Diaz seemed to weigh responses in her head a moment before settling on one. “Simple mistake, probably,” she said quietly. “It happens.”
“No, ma’am, this is not the result I got before!”
“Jain, enough,” Diaz said. “You probably plugged it in wrong the first time. Whatever, crisis averted, let’s move on.”
“Bullshit,” Harry said. “Crisis is not fucking averted, Maria. Jain here had my guys stop digging for an entire day, and then pulls this crap? You want a riot on your hands? You know these guys aren’t boy scouts!”
Diaz turned to the executive, lips pressed tight. “I’ve reviewed their records, Harry, and believe me, it took some reading. Now’s not the time for a critique of Billiton’s hiring practices.”
Harry turned red in the face, a vein on his forehead threatening to pop clear of his skull. “I want someone else leading this investigation,” he said, leaning over the colonel’s desk. “She can’t even manage a database search. She can’t handle it.”
Diaz came right back at him. “Well, that’s too bad, because she’s the most qualified person here to do it. And you’re gonna cooperate with her and Dr. Durand and Dr. Hiyashi to see this thing through. You got me?”
The look on Diaz’ face prompted Harry to straighten up again. “Don’t make me lodge a formal complaint, Maria.”
“Do what you want. Even if Houston launches a team out here tomorrow, they’re at least four weeks out. By then, either everything’s back to normal or Mars is split in two. Bitching about it won’t help, but knock yourself out.” Diaz leaned back in her chair with a satisfied smirk on her face.
Harry wheeled around and made for the exit. “Yuna, I want regular updates on this. Don’t let this get out of hand again,” he called out before the door slammed behind him. Shaila shook her head angrily. Figure he’d try to bribe her then, a few hours later, try to undermine her. Bastard.
Diaz broke the ensuing silence. “All right. Durand, Hiyashi: Figure out why this damn cave is emitting the same radiation as our reactor, and whether it’s a danger to anyone. Make sure the ‘bot you got is keyed on this signature. It goes down the hole first thing in the morning. And double check that new ravine for signs of it as well. Dismissed.”
Stephane and Yuna filed out, leaving Shaila to face her commanding officer. Diaz didn’t mince words.
“In exchange for some creative holo editing, you’re taking the ’bot to the cave tomorrow, and you’re taking Greene with you,” Diaz said. “He wants to holo it, and he’s promised not to air anything until we have our solution in hand. And as the leader of this little enterprise, you’re going to get your head on straight and give me that solution. Clear?”
Shaila’s protest raged against the inside of her skull: My head is on straight! She tamped it down quickly, however. “Aye, ma’am. If I may?”
“What?”
“Atlantis.”
At this, Diaz finally let her anger visibly slide off her face and body. “He’s been told not to ask about it, or the deal’s off.”
Shaila nodded, trying to keep her composure. “Thank you, ma’am.”
“Shit happens, Jain. I’m going to write this off as an unscheduled drill, and I’ll get Harry to play ball. But you gotta get this done for me. I’m running out of plays, and if Houston has to come out here and clean up our mess, we’re all screwed.”
Shaila nodded. “Aye, ma’am. Thank you, ma’am.”
A moment later, Shaila was striding through the command center and down the stairs, her hands shaking uncontrollably. She knew—just plain old knew—that she didn’t screw up a simple database search. She had run similar searches a million times before. She had run that search three or four times. And didn’t Yuna run a search while they were in the cave?
Shaila was so into her own head that she nearly plowed straight into Stephane, who had waited for her outside the mess hall. “Are you OK?” he asked, his face showing genuine concern.
Shaila’s voice was as dead as the planet and darker than the cave at night. “I’m fine. Excuse me.” She wheeled past him and took the stairs into the Hub, four at a time.
CHAPTER 8
March 6, 1779
The men of the Daedalus moved through the Venusian jungle as quietly as possible. The body of an important Va’hakri warrior—identified as such by Bacon due to the cloak of blue feathers and barbed spear adorning the corpse—was discovered just five minutes’ walk from the beach, confirming that the men of the Chance likely left naught but carnage in their wake. The Royal Navy men did not want to be seen as the second wave of attackers, and pointedly kept swords sheathed and muskets shouldered during the inland trek.
The sounds of the Venusian jungle were disturbing, full of strange twitters and buzzing, with the occasional, far-off grunt of some animal or a rapid rustling of nearby plants. Furthermore, the humid, fetid air left most of them gasping as the hour-long journey neared its end.
The next of the corpses appeared with the hazy light of day through the trees, and soon the Daedalus men were finding dead Va’hakri every fifty paces or so, then twenty, then ten. Grips were tightened around muskets, cutlasses loosed in sheathes, nerves and jitters heightened as alertness increased. Yet Weatherby wondered if there would be anything at all left to the village when they arrived. There was a prodigious number of bodies at this point; he counted at least thirty dead Venusians by the time Bacon announced the village was near.
“Finch!” Plumb called out from the lead, causing nearly the entire company of men to jump. “I see quarried stone here! What is this?”
Plumb waited—somewhat impatiently, Weatherby thought—next to the ruins of a short wall as he and Finch approached. Despite being overgrown with vines and other, stranger plants, Weatherby could see the outline of a structure of some sort, eroded by age. “I thought these little buggers didn’t cut stone like this,” Plumb said by way of greeting.
“They don’t, sir,” Finch huffed as he tried to catch his breath, then bending down to examine the stone carefully. “It’s far too old and worn to be recent work. I’ve heard some scholars suggest that the few ruins found upon Venus may be the remnants of outposts from either the Xan or the ancient Martians who disappeared long ago.”
Plumb cast a wary eye at the stone. “Just so long as they’re not around now,” he said as he began to walk again.
“Doubtful,” Finch responded as he and Weatherby followed. “Mars is a wasteland now, and the Xan do not venture past Saturn, except to their outpost on Callisto.”
“Aye, and we can’t venture there,” Plumb said disdainfully. “I never liked those Xan. Too damn mysterious, they are. Telling us where we can and can’t go.”
“Yes, well, they’re far more advanced than we, sir. And to be fair, they treat us better than we treat the Venusians,” Finch responded. Weatherby turned around to see Finch smiling at the first lieutenant, apparently enjoying the opportunity to challenge his views.
The gradual lightening of the clouds above was punctuated by the glow of fire ahead. It quickly became evident that this was more than a mere bonfire, and Plumb wisely counseled steadiness as they stepped into a clearing.
The entire village was ablaze.
There were roughly a dozen structures ringing the clearing, and another larger one in the center, all in various stages of destruction by flame. The bodies of several dozen Va’hakri were strewn about; some were burned, but it appeared most had fallen to blade or shot. As the group walked slowly forward, Weatherby blanched as he saw that the criminals who had attacked the village—certainly the men of the Chance—cared not as to whether women or children were harmed or killed.
Behind the village, shadowing it from the rising sun, were the vine-covered ruins of an ancient pyramid, the stones cracked and worn, yet piled more than three hundred feet high, in six different terraces. The top seemed to have held some kind of structure apart from this at some point, but all that could be discerned now was a pile of rubble of a
different sort from the pyramid itself. The ghosts of carvings could be seen upon the stones as the group drew closer to the village, but these were only vaguely present. Some seemed to depict man-like beings, but detail was erased long ago, it seemed, and all sense of scale in the images was lost to the ravages of time.
A few groans and croaks, laced with pain and agony, competed with the crackling of flames as the only sounds to be heard. They came from a bare handful of Va’hakri still alive; Weatherby saw no more than eight left, and most seemed at least bloodied, if not hobbled to some degree. They were tending to those with greater wounds, mourning their dead, and crying out to the cloudy skies above.
Then one of them saw the group of men in the clearing, pointed, and screamed. Almost as one, the Venusians took up their spears again and charged, their high-pitched croaking rasps prompting many of the men to take a few steps back despite their better numbers and arms.
One of the men—it was Smythe, of Weatherby’s division—immediately raised his musket to respond, but Plumb quickly reached out, grabbed the barrel of the gun and pointed it toward the ground. “Stand fast, man,” he said, then turned to the rest. “Throw down your arms, quickly, all of you!”
With only a moment’s hesitation—not to be disparaged in the least under the circumstances—the men put their muskets to the ground and exposed themselves to the onslaught. Thankfully, the Va’hakri took note of this, and the charge across the clearing transformed from a full run to a cautious approach, with their spears still pointed in the proper direction. Weatherby could see a few of the Venusians gesturing to him and some of the others, then fingering the few ornaments on their bodies as they croaked back and forth to one another; the reptilians saw and understood that, at the very least, this group of men was better dressed.
Finally, the two groups stood a mere ten feet apart and stared at each other for several long moments. Plumb finally broke the silence, turning to Finch while still keeping his eyes upon the angry Venusians. “Doctor, you wouldn’t know any words of Venusian, would you?”
Finch cleared his throat; he looked shaken and sallow. “A bare few, but I shall try.” The doctor pulled a small vial from his pocket and dabbed a bit of the liquid therein on his tongue. He then stepped forward, between Plumb and Weatherby, and began to speak in their odd croaking language: “Kahlak mu’u thal. Gareshn’ak Va’hakri’an uru nakha.”
At the very least, Finch’s attempt at communication did not prompt an immediate attack. A flurry of words erupted among the Va’hakri, with Finch responding as best he was able when queries were directed at him. The spears still pointed at the men, but those holding them were, at the very least, less tense. The largest of the Va’hakri, wearing a number of beaded items upon his head-frills and a short cape of blue feathers, began talking animatedly with Finch, gesturing angrily with his spear between the bodies of his fellows and the Royal Navy men.
“He is not entirely sure if we represent a threat, but will allow us to be judged by their…elder, I suppose, is the word. Priest, perhaps,” Finch reported after a few moments.
Before Finch could continue, an ancient, wizened Venusian appeared from a small gap in the base of the pyramid. This worthy appeared to have substantial rank amongst his people, for his headdress and cape contained a rainbow’s worth of colored feathers, and he was well draped in beads and stones as well. His reptilian eyes had bags beneath them, and his beak seemed dulled by years of use.
This elder began a slow croaking chant as he saw the dead Venusians, who were now being tended to by their brethren in the center of the village. As the dead were laid gently upon the ground, their limbs laid out in repose, the elder moved from one to the next, placing his hand upon the brow of each of the fallen. Each time he did so, Weatherby could see a large gemstone around the elder’s neck glow brightly. The young officer turned to Finch, who looked on with amazement.
“What are they doing?” Weatherby whispered.
Finch actually smiled. “Apparently, it is some ritual that has to do with joining the deceased with their ancestors. At first, I thought it simply a trite custom, rubbish really, but now I see it may be otherwise.”
“How so?”
The doctor pointed to the elder. “Note how he dips his fingers into his pouch before he touches each of the dead. I wager there is some alchemical solution therein, and it could conceivably allow him access to the dead Venusians’ memories. And if he’s able to store these memories in the stone….well, I dare say the Venusians may be far more advanced in the mystic arts than we’ve given them credit for!”
Weatherby watched, more reverently now, as the elder finished harvesting the memories of the fallen. Once finished, a number of the other Venusians present began to prepare the bodies for some sort of funerary rite, washing the bodies and adorning them with various flowers and leaves.
Whilst this was happening, the elder finally turned his attention toward the humans and their Va’hakri escorts. And it appeared he was not happy. The elder began gesturing wildly at the Va’hakri warrior who had held back from attacking. The warrior responded with seeming supplication, at one point kneeling before the elder and placing his spear upon the ground repeatedly.
“Doctor?” Weatherby whispered.
Finch, eyes narrowed as he followed the conversation, leaned in toward Weatherby. “I dare say we’ve impressed the young warrior there, as he’s arguing our case fairly well,” the doctor said. “Unfortunately, the elder is apparently quite fed up with humanity as a whole. He’s going on about broken agreements and dishonor, and there’s some sentiment amongst the other tribes that an example needs to be made.”
“I assume we’re to be the example,” Weatherby said, his calm belying the sudden stab of nervousness that rushed into his heart. He had no wish to quarrel with these unfortunate creatures, but self-preservation would certainly win out.
“That is certainly a possibility,” Finch said. “Our friend the warrior, there, is actually a fine advocate. He’s noted our willingness to lay down our arms and remain respectful during their memory harvest—their words, apparently—and our generally honorable behavior. The elder recognizes these acts, but still believes we would be of greater use to his people if…” Finch paused here. “Well, suffice to say, we wouldn’t survive what they have planned for us.”
At this, Plumb grew frustrated. “This isn’t going to work,” the first lieutenant grumbled. “Men, prepare yourselves. If they move toward us, attack at will and retreat to the ship.”
Finch wheeled upon him. “Sir, with due respect, this is a delicate situation. These people have seen an entire village massacred, and I believe only our continued honorable behavior has kept us alive to this point. Allow me to at least plead our case!”
Plumb opened his mouth, apparently quite ready to give Finch a solid dressing down, but then thought better of it. “You’ve one chance, Finch. Otherwise, we’re getting out of here, one way or another.”
“Even if it’s in a coffin?” Finch muttered. He then stepped forward toward the warrior and the elder. Immediately, dozens of spears and arrows were pointed at him, but he walked slowly, his hands raised and open. When he reached the warrior’s side, he went to his knees and prostrated himself as he had seen the warrior do earlier, prompting a snort of disdain from Plumb. Even Weatherby was taken aback at this—yes, there was something of nobility in the Venusians’ simple rites, but did diplomacy involve bowing and scraping before rank savages?
Yet Finch’s words, unintelligible to the rest of the men, seemed to have a softening effect on the Venusians. Spears were slowly lowered once more, arrows carefully stowed for the time being. The elder listened intently to Finch, then ultimately nodded. Finch turned and waved Plumb and Weatherby over. “I’ve managed to gain something of an audience for you,” he said to the two officers. “Please, try not to show disrespect, gentlemen.”
Plumb folded his arms and stood proudly before the elder half his size. “We’ve come to find out w
hat’s happened here,” he said, slowly and a touch louder than necessary. “We do not wish you harm.”
Finch began to translate, but the elder held up his hand. “I know your words,” the creature croaked in passable English. “But I do not know your minds. Great evil has been made on the Va’hakri tribe this night. If you are of this evil, we will kill you, even if we must die as well.”
To his credit, Plumb did his level best to assure the elder that they were not responsible for the atrocity, and pointed to their laying down of arms as proof. He also added that some of those responsible had been captured. This last point seemed to assuage the creature, and after a brief discussion, the Venusian spears were finally laid to rest. The old one slumped down upon the ground and began to weep, croaking again in seeming mourning. The croaks were soon echoed by the other Venusians present around the pyramid.
Oddly touched by this display, Weatherby knelt down on one knee to meet the elder’s gaze. “Can you tell us what has occurred?”
The frail little reptilian looked up at the young man with tearful eyes. “I am the elder of our tribe. We are the teachers of our kind. We keep the words and stories. And because we learn, we dealt with you and your people when you first came here, many long days ago,” the elder said. “When these men came last night to our village, this was normal. Many come from your stone villages seeking our plants or our defeated enemies to buy.”
Weatherby was startled that this creature might facilitate the enslavement of his own people, but he said nothing as the elder continued.
“The leader of this group was different. We saw he wore fine things. He spoke our words well. But if he knew our ways, why would he ask for the va’hakla?”
“Va’hakla?” Plumb repeated, looking over to Finch.
“A very rare flower, considered sacred by the Venusian people,” Finch said quietly. “The alchemical properties are said to be immense, particularly within the schools of healing and plant life, but there are very, very few flowers that are outside the control of the tribes.”
The Daedalus Incident Page 12
