by Bill Schutt
Mac remained silent.
“Like I said, it’s tough to describe. But toss in the bit of Latin that Alpha and I share, and I just know what’s going on now.”
“But, Yanni,” Mac said, then hesitated, “the Morlocks eat these elephants. And they—”
“And your point is what?”
“My point is, why all this sudden interest in cooperating with a menu item?”
“I think things are different with these individuals,” said Yanni, firmly. “I get the sense from Alpha, and from those three mammoths, that they’ve been treating each other as equals.”
“What about Alpha’s brethren?” Mac added. “What about the asshole who—”
“I think Alpha’s in this by himself,” Yanni replied, cutting off Mac’s thought before it went any further. “I really believe he sees the outside world closing in. First us, now the Chinese are back again, this time in flying machines. I get the feeling he’s looking at cooperation as a necessity—for both species.”
Mac nodded. “Well,” he said, grudgingly, “I suppose if anyone can help get you out alive, it’d be the Morlock jefé and his mammoth posse.”
Yanni managed a quiet snort of a laugh. “Now there’s a sentence I’ll bet you never thought you’d be uttering.”
With the stakes as high as they had become, Mac pushed the irony of their situation aside and decided to play the skeptic. “Look,” he began, “what do we know for sure? These Morlocks are sentient creatures. Right?”
“Right,” Yanni replied, quickly recognizing where Mac was taking the conversation.
“Well, then they can lie and deceive just like everybody else.”
“Sure,” Yanni said, “but if I missed the boat on this one, then Alpha’s got the elephants fooled, too. And why bother doing that? They’ve already got ’em completely enslaved.”
“All right, good point,” Mac acknowledged, “even if their way of thinking should turn out to be completely alien to us . . .” He trailed off into thought for a while, adding up the facts. “Two wildly intelligent species,” he said at last. “Existing side by side as master and slave for who knows how long? Can it even be changed?”
Yanni stared into the night. “Of Morlocks and mammoths,” she said to no one in particular.
“It’ll be tough,” Mac added. “And even more dangerous with the third species elbowing its way in.”
Yanni shook her head. “Yeah, the ones with rockets and atomic bombs.”
Mac shuddered inwardly. “In a few years, the question won’t be about masters and slaves. It’ll be about whether this world of theirs exists at all.”
“Or ours for that matter,” Yanni added.
“Or ours,” Mac conceded.
On the floor of Pliny’s Mist Lake
August, a.d. 67
The catapults were still under construction when Pliny and Proculus, now separated from Severus by members of the soldier caste, were led to what Pliny would later christen, for his codex, “The Pink and White Terraces.”
He had never imagined, much less seen, the like. For many centuries, perhaps for many thousands of centuries, steaming hot water must have been rising from somewhere deep beneath the valley walls, trickling downhill and depositing pink and white minerals in tier upon tier of gently overflowing pools. It was, to Pliny, a stairway to the gods. He could not see the top of it.
But all thoughts of beauty were soon squashed as their own survival again became a matter of grave doubt. The abrupt transition occurred once Pliny saw what the Cerae had been cultivating in the pools, and once he realized what was being dragged out from beneath mounds of crushed ice. He closed his eyes, trying to calm his mind against the atrocity and taking several deep breaths before opening them again. When he did, the view became even more overwhelming.
Severus, what have you brought us into?
Against the haunting beauty of terraced pools, against strata of fog that obscured everything above and beyond the nearer pools and subdued a valley’s usual level of noise, the area around the catapults was a scene drawn from the deepest and busiest level of Hades.
Pliny felt sick with anger, watching as pieces of naked Roman bodies were hauled from beneath mounds of crushed ice by Ceran physicians and elephants—each of which, though small, possessed a powerful trunk, more muscular than a physician’s arm. The body parts were from his own soldiers, the ones who died all around him during that first afternoon at the valley entrance. Five of the so-called physicians were separating muscles from bones—peeling them into long strips, which were immediately scrutinized, as if the examiners were searching for gold.
One of them pulled something yellowish and stringy from a ribbon of curled flesh. The “string” was about the length of a man’s forearm, and though still ice-chilled, the physician pinched it just hard enough to provoke a wormlike wiggle, verifying that the parasite was indeed very much alive.
Pliny looked away; but it seemed there was no direction in which he could turn his head and avoid a new vision of hell. The explorer knew very little about the pain-dealing guinea worms, little beyond a warning from his medicus that some of the men had apparently contracted them while on leave in Alexandria.
At the edge of a pink and white terrace, three more physicians had been spooling worms out of the water and onto the ends of long sticks. Although closely resembling the parasites Pliny had seen pulled from Roman flesh, these creatures were different—each equipped with a short, needle-like probe at one end. Judging from the caution exhibited by those doing the spooling, these worms were a far more aggressive and dangerous lot.
Pliny attempted to reason out what he was seeing, struggling to accept what he feared was the only logical conclusion. Weeks ago, the Cerae must have begun extracting parasites from Roman bodies. Now they have succeeded in breeding them.
Nearby, a familiar voice cried out, but Pliny never heard it. As the reality of what he was seeing invaded his brain, Pliny failed to notice that Proculus was no longer at his side.
“They’re not just breeding these worms,” Pliny said to no one in particular. “They’ve processed them into something new.”
“May the sands lie softly on your grave, Severus!” came the familiar voice, and Pliny gave a start as if snapping awake from a nightmare. “So the dogs may dig you up!”
The historian turned away from the worm spoolers to face yet another vision from the depths of hell. Proculus, now bound hand and foot, was being dragged by two Ceran warriors toward a series of circular pits in the ground. Less wide than the span of a man’s arm, each of the excavations was deep enough to hold a Roman soldier, up to the level of his chest.
“Spawn of Cretan whores!” cried Proculus, who, despite the dire circumstances, continued to roll out an impressive litany of curses.
At first the Cerans simply stood the cavalryman before a row of the holes. Then, in a move that surprised Pliny (at a time when he feared nothing could any longer come as a surprise), a particularly large member of the warrior caste rubbed Proculus’s face in a fur-tangled armpit. It followed up this rude exercise by chest-butting the centurion back and forth between itself and another Ceran. Having anointed the Roman with a stench that could be smelled even at Pliny’s distance, they lowered Proculus into one of the pits.
On either side of Proculus were similar holes containing bodies, though they did not appear to be Romans. Any further identification was impossible, because their heads, shoulders, and armor breastplates were cloaked in seething masses of what Pliny believed to be white ants.
“Remain calm,” Pliny told his friend. “We’ve survived worse situations than this” (even if I cannot think of one right now, he left unsaid).
Then, naturally, the situation became worse. Three new prisoners were herded out of the snowy fog and dropped into pits. Spewing what were curses in their own tongue, Pliny was able to identify their tribal origins: Scythians. He observed that the pit-bound corpses flanking Proculus were also Scythians, a point made cl
ear as the living veils of white fell away—revealing similar tunics and armor, draped upon bloodless husks. One of the dead’s armor plates had been scavenged from a slaughter. It bore the crest of a Roman medicus.
Chiron . . . Pliny did not have time to utter the word. Proculus’s movements suddenly became frantic and it was all so clearly too easy to know why. In that moment, a small part of him would have traded for a quick death at the mountain pass, if in the bargain he would never have lived to see this. Having fallen from their wraithlike former hosts, the veils of white ants now reappeared from below, streaming over the ground and toward Proculus. Pliny prepared himself to turn away at the last instant—but to his utter surprise, instead of pouring down around the centurion, the miniature horde hesitated, then began to retreat.
Any solace Pliny received from the realization that Proculus might live did not outlast the revelation that the miniature army was now advancing on his own position—with the only buffer being the freshly trenched Scythians. Pliny squashed growing panic beneath his ever-present urgency to observe and record. His latest revelation was that the “ants” had never been ants. They were in fact some form of tick, each no larger than his pinky nail.
This time, the same veil of parasites that had spared Proculus spilled like milk down the three Scythian pits. The Easterners strained erratically against their bonds. Their struggle was not an escape attempt. It was a combination of anger and what the historian regarded as an honorable defiance. Within only forty beats of Pliny’s racing heart, the ghostly white swarm began rising from beneath the prisoners’ armor—streaming out in waves and then coalescing into tentacle-like branches across shoulders, necks, and finally heads. As the seconds passed, the branches began to change color—from pallid white to pinkish white, then finally, red.
They have refused to let out a single cry of pain, Pliny dictated to his mind’s expedition log.
A new commotion at the stalactite-lipped terraces—concentrated at a pool filled with dark water and white worms—drew his attention away from the pits. Three large sticks, their ends coiled round and round with glistening trapped worms, were withdrawn from yet another black pool by physicians, who brandished the worm sticks like spears and moved toward the already parasite-covered prisoners.
The addition of transformed guinea worms to the already incomprehensible hellscape removed all doubt: The Cerae have forged weapons from life itself.
By the time worms were introduced to the carnivorous mix, the three Scythians in the pits were not nearly so drained of blood as to be spared by merciful unconsciousness. The ticks seemed to invade only the skin; now with the worms added, their bodies were being invaded from within and without. The end did not come quickly. For too many minutes, the Easterners continued to burble and quiver.
Pliny knew what he was watching, but true understanding was difficult. The term biological weapon did not yet exist. But there was a term for the engineering prowess that had produced ball bearings, and the movable pattern printing press that was the pride of Neapolis (Naples), and which Pliny had known until now as “superior technology.” That term, for the moment, served him.
At last, Pliny turned his gaze back toward the catapults, where shoulder-width casks were being carefully stacked and arrayed nearby—empty and awaiting the addition of their deadly cargo. But while the engineer in him admired the subtle design modifications to the machines, a far greater part of him was sickened by Severus’s actions, clearly directed at enhancing range and accuracy to serve an enemy of Rome. More sickening yet were the raw materials—the worms—contributed by the flesh of his own men.
“Severus, what have you done?”
Severus did not answer. Despite his work on the catapults, he was seized by the Cerae, covered in their stink, and thrown into a pit just like Proculus.
The bastard deserves it, Pliny told himself. The worms and ticks, he was certain, would soon spill in upon Severus—weapons of biological alchemy, made possible by an elixir hidden in those hellish pools of black water. Pliny remembered Proculus’s initial suggestion that medicines used by the Cerae to repair his body were a form of magic. Pliny was the first naturalist to observe how easily an advanced technology could present the stubborn illusion of witchcraft. In much the same way his fellow Romans had learned to control steam, forge iron, and make concrete, the Cerae had plucked something out of nature, studied it, and built a thing the world had never seen before.
At the moment Pliny believed he could understand what was happening, two physicians lowered him into his own pit. They spared him the humiliating smearing with their stink, to which Proculus and Severus had been subjected.
In another moment, he saw two more Easterners shepherded out of the fog and lowered into pits. They too were spared the greasy-fur-smearing. This time the weapons burrowed into the newcomers’ bodies with such astonishing rapidity that Pliny supposed, if these Scythians worshipped gods, they did not survive long enough to pray.
Pliny became transfixed by the small line of ticks that climbed out of the killing pits and began moving steadily, and apparently still hungrily, in his direction. Another trail fell in behind it. Then another. And yet another.
Pliny’s world was reduced again to tunnel vision. So completely was he focused on the approaching blood-feeders that if not for the grunt she emitted, he would have failed to notice Teacher’s immediate presence.
He looked up at her, his eyes trying to convey defiance.
She responded to him with an incomprehensible trill. Then, hefting a jug filled seemingly to the brim with weaponized life, she strode off directly toward Severus—the man Pliny vowed would, in a just universe, be written down into history as the modern-day Brutus.
Now the puzzle pieces were lining up, but analysis of their meaning remained elusive. Four things, he noticed. First: The ticks were avoiding the Cerae and even the tracks made in the ground by their feet. Second: They were avoiding Severus (who was covered in the stink of the Cerae). Third: They seemed to be consistently avoiding Proculus (also covered). Fourth: They swarmed straight to the Scythians (not covered). This led Pliny to know a fifth thing he had not quite pieced together before: He was not covered; he was, like the Scythian enemies, unprotected by the stench of the Cerae.
More trilling drew him away from these thoughts. He saw Severus bowing his head and even managing a submissive smile as Teacher laid a hand gently on his shoulder. Then, suddenly and without any warning or expression of emotion, she emptied the contents of her jug over his head.
Finally, more thorough analysis became possible. Even unprotected, I might live through this after all, Pliny realized. There was actually a bizarre logic behind what he was witnessing. They have a plan, he told himself. And the implications for the future of man were terrifying.
Chapter 16
Adam Raised Cain
Things fall apart. The center cannot hold.
—William Butler Yeats
Things do not happen. Things are made to happen.
—John F. Kennedy
Show me the man and I’ll find you the crime.
—Lavrentiy Beria
In the Valley of the Morlocks
July 17, 1946
“Where’s Alpha?” Yanni asked. Her words were uttered in surprise, underscored by alarm. She and Mac had been shepherded by three Morlocks to a hill, along a path clear of grass mimics. As deeply as either of them could peer through the fog-suspended snow, they saw no sign of the giant.
This was the third time in two days that they had been taken out of their icehouse jail for what, at least on its surface, appeared to be the start of another leg-stretching exercise routine. During each outing, they were encouraged and even prodded to run through knee-deep dunes of snow. And each time, Alpha had led the way—until now.
Today they were led by a Morlock Yanni had never seen before, and accompanied by another Mac instantly recognized by a distinctive irregularity in the hair along one side of his face.
“W
hat’s wrong?” Yanni asked.
“Scarface here,” Mac said, “is the asshole who—” He stopped short, having just taken a hard jab to the kidney. Do these things murder each other, too? he asked himself. Is Alpha even alive?
Though this new dilemma was bad enough, Mac realized that something more subtle had been troubling him. While Yanni still reeked of Alpha musk, even from two arm lengths away, he’d noticed that neither of them stank quite so much as the day before, or the day before that. He glanced around, looking for grass mimics—thankful that the repellent was still working—for now.
Without any threatening sounds, without any warning at all, Mac was grabbed from behind and forced face-first down into the snow.
Within that same moment, Yanni was lifted off the ground and, turning toward Mac, watched as dozens of snowflake mimics swarmed away from his face, separating themselves from the real snow that only partially obscured his features. The Morlock who held Yanni let out a series of whistles that sounded to her like approval—as if some sort of test were taking place, the nature of which was utterly inexplicable. What had become clear was a feeling that their chances of ever leaving this valley alive had just descended deeper into what her late husband would have designated as “the shitter.”
“Mac?” she called out, recognizing that his abuser was the one he had come to call “Scarface.”
“Listen, Yanni, just roll with it,” he managed, as the beast hoisted him up under one arm and set off at a jog.
The last thing Yanni wondered, before Mac and Scarface disappeared into the mist, was whether those would be the last words she ever heard from him.
