by Adam Vance
“Same old story everywhere,” Archambault muttered. “The rich get richer…”
The one constant from poor to rich zones were the lampposts. They were all the same black metal, with an unlit lamp on top, completely anachronistic among the wood and stone buildings. The lamps ran down all the major avenues, and the seven significant cross streets.
They watched the festival from a side street long enough to be able to mimic the dances, well enough, anyway to get into the crowd. Years of hands-on anthropology and sociology were paying off yet again for FJ One.
The poor were relegated to the back of the line streaming towards the temple, which enabled FJ One, already dressed in the poor’s clothes, to remain at the very back, unobtrusive, and unnoticed.
The crowd got denser, as they squeezed together near the temple. It was a ziggurat mimicking the shape of the mountain behind it. Even from a distance, the team could see the priests on the stairs to the temple, clad in brilliant gold – they were the only ones wearing that color.
The high priest held his hands up for silence and began to speak, his voice magnified by an unseen source. The team looked at each other. It wasn’t a natural sound projection.
His gestures and voice were indicative of what 6C had classified as “dynamic leadership.” Which could mean anything from messianic to totalitarian to revolutionary, but definitely the tones and gestures associated across the galaxy with “true believers,” the ones who have all the answers already, and may the local god help anyone who disagrees.
Some of his statements were met with cheers, others with boos (clearly aimed at the Other, whoever that might be around here), and then, as he reached a crescendo, he did a “wait for it” moment with his arms raised.
The whole city went silent. Then he slammed them down as if starting a race.
Every torch fell to the ground, and the natives pulled off their festive cloaks and threw them over the torches, smothering them.
“Look up there,” Hewitt whispered. “Over the mountain.”
The full moon was sitting precisely on the tip of the mountain, like a lunar Stonehenge, and gave out the only light other than the white foam of the long thin waterfall.
Then the silence was broken, as the whole city began to chant in unison, a three syllable sound, over and over, a whisper building to a scream.
“Ahh uhh AKK, Ahh uhh AKK, Ahh uhh AKK…” The marching bands started banging their rocks together again, a deafening racket that anyone within twenty miles could surely hear.
Then another sound rose, not rhythmic but steady, deep and monotonous.
That was when the waterfall began to flow.
It was like a dam breaking, megatons of water suddenly released from within the mountain. But it didn’t flood the valley – the reservoir behind the temple filled first, and then the water rushed out of the base of the temple, the level of the Grand Canal filling with a flash flood. The screaming and rock banging becomes orgasmic.
The water didn’t rise over the banks, though – its release had been precisely calculated to irrigate, not inundate, the city.
And as the first wave of water traveled down the main canal, the lampposts began to light up, one by one, exactly as the water reached their position. They were brilliant yellow incandescent light, lavishly energy-wasting bulbs.
On every avenue, as the city’s waterways filled up, the lights came on. Then, the canals full, the water began to leave the city, spreading out to flood the fertile delta, bringing light and life into the darkened world.
“Jesus,” Cruz said with a start. “That’s what they’re saying. That chant. Ah, ooh, uh…They’re trying to say…Alex.”
Chen nodded grimly. “Yeah. Marcus,” he said, knowing the young man was monitoring their comms, “it looks like you were right about that machinae deus…”
CHAPTER FIVE – BEHIND THE MASK
Two days after her encounter with Vai Ranza, her cabin shuddered. We’re docking with something, she guessed.
Sure enough, a few minutes later, the door opened and she had a new visitor. This Rhal was dressed in an elegantly draped set of robes crisscrossing her chest and falling to floor length, similar to the priest’s, but hers were red and blue – the exact same red as the military uniforms she’d seen in the films.
The visitor had a smooth, polished female voice, emitting from a device at her throat. “Director McAllister, I am DuVai Kottaka, wifemate to Vai Kotta. Welcome to Rhalbazan.” She inclined her head slightly.
“Thank you,” HM replied, returning the motion.
“We’ve prepared a welcome for you, and His Imperial Highness the RhalVai Jekta is eager to meet you. If you would…”
“Of course. Please, just give me a moment to change. Won’t you have a glass of water while you wait?”
The DuVai waved the idea away. “Thank you, I’m fine.”
HM changed into her briskest-looking black skirt and jacket, with a white blouse. Basic, simple, businesslike.
She followed the DuVai out into a hallway, speculating on the method of her arrival. They hadn’t wanted her to see anything between the pickup on Earth and the arrival on the planet. But now she’d meet the real “Majesty,” after having seen so many idealized representations in the movies.
At last she was getting some first-hand sensory data. They were walking down a splendid colonnade, red marble pillars along its edge, and she was able to see a large garden several floors below. The air was hot and very dry, probably about 40 Celsius. She took in as much of the gardens as she could at the brisk pace at which the DuVai was shepherding her.
It was more like a xeriscape or a Zen garden than an old-school European palace garden. It was rocky and sandy, with no benches or seats…but lots of hot flat rocks, the sort on which a lizard would sun itself. Interesting…
“The formal motions of approaching the Imperial Highness are as follows,” and there was a great deal about the pace at which one was to walk, the incline of the head (don’t make eye contact until the RhalVai speaks to you), etc., the formal obeisance to be made at the foot of the throne.
As they approached a set of towering double doors, they opened inward, revealing a massive reception hall. There was a long purple carpet leading down the hall, at least 50 meters from door to throne. The roof was 100 meters or more above, decorated with frescos of figures and scenes she didn’t have time to examine. Four massive purple pillars, similar to the stone of the colonnade, dominated the room, two on each side of the elevated platform on which sat the throne, and RhalVai Jekta, like the Wizard of Oz. It was revolting, the hugeness of it all, the waste, the waste…
There were hundreds of Rhal in the room, and she noted the changing spectrum of their gowns as she approached the throne, glad for the need to avoid the RhalVai’s eyes. Near the door, robes in earth tones prevailed, tan, brown and pale yellow, their wearers sporting thin silver or gold necklaces with small discs emblazoned with symbols.
Further down the carpet, the colors graduated to solid hunter green robes, then green and navy blue pairings, then solid blue, then blue and orange. Then there were the priests, wearing solid orange, until you got to the (she presumed) archbishops and whatnot, including the ArcVai beyond them in orange and red.
Finally, there were the Vai, the generals, in their blazing red uniforms. The others along her route had their best court smiles on, but these men had, at best, stone faces when she met their eyes. And open hostility on many, she noted…
When she reached the ten wide slate steps leading up to the throne, she stopped. She’d seen media orbs floating around, their lenses and mikes tracking her down the carpet.
The formal obeisance, the DuVai had told her, was to go to her knees and then flatten herself out on the wide steps, in a gesture of total subjugation. But she was pretty sure that this feed would be shown on Earth, and that would not do.
She bowed deeply, but remained standing. Instead, she bowed as deeply and as gracefully as a courtier at Versailles
, elegant and deferential but that was it. A murmur of shock and consternation rippled through the room.
But the RhalVai held up a hand and the silence was immediate. “Welcome, Director,” he said in a rich, warm voice. “My court is shocked at your breach of protocol, but of course, you are our guest, not our subject, and it’s not fit that you prostrate yourself.”
The instant reversal of opinion in the room was interesting, indeed. Suddenly all those who’d been mortified began to applaud. Well, other than the generals, she noted.
The formalities were exchanged, blah blah, peace and friendship, productive relationship. She didn’t ask how long she’d be here or what she was going be doing or what was going on back on Earth…none of those questions would ever be answered in such a situation. Instead she tried to get the measure of RhalVai Jekta. He had charisma, charm, and when he rose from the throne, the generals were the fastest to fall to their knees.
“I look forward to meeting with you again very soon, Director.”
“The honor would be mine, your Majesty.”
And with a sweep of the robes he was gone.
DuVai Kottaka was at her side immediately, the media orbs clustering in front of them, time for a photo op to show the folks back home how nice this all was…
As they posed for the vids, HM took her chance. She reached for the DuVai’s hand and grabbed it.
The room froze. She knew the Rhal didn’t like to be touched, or had said they didn’t, anyway. But with the cameras on them, the DuVai had no choice but to remain perfectly still, as HM’s human hand intertwined not with the soft hands of the avatar, but with a scaly, long-clawed lizard limb.
“I know,” she whispered without moving her lips. “You can drop the mask.”
The pain was intense as the DuVai’s claws dug into her palm, but the smile never left her “face.”
Then the orbs whisked away and the DuVai nearly shoved her back down the carpet and out the door, the courtiers suddenly composing themselves into huddled conversations as if the DuVai and her guest were invisible.
Back in her room, the DuVai dropped the mask.
HM had dedicated her life to understanding the mindsets of other races, their cultures, their traditions, to appreciating the diversity of life forms across the galaxy, and the shared traits of tool-using people everywhere, and yet, when she saw her first Rhal, she could only muster one thought.
Fuck, they’re ugly.
The DuVai had the head of a crocodile, flat headed with a long…well, it was more a beak than the crocodile’s jaw, but a beak with lips that enabled her to form complex speech. The pupils were round, but HM presumed that was because she was angry; they would probably revert to the typical reptilian vertical slit. The ears were flat with small lobes, both of which were pierced and sported large diamonds. The skin was green and scaly, with protrusions that HM presumed were breasts beneath the gown.
“You are too clever for your own good,” she hissed, still speaking English, but with the “friendly alien” modulator disengaged, the voice was guttural, and terrifying at the most primal human level.
“Vai Kotta may be your protector, but he’s not here. Watch your step,” she finished, whipping around and dashing out of the room.
It was that last bit that was most surprising…baffling, really. Vai Kotta was Earth’s conqueror, and the DuVai was his “wifemate.” And yet, the DuVai considered HM’s kidnapper to be her protector? Was his own wife his enemy? It left her with much to ponder on…
CHAPTER SIX – WELCOME TO ALEXIA
Once the water started flowing down the canals, all order dissolved, and the crowds mingled with no regard to wealth or rank. The stones that had been knocked together were dropped to the ground, and skins that were obviously full of the local liquor were being handed around.
The team slipped through the crowd towards the temple, with no firm plan of what to do when they got there. Then they lucked out.
Three drunk priests were stumbling down an alley, laughing and falling. They wore the same gold cloaks as the priest who’d “brought” the flood.
“We need to disable them,” Chen whispered. “Don’t break anything if you don’t have to. They’re Alex’s priests, after all, and we don’t want to piss him off.”
They waited around the corners, Chen and Kaplan on one side, Archambault and Cruz on the other, with Hewitt the designated lookout. As the priests came out of the alley, the team jumped them, Chen and Kaplan taking the biggest one together.
Their shrieks were piercing, shocked, then enraged. They were shorter than the humans, but more powerfully built in the torso, and what worked in human hand-to-hand combat was soon clearly not going to cut it here. While the natives walked erect for the most part, now they went to all fours, reverting to their simian roots.
The big priest wriggled out of Chen and Kaplan’s grasp, bounded away a few meters, and then screamed as he launched himself through the air at Chen. His speed and mass would have flattened Chen if he hadn’t dropped and rolled out of the way. The priest got a good punch in to Kaplan’s stomach as it danced past him.
Archambault and Cruz were having somewhat better luck with the other two smaller priests. But as the humans sat on their chests and fumbled for zip ties, they screamed and clawed and tried to bite their captors.
Hewitt abandoned his lookout post to assist Archambault, then Cruz. He jumped up and down next to their semi-captives and screamed, mimicking their own cries, waving his arms over his head, a big stick on one hand. In turn, each priest calmed down, made small ooh-ooh noises and turned their heads away from Hewitt, long enough for him to stick them with a universal sedative.
Chen and Kaplan had their hands full with the alpha. He was faster than they were, and he could have bounded away and sought help, but that clearly wasn’t coded into them – fight, not flight, was the default.
“Medical, do you play darts?” Chen asked as the priest clambered up a pile of barrels, ready to jump from there onto his enemies.
“Not well, sir.”
The priest watched his opponent like a tennis player, looking for the first little tell as to which direction he’d go, then slamming the ball in the opposite direction. Chen feinted to his right, and then moved left as the priest pounced, but the priest had guessed his intent and landed on him, hard.
Chen threw his hands up to protect his face as the beast started pounding Chen with his fists, left right left right. Kaplan jumped on his back, trying to get a chokehold. But the beast shook him off, whipped around, picked him up and threw him five meters away, and renewed his assault on Chen.
Then the priest cried out, whipped around, and leapt off him towards a new enemy.
Halfway towards Archambault, he stumbled and fell down, out cold, a sedative dart stuck in the back of its neck.
Archambault grinned. “I was All-European Pub champion,” she explained.
Kaplan got up from the pile of debris where the priest had thrown him, dusting himself off. “Don’t you have to be drunk to win that?”
“Yep. You’ve got to drink a mandatory one pint per round. If you wanna show off, you do a shot as well.”
“My team’s skill set never ceases to amaze me,” Chen said, taking Kaplan and Hewitt’s outstretched hands as they pulled him to his feet. “Let’s get those cloaks on.”
“That symbol…” Archambault said as they removed the cloaks. “I know that…”
Chen examined the cloak, and the symbol on it.
It was an outline of an ovoid head, two circles where eyes would be on a human head, cone-like ears sticking out, and tufts of Einsteinian hair flying out above those.
Dieter Chen looked about thirty-five, an age he’d determined was just about right for an active authority figure – old enough to be experienced and young enough to still be flexible and capable of fast action. But that was thanks to the Lazarex treatments that enabled him to choose his level of rejuvenation, and he was actually pushing ninety years old now. Wh
ich was old enough to remember a lot of things that had faded from popular memory.
“It’s a corporate logo,” he said. “Or a very simplified version, at any rate. From when Alex was a ‘virtual friend,’ a simple consumer AI you could buy to entertain you.”
“So he’s using his old corporate logo as his…cross, or star, or whatever? His primary religious symbol?”
“Yeah,” Chen said, the wheels turning in his mind.
“From my medical perspective?” Hewitt ventured. “I’d say that means one of two things. Either Alex has a strange sense of humor…or he’s batshit crazy.”
Chen nodded. That seemed to cover the options.
Chen, Kaplan and Cruz put on the cloaks, leaving Hewitt and Archambault to cover the temple entrance. Chen figured that he was most likely to need Kaplan to understand the mechanisms of the flood, not to mention the guts of any AI or NAI system within. And of course Weapons Sergeant Cruz was their best fighter, and these priests were clearly nothing to mess with.
The plaza in front of the temple was deserted. The crowds had rushed down the avenues, following the water, out of the city. Chen guessed that watching the fertile delta flood, the harvest guaranteed for another year, was the high point of the festival.
They walked up the steps to the platform from which the priest had delivered his sermon. The mouth of the temple was open, unguarded.
The interior was what he’d expected, the typical religious setup – an altar, torches, incense, and that corporate logo, chiseled into the stone above the altar.
“Let’s see if this is all there is,” Chen said. “Spread out, look for seams in the stone, secret passages, that sort of thing.”
It didn’t take long. Cruz pressed against one of the monolithic stones that made up the wall behind the altar. It opened so smoothly and silently that he had to call out to the others to let them know. The door revealed a long tunnel, lit with an endless string of LED lights along the walls.
