Outlander 05 - Parallax Red

by James Axler

  Patting Domi's right shoulder, he said, "The sun is going down, darlingest one. Let's go inside. They'll not try the road at night."

  "Wait a while longer," she replied. "Nothing else to do."

  Lakesh's thin lips quirked in a sad smile. Among the Cerberus polymath personnel, only Domi possessed no specific area of expertise. Half-feral, very nearly illiterate, she had arrived at the redoubt more or less by accident.

  .He had arranged for the escapes of the staff from various baronies when they ran afoul of one ville law or another. Domi's speciality lay in simple survival, and the injury she had recently suffered severely curtailed her skills in that.

  DeFore, the redoubt's medic, had rebuilt her shattered shoulder with an artificial ball-and-socket joint only a few days before. Any kind of major reconstructive surgery exacted an emotional toll, as well as a physical oneas Lakesh had reason to know.

  Upon his revival from cryogenic sleep, he had undergone several operations in order to prolong his life and his usefulness to the Program of Unification. His brown, glaucoma-afflicted eyes were replaced with new blue ones, his leaky old heart exchanged for a sound new one and his lungs changed out. The joints in his knees weren't the same as those he had been born with, either. Though his wrinkled, liver-spotted skin made him look exceptionally old, his physiology was that of a fifty-year-old man's.

  He swept his gaze again over the mountain peak looming above them. Lakesh's single purpose in life had been devoted to science, to dispelling the un-known, reasoning that was the only way to save the idiot, half-insane world from itself.

  For that purpose, he had studied most of his life, learned twelve languages and then left the country of his birth to work for what he truly believed was a way to restore sanity on earth. His devotion and belief had been as utterly and thoroughly betrayed as it was possible for a human being's to be and not commit suicide out of despair.

  Lakesh shivered again and winced as his half-healed abrasions pulled. Domi noticed the wince.

  "You go back," she said. "No reason for you to be out freezing ass off because of me."

  Domi's eyes suddenly widened, and she tilted her head in the direction of the road stretching away from the perimeter of the plateau. "Hear something."

  Lakesh strained his ears but heard nothing except the sighing of the wind. He didn't question her. If Domi claimed she heard a sound, then she heard it.

  A moment later, he detected a distant moaning drone, rising, falling, then rising again. As it grew louder, he recognized it as the noise made by a laboring engine as the vehicle upshifted, then downshifted.

  "It him!" Domi cried with relief, turning away from the precipice and striding swiftly to the point where the narrow road broadened onto the plateau.

  Lakesh followed her, noting wryly she had said "him" rather than "them." He called, "Be careful. We don't know who it is."

  "Who else it be?" she retorted.

  Who else indeed, thought Lakesh. As unlikely as it seemed, he didn't rule out the possibility of an assault force of Magistrates. There had been no Deathbird re-con flyovers, but he attributed that to the unpredictable down and updrafts swirling among the peaks of the Bitterroot Range. The reengineered Apache 64 gun-ships were rare, difficult to repair and almost impossible to replace. Cobaltville had already lost two of its fleet in the past six months, and Lakesh doubted that Abrams, the Magistrate Division administrator, would care to risk another one. An attack by land made the most strategic sense, and it was certainly the most cost-effective, in terms of ordnance.

  "Recognize engine sound," Domi piped up. "It himI mean themall right."

  Lakesh felt comforted by her assurances, but he didn't fully relax until the Hussar Hotspur's dull gray shape hove into view. The six-wheeled Land Rover was one of two all-terrain vehicles stowed in Cerberus. Its blocky, armored chassis was very unprepossessing, but it was a bit more maneuverable than the Sandcat on the mountain road.

  Kane braked the vehicle at the edge of the tarmac and opened the metal shutters of the driver's-side ob slit. Lakesh and Domi peered in. Though Brigid and Grant were dirt streaked, Kane looked as if he had just that moment climbed out of a barrel of flour.

  "Didn't have time to wash up," Kane said, speaking loudly in order to be heard over the controlled throb of the powerful engine.

  "I didn't expect you back so soon," replied Lakesh. "It's a five-hour trip down to the pass."

  Grant spoke up. "We finished early."

  Lakesh caught the cryptic note in Grant's voice. "What do you mean? Did you set the proximity sensors?"

  Kane gestured impatiently to the sec door. "Let us in and we'll explain."

  Lakesh regarded him doubtfully and he and Domi crossed the plateau to the door. He raised the control to the midway point, and the heavy vanadium panels creaked aside, folding one atop the other until the opening was wide enough to admit the Land Rover.

  Kane stopped just inside the door, and Brigid and Grant climbed out. He steered the vehicle down the twenty-foot-wide main corridor to the storage depot.

  Lakesh used the lever on the interior wall to close the sec door all the way. Painted beside it was a large, luridly colored illustration of a three-headed black hound. Fire and blood gushed between yellow fangs, the crimson eyes glared bright and baleful. Underneath it, in ornate Gothic script was written Cerberus.

  The painting had been done sometime prior to the nukecaust but after Lakesh's reassignment to the Anthill complex in South Dakota. Though he couldn't be positive, he figured Corporal Mooney was the artist, since its exaggerated exuberance seemed right out of the comic books he was so fond of reading. He had never considered having it removed. For one thing, the paints were indelible, and for another, it was Corporal Mooney's form of immortality. Besides, the image of Cerberus, the guardian of the gates of hell, represen-tated a visual symbol of the work to which Lakesh had devoted his life.

  He turned back to Grant and Brigid. Domi stood very close to Grant, beaming up into his face. He smiled nervously down at her, obviously discomfited by the adoration shining from her ruby eyes. Everyone in the redoubt knew she was in love with Grant and very jealous if she perceived he paid attention to another woman. Lakesh was also aware that the girl had tried in the past to seduce him, though as far as he knew, Grant had managed to evade her attempts.

  "You're all safe?" Lakesh asked.

  Brigid nodded. "Kane needs minor medical attention."

  "Why?"

  "A knife fight," Grant replied matter-of-factly.

  Lakesh's eyebrows rose toward his hairline. "A knife fight? With whom? The country beyond the foothills is unpopulated for at least a hundred miles. There's no one around except for"

  He broke off, frowned, then groaned. "Not the Indians. Please don't tell me Kane made enemies of the Indians."

  "No," replied Brigid with a smile. "But Indians were involved."

  As they walked along the corridor made of softly gleaming alloy, beneath curved support ribs of metal, Brigid related all that had happened to them since they arrived in the pass at midmorning.

  Lakesh listened without interruption, tugging at his long nose in bemusement. As Brigid concluded her report, he said, "I didn't envision blocking ingress to the redoubt in such a manner, but that's not a new experience. Nothing I conceive ever seems to match its eventual reality."

  "Kane is accustomed to improvising," Grant said a bit defensively.

  "You called it something else a few hours ago," Brigid remarked. "Anyway, it's the end result that is important."

  Lakesh nodded. "Except in this instance, the end result may hem us up here without a viable escape route."

  "We'll just have to improvise another," announced Kane, walking out of the vehicle depot. Everyone caught his sarcastic emphasis on "improvise."

  Lakesh gazed at him sourly. "Other than parachuting off the peak, what do you propose, friend Kane?"

  Kane's eyes went thoughtful. "That's really not a bad concept."

&
nbsp; Domi shifted uncomfortably, working her right shoulder as best she could within the confines of the brace.

  Grant asked, "You all right?"

  "Hurts a little," she admitted. "Tight."

  "DeFore should take a look at it," said Brigid sympathetically.

  Suddenly Bry's voice cut down the corridor from behind them. "Sir! There's something I think you should see."

  The slight, round-shouldered man sounded agitated, which was not particularly unusual. He always sounded as if he were on the verge of nervous collapse. He poked his head out of the doorway of the control complex, running a thin-fingered hand through his copper-colored curls.

  "What is it?" asked Lakesh, deliberately affecting a calm, almost bored cadence in counterpoint to Bry's stressed tone.

  "We've got activity on the mat-trans network," Bry called. "Redoubt Papa, of all places."

  The designation meant nothing to Kane, Domi or Grant, but Brigid's and Lakesh's eyes widened in surprise. Lakesh pushed his way past Kane, moving swiftly. "Let's see it."

  The central control complex was the nerve center of the installation. A long room with high, vaulted ceil-ings, the walls were lined by consoles of dials, switches and readout screens. A double row of computer stations formed an aisle. Circuits clicked, drive units hummed, indicator lights flashed. A Mercator-projection map of the world spanned the width of the far wall. Pinpoints of light flickered in almost every continent, and thin, glowing lines networked across the countries, like a web spun by a rad-mad spider. The map not only delineated the geophysical alterations caused by the nuke-caust, but it also displayed the locations of all functioning gateway units the world over.

  One light glowed with an intense, unremitting yellow glare. Bry pointed at it, his words tumbling out in a staccato rhythm. "See? We've got an autosequence-initiator read showing a destination target lock, but not one indicating a departure point. It just flashed on a few minutes ago."

  Lakesh squinted at the map. "That can't be possible."

  "Perhaps," ventured Brigid, "an intruder broke into the redoubt and activated the unit accidentally, without actually transporting themselves anywhere."

  "No," declared Bry firmly. "It's a definite transit line, a positive materialization. Someone transported themselves there, but the modulation frequencies can't be traced." He added blandly, "Just like our own unit."

  Kane turned toward Lakesh. "Looks like some genius has rigged a gateway the same way you did."

  Lakesh stiffened as if offended. "There's only one person alive who knows enough about the quantum interphase mat-trans inducers to do that. Me."

  "You're sure it's not a sensor glitch, transmitting an incorrect signal?" Brigid asked.

  A bit crossly, Bry gestured to a computer console. "That was my first suspicion, so I ran a level-two diagnostic on the sensor feed. No, it's a true read, a real signature. The unit in Redoubt Papa was activated."

  Kane shook his head in exasperation. A little cloud of dust floated out and up from his hair. "What's so damn important about Redoubt Papa?"

  Sinking into a chair before a station, Lakesh replied, "It was the only Totality Concept-linked installation in the vicinity of Washington, D.C."

  "D.C.?" echoed Grant. He gazed at the map. "Washington Hole?"

  "Exactly." Lakesh's lips tightened in a grim line. "As such, it was of extreme importance as an escape route to politicians and members of the military and intelligence community. It's probably been sealed for two hundred years."

  "Washington Hole is a hellzone," said Kane. "The hottest in the country. Who'd be stupid enough to crawl around there?"

  "More important," Brigid interjected, "who would know the redoubt even existed?''

  "The barons," declared Grant. "Baron Cobalt called a council of the nine. They're turning over every stone, checking out every mat-trans unit trying to learn where we jumped to. Just what we were afraid would happen."

  Turning to Lakesh, he asked, "You listed the Cerberus redoubt as unsalvageable on ville records, right?"

  Lakesh nodded. "That I did. But under the circumstances, Baron Cobalt, in the interest of thoroughness, may still decide to verify my information. Inasmuch as he sounded the clarion call to the other barons, he'll have little choice."

  Bry cleared his throat. "With all due respect, whether the barons are searching the redoubts is beside the point. Whoever entered Papa did so via the gateway not by the front door. We don't know where they came from. If they altered the matter-stream modulations"

  "I think it's more likely that a gateway unit not registered on the index was the origin point," Lakesh interrupted acidly.

  "Is that possible?" asked Brigid.

  Lakesh spread his hands in a helpless gesture.' 'Who can say? I tried to keep track of all the modular units and to where they were shipped, but some may have escaped my notice."

  No one responded to his comment. Lakesh had told them that after the initial success of the prototype gateway unit, Project Cerberus staff had been ordered to mass-produce them in modular form so they could be shipped and assembled elsewhere.

  He sighed heavily. "Friend Kane, blocking the pass was not prematurely done, after all."

  "Is that a compliment, or a statement of fact?"

  "A bit of both. You've bought us time so we can properly investigate this anomaly."

  "How can we?" demanded Kane. "If the modulation frequencies have been altered, then we can't trace them. If it's an unindexed unit like you suppose, we're still in the dark."

  "The molecular imaging scanners," Brigid said crisply. "All mat-trans control units contain them, right?"

  Lakesh gave her a fond smile. ' 'As rain, dearest Brigid. Every record of every gateway transit is stored in the scanner's memory banks. They can be downloaded and reviewed."

  Grant's brows knit together. "But that means we'll have to physically pull 'em from" He broke off, then growled, "Wait just a goddamn minute."

  Lakesh nodded sagely. "Yes, friend Grant, the memory banks will have to be removed from the control unit in Redoubt Papa."

  "You're proposing to send us to Washington Hole?" Kane wasn't asking a question; it sounded more like he was making an accusation. "The hellzone of hellzones? Why don't you just inject us with isotopes of plutonium and have done with it?"

  "Oh, come on," Brigid said with sharp impatience. "You know all redoubts are rad shielded. Even if we pick up a dose, that's why we have a decam facility here."

  Kane passed a weary hand over his dusty face. "I suppose I'm really a stupe" He paused, providing the opportunity for anyone to refute his statement. When no one did, he continued, "But I fail to see the importance of this, much less the urgency."

  Patronizingly Lakesh replied, "The escape route we discussed a few minutes ago, remember? If another un-traceable mat-trans gateway exists somewhere, it would be a simple solution to the problem of where to go if and when the barons come calling."

  Realization glinted in Kane's eyes, but he said nothing.

  Lakesh turned toward Bry. "Continue monitoring that signal and cross-reference it with any recent satellite pix we may have of the region. Apprise me immediately if you see further activity."

  Chapter 5

  Kane ground his teeth together tightly as DeFore ruthlessly ripped off the field dressing and sloshed antiseptic into the knife cut along his rib cage.

  "Does it hurt?" she asked.

  "Think I'd tell you?" he retorted.

  Naked to the waist, he sat on the edge of an examination table in the small dispensary as DeFore efficiently treated his injuries.

  "Pretty clumsy to get stabbed by a Roamer," she said. "I thought Mags were invincible...or is that only when you're in armor?"

  She probed the edges of the slash, and he winced as sharp pain cut into his side. "Superficial," she declared. "Very lucky."

  "Lucky I didn't get chilled or hurt worse?"

  DeFore sniffed disdainfully. She used an aerosol can to spray on liquid bandage. A skinlike
thin layer of film formed over the cut along his ribs and the puncture in his shoulder. The substance contained nutrients and antibiotics and would be absorbed by the body as the injuries healed.

  As she worked, DeFore said, "Before you, Grant, Domi and Brigid came here, I'd go months without removing so much as a splinter from a finger."

  "Yeah, well," replied Kane gruffly, "before I came here, I'd go years without so much as stubbing my toe. What's your pointthat we're accident prone?"

  DeFore's full lips pursed. A stocky, buxom woman with deep bronze skin, braided ash-blond hair and liq-uidy brown eyes, she was one of the first Cerberus exiles and accustomed to speaking her mind. "One of you, anyway. It might be appropriate to say you're risk prone."

  Kane climbed off the examination table. "Is that a diagnosis?"

  "In your case, it's more of a prognosis. It's past time we discussed this."

  "Discussed what?" He bit out the words. "Every day you're alive is just another spin of the wheel. Winning is just breaking even. When your number is up, it's up and you're dead. End of discussion."

  "Very colorful metaphor, Kane," DeFore said coldly. "But you're not playing a lone hand, even if you think you are."

  "Get to the goddamn point, if there is one."

  She fixed an unblinking stare on his face. "Point oneyou're displaying early symptoms of combat fatigue. It used to be called post-traumatic stress disorder. I already told Baptiste"

  "You did what?" Kane broke in, his gray-blue eyes taking on an icy gleam.

  Unruffled, DeFore went on. "I'd hoped she would talk to you, but obviously she didn't consider it very important. I do. You're emotionally exhausted and you're overcompensating. Your powers of judgment are unreliable. Taking Salvo on your last mission proves that."

  Glaring at her from beneath a lowered brow, Kane snapped, "What happened on that mission had nothing to do with my decision to take Salvo. Events would have unfolded in the same way, whether he had come along or not."