by Leigh Kimmel
Nanuli knew what she had to do. "This way!" She gestured with the AK in her hand to the door on the far side of the catwalk.
The first few hesitated at the bloodstained body, but the sight of the Posleen streaming in from every direction gave them decision. These were Indowy who had survived the slaughter of over 99% of their clan on Diess and knew what would happen if they hesitated. They scrambled over Vladilen Ivanovich, heedless of the red smears that now decorated their fur.
Nanuli threw open the door, flung herself to one side as the Indowy stampeded into the tunnel, dozens, even hundreds of them. How many she couldn't even begin to guess.
And as quickly as it had begun, the flood trickled off. Already the Posleen were pouring across the entire room, grabbing at the ladders and shaking them to knock loose the last few Indowy desperately fleeing for the marginal safety of the escape route. A few more intelligent Posleen actually tried to scramble up the ladders, gripping the rungs with all four taloned feet. However the ladders were no Indowy construction, but human work from when this was a Soviet military installation, and the bolts pulled right out of the rock under their weight, sending them crashing down onto their fellows.
Some of the salvagees must have been fighting as well, because Nanuli could hear gunfire, both human-made AK's and Posleen weapons. Here and there they must have hit important equipment, for there were the sharp thuds of explosions.
Not a bad idea. Nanuli grabbed a grenade from the satchel Mahmood had given her, armed it and flung it in the direction of one of the big sludge tanks. Hoping the explosion would slow the Posleen from figuring out how to get up to the catwalk, she plunged into the tunnel and hauled the door closed behind her.
Nothing to do but run. There was an enormous *whud* behind her, then the bangs and cracks of secondary explosions. She was almost to the top when there was a particularly large one. She felt heat on her back and looked over her shoulder just in time to see a ball of orange cloud come rushing toward her. She was certain that this was her last mortal moment when instead the cloud of flame halted, replaced by a fountain of dust and a wind that lifted her from her feet to fling her the rest of the way out to land in the snow beyond the opening.
"The tunnel has collapsed behind us." The Indowy spoke in a matter-of-fact voice, the tone one might use to say that it was raining.
As Stalin hovered between life and death, incapacitated by a stroke, the members of his Politburo gathered around his deathbed. Many of them spoke respectfully, even pleadingly, to this man they'd served and dreaded and adored. But Beria openly sneered at the fallen tyrant, mocking him in front of the others. Only when Stalin opened his eyes would Beria resume the posture of the fawning sycophant.
As his life trickled away, Stalin's breathing grew steadily more labored, as though he were choking. His eyes opened one last time, yellow with fury, and glared at those around him. Summoning the remainder of his strength, he raised his left arm to point in wordless imprecation, and took one last strangled breath before his spirit tore free of his mortal flesh.
No sooner than the dictator's body had begun to cool, Beria called for his car and hurried back to the Kremlin, leaving the other senior government officials standing in bewilderment.
Part Three
The Long Shadow of a Dead God
The fog rising from the snow gave the landscape a dreamlike quality, but it was a nightmare that they fled. Nanuli led the way through the rhododendron forest, grateful of the heavy-soled combat boots on her feet. Mahmood had been right, she could never have run in her dress footgear.
Now Mahmood and Vladilen Ivanovich would lie in a common grave along with an unknown number of salvagees, Indowy and Posleen. The ground had finally stopped shaking, so she had to assume that the explosions were over and everyone was dead and buried. At least the fusion bottle had never lost containment, or the whole mountain would've disappeared in a flash and a mushroom cloud, and there would have been no one at all left to run.
Trying to keep the Indowy going in the same direction was easier said than done. Only about half of them understood any Russian, and all of them were panicking, scattering all over the mountainside. Even the one who'd greeted her moments after her ejection from the tunnel had since gone from numb shock to flat-out terror and was running like all the demons of hell were on his butt.
Worse, not all the Posleen had been in the compound when it blew. Scattered and confused as the centaurs might be with so many of their God-Kings dead or incapacitated by the blasts, they weren't so witless that they'd pass up easy prey like a hundred or more fleeing Indowy. Screams of agony echoed through the scrub.
Having the AK made it almost worse for Nanuli, since it took all the discipline she could manage not to go firing full-auto at every scream. She'd already made the mistake of wasting her whole first clip shooting air after she hit Vladilen Ivanovich. The ammunition she was carrying was all she had to use, and she had to spend it wisely. Three-round bursts, Mahmood had drilled into her day after day.
Still, two weeks of an hour a day in the firing range couldn't make a soldier out of a retired MD. Not even a rejuved one.
She was so tightly concentrated on picking off Posleen that she almost didn't see the salvagee jump down from the rocky crest ahead of her. His lips drew back in a feral grin and he pulled a crooked-bladed knife from the belt of his ragged cherkessa. The Indowy in front of him froze in goggle-eyed horror.
"No!" A quick squeeze of the trigger and the salvagee slid off his perch to go tumbling down the slope, bouncing against the trunks of the rhododendrons until their branches finally entangled his mane of wild hair.
But it was already too late for his victim, whose throat lay open clear back to the white of the vertebrae. Worse, Nanuli recognized her -- the female craftsman whose birthing she'd attended only days earlier. Her babies must have been in a creche back in the compound, since none of them were on her.
Further down the mountain she could hear more gunfire, some of it Posleen but some clearly human. Salvagees most likely, since most of them still had enough mind to handle a relatively simple weapon like the older-style Kalashnikovs. At least they were keeping the centaurs busy, which might give her a chance to lead some of the Indowy to safety.
And that meant getting the roly-poly little aliens to climb. Many of the Indowy would not even try, just kept running along the trail even when she called for them to follow her up.
But some did. They were technicians from hydroponics, from the Earth-plants area, so they would be used to strange new things and ideas. No more than a dozen, all young, they scrambled over the rocks like little teddy bears, right up the slope. Nanuli had no idea how far they needed to go to reach even a modicum of safety, but she didn't intend to stop until she couldn't hear any more shots or screams.
The fog grew steadily thicker as they ascended, until they could scarcely see one another even at arm's length. Although calling to one another ran the risk of attracting unwanted attention, they had to keep together and it simply wasn't possible to hold on to one another when both hands were essential for climbing.
When the fog gave way to clear sunshine, she looked down at a sea of thick cloud from which other peaks emerged in the distance. She turned, counted her charges. Eleven Indowy, out of four thousand who had been illegally transported to Earth by the mafiya to staff their secret base, those the survivors of a clan of over eighteen million who had once lived and toiled on the distant world of Diess before the Posleen came.
Eleven exhausted Indowy, to judge by their posture. Much as she would have liked to put a few more klicks between herself and the battle, she knew that pushing them any further would only lead to their collapse and death. Rest was essential, even in this marginal safety. Time to dig in.
A little looking and Nanuli located a sheltered depression between two boulders. A little work piling brush and she created a space in which they could huddle, protected from the cold mountain air. A tiny fire provided a little extra warmt
h, enough that they would be able to survive the night.
* * *
As soon as her charges were rested enough that they could safely, continue, Nanuli urged them on, although the sky was hardly more than touched by the first light of dawn. Before they left, she gave them each a thumb-sized chunk of nutrient paste from one of the emergency food tubes in the rucksack Mahmood had given her. It was one of two that didn't list any animal products among the ingredients, and she had no idea how long either would stretch when divided among eleven Indowy.
While rationing out their food, she worked at drawing them out, learning their names. Except they had none. For Indowy, or at least those of Clan Tk'shvi, a personal name was not a birthright but something given to those who needed be marked out as individuals. Since having eleven hey-you's was unworkable, Nanuli named them all. The senior transfer-neuter, who was now technically clan chief, she gave the name Iosebi, while his two sub-chiefs became Yakov and Vasili. The other eight she gave various Georgian and Russian names.
They soon settled on a comfortable routine, with Nanuli in the middle so she could cover both ends of the column. The eight lower-ranking Indowy took turns leading the way, pushing through the brush and clearing the trail for the rest. They fit in pauses for rest or the replenishment of water and food as the need came.
Three days later, eleven Indowy abruptly became ten when Zviadi fell victim to a booby-trap. He was one of the three true males in the much-diminished clan, and had been taking his turn at the front when the ground erupted in front of him.
Nanuli squashed her instinct to rush to help him, and instead worked her way slowly, wary of further such surprises. The other Indowy murmured in their own language, their little bat faces wrinkled up in their expression of fear.
For Zviadi it was already too late, but two his fellows who'd been immediately behind him had received shrapnel injuries severe enough to need attention. Nanuli hesitated at opening the medkit. She had taken a human life, in violation of the physician's oath. Did she have any right to continue using her medical skills, now that she stood forsworn?
Arkady's choked-back whimpers decided her. He would die if she didn't get the bleeding stopped. Moving almost automatically, she stanched the flow of greenish ichor, closed the wounds and sprayed them with quick-heal, that Galactic wonder that doubled as a bandage and a skin graft, self-adjusting to whatever species it was applied to.
Now that they were aware of the danger, the Indowy watched the trail carefully. Within half an hour the new point located a second booby-trap. Its slender trigger of nylon fishing line would be almost invisible to someone not looking for it, but the explosive device to which it was attached would have blasted the life out of whoever tripped it. Someone had to have set it recently, since wildlife hadn't triggered it, but it was far too complex to have been set by even the most capable of the salvagees. Which meant that the Posleen had not yet wiped out all human resistance in these mountains.
But to find these potential allies, they first had to get past this barrier. Nanuli was trying to decide how to safely detonate it when one of the Indowy walked up.
She threw up an arm to block his path. "No, I cannot permit you to throw away your life--"
Iosebi interceded. "We cannot allow you to needlessly risk your life when all our survival depends upon your skills, both medical and military." Although only the Indowy equivalent of a twenty-something, the clan chief was already gaining skill in command.
Nanuli's horror gave way to amazement as the Indowy nimbly disarmed the booby-trap. Incapable as they might be of setting any device to kill another living being, they certainly had no such disabilities in regards to removing them. In five minutes she was presented with a detonator and a lump of explosive, carefully separated so they could do no harm. She hesitated only a moment before tucking them away among her gear. One never knew when they might come in handy.
However, the elation of having gotten her charges safely past that hurdle did not last long. It was nearing nightfall when the trail took them up to a cave entrance that had been partially blockaded with hasty brickwork.
The silence made Nanuli's skin prickle. There should be sentries, some sign of activity. Or were they watching her, deciding whether she was a friend to be welcomed or a burden, even one who would betray them?
She took a risk, laid the AK on the talus before her and raised her hands in the air. "I come as a friend." She shouted in both Russian and Georgian, not sure which language the defenders might know. Still no response. She called a greeting in Ossetian, hoping she had the pronunciation right and wasn't inadvertently insulting them. In growing desperation she called out, "Salaam!" which Mahmood had once told her was the Arabic word for peace.
An evening breeze blew at the door, or rather half a door that swung loose on its hinges. A night-bird, or perhaps a bat, flapped its way out.
Nanuli's throat tightened. They would find no hospitality here, for the Posleen had found it first. Still, the cave would shelter them for the night. She retrieved her weapon and led the Indowy inward.
The floor of the cave bore silent witness to the violence, and the mountain-folk's bravery. Yellow stains mingled with the brown ones on the stone, among the wreckage of human occupation. But with some searching she located a fair amount of salvageable material, mostly ammunition and tools, but also a few cans of food that had rolled into out-of-the-way spots when the Posleen cleaned out the larder. Dented as they might be, they were welcome supplies with the emergency rations rapidly dwindling in spite of efforts to eke them out by foraging what few wild roots and berries remained at so late a season.
Nanuli was despairing of how they could possibly pack all these things out when she heard a shrill cry from one of the Indowy. Fearing the worst, she hurried down to find them all busily suppressing delight.
In a side-cave, half-hidden under a detritus of branches from the mountain oaks, stood an old truck. Hope filling her, she scrambled to clear the vehicle of its overburden. The tires were low, but those could be aired back up, and the rest appeared intact.
Her hope melted as soon as she lifted the hood. Even in the fading light of evening, she could see that the truck had not been started in months, even years. Cobwebs covered the engine and a bird had built a nest in the air breather intake.
In frustration she slammed a fist into the sheet metal of the fender, swore in Georgian. The suddenness of her anger made the Indowy flinch back, but they didn't panic and flee as they might have only weeks earlier.
"Please, do not be angry." Iosebi pressed his hands together and made that little half-bow of "apologetic interruption." "We can repair it."
"This wreck?" Nanuli paused, smiled. "Of course, you are Indowy. But how will you do it when you lost all your tools and equipment?"
"You said that you had found tools within the main cave. We can learn to use them and improvise."
Nanuli had her doubts, but decided to give it a chance. Particularly now that she'd found a map in the main cave and re-oriented herself, she was having serious doubts about their ability to hike all the way to Grozny. If the Indowy were as good as their word, getting that truck running would turn weeks of walking into a few days' drive.
In the meantime, there was nothing to do but settle in.
* * *
The nightmare was back in force again. She watched in helpless horror as the Posleen massacred Ataman Masuyev's caravan. One of them knocked the rifle from Beso's hand with one swipe of that leaf-shaped blade, then split him in two with a second.
Soselo bolted up the gravely slope, only to get no more than a dozen steps before a second Posleen grabbed him. This one didn't even bother with a knife, just tore the boy's arm right out of its socket and shoved it into a toothy maw even as he struggled, blood pouring--
Nanuli awoke gasping for breath in a blanket soaked with her own sweat. As quickly as she sat upright, she was seized by nausea. She barely managed to get to the mouth of the cave before she hurled the conte
nts of her stomach into the brush. She would have to get sick right now.
A quick press of hand to forehead detected no fever, but not all gastrointestinal upsets caused it. Time to make that GalTech medical sensor earn its keep.
She'd been expecting it to tell her that she'd picked up a mild bug, or perhaps that the can of chicken soup she'd eaten last night was spoiled. Certainly not that she was pregnant.
It was absurd. However well GalTech rejuve could restore her appearance to that of a teenager, it couldn't possibly restore a woman's fertility. Oogenesis in humans occurred entirely during fetal development. A baby girl was born with all the eggs she would ever have, and by the time she reached puberty, most of them had been reabsorbed by the body for reasons still unknown to human medical science. The remainder would be shed once a month throughout her reproductive life, until by menopause a woman's ovaries looked like shriveled potatoes from all the burnt-out egg follicles.
As a doctor Nanuli knew the facts, yet the readings before her were unequivocal. The GalTech medscanner had detected the characteristic hormonal changes of pregnancy in her blood. One way or another, her ovaries had been restored to function. How would her having been rejuved affect the fetus? From what she understood of the process, the nannites remained in her body after the initial treatment and maintained her body at its current youthful state.
So she was pregnant. Nanuli looked down at her abdomen, still flat at the moment, and imagined it swelling as it had with each of her two sons. Except this would not be Irakli's child. There was only one person who could be the father.
Perhaps it was poetic justice. She had taken Vladilen Ivanovich's life, and now she would give life to his child.