by James Axler
“I presume he also left a message that he was looking for a means of returning to his full strength,” North replied.
Kane nodded. “The bastard also forced his DNA matrix onto Hannah’s unborn children.”
North’s lip curled. “Will she be all right?”
“Manticor is still willing to raise them both as his own,” Kane replied.
North’s disgust faded. “Let us pray that nurture is more than sufficient to make good people out of Durga’s seed.”
“How did you know that Durga is in Africa?” Grant inquired.
“The matrix that the cobra baths inserted into my brain has picked up on Durga’s communications. He mentioned seeking out the key to the Mines of Solomon,” North answered. “That key, in short, is the staff Nehushtan.”
“Yeah. I got the lowdown on Moses’s brass stick. Thing is, it’s not here,” Kane lied.
“Oh, it is. I can sense it,” North told him. “I just didn’t know you were here until I caught a glimpse of you a moment ago.”
“A conveniently constructed story,” Grant murmured. “Why the hell should we roll out the welcome mat for you?”
“I’m just here to make certain that Durga does not open that mine,” North said. “It is full of things that man was not meant to deal with. That is why, after millennia, it is still listed as missing.”
“Things,” Kane repeated. “Anything like Kakusa?”
North seemed confused by that reference. “Explain.”
“Kakusa was a creature that was being kept off of Florida, in an undersea science station known as the Tongue of the Ocean, or TOTO,” Kane stated. “He was a collection of creatures which, when their cells were attached to another, would take control of them.”
“Oh.” North thought for a moment, searching through the lore of Enki. Even as he did so, he frowned. “That. The Faceless One. Did you exterminate it?”
“Hopefully,” Kane replied. “And yes, I know that if even one cell survived...”
“Not necessarily,” North replied. “When the Annunaki imprisoned it, they broke one of the command sequences in its DNA. It cannot reproduce itself. Then they implanted it into a mindless, controllable organism. One of their hopes was to utilize it as a punishment device.”
“Punishment?” Grant asked. He frowned. “That explains the despondence of those separated from its cell structure.”
“They committed suicide,” North surmised.
“Right,” Grant said.
The vault doors opened below, and Brigid, Natha, and the three surviving Zambians appeared in the ready room.
North’s eyes narrowed as he spied the staff that Nathan carried. “I said Nehushtan was here.”
“That’s not Moses’s brass stick,” Kane returned.
North gritted his teeth. “How many times do you have to encounter orichalcum to realize that it needs to be kept from sunlight? It’s a highly unstable isotope as well as a dense, powerful metal. Obviously, the black coating is for the protection of those who manipulate it, and those around it.”
“Enki’s database is up there, so you have all the answers,” Kane said, tapping North’s forehead. “Then how about you take the staff?”
“No. That would be bad,” he responded. “I am simply here to make certain that Durga does not receive that key to the mine. As you had mentioned Kakusa, there are other horrors imprisoned within those tombs. Things that cannot be forever killed, but wait dead, ever dreaming of their freedom.”
“Then we destroy the stick,” Kane said. “Nobody gets it.”
“The destruction of Nehushtan would take most of this continent with it,” North said. “You’re blunt, crude and pragmatic, but I truly doubt that you’re willing to take millions of innocent lives.”
“That bad,” Kane muttered.
“Far worse than you could ever imagine,” North told him. “Orichalcum is highly destructive on its own. But the staff’s configuration amplifies its power. You have no concept of how powerful a weapon it could be.”
“You do,” Kane countered.
He nodded. “Such is the burden of the knowledge I sought all my life.”
Nathan looked at the staff in his hand, and Kane could see the young man’s sudden discomfort, almost as if Nehushtan was reacting to their conversation, growing agitated. That, more than ever, made Kane reluctant to touch the damned thing. If it had proved able to imprison creatures that even the Annunaki could not kill, then certainly, it was a terrible object by any stretch of the imagination.
Kane looked sideways toward North. “Did Durga mention anything about waking up some creatures?”
“Like, perhaps, the kongamato?” North offered.
Kane nodded. “Because Nathan told me about the things chasing him, but unwilling to be touched by it.”
North frowned. “It is likely.”
Nathan paled as he stepped closer. “I hear the two of you, even heard you behind the blast doors. The staff is transmitting to me.”
Kane touched his Commtact, then looked to the young man.
“It sounded a bit like a radio,” Nathan said, not even waiting for Kane’s upcoming question.
“Both Grant and I could listen in over our Commtact units as well,” Brigid interjected. “Kane, you have to touch the staff. I’m dying to know—”
“No,” he growled, and unceremoniously took a step away from it. Nathan didn’t look as if he was in a hurry to cede ownership of the snake-entwined staff, either.
“Durga is onto the presence of Nehushtan,” North explained. “He will want to get it out of your hands, young man. And keep it from you, Kane. That alone is cause—”
“No.” Nathan and Kane spoke in unison. Nathan tugged the staff closer to his side, his knuckles lightening as he clutched it tightly. Kane felt a sense of relief at the African’s stubbornness matching his own.
“Can you read the markings on its surface?” Brigid asked.
North tried to lean in close, but Kane noted that standing this near to the object seemed to fill him with discomfort. “I presume that I could, if Nehushtan weren’t determined to protect its secrets.”
“It’s sentient,” Brigid mused.
North nodded. “That is as good a term as any for its nature. It is programmed, and it is not interested in letting my matrix close to it.”
Nathan took a step back, and the relief the archaeologist felt showed on his features.
“I spent my life seeking out the greatest mysteries of this world, and here is living mythology, living history, and like its owner, Moses himself, I am denied entry to the promised land,” North lamented. “Perhaps you can decipher some of its mysteries, Ms. Baptiste?”
Brigid looked from Kane to Nathan. “I could certainly try.”
“Go right ahead, Baptiste,” Kane grumbled curtly. “But if you say one more thing—”
“Like how you could just touch it, and you’d know all we need to?” Brigid interrupted.
Kane grimaced. “Exactly like that.”
“I’ll make a mental note of it,” she responded.
Lomon and the others had brought out a spare radio unit, as the comm equipment in the ready room had been turned to electronic garbage by the raiding kongamato. While Jonas was busy dialing home base, the other two joined the Cerberus explorers, Nathan and North.
“So what are your plans, Kane?” Lomon asked.
Kane spent a few minutes going over the gist of the conversation he’d had with the former millennialist, regarding Durga, the staff and the creatures.
“Kongamato,” Shuka interjected upon North’s naming of the things. “Yes, we did call them boat breakers. They seemed perfectly at home in the air, on the land and in the water. In fact, during the Zambian expedition to determine the origin of th
e myth, one of the strongest candidates for the creature’s true identity was a species of freshwater stingray.”
“They are none of those. Rather, they are genetic constructs, chimeras if you will, designed to protect the privacy and secrecy of the First Folk and other entities,” North explained.
“You know this much, doesn’t it ruin things for you?” Shuka asked. “You were a seeker of knowledge, and now you’ve got a filing cabinet in your head full of everything you wanted to learn.”
“It is not that easy, and my knowledge of Nehushtan has only come to the forefront because of the imminent threat,” North said. “The database of Enki is not omniscience in any sense.”
“So, that matrix tells you what they are, but it doesn’t give you anything as to where they come from?” Kane asked.
North nodded. “It would be easy, wouldn’t it?”
“And convenient,” Kane added. “But since your knowledge base is more trivia than practical information, who knows how many people Durga could menace with the kongamato....”
“We do know,” Jonas said, running breathlessly to join them. “Livingstone had a sighting of these creatures while we were trapped underground. There were no casualties, but they put the fear of God into the town. The national guard had to button down the capital, Lusaka, Mongu, and of course, Livingstone.”
Brigid narrowed her eyes in concentration. Kane could tell that she was using her eidetic memory to construct a map of the movements of the creatures. “Livingstone is six miles to the north of the falls. However, Mongu and Lusaka are much farther away.”
“The sightings there might have just been rumors and species misidentification,” Shuka suggested. “After all, once it hits the news that olitiau or kongamato have been sighted...much like UFOs in the late twentieth century...others end up seeing what may not be there.”
“Or even one or two appearing that far afield could give the impression to the population that there are more present,” Brigid added. “Whichever the case, those sightings elsewhere will have any military response buttoned down and away from us.”
“Any news from Harare?” Nathan asked.
Jonas shook his head. “Nothing on the radio, but they sent out a distress call to us here. We responded with news of the losses we took.”
Brigid tilted her head. “Zimbabwe renamed itself?”
“Unlike Zambia, which managed to weather the apocalypse as a contiguous nation, Harare had to set up its own city state,” Nathan replied. “Most of the districts around what is now the nation are fallen to chaos and barbarism. It didn’t help that the nuclear holocaust in the northern hemisphere took place during a time of famine and drought, nor that the earthquakes that shook Africa caused a lot of upheaval.”
“Interesting,” Brigid noted. “But Zimbabwe was where the staff originated.”
Nathan nodded. “Northwestern sector of Harare. About fifty miles southeast of here.”
“Then I’m going to have to take a closer look at that staff. I doubt that Durga would increase military and police operations in a sector he’s operating within, no matter what kind of force he’s awakened,” Brigid said.
“Back to Harare? Or maybe one of the outlaw sections?” Kane asked.
Nathan pursed his lips. “Harare itself is pretty outlaw already. It’s why everyone has at least one gun and a knife. Things have improved, but it’s still rough. Zambia keeps us as a buffer between them and the harder parts of what used to be Zimbabwe.”
“We’ll know our destination soon enough,” Brigid replied. “May I?”
Nathan ceded possession of the staff to the red-haired woman. Kane avoided her as she took the ancient artifact back down into the redoubt.
Kane just wished that she would find those answers quickly, before Durga and his minions laid waste to this section of Africa.
* * *
WITH A RASPY breath, Durga reached out for the radio handset offered to him by his hulking aide, Makoba. Makoba was an African, but he was also a member of the Millennium Consortium, chosen to be Durga’s bodyguard and caretaker, literally the fallen prince’s hands and voice. This was the call that the exiled prince expected, and Makoba brought the phone to Durga’s ear.
“Speak,” Durga said. Each word that came from his scaled lips felt like glass pushed up through his throat. It was only his will, his insatiable desire to be whole again, that allowed him to speak, to stumble along on crutches despite the raw sensation of his own weight pressing on the arm pads. Even giving out his written orders was an exercise in self-torture, as his explosion-ravaged body was still weak, still healing. Had it not been for the injection of nanomachines from Enki’s stores and the interface with his body, the detonation of the Garuda monument, and the fuel-air explosion afterward, would have slain him. As it was, his recovery was slow. The microscopic robots that had once given him insane superhuman strength expended the last of their power, restoring him to the minimum possible functions to keep him alive.
That was all right. Durga was nothing if not patient. The brief taste of godhood had shown him that quick and easy solutions were only a quicker means to downfall.
“The son of Longa has reached the Victoria Falls redoubt,” answered Thurpa. “We tried to retrieve the Nehushtan, but even our winged warriors have not the strength to burst into a nuclear-proof bunker.”
Durga nodded, then released a single name, his voice dragged over sandpaper. “Kane?”
“He came outside,” Thurpa responded. “Grant and Brigid Baptiste were seen on the grounds, as well. Also, there was another white man, one who crossed the jungle, on Nathan Longa’s heels.”
“Who?” Durga asked.
Knowing every word was an effort, Thurpa was swift in describing the white man, his battered leather jacket, wide-brimmed hat, and the coiled whip at his hip. Durga’s upper lip twitched in reaction. His eye, the one Fargo North had struck with that same weapon of leather and cruelty, was in constant pain, and provided only milky, blurry vision since his reconstruction.
“Shall I send in the kongamato again?” Thurpa asked.
“Wait,” Durga ordered. His fury, his hatred for both Kane, the former magistrate, and North, the conniving millennialist lackey, deadened any feeling of pain in his body. “We shall come there. Draw them here to Kariba. But do so carefully. I want to see them suffer for what they have done.”
Durga could see Makoba’s reaction to such sustained speech. Thurpa, on the other end, must have been equally shocked.
So be it, Durga thought. Each spasm of pain that shot through his throat would only make the destruction of the Cerberus interlopers and Fargo North that much sweeter.
Chapter 6
If there was one thing that Kane could do while Brigid Baptiste was applying her considerable mental faculties to translating dead languages, it was to look for physical evidence of the path of the kongamato. Going by what he’d seen of them on the video monitors, which had been plenty, and judging by the depth of the knuckle and claw prints left in the dirt as they’d landed, he could get a gauge of their true weight and power.
“Grant, take a step there.”
“Why?” the larger ex-magistrate asked.
“I know the mass of you and that gear off the top of my head. I want to see how these things measure up to you,” Kane returned.
Grant nodded, took a step into the spot indicated, then withdrew his boot. Kane knelt next to the imprint. He reached into his pocket and withdrew a set of folding pliers. On one of the handle pieces a small ruler was imprinted. “What’s the story, Kane? Do I have to go on a diet again?”
Kane glanced up at his friend after studying the depth comparison. “You’re heavier than one of those things, despite all that muscle they seem to be carrying.”
“Which means they’re not hauling around a war bag full of
grens and spare belts of machine gun ammunition,” Grant offered. “And they also probably have hollow bone structures.”
“Hollow bones and yet they can hammer thick steel like that?” Kane asked.
“Hollow bones doesn’t mean fragile. It means, however, that the skeletal structure is highly efficient,” Grant returned. “The so-called air pockets are hexagonal supports, meant to absorb a lot of physical stress. They’re then reinforced by lighter-than-bone muscle tissue and blood, which, being mostly fluid, is incompressible and thus difficult to break.”
Kane stared at Grant for a long, silent moment.
“I can’t help it. The creatures of Thunder Isle are fascinating,” Grant finally said. “Plus, Brigid’s been hogging all the fun to herself.”
Kane raised an eyebrow.
“Yeah, lecturing other people is fun. Fun as hell,” Grant continued.
Kane smirked.
“You don’t mind learning this stuff from us,” Grant mused.
“All the specifics might not stick, but I do learn something,” Kane admitted. “All right, so these things are strong, even more so because their bones are inured against pressure and abuse.”
“That makes them especially dangerous,” Grant returned. “They also appeared to be able to absorb a lot of damage before going down.”
“Let me guess on that one,” Kane offered.
“All right, how are they so hard to kill?” Grant asked.
Kane reached down and began drawing in the dirt with a screwdriver head from his folding tool. “The wings. Most of that is membrane.”
“So, that makes them bulletproof?” Grant wondered.
Kane shook his head. “No, but it alters the shape of the target. You think you’re hitting center mass, but what you’re really doing is hitting skin with a bunch of ice picks. And since the membrane is elastic...”
“You think you’re putting a whole mag into a target, but all you’re doing is pissing it off with a bunch of pinprick injuries,” Grant mused.
