SANDSTORM sf-1

by James Rollins

  “What will happen?” Safia asked.

  Coral explained, “Have you ever seen an overloaded transformer blow? It can take out an entire power pole. Now picture one the size of this cavern. One with a concentrated antimatter core. It has the capability of taking out the entire Arabian Peninsula.”

  The sobering thought silenced them all.

  Safia watched the vortex of energies churn. The funnel in the center continued to drop, slowly, inexorably. Primitive fear laced through her.

  “So what can we do?” This question came from an unlikely source. Cassandra. She pulled up her night-vision goggles. “We have to stop this.”

  Omaha scoffed. “Like you want to help?”

  “I don’t want to die. I’m not insane.”

  “Just evil,” Omaha muttered.

  “I prefer the word ‘opportunistic.’ ” She directed her attention back to Coral. “Well?”

  Coral shook her head.

  “We ground it,” Painter said. “If this glass bubble is the insulator for this energy, then we need to find a way to shatter the bubble’s underside, ground the electrical storm, send its energy into the earth.”

  “It’s not a bad theory, Commander,” Coral said. “Especially if you could break the glass under the lake itself, get the antimatter waters to drain into the original Earth-generated water system from whence it came. Not only would the energy dissipate, but it would lessen the risk of an antimatter chain reaction. The enriched waters would simply dilute away to the point of impotency.”

  Safia felt a glimmer of hope. It didn’t last past Coral’s next words.

  “It’s the practical application of that plan that’s the big problem. We don’t have a bomb massive enough to blow out the bottom of the lake.”

  For the next few minutes, Safia listened to the discussions of possible explosive devices while knowing what lay implanted in her own neck, knowing what had happened back in Tel Aviv, back at the British Museum. Bombs marked the turning points in her life. They might as well mark her end. The threat should have terrified her, but she was beyond fear.

  She closed her eyes.

  She half noted the various ideas being bandied aloud, from rocket-propelled grenades even to the bit of C4 in her neck.

  “There’s nothing here strong enough,” Coral said.

  “Yes, there is,” Safia said, opening her eyes. She remembered the blast at the British Museum. She pointed down into the courtyard. “It’s not a camel, but it may do.”

  The others stared where she pointed.

  To the giant iron sphere resting in the glass palm.

  “We sink it into the lake,” Safia said.

  “The world’s largest depth charge,” Danny said.

  “But how do you know it will explode like the camel?” Coral asked. “It might just fizzle like the iron maiden. These iron artifacts don’t all function the same way.”

  “I’ll show you,” Safia said.

  She turned and led the way back down the stairs. Once in the main room, she waved to each of the sand-painted walls. “Opposite the entry is the first Ubar, a rendering of its discovery. Over on that far wall is the depiction of Ubar above. Its face to the world. And this wall, of course, is the true heart of Ubar, its pillared glass city.” She touched the painting of the palace. “The detail is amazing, even down to the sandstone statues guarding the entrance. But on this picture both statues are shown.”

  “Because one was used as a vessel for the first key,” Omaha said.

  Safia nodded. “This depiction was done obviously before the destruction. But note what’s missing. No iron sphere. No glass palm. In the center of the painting’s courtyard stands the queen of Ubar. A place of prominence and importance. X marks the spot, so to speak.”

  “What do you mean?” Cassandra asked.

  Safia had to bite back a sneer. Her effort to save her friends, to save Arabia, would also be saving Cassandra. Safia continued, not meeting the woman’s eye. “Symmetry was important in the past. Balance in all things. The new object was placed on a site that matches the position of the queen in the rendering. A place of distinction. It must be important.”

  Omaha turned, staring out the entry to the iron sphere. “Even the way the palm is positioned. If you straightened the wrist, it would be like she’s throwing the sphere toward the lake.”

  Safia faced them all. “It’s the queen’s last key. A failsafe. A bomb left to destroy the lake if needed.”

  “But can you be sure?” Painter asked.

  “What does it hurt to try?” Omaha countered. “Either it works or it doesn’t.”

  Coral had wandered to the entrance. “If we’re going to try this, we’d better hurry.”

  Safia and the others crowded forward.

  In the center of the cavern, a glowing funnel cloud twisted and writhed.

  Below it, the antimatter lake had begun to churn, matching the vortex on the roof.

  “What do we do first?” Painter asked.

  “I have to place my hands on the sphere,” Safia said. “Activate it like all the other keys.”

  “Then we get the ball rolling,” Omaha said.

  7:35 P.M.

  OMAHA STOODon the sandy path out in the courtyard. It had taken a minute to sweep the trail so it reached the cradled sphere. Safia stood before the four-foot-wide globe of red iron.

  The skies raged above.

  Safia approached the sphere. She rubbed her palms, then reached between the glass fingers of the sculpture.

  Omaha saw her shoulder flinch, the bullet wound paining her. He wanted to rush to her side, pull her away, but she bit her lower lip and placed both palms on the sphere.

  As her skin touched metal, a crackling blue flash arced over the iron’s surface. Safia flew back with a yelp.

  Omaha caught her in his arms and helped her gain her feet on the sand.

  “Thanks.”

  “Sure, babe.” He kept one arm around her and helped her back to the palace. She leaned on him. It felt good.

  “The grenade is set on a two-minute timer,” Painter said. “Get to cover.” He had planted the explosive charge at the base of the sculpture. The plan was to blast the sphere free.

  Gravity would do the rest. The avenue beyond the palace flowed all the way to the lake. Purposeful, Safia had said. The ball, once freed, was meant to roll to the lake on its own.

  Omaha helped Safia back into the main room.

  A blindingly bright flash flared behind them, burning their shadows on the far wall of the main room. Omaha gasped, fearing it was the grenade.

  He jerked Safia to the side, but there was no explosion.

  “One of the static bolts,” Coral said, rubbing her eyes. “It struck the sphere.”

  Safia and Omaha swung around. Out in the courtyard, the iron’s surface shimmered with blue energies. They watched the glass sculpture melt slowly, tilting on its own. The hand spilled the ball onto the courtyard floor. It bobbled, then rolled toward the arched entry.

  It passed through and continued on.

  Coral sighed. “Beautiful.” Omaha had never heard so much respect uttered in one word.

  He nodded. “That queen would have made a great professional bowler.”

  “Down!” Painter shoved them all to the side, clotheslining Omaha across the neck.

  The explosion deafened. Glass shards spattered into the room from the courtyard outside. Painter’s grenade had gone off on schedule.

  As the blast echoed away, Omaha met his eyes. “Good job there.” He patted Painter on the shoulder. “Good job.”

  “It’s still rolling!” Danny called from above.

  They all hurried up the stairs to the upper balcony, where everyone else was gathered.

  Omaha pushed forward with Safia.

  The course of the iron sphere was easy to follow. Its movement drew bolts from the roof, zapping it again and again. Its surface glowed with a cerulean aura. It bounced, rolled, and wended its way down the royal avenu
e.

  Forked lightning struck and dazzled-but it kept rolling to the lake.

  “It’s energizing itself,” Coral said. “Drawing power into it.”

  “Becoming the depth charge,” Danny said.

  “What if it blows up as soon as it touches the lake?” Clay asked, hanging back, ready to duck into the palace at the first sign of trouble.

  Coral shook her head. “As long as it keeps dropping, moving through the water, it’ll only leave a trail of annihilation. But the reaction will end as soon as the ball moves on.”

  “But when it stops, rests at the bottom…” Danny said.

  Coral finished: “Then the weight of all the water above it, pressing on the stationary object, will trigger a localized chain reaction. Enough to light the proverbial fuse on our depth charge.”

  “Then boom,” Danny said.

  “Boom indeed,” Coral concurred.

  All eyes remained on the glowing ball.

  All eyes saw it reach the halfway point, roll along a ramp, hit a tumbled pile of debris from Cassandra’s bombardment… and stop.

  “Shit,” Danny mumbled.

  “Shit indeed,” Coral concurred.

  7:43 P.M.

  SAFIA STOODwith the others on the balcony, as dismayed as the rest. Arguments raged around her.

  “What about using one of the RPGs?” Cassandra asked, staring through her night-vision goggles.

  “Shoot a grenade at an energized antimatter bomb?” Omaha said. “Yeah, let’s do that.”

  “And if you miss the debris pile,” Painter said, “you’ll bring down another wall and block the road even more. Right now, it’s only hung up. If it could be rolled aside a couple of feet…”

  Cassandra sighed. Safia noted the woman’s finger still pressed the transmitter, protecting it from anyone’s reach. Cassandra could definitely focus. With all that was going on, all the danger, she was not letting go of her trump card, keeping it in play, clearly intending to use it if everything worked out. She was a stubborn fighter.

  Then again, so was Safia.

  Clay held his arms crossed over his chest. “What we need is someone to go out and give it a good push.”

  “Feel free to try,” Cassandra said with clear disdain. “The first sign of movement and you’ll be bathing in molten glass.”

  Coral stirred, previously lost in deep thought. “Of course. It’s movement that draws the bolts, like the rolling ball.”

  “Or my men,” Cassandra added.

  “The bolts must be attracted to shifts in some electromagnetic field, a giant motion-detecting field.” Coral stared down. “But what if someone could move through the field unseen? ”

  “How?” Painter asked.

  Coral glanced to the hodja and the other Rahim. “They can be unseen when they want to be.”

  “But that’s not physical,” Painter said. “It’s some way they affect the viewer’s mind, clouding perception.”

  “Yes, but how do they do that?”

  No one answered.

  Coral stared around, then straightened. “Oh, I never told you.”

  “You know?” Painter said.

  Coral nodded and glanced at Safia, then away. “I studied their blood.”

  Safia remembered Coral had been about to mention something about that when Cassandra’s forces had attacked. What was this about?

  Coral pointed toward the cavern. “Like the lake, the water in the Rahim’s red blood cells-all their cells and fluids, I imagine-is full of buckyballs.”

  “They have antimatter in them?” Omaha asked.

  “No, of course not. It’s just that their fluids have the capability of maintaining water in buckyball configurations. I wager the ability comes from some mutation in their mitochondrial DNA.”

  Dread grew in Safia’s chest. “What?”

  Painter touched her elbow. “A little slower.”

  Coral sighed. “Commander, remember the briefing on the Tunguska explosion in Russia? Mutations arose in flora and fauna of the area. The indigenous Evenk tribe developed genetic abnormalities in their blood, specifically their Rh factors. All caused by gamma radiation from antimatter annihilation.” She waved an arm out toward the storm raging. “The same here. For who knows how many generations, the population residing here has been exposed to gamma radiation. Then a pure bit of chance happened. Some woman developed a mutation-not in her own DNA, but the DNA in her cellular mitochondria.”

  “Mitochondria?” Safia asked, trying to remember her basic biology.

  “They are the small organelles inside all cells, floating in the cytoplasm, little engines that produce cellular energy. They’re a cell’s batteries, to use a crude analogy. But they have their own DNA, independent of a person’s genetic code. It is believed that mitochondria were once some type of bacteria that absorbed into mammalian cells during evolution. The little bit of DNA is left over from the mitochondria’s former independent life. And as mitochondria are found only in the cytoplasm of cells, it is the mitochondria of a mother’s egg that becomes the mitochondria of the child. That’s why the ability passes only through the queen’s line.”

  Coral swept a hand over the Rahim.

  “And it is these mitochondria that mutated from the gamma radiation?” Omaha asked.

  “Yes. A minor mutation. The mitochondria still produce energy for the cell, but it also produces a little spark to actively maintain buckyball configuration, giving it a little juice. I wager this effect has something to do with the energy fields in this chamber. The mitochondria are attuned to it, aligning the charge of a buckyball to match the energy here.”

  “And these charged buckyballs give these women some mental powers?” Painter asked, incredulous.

  “The brain is ninety percent water,” Coral said. “Charge that system up with buckyballs and anything could happen. We’ve seen the women’s ability to affect magnetic fields. This transmission of magnetic force, directed by human will and thought, seems to be able to affect the waters in the brains of lower creatures and somewhat upon us. Affecting our will and perception.”

  Coral’s eyes glanced to the Rahim. “And if focused inward, the magnetic force can stop meiosis in their own eggs, producing a self-fertilized egg. Asexual reproduction.”

  “Parthenogenesis,” Safia whispered.

  “Okay,” Painter said. “Even if I could accept all that, how does any of this get us out of this mess?”

  “Haven’t you been listening?” Coral asked, glancing over her shoulder to the vortex of storm, above and now stirring the lake. They were running out of time. Minutes only. “If one of the Rahim concentrates, she can attune herself to this energy, alter her magnetic force to match the electromagnetic detecting field. They should be able to walk through safely.”

  “How do they do that?”

  “By willing themselves invisible.”

  “Who would be willing to take that chance?” Omaha asked.

  The hodja stepped forward. “I will. I sense the truth in her words.”

  Coral took a deep breath, licked her lips, and spoke. “I’m afraid you’re too weak. And I don’t mean physically…at least not exactly.”

  Lu’lu frowned.

  Coral explained, “With the storm raging, the forces out there are intense. It will take more than experience. It will take someone extremely rich in buckyballs.”

  Turning, Coral’s eyes met Safia’s. “As you know, I tested several of the Rahim, including the elder here. They only have a tenth of the buckyballs found in your cells.”

  Safia frowned. “How is that possible? I’m only half Rahim.”

  “But the right half. Your mother was Rahim. It was her mitochondria that were passed to your cells. And there is a condition in nature called ‘hybrid vigor,’ where the crossing of two different lines produces stronger offspring than crossing the same line over and over again.”

  Danny nodded to the side. “Mutts are basically healthier than pure-breds.”

  “You’re
new blood,” Coral concluded. “And the mitochondria like it.”

  Omaha stepped to Safia’s side. “You want her to walk to the trapped sphere. Through that electrical storm.”

  Coral nodded. “I believe she’s the only one who could make it.”

  “Screw that,” Omaha said.

  Safia squeezed his elbow. “I’ll do it.”

  8:07 P.M.

  OMAHA WATCHEDSafia standing out on the sandy path in the courtyard. She had refused to let him come. She was alone with the hodja. So he waited in the entryway. Painter stood vigil with him. The man looked none too pleased with Safia’s choice either. In this, the two men were united.

  But this choice was Safia’s.

  Her argument was simple and irrefutable: Either it works or we all die anyway.

  So the men waited.

  Safia listened.

  “It is not hard,” the hodja said. “To become invisible is not a concentration of will. It is the letting go of will.”

  Safia frowned. But the hodja ’s words matched Coral’s. The mitochondria produced charged buckyballs aligned to the energy signature in the room. All she had to do was let them settle into their natural alignment.

  The hodja held out a hand. “First you’ll need to strip out of your clothes.”

  Safia glanced sharply at her.

  “Clothes affect our ability to turn invisible. If that woman scientist was right with all that mumbo jumbo, clothes might interfere with the field we generate over our bodies. Better safe than sorry.”

  Safia shed her cloak, kicked her boots off, and shimmied out of blouse and pants. In her bra and panties, she turned to Lu’lu. “Lycra and silk. I’m keeping them on.”

  She shrugged. “Now relax yourself. Find a place of comfort and peace.”

  Safia took deep breaths. After years of panic attacks, she had learned methods for centering herself. But it seemed too small, a pittance against the pressure around her.

  “You must have faith,” the hodja said. “In yourself. In your blood.”