Kinsey had smiled a lot, but it had been only a handful of times that Sheldon had heard his grandfather laugh out loud. When he did laugh, it was always a mere silent chuckle. He usually covered his mouth with the palm of his hand, as if trying to hide his amusement. For a split second, Sheldon was sure Sophie must have also heard the laughter. He gazed sideways but the girl seemed lost in her own thoughts, looking downward so as to not trip over a branch or a large exposed root.
“Here you are in the woods, heading forward. Very diligent, but where to? To complete the mission perhaps? Are you now supposed to be both a bodyguard and a mindguard, like your friend, Ross?” The voice carried a reproachful sarcasm that the real Kinsey’s voice had never possessed. The demon looked at Sheldon, to study his reaction, but Sheldon did not look back. Still, from the corner of his eye, he could see his grandfather’s figure.
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