by J. J. Green
He laughed. Then, instant guilt swept over him. What was he thinking? There had been a time he’d sworn he would never—
“Would you like to see something interesting?” Camilla asked.
“I’d love to. I hope you don’t find my presence intrusive.”
“Oh, no. It’s nice to have some company. I heard there used to be a time when laboratories were filled with staff, all working together. But nowadays, so much of what I do is automated. It can get a little lonely.”
She took a step away from the upright interface and swept an arm toward it, inviting him to take a look.
“As you know, your samples demonstrated you’re allergic to grass pollen and shellfish.”
“Yes.”
“Look at this.” Camilla pointed at a column of figures. “This is your immunoglobulin E response to those allergens. Now, compare those numbers to these.” She pointed at a second column. The figures were all lower, including some zeros.
“You did it,” said Lorcan. “You created an immunosuppressive treatment.”
“I did.” She smiled. “But don’t get too excited. It isn’t a groundbreaking achievement these days. I just swapped some of the rarer components for more widely available ones. I still have a lot of work to do. I have to replicate the results, test the treatment’s safety, and then go on to develop it further. Then more testing. It’ll be years before I’m finished.”
“We have years,” said Lorcan. “I mean, I have. I mean, the Project has. It’ll be years before all the ships are ready.” He was stumbling over his words, feeling like a fool.
“Lorcan, where are you?”
Iolani Hale was comming him.
“Excuse me,” he said to Camilla before replying, “I’m in Dr Lebedev’s lab. What do you want?”
“I want to speak to you. I’ll be right there.”
What Hale hadn’t considered was whether Lorcan wanted to speak to her. But it appeared she was on her way regardless.
“Was that Iolani?” Camilla asked.
“Yes. She’ll be here imminently.”
“I thought you would be hearing from her soon. She’s been looking into something that concerned her.”
“Something to do with the ship?”
“No, something—”
The lab door opened, and Hale stomped in like a diminutive, grounded, avenging angel.
“I found it,” she announced. “I finally found it. I always knew your operation was dirty. I just didn’t know how dirty. Can I use this?” she asked Camilla, pointing at the interface.
“Go ahead.”
Lorcan braced himself for another onslaught of Hale’s animosity. Was she ever going to let up on delivering her endless streams of hatred? He got the point already. That was why she was here, interfering in everything he was doing.
She was searching for something.
“Look, whatever it is you think you have on me,” he said, “I suggest you check your sources carefully. You might not agree with my methods, but everything that occurs under the umbrella of the Antarctic Project is legal and above board.”
“Hmpf. Are you sure about that?” Hale replied, her attention not leaving the screen. “Dammit. Where’s it gone? Ah, here it is. Take a look at this, Ua Talman, and then tell me how you sleep at night.”
The display showed a vid of young miners emerging from a mine in what looked like a tropical country. He looked more closely. The miners looked very young. Too young.
His confidence withered.
“How do I know this isn’t fake?” he protested. “Or that it’s even one of my mines?” As he spoke, the sign at the front of the mine came into view. KAMBOTO MINE. Underneath the name was written: Subsidiary of the Antarctic Project.
“Child labor!” Hale spat. “You have children mining cobalt for you, in dangerous, inhumane conditions. Kids slaving away, getting sick, dying or living with lifelong disabilities so you can fulfill your ambitions. What do you have to say to that, Ua Talman?”
A pause dragged out. He’d genuinely had no idea what had been going on at the Kamboto Mine. But he didn’t try to offer up the excuse. It was no excuse. He should have known.
“You used to have children, didn’t you?” Hale asked.
“Stop.”
“How would you feel if—”
“That’s enough!”
“What I don’t understand is—”
“You really are relentless, aren’t you?” he growled.
She was speaking over him, saying, “why you even bother mining cobalt on Earth when there are asteroids rich in it and almost everything else you need. Why, Lorcan? Why?!”
He was already on his way to the door. He couldn’t bear to hear another word.
Chapter Twenty-Two
They arrived at the Resistance hideout a couple of hours before dawn. The Preseli Hills were silent in the darkness. The sky was cloaked in thick clouds, from which a soft, blanketing rain was falling. Arthur had brought them unerringly and confidently to the correct place. He’d begun recognizing signs from several kilometers away, signs entirely invisible to Wright. To him, the rolling green hills and wooded valleys were attractively scenic but looked much the same.
He knew from the time he’d spent at the hideout that the fighters had adopted a nocturnal lifestyle, carrying out most of their activities at night, so he wasn’t worried about surprising them while they were sleeping.
What he was worried about was being mistaken for a Crusader by the lookout and killed before anyone took the trouble to check.
If only Taylan were here. She could call out a few words of Welsh to the person stationed near the entrance, and they would probably be safe to approach, even though they didn’t know that night’s password.
Taylan could be here. Only inside the hideout.
“I know what you’re thinking,” whispered Merlin. He was standing behind Wright in the lee of the hill opposite, where they’d halted.
Wright’s skin crawled at the alien’s proximity. He took a step forward.
“I’ll go forward first, with Arthur,” Merlin continued.
“No.” He didn’t trust him in the slightest, and he had no idea what he might do if given free rein. Ellis was clearly important to him. According to Arthur, Merlin saw her as the king’s second-in-command, or something like that. Or he could have other plans for her. Whatever his interest was, it wasn’t to Taylan’s benefit. That, Wright was sure of. The only interests important to the alien were his own.
So he wasn’t going to let Merlin get to her first, assuming she was there.
“Then what’s your plan, Major?”
The problem was, the EAC was looking for Taylan, so he couldn’t shout out to the lookout that he was from the Alliance and he wanted to speak to her. That would be exactly what a Crusader would say. He could try telling the lookout who he was. He’d stayed at the hideout for a couple of days, but the person who he’d had the most dealings with, Angharad, was dead. There was a chance he wouldn’t be believed, and by talking he would alert the lookout to their presence. He didn’t want to fall victim to some terrified, trigger-happy youngster on duty for the first time.
“My plan is that you and Arthur wait here.”
He would have to sneak up and disarm the man or woman. Then he could provide convincing reassurances without the risk of having his head blown off.
Dropping his pack to the ground, he stepped onto the track and began to return the way they’d come. He would have to leave the track and approach the hideout hill from the opposite direction to come at the lookout from behind.
Fifteen minutes later, after toiling over the rough stones of the hills, he was finally in position. The lookout was hiding in a cleft between two large, upright sandstone outcrops. The interior was entirely in shadow and just large enough for one person to sit comfortably. The spot commanded a wide view of the area before the hideout. No one could get within fifty meters of it without the lookout radioing a warning to those inside, th
en shooting to kill.
Wright crept forward, skirting the edge of one of the massive rocks. The rain had begun to come down hard, turning the slope into a wide, shallow stream.
Just as he was about to spring around the front of the boulder and leap on the person inside, he slipped on water-loosened scree and his legs went out from under him. Rather than grabbing and restraining the lookout, he found himself sprawling at his feet.
“Wait!” he yelled, lifting his hands, “I’m not a Crusader! I’m from the Alliance.”
But the man either didn’t hear, didn’t understand Wright’s English, or wasn’t listening.
He attacked.
Wright deflected the blade aimed at his throat and grabbed the man’s wrist. They were sliding down the slope, grappling in the loose shale. The lookout was on top of him. He fought to turn the man over, dodging the jabs of the knife that were coming at him despite his hold on the other’s wrist.
He couldn’t kill him, not even in self-defense. That would go down among the Resistance like one of the stone slabs that dotted the hills hereabout. He had to get him to stop fighting long enough to listen. The way the fight was going, however, Wright would count himself lucky to simply survive.
The knife plunged into the ground next to his head. And stuck. As the man struggled to free it, Wright slid out from under him. He yelled again, “I’m Alliance, Alliance!”
Wrenching out the blade, the lookout swung at him. Wright ducked.
A dark figure appeared in the darkness, looming tall. Two large arms wrapped around the lookout, pinning his own to his sides, and lifted him until his feet left the ground.
The man began to yell in Welsh, no doubt trying to warn the Resistance members inside the hideout.
“It’s okay!” Wright tried to reassure him. “Do you understand English? I’m Major Wright from the Britannic Alliance. I was here a few months ago.”
It was no use. The man continued yelling. Within seconds, fighters were pouring out. Some were carrying pulse rifles.
“Stay where you are, T.J.,” said Arthur. He stood between Wright and the hideout exit.
As he spoke, a pulse round hit his back.
He didn’t react.
The energy washed over him like a wave splashing over a rock.
Wright gaped.
Ellis had told him Arthur was impervious to pulses, but he hadn’t quite believed it. All his adult life he’d witnessed the devastating effects of the rounds and suffered them, too. Seeing Arthur unaffected by the bolt of energy was like seeing the sun rise in the west.
Above the shouts and yells came the sound of Merlin calling out. The reaction of the fighters stopped almost as soon as it had started. The lookout relaxed in Arthur’s arms and tried to peer around him to see what was going on.
Someone replied to Merlin, who was walking toward the group from the opposite hill.
They understood him. He could speak Welsh, like Taylan. Of course he could. He’d also spoken English the moment he stepped aboard the Fearless. The alien hadn’t needed the speed learning software Arthur had used. He knew English, Welsh, and probably every other language spoken on Earth, possibly every language that had ever been spoken on the planet.
Arthur put the lookout down. The man was clearly no longer any danger. He reached out to take Wright’s hand and shook it, saying, “Sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry for surprising you. I was trying to...”
But the man was already leaving them, going to join the group at the hideout entrance.
Merlin beckoned.
When Wright and Arthur joined him, he said, “They want us to go inside quickly, in case there are any Crusaders nearby.”
The hideout hadn’t changed at all from how Wright remembered it. Dark, dank, and smelling of unwashed clothes, the place was just as cramped and crowded. Another thing he noticed immediately was that Taylan wasn’t here. She would have come over to him and Arthur right away if she was.
A few of the fighters were fluent in English, though the lookout was not at all. One of them translated for him when he said he was glad no one got hurt in their tussle.
“I’m glad too,” Wright replied.
Merlin was, predictably, taking the lead, chattering away in the country’s native tongue. Wright could only stand impotently by and wait the outcome of the discussion.
After a few minutes’ talk, the alien turned to him and said, “She was here. She went to find her children, but she’d been shot by Crusaders—”
“Shot!”
“She made it back, and they treated her. She’s better now, but she’s gone again. A small group left ten days ago and she went with them. They’re on their way to Bryn Celli Ddu.”
“And where’s that?”
“Ynys Mon.”
Another place name Wright hadn’t heard of and would struggle even to pronounce.
“Why are they going there?”
“Bryn Celli Ddu is a very ancient, very sacred place.”
“They want to fuck up a Crusader festival.”
“Exactly.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Despite the challenges waiting at the end of their journey, Taylan was enjoying her time with Angharad’s sons. Their long treks under the stars or through cloudy, wet nights didn’t hurt her leg too much, and she had plenty of time to recover during the day while they rested and slept.
At that time of year the nights were short and the days long, so in order to reach their destination by midsummer’s eve, they had to leave an hour before sunset and halt an hour after sunrise. The potential exposure to unwanted observers was risky, but they had no choice.
After the sun rose, they would pick up pieces of fallen, dry wood until it was time to stop. By then, they usually had enough to build a hot, fast-burning fire that produced little smoke. The men would take turns at making cakes of stiff dough out of flour, oats, baking powder, salt, and water, which they cooked on stones placed on the edge of the fire. For some reason, Taylan was never asked to take a turn. They also foraged for food during the daylight hours to help eke out their rations, though little was available at that time of year. They picked honeysuckle flowers in woods, sucking out their sweet nectar. When they reached the coast, they ate the sea kale growing in the shingle. A kind of tea made from elderflowers relieved the monotony of drinking plain water.
Sixteen hours of daylight every day as the summer solstice approached was far too much time to spend sleeping. After waking, they would huddle in whatever shelter they’d managed to find and discuss plans to disrupt the festival the Crusaders were about to hold at Bryn Celli Ddu on Ynys Mon.
The tomb was so old no one knew who had built it. As the sun rose on midsummer morning, it would shine down the tomb’s central passage and light up the interior, marking the beginning of the EAC’s biggest annual celebration. Huge numbers of the Dwyr’s followers would be gathered and out of their minds on alcohol and hallucinogens. It would be the perfect opportunity to do the movement some real damage.
One late afternoon, after they’d woken up and eaten and were waiting to set off for another night’s walk, talk of sabotaging the midsummer festival had run dry.
Marc said, “Taylan, is it true the men who were with you when you first came to the Preseli Hills—not the Marines, the other ones—is it true they were King Arthur and Merlin?”
Before she could answer, Medwyn broke in, “I never heard such nonsense in all my life! Of course it’s not true. Two wanderers who stole a sword and chainmail from a museum, that’s all they were.”
“Shut up,” Marc told his brother. “I asked Taylan, not you.”
The young man’s eyes were shining with excitement. Taylan knew how he felt. She’d been just as excited when she’d realized King Arthur had returned to save the BI, exactly as the legend promised, and it had happened in her lifetime. But Marc hadn’t seen the savage trail of destruction Arthur had left in the crowd of Dwyr Orr’s followers at the harbor not so long ago. Her o
pinion of the ancient king had changed that day. She would never see him in the same way again.
“It is true,” she replied, though flatly.
“Bah!” Medwyn said in disgust.
“I didn’t see Arthur when Major Wright found him, but I did see pictures of him taken soon after he was rescued. And I saw him when he’d transformed to how he is now. It’s the same person, and his recovery was miraculous.”
“What about Merlin?” asked Marc. “Was he found at the same time?”
“No, Merlin arrived later.”
How much should she tell him? Would it be useful or helpful for Marc and the others to know Merlin was an alien who had arrived from outer space? Medwyn wouldn’t believe her anyway.
“It’s a very, complicated long story,” she said. “But there’s no doubt in my mind they are who they say they are.”
“If that’s so,” said Medwyn, “why are we going to all this effort? Why not leave everything to the old heroes?”
“Because we aren’t babies lying in cradles,” Meilyr replied, “sucking our thumbs while others do the hard work of freeing our country from its invaders.”
“What are they doing now?” asked Marc. “Are they working to defeat the EAC? Will they be coming back?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t know what they’re doing. All I know is they were planning on returning to the Space Fleet.”
“With the Dwyr in space too,” said Madog, “maybe they’ll try to attack her up there.”
“Hmm, maybe.” The conversation had reminded Taylan of Major Wright. She hoped he was okay and that Brigadier Colbourn was being less of a bitch than usual.
“Did you speak to Arthur or Merlin much?” Marc asked. “Did they tell you about the olden times?”
“Arthur did tell me some stories,” she replied, “and he talked about what life was like then. Merlin didn’t really talk to anyone except Arthur, and when they spoke, they used the language of that time.”
“Old Welsh?” Madog sounded interested. “Couldn’t you understand it?”