"It's to help us come back." Even Heather couldn't believe she said so. "Tolarus wants us to find him again. Assuming we manage to leave this island for sure."
"Tolarus wants us to find him?" Daniel scoffed. "That guy has a crush on you, if you ask me."
"He is not the first," Heather countered.
"You know what?" Santino said, glancing at the compass. "I wish I had half of his optimism."
Heather put the compass in her pocket. "Me too." Ahead, she still had a long journey that nobody was sure how it would end. Supposing she found the life capsule with her team, she had no idea if they could survive the stormy ocean and get any way far from this damned island.
"Wow! Did you hear that?" Santino's eyes got wide.
Heather stopped when she heard an explosion. There was no smoke nearby, yet the roaring clamor was loud and clear. One of the cannoneers gestured to the marching company to stop, the rest looking around with their weapons raised.
"We must continue our march anyway," Powell addressed Heather and the crew. "The gray freaks are busy now with those Atlanteans. We must use this in our favor."
Although Heather agreed with him, she was curious to know what was happening to Tolarus and his soldiers. She hoped it was the Griseos who were suffering from those explosions.
"Hey, Nathaniel," Powell called out to the ancient languages expert. "Hurry those folks up. We have a boat to catch."
Nathaniel didn't talk much with the cannoneers before they waved to Heather and her team to resume their march to the shore.
Following the Atlanteans, Heather couldn't help looking toward the direction from which she heard the noise. She was a bit worried about Tolarus, yet she had nothing to do. Powell was right. Every moment they wasted might make Tolarus's distracting attack pointless.
* * *
"Tolarus! There is movement behind those woods."
Most of the laser driller body was already underground when Tolarus listened to one of his remaining men without stopping the machine.
"Tolarus! Did you hear me?" the same man asked nervously.
"I only heard you." Tolarus gazed at the nearby trees. "Let's hope it's just a wild animal." Because he was currently monitoring the progress of the driller, making sure it was working smoothly.
"This can be serious. Shan't we check what's going on?"
"No. Just stand your ground. Whoever approaches us, he mustn't touch this driller."
The spot he was digging in was so exposed. His men would be an easy target if they were attacked from the trees side. Standing on the deck of the descending driller, Tolarus leaned toward the woods in an attempt to hear what his man had just heard.
"Now, I hear them." Tolarus's ears caught some movement indeed. He jumped off the driller, drew the cannon strapped to his back, and pointed it at the suspicious spot. "Be ready to fire," he addressed his five surviving cannoneers.
Suddenly, a white ray came out of the woods, striking one of his men dead at once.
"Hunters!" Tolarus warned his fighters. "Spread out!"
Before his men made any movement, a second beam hit another soldier of his. Unable to locate the source of these cursed beams precisely, Tolarus sprinted and shot a missile from his cannon at the woods. He was not sure if he heard a creaky scream coming from the explosion area.
"Fall back!" Tolarus hollered, urging his three men to get away from the fire range of the Griseos, tempting his opponents to abandon their tree cover. He glanced at the driller, which was almost hidden underground, making sure it was out of the Griseos' reach.
Swiftly, Tolarus stepped backward, yet still facing the trees, watching for any coming deadly white rays. A third soldier was nearly struck by another ray that hit the ground instead.
"Come out!" Tolarus hollered at the hidden Griseos. "Come out, you cowards!"
The Atlanteans kept moving backward, their eyes fixed on the trees in anticipation of any alien company. "Those filthy creatures," Tolarus muttered. "What are they waiting for?"
Since he did not wish to be away from his driller, Tolarus gestured to his men to stop moving. With the three remaining soldiers, they assumed a line formation.
"Here they are!" one of the soldiers yelled when seven humanoids came out of the trees at last, holding their spheroidal weapons.
Tolarus nodded toward the two cannoneers on his right. Two missiles could wipe those gray creatures at once if they did not spread out. Tolarus was sure his veteran men knew that, and a gesture from him was supposed to be enough for his cannoneers to execute.
The two soldiers struck the Griseos with their missiles, forcing them to run away. For most of the gray-faced humanoids, it was too late to escape now. Only one humanoid managed to survive and ran back to the woods.
"Don't push forward." Probably, more Griseos were lurking in the woods to stun the Atlanteans whenever they had the chance. Here, in their current position, Tolarus and his men were outside the shooting range of their enemies. "They're testing our patience." He tried to keep the line formation. Speaking of patience, he was losing it himself. He couldn't wait to pursue and finish that alien for good, but he had to commit to what he preached.
"What about the driller?" the cannoneer on his left asked.
"Don't worry about it. It won't stop until someone turns it off." Tolarus didn't avert his eyes away from the woods. "Just keep those trees in your sight."
More aliens came out of the woods while Tolarus was talking. I knew it. Fourteen Griseos sprinted from different sides, making themselves harder to be all blasted by one strike. "Stop them!" Tolarus hollered.
While slowly stepping back, the four Atlanteans showered the aliens with their missiles, hitting as many gray faces as possible, but the outnumbering aliens were closing on them. After Tolarus and his men managed to kill seven Griseos, they became in the range of the aliens' weapons. This is not going to work. Tolarus stopped his backward march, allowing himself to shoot two aliens in three seconds, before he dove to evade a deadly white beam and struck a third alien while lying on the ground. He rolled swiftly, and to his feet he rose, blasting a fourth gray face.
Tolarus heard a mix of human and alien screams. He couldn't afford a second to glance at his men to check on them, but he noticed there was no more fire coming from his side. It was clear; he was now on his own to finish off one last alien.
But nothing came out of his cannon this time. Tolarus was out of missiles. As the white spheroid glowed in the Griseo's gray palm, the Atlantean knew he had less than a second to die.
* * *
He gasped.
As if woken by a nightmare, Burke opened his eyes. The first sight that struck him was the high gray ceiling with its familiar yellow lights. It took him a few seconds to pull himself together. The last view he remembered was the green view from the top of his villa, his prison. His pounding heart was still recovering from the free fall feeling that lasted only for one or two seconds.
"It worked, bitch!" He was still gasping. "It worked!"
"You're awake."
When he heard that creaky voice, Burke realized he was lying on his back on a cold metallic bed. His buttocks were still numbed from his long stay in Akmenios's room seated on the same damned chair.
What the. . . ? Burke held his head with both hands, but he did not find that mind-connecting device. He was sure he understood what the humanoid had said.
"No! No!" Burke yelled, frustrated. "Not another dream! I'm done with this."
Realizing his legs were free, he rolled over and rose from his bed to stand just in front of the humanoid, who was holding a couple of sharp-ended tubes with both hands.
"Damn!" Burke exclaimed. "You're not Akmenios."
Yet his shock grew even more.
What Burke had just said was not in English.
It was in the aliens' language.
34. Two Minds, One Head
Akmenios was not sure if he could describe what happened atop the underground headquarters as a win. He lost
all the guards he had sent in order to stop the Atlantean attack. All the dots on the screen vanished, and there was no sign of life on that battlefield.
"The driller stopped, Akmenios," said Cudelios.
"I guess that was the objective of the whole thing," Akmenios swiped the screen with his finger to scan the whole island, making sure he was done with the whole Atlantean headache. "Yet, the cost was heavy."
Akmenios stopped when he spotted the yellow dots headed to the coast. "Those homines! They're trying to escape. And it seems they have an Atlantean escort. How many guards do we still have here?"
"Twenty."
We've lost twenty already to kill five homines. Akmenios never thought he was losing the battle until this moment. Those remaining twenty guards were all the fighters he had. He couldn't afford to lose them as well.
"I'll take ten guards with me," said Akmenios. "I must handle this myself."
"You're going out?" his subordinate asked.
"We don't have enough time to discuss this." Akmenios checked the spheroidal weapon strapped to his belt. "Call for ten guards to meet me at the coastal exit. Now."
Akmenios was headed outside when he heard Cudelios saying, "I think you need more guards with you to capture eleven homines."
Akmenios stopped and turned to Cudelios. "More guards means leaving the headquarters without protection." He gave the screen one last look before he continued, "Besides, this is not a hunting raid. Capturing prisoners alive is not a priority."
* * *
Burke contemplated the hall he found himself in. It was way much bigger than Akmenios's chamber.
"Damn," Burke muttered. He saw that hall before in Akmenios's mind. It was one of the awful memories he hardly wiped off his head. The room that was full of human bodies connected to the walls with hundreds of tubes.
"This is real, right?" Burke wondered, still stunned by the fact he was speaking Latin at the moment. He had no idea how this happened, but for the time being, he had more problems worth his concern.
Burke stared at the needles at the end of the tubes in the humanoid's hands. No! These things won't pierce my skin. He recalled what Powell had said before about those weak slender humanoids, and how the burly marine knocked one Griseo out with one punch. Definitely, Powell was stronger than Burke by miles, yet it was worth trying. That astonished humanoid would not stay petrified for long, and soon he would ask for help.
"You won't be tougher than that guard." Burke clenched his fist and struck the alien in his abdomen. Impressed by the impact of his punch on the two-meter humanoid, Burke watched the slender gray creature bend his back before he clasped his fingers and hammered the humanoid's bald head with both hands.
Easier than I thought. Burke gazed at the fallen humanoid, who was not moving anymore. Looking for a door, Burke scanned the hall with his eyes, and to his surprise, he knew where he would find it. Bingo. He hurried to the door before he stopped just in front of it.
Wait, wait, wait, Burke! He tried to understand what had happened to him. It was time to put all the givens he had gathered on the table.
The mind-connecting session with Akmenios.
The Shomrunk inside Burke's mind.
The head device.
The Shomrunk strengthened unintentionally by the energy supplied by the Griseos through the head device.
Akmenios's mind hacked by the Shomrunk during one of the mind-connecting sessions.
Burke pondered the last two points for a while. Putting them together might explain why he knew what he knew at the moment. All the information the Shomrunk gathered from Akmenios's mind became now in Burke's awareness in some way.
All information, including the history of those Griseos. . .
Oh my God! Burke held his head with both hands, fidgeting. He wasn't dreaming this time. It was real; he got all of Akmenios's memories. Some of those memories Burke had learned already from Akmenios himself, but recalling them as if he had witnessed them with his own eyes was quite a weird experience.
And a bit terrifying.
That gray freak is so damn old. That Akmenios had memories of the past three hundred years.
The alien's life cycle with all it included from birth, growth, and decline until death usually took six hundred years. Everything was slower than it was in humans' life; their metabolism, their need to sleep, their ability to learn even. The Griseos' civilization had been existing for millions of years. However, the gap between them and humans was closing dramatically.
That's why those Griseos are scared, Burke deduced. One day, humans would become a threat to the aliens' existence if they became more advanced than them. For the time being, the Atlanteans were almost head-to-head with the Griseos. Burke remembered how Akmenios referred more than once to the fact that humans were smarter than they thought.
Burke felt a bit dizzy. The surge of information puzzled his mind—now he was aware of the two minds in his head. Gasping, sweating, he leaned against the wall with his head down. It seems I've downloaded too much, he reflected self-mockingly, trying to divert his thoughts away from Akmenios's memories, but he couldn't help it. Curiosity killed the cat.
Akmenios didn't lie when he claimed that his people had existed on Earth before humans, before the extinction of dinosaurs. Since the beginning of time, those Griseos had been defending their existence.
For them, humans were aliens.
Most of Akmenios's tale about Atlantis was true except for one small detail: the war that had occurred between the Griseos and the humans was not just a power struggle. Simply, one side refused to be the other's food. That was where everything had started.
Distant creaky voices interrupted Burke's thoughts. He rubbed his forehead and pulled himself together. Maybe later. Now was the time to act, to find a way out.
The door in front of him had no handles. As long as it was not locked from the control panel inside this hall, it would open automatically once he approached it. Burke found himself knowing that, but now he wasn't so astonished. He was still trying to get used to his new condition, though.
Before leaving, he gazed one final time at the dozens of human bodies that lay on metallic beds. With those numerous tubes connected to these bodies, there was no way to save them. They were dead already.
Burke gnashed his teeth and stepped outside. Nobody was there in the corridor that branched at the end into two. One of them would eventually take him to Akmenios's control chamber and the other led directly to the dock. Escaping through the Griseos' dock did not seem a wise idea though. Probably, it would be guarded by gray faces with spheroidal weapons.
Trying to focus, he hoped he might retrieve any information about emergency exits. It was hard to believe that the humanoids' underground headquarters did not have at least one. He walked cautiously, making his steps as light as possible. Those corridors were not watched as no threat was expected to come from inside.
The dock. The chamber. The dock. The chamber. Make your decision, Burke. Think. Think. Think.
Burke did not stop to think. Instead, he let his legs take him to the corridor that would lead him to some rights and lefts and then eventually to the dock. Bad idea. Bad idea. Burke had no doubt about that, but he hated the other chamber. The metallic chair, the screen, Akmenios, his assistant, the head device; Burke wished he could forget all those elements for good. Trying his luck through the dock was a foolish idea, though.
Is it you again? Burke halted when the thought crossed his mind. Was it possible the Shomrunk was manipulating his mind at the moment? Should Burke go to Akmenios's chamber instead?
No. It doesn't make any sense. The Shomrunk would rather guide him to Akmenios's chamber to try his luck one more time to send a message across the galaxies to all Shomrunks.
Have you forgotten? The Shomrunk doesn't need you now. She or he or it—Burke had no idea— strived to keep Burke asleep until he would die slowly in the bio-energy reactor.
Burke tried to recall more information about the dock
and the usual defense systems. Those defense systems were designed to deter external attacks, but not inside ones. Still, there was the guards' problem. Usually, there were four or five of them securing the dock area. How could Burke handle them?
Weapons. I need one of those mango weapons.
The Griseos had one store for weapon reserves. It was a bit far from the dock, which might increase his chances of encountering more humanoids.
Come on, Burke. You can't just storm the dock and hijack one of their ships unarmed. Burke had no choice but betting on the probability the Griseos would not spot him.
His way was clear, to his astonishment. It was something he wished, yet it piqued his curiosity a little bit. Where were the gray humanoids? The place looked abandoned to him.
Gradually, he was getting more encouraged, and his cautious steps became strides. Those corridors he went through were supposed to be watched, but obviously, nobody was watching at the moment.
He found the door of the storeroom that he had never seen before except in Akmenios's mind. It was locked by a code Burke didn't find any difficulty in retrieving. In a few seconds, the door slid open, revealing his biggest frustration since he learned that his lost relative was not real.
The chamber was empty. No weapons for Burke today.
Something big is happening. Something that made them arm themselves with all the weapons they have. He hoped the Shomrunk was right about the double Atlantean attack.
The hope that the Griseos might be fighting now with the Atlanteans encouraged him to take his chances at the dock. Maybe it was abandoned at the moment, like all the corridors and chambers so far.
On his way to the dock, Burke strode for fifteen minutes through a network of tunnels. Since he left the bio-energy chamber, he hadn't seen a gray face, and occasionally, he heard a few creaky voices.
That tunnel. Now Burke remembered the long corridor he had passed before with Heather and her crew, when they were brought by that stuttering humanoid and his gray mates. Twenty more minutes of walking and Burke would reach the dock.
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