by James Axler
The computer beeped, signaling it had completed the search. Lakesh and Kane leaned down, staring over Brigid's shoulders at the results.
"These are only possibilities," she said, nodding toward the three lines of copy glowing amber against black. "Defined within a thousand miles of Cobalt-ville in all directions."
Kane read aloud, '"NORAD Command, Cheyenne Mountain, Wyoming.'"
"Forget that place," Lakesh murmured, "it was a first-strike target."
"'Kirfland AFB, New Mexico,"' Kane continued. "What about that one?"
Lakesh shook his head. "Possibly parts of it survived somewhat intact, but I doubt it"
"'Nellis AFB Bombing and Gunnery Range—'"
Before Kane finished reading, Lakesh jerked up and back, his eyes widening behind his spectacles. He uttered a few words in a language Kane had heard him speak a few times under moments of stress.
Swiveling her chair, Brigid stared at him keenly. "What is it?"
The old man did not answer for a moment His lips worked as if he were dragging information out of the dim, dark recesses of his mind.
"Lakesh?" Brigid's voice held a challenging edge.
Dry-scrubbing his thin hair with gnarled fingers, Lakesh said in a distracted, husky whisper, "I know how Baron Cobalt found the place—my fault, my fault. I didn't have time to delete the files…"
Harshly, sharply, Kane snapped, "Talk sense."
Lakesh swallowed, squaring his shoulders. "I know where Baron Cobalt has established a new pro-cessing center. The Nellis Air Force Base in Groom Lake, Nevada."
He paused to inhale a deep, shuddery breath. "Dreamland. Area 51."
Chapter 19
It was impossible for the barons' eyes to widen, but they stared wide and unblinking as Balam glided farther into the room, leading the smaller figure by the hand.
The eight barons did nothing but gape in stupefied shock. Their bodies, their vocal cords and minds seemed paralyzed. Erica van Sloan watched their faces as they gazed at Balam, reminding her of babies trying to reason out the intricacies of a mirror. They saw their own reflections in Balam's blank, masklike face at once familiar and terrifyingly alien.
The barons were Balam and Balam was the barons. His fathomless black eyes surveyed them, and power seemed to pour forth, a naked strength far greater than the barons, the elite of the world, could ever aspire to achieve. It was a power that had seen epochs come and go, mighty empires rise and fall into ruins. In his eyes Erica saw the scorn, and a pride so old that the imperial dreams of the barons were but infantile fantasies beside it.
Balam came to a stop, yet somehow he continued to move. His huge eyes seemed to leap from his head and enter Erica's mind, enter all of their minds. Star-ing transfixed, she heard faint, agonized cries, and distantly she knew it had been torn from not only her lips, but those of the barons, as well.
An unreasoning, undiluted terror filled her, as if her consciousness were an empty cup. After a long, tormented moment of anticipation, a nonvoice insinuated itself into her brain. The voice was neither male nor female, young nor old, neither high nor deep.
You have squandered all that was given to you, came the words. Created to unify the Earth, to mingle my race's blood with that of humanity, to forge a tribe greater than the sum of its parts, you cast aside your legacy in favor of petty dreams and ambitions.
Faced with a crisis as are all races, you have bent your intellects to seeking individual advantage over your brethren. You are not a unified whole—you have fragmented yourselves, you scheme and plot. It is no wonder that you are now at the mercy of the humans you claim you rule. I propose to deal with the matter decisively and at once.
The image of the eyes withdrew, receded from Erica's mind, but she still felt Balam's presence there. All of the barons were gasping, their faces slick with sweat, their eyes glassy. The psionic address had shaken them severely. She recoiled from the sensation of queasiness awakening in her belly, and the sudden twinge of pain stabbing between her eyes. Judging by Balam's voice, his vocal cords were weak, if not atrophied, so it was no wonder he preferred telepathic communication. She shivered, her skin prickling as if ants crawled over it.
Erica dredged her memory for what she had been told about the Archons after her resurrection. She recalled how twentieth-century exobiologists had postulated that all Archons were anchored to one another through hyperspatial filaments of psionic energy, much like the hive mind of certain insect species.
Despite the fact she was still mentally reeling, not just from the telepathic communication but the sheer shock of actually being in the same room with Balam, she remembered more and more of those briefings— and the underlying reasons for creating hybrids. Theorists had argued about the insurmountable problems standing in the way of communicating with extraterrestrials. They had claimed that human beings would have nothing in common with alien life-forms, no matter how intelligent.
The theoreticians had overlooked the pivotal possibility that aliens would acknowledge the same problem and take measures to correct it. The Archons' solution was a long-range hybridization program, combining the genetic material of humankind with their own race to construct a biological bridge. From what Erica remembered, and the little she understood at the time, the program had been instituted hundreds of years ago, long before the nukecaust.
For that matter, it was still an open question long after the nukecaust. Were the Archons truly aliens, a species apart from humanity, or simply different? No one knew for certain if they had their origins on another planet, in another dimension or even another time plane.
Erica could only imagine the thoughts careening and colliding within the oversized craniums of the barons. For the entirety of their artificially prolonged lives, the barons believed they served the will of the Archons—or they convinced themselves they were the Directorate's servants, and therefore any action they undertook to safeguard their positions as the overlords of humankind was justified.
But their probing intelligence needed proof, and without it, doubt inevitably ate away the belief structure. With the events of the past year, the foundation had been weakened to the point of complete collapse. Although none of the barons spoke of it, they had ceased to subscribe to the belief in the Archons. In which case, they were no longer content with their roles as the plenipotentiaries of a higher, grander authority.
They had reached this conclusion tentatively, by degrees over a period of time. When they finally did, they were as absolutely certain of it as they had been certain of the existence of the Archon Directorate. Now, dealing with the appearance of Balam, their minds were in utter turmoil, fears, desires and thoughts all crashing into one another.
In other words, Erica reflected, trying to repress a sour smile, Daddy came home and found the house in a mess.
Baron Cobalt was the first to speak, gasping out a defense. "We have squandered nothing. We have the right to defend ourselves by any means we deem necessary."
Balam turned his immobile face to Cobalt. The baron struggled visibly to reclaim his dignity and choke down his fright. "I attempted only to restore our unity, to salvage something of what you had given us. It requires a single, strong vision, and that was mine."
Balam's lips did not move, but the thready non-voice said, The concept you proposed of a single governing power is a sound one. Yet a creature who schemes as you did, to make your brethren beggars at their own demise, to doom their dynasties, shall not serve as that power, as the imperator.
"I cannot be blamed for taking action."
You can be held responsible for putting a price on the lives of your brethren and therefore upon unity. Balam's expression did not alter, his facial muscles so much as twitch, yet Erica winced at the ferocity of his response, cringed from the contempt woven through it. You have allowed yourself to be corrupted by the very creatures you claim threaten you.
Baron Thulia spoke, his voice timid and trembling. He shivered violently.
Not in fear, but from an awe so deep it was almost a religious ecstasy. "Has the Directorate returned to punish the human insurgents, to avenge what the oligarchy has suffered at their vile hands?"
Revenge is the province of the human insurgents you despise, not of you. You were bred to allow logic to dictate your actions, not visceral emotion. Any emotion, particularly vengeance, leads only to a weakening of the will and infirmity of purpose.
Acts of rebellion and savagery are to be expected from the humans. You should not hate them because of it. If a wild animal chews off its own leg to free itself from a trap, you cannot blame the animal for acting like an animal. You cannot blame humans for behaving as humans.
Balam paused and added, But you can be blamed for behaving as humans.
Baron Cobalt's golden skin flushed dark, from either anger or humiliation. In a low, quaking voice he demanded, "How do you propose to deal with the matter?"
/ do not propose, came the wispy retort. It is done.
Balam gently pulled the small, hooded figure forward, and with one six-fingered hand pulled down his cowl. The revealed face was not anything like they expected. Though he was childlike in size, Erica had not seriously considered the figure was actually a child.
The boy looked to be about seven years of age, but the cherubic face beaming at them all was so androgynous Erica could not be sure if the child's sex was truly male. His skin was smooth, alabaster in hue, and his thick hair was pure warm silver, framing his full-cheeked face like the edges of a summertime cloud.
His big eyes seemed to shift with all colors like the dawn sky. They were old in his childish face, wise and sad in their wisdom. When he smiled upon Erica, his smile was more compassionate than if he shed tears.
In a soft, lisping voice, he said, "Hello. My name is Sam. I'm happy to meet you all, my brothers and sister."
Baron Sharpe stared goggle-eyed, then threw back his head and burst into a peal of high-pitched, nearly hysterical laughter. "A human child who calls us brothers! A human child will lead them!"
Baron Cobalt got to his feet in a rush, his face contorting in fury, foam flecking his lips. "Is this a joke?" he screeched. "You propose to place us beneath the rule of this apeling, (his…this human?"
He spoke the last word as though uttering the most obscene blasphemy ever conceived.
Unperturbed by Cobalt's outburst, Sam pulled out the vacant chair and tried to climb into it. He required Balam's help to do so. He looked ludicrous sitting there, his upper body barely visible above the rim of the table, like an infant in a high chair. In his lisping voice, Sam said, "Sit down, Baron Cobalt."
The baron tilted his head at an arrogant, challenging angle. Affecting to ignore Sam altogether, he directed his gaze toward Balam. "This is more than an insult, it is heresy to the doctrine of unification. You cannot possibly expect—"
Sam's eyes suddenly flared as if lightning flashed behind them. His lips parted. "Sit down."
The two words seemed to roll through the air like the brazen chime of a gong, echoing from the high ceiling and bouncing from corner to corner. Erica fancied she felt the vibrations in her bones.
Baron Cobalt's tirade clogged in his throat. He did not so much sit down in his chair as fall clumsily into it, as if he had been shoved. A glint of fear replaced the outrage, the arrogance in his eyes.
Calmly, Sam said, "I find the title of 'Imperator' rather archaic and a bit distasteful, but I will accept it only for the psychological weight it carries."
He smiled almost shyly and when he spoke again, his voice was different. Distantly, Erica realized he was manipulating the timbre and pitch so the vibrations would resonant sympathetically to the inner ear and stimulate the neuroenergy system.
"I recognize and appreciate all of your efforts to maintain order and stem the chaos. Some of the unfortunate events of the past year could not be foreseen—others were out of your control entirely. Whether by accident or design, the actions taken by a small group of rebels impacted directly on your limitations, and therefore you could only assume a reactive posture. All that will change."
Erica understood the implications of Sam's analysis. The barons, bred for brilliance, had emotional limitations placed upon their enormous intellects. They were captives of a remorseless mind-set that did not carry with it the simple comprehension of the importance to humans of individual liberty.
Smug in their hybrid arrogance, the barons did not understand that indoctrination and conditioning could be spread only so far among humans. Their inborn, inbred pride would not allow them to acknowledge this flaw in their reasoning.
"Order and security will be restored," Sam continued, "not just to the villes, but to the world. It is a task that I was bom to undertake and fulfill. It is not unification I speak of, but reunification. However, I am not so idealistic as to expect your complete support, at least not right away. But, by the same token, I will require your cooperation."
The last seemed to be directed solely at Baron Cobalt.
"I know all of you are consumed with curiosity about me, who I am and where I came from. All that you will learn in time. Until you prove yourselves trustworthy, suffice it to say that while the barons, as hybrids, were envisioned as the bridge between the old and new human, I symbolize what lies on the other side."
Silence settled on the council room like a heavy, sound-absorbent cloak. Sam, with Balam at his side, smiled disarmingly into the faces of the barons. One by one, hesitantly and a trifle fearfully, they returned the smile. As they did so, Sam nodded to each one in turn. When the smile reached Baron Cobalt, it was met with a sneer.
"Tell us, Imperator," Baron Cobalt said in a tone liquid with contempt, "the repercussions of any of us withholding our support and cooperation. Hypotheti-cally speaking, of course."
Sam's smile remained in place on his angelic face. "Obviously, those barons will not partake in the rich rewards that will be available after the program of reunification is complete. Hypothetically speaking, of course."
"You will take no action against dissenting baronies?" he added dryly.
"I didn't say that. In order for the program to succeed, there can be no dissension, no independent or individual agendas. As you said earlier, this is a matter of survival. There is an old human bromide that I find applicable— 'If we do not hang together, we shall surely hang separately.'"
"Ah." Baron Cobalt nodded in satisfaction as if he now comprehended everything. "We are either with you or against you, with no middle ground?"
"A bit more simplistic than I would have phrased it, but I can't argue with the substance."
Baron Cobalt pushed himself away from the table, standing in a swift, smooth motion. His eyes swept over the assembled barons. "All of you are fools if you grovel before this child, this human child, regardless of his mind tricks."
He pointed at Balam in accusation. "You seek to use us for some hidden purpose, like puppets or tools.
If you truly represented the Directorate, you would not resort to this kind of subterfuge.
"And if you do indeed represent the Directorate as you would have us believe, your reappearance at this juncture in our history is irrelevant. The barons have maintained order and kept the peace for nearly a hundred years.
"We hold the power. The people of the villes are conditioned to obey us. They are indoctrinated from the day of their birth to uphold the principles of unification set forth in the first council of Front Royal."
He slapped his chest. "We guide the destiny of humanity. We hold the reins of power, not you and not some mutant child."
Neither Balam nor Sam reacted. The barons averted their eyes. Baron Cobalt stalked imperiously around the table and toward the doorway. Without glancing behind him, he proclaimed, "I am not with you— therefore by your own definition, I am against you. If it is to be war, let it be so."
After he strode out into the corridor, the seven barons remained sitting, not speaking, their
eyes fixed on their hands, their laps, the tabletop, anywhere but in the direction of Sam and Balam.
The boy broke the silence by saying blandly, "I expected brother Cobalt to be a problem. He can be dealt with, never fear."
Slowly, the barons lifted their gazes. When Sam held their attention once more he said quietly, "I don't blame him, not really. If I were in his place— in all of your places, for that matter—I would demand some sort of proof that I am qualified to make policy. A pity he left us before that proof could be offered."
Sam wriggled off the chair and approached Erica, his little feet kicking at the hem of his robe. He extended an arm, one tiny hand reaching out from the belled sleeve of his robe. She noticed the unusual deep creases crisscrossing the pink palm. She also noticed a faint, overlapping pebbled pattern between the fingers, like a suggestion of scales. Erica tried to cringe, but all she achieved was spasmodic jerk of her head.
"What are you doing?" she croaked.
The boy smiled at her encouragingly. "Don't be afraid, Erica, not of me. Empty your heart and mind of fear."
His voice seemed to echo and vibrate around her skull. Instead of feeling fear or anger, she felt a chill of dread as she sat helpless, watching as the open pink hand reached for her. But there was no threat, no malice in the blank beauty of Sam's face. Only an aching pity and sadness shone in his eyes.
"Don't be afraid," he intoned. "As I will restore order, I will restore you."
His words echoed repeatedly, like the toll of a bell. She felt her soul being drawn out by his eyes, pulling into him, joining, intermingling, entwining it with his own spirit. There was a sensation of all sanity and stability crumbling beneath her.
The boy laid his open hand against Erica's chest, between her sagging, flaccid breasts. From it seeped a tingling warmth. The tingling swiftly built into a pins-and-needles sensation that spread out from her chest in waves, creeping into her limbs. She felt his mind fondle hers, a caress far more intimate than the touch of his hand.
Living, healing energy rippled through Erica's body, a vibrant, buoyant web suffusing every separate cell and atom, throbbing and pulsing through and around her.
