Outlander 05 - Parallax Red

by James Axler

  "Let's get to your plan," said Grant impatiently, "unless there's another vid you want us to sit through."

  Sindri stood up. "Once again, it's something easier shown than told. Come with me."

  Trailed by the trolls, they followed him out of the theater. He commented, "My apologies for running you around so much, but it's for the best. I imagine all of you will be feeling a little limp by the end of the day."

  They passed the open observation port that looked out onto the compound. Kane glanced at the Pathfinder and asked, "If the American government knew that Mars had been inhabited only a century before, why did they waste time with dropping things like that here?"

  Sindri laughed. "Cover stories, Mr. Kane, nice and neat. In the late '90s, NASA announced the discovery of microbial life in a meteorite that had come from Mars several billion years before, even though they knew more than a few single-celled organisms existed here. So, they broke it to the public gently, watering it down.

  "The public could easily accept amoebas might have lived on Mars three billion years ago. The concept that an advanced race, superior to humanity, had inhabited it for thousands of years would end the reign of Earth as the center of universal intelligence. And horrors of horrors, the public might decide that nationalism and partisan politics didn't fit their needs anymore...not if they realized they were citizens of an entire galaxy instead of a subsection on a tiny planet in a backwater solar system."

  The hatch Sindri led them to was not in the wall, but in the floor. When its segments irised open, they saw a metal-runged ladder extending into a barely lit gloom. Without beckoning to them, Sindri swung his body into the opening and climbed down. Grant, Kane and Brigid looked at the hole distrustfully, then to the four trolls standing around them like swart, short sentinels.

  "Ah, hell," Grant growled in disgust, and climbed down into the aperture.

  The descent was short, less than twelve feet, and they found themselves standing on a low-ceilinged platform. A dim yellow bulb cast its feeble rays upon a dark, bullet-shaped vehicle resting upon a single raised rail. It was about eight feet long, six in overall diameter. The track stretched out of sight down a long round chute.

  Sindri touched it, and a man-size section of the hull slid aside, revealing a hollow interior. The door panel lowered to form a short ramp. He walked across it. "I'll take you to the scene and the perpetrator of the human arrogance that brought all this heartbreak about. He's had no visitors for a long time."

  Kane peered into the opening of the bullet car. There was nothing inside but four padded seats. Sindri was already strapping himself into one.

  "Doesn't appear there's enough room for all of us and your escort," Kane said. "Who stays behind?"

  "Oh, get the hell in," Sindri snapped. "The vehicle is automated, so there's nothing you can do once we're under way. We'll arrive at our destination regardless of whether you behave yourselves. However, we will be met there, so it's in your best interests not to attempt anything unpleasant during the journey."

  They climbed in, Kane sitting down beside Sindri. As soon as Brigid cleared the entranceway, the panel slid silently shut behind. Within a moment of buckling their seat belts, they felt a slight shock that pressed them against the padded chair backs.

  "Are we moving?" asked Grant.

  As if on cue, a curving section of the forewall became transparent. They saw the walls of the chute racing past and around them at a rate of speed none of them could estimate, but that was obviously quite high. Overhead light fixtures flicked by so fast that they combined with the intervals of darkness between them to acquire a strobing pattern.

  "What's our destination?" Unconsciously Kane had raised his voice a trifle, then realized it was unnecessary. There was no sound of motors or rush of wind to speak over.

  Sindri didn't answer for a moment. In that brief beat of time, the bullet car burst out of the tunnel into the full, pink-hued daylight of Mars. The track stretched out far ahead in a straight line, leading to the base of the colossal pyramid.

  Sindri nodded toward it. "There."

  Even though Kane had seen it earlier, he couldn't help but gape a second time, just like Brigid and Grant.

  "The so-called D and M Pyramid," Sindri said. "Named after DiPetro and Molenar, a pair of computer photographic analysts in the twentieth century. It is one mile high by 1.6 miles broad. Unlike the classic Egyptian design, this one is a pentahedron. Five sided."

  As the bullet car sped along the rail, Kane saw crum-bling ruins around the foot of the immense pyramid. The structures were huge, but dwarfed by the monument. Walls had fallen in, and the stone blocks were scoured smooth by windblown sand.

  Kane leaned his head back, studying the long spire affixed to the pyramid's apex. Like an unimaginably huge needle, it seemed to pierce the wispy clouds.

  The rail curved lazily to the left, toward a corner of the pyramid. A great cavity occupied a large portion of the base. High heaps of debris were piled on either side of it. The track disappeared into the hole.

  Sindri declared, "No, the colonists did not breach the walls. The damage showed up on the Viking photos."

  "What caused it?" Brigid asked.

  "More than likely, explosive penetration, probably an Archon missile."

  The bullet car plunged noiselessly into the cavity. Lights shone intermittently overhead, small splotches of illumination that did little to alleviate the deep shadows.

  The track tilted upward at a gradual incline until it reached a ninety-degree angle. The speed of the vehicle did not slacken. Kane felt the same kind of lifting sensation in his belly as when he rode inside a fast-ascending Deathbird.

  After a minute, the track's angle decreased in sharpness until the car rode straight and smooth again. Through the foreport, they saw walls constructed of individual stone blocks three times the size of the vehicle that carried them. The bullet car's speed dropped rapidly until it slid to a halt beside a broad platform.

  "This part of the pyramid has been adjusted to accommodate humans," said Sindri. "Complete with synthetic-gravity generators and oxygen-circulation pumps. You might find it a bit nippy due to the extreme altitude, but the thermal controls inside your suits should be able to compensate."

  The bullet car darkened inside as the port opaqued. The door panel moved down and extended to the edge of the platform. Sindri disembarked first, standing with three male trolls who'd been waiting for his arrival and watching the others climb out. With a clanking of gears, the section of rail supporting the car rotated on a hidden pivot, turning it around 180 degrees so it faced the way they had come.

  After they all stood assembled on the platform, Sindri turned smartly on his heel and marched off. "We are on the sixth and uppermost level of the pyramid."

  His voice didn't echo. Rather, the grim, gray-red walls seemed to absorb the sound, softening it without muting it. "All the levels are huge," he continued, "each one with its own distinct architecture. It appears that different strata of Danaan society occupied the levels, perhaps with their own customs and dialects. If so, they couldn't have been any more dogmatic about the rigid observance of social rites and customs than the humans who came after them."

  The three outlanders followed Sindri and the trolls down a wide corridor lit by wall-bracketed light tubes. They passed through a series of triangular archways. Cut into the stone above each one was a plate-sized spiral glyph, the same kind of cup-and-circle design they had seen in Ireland.

  The floor slanted slightly upward, and the stone blocks were worn smooth as if by the pressure of many feet. The arches opened occasionally to the left and right, but Sindri kept to the main corridor.

  They became aware of a low hum of sound ahead of them, almost like the bass register of a piano that continued to vibrate long after a key had been struck. Presently a brighter light glimmered in the murk just beyond a tall arch. Without hesitation, Sindri passed beneath it.

  They entered into a vaulted chamber of huge propo
rtions, so vast that its nether end was lost in the shadows. Six circular tiers descended to the center of the chamber, surrounding a columnlike dais raised six feet from the floor. From it, a metal shaft rose straight up to the shadow-shrouded ceiling.

  Rising from the base of the dais, extending at ever increasing angles into the high shadows, was a taut webwork of silver filaments, hundreds, perhaps thousands of them. They were all connected to the series of circular tiers. A dim glow came down from the pointed roof, glittering from the strings.

  Kane had the impression of vast energies being drawn down from the metal spire and disseminated through each one of the silvery threads.

  Sindri rapped the tip of his cane sharply on the floor. "Hey, Pop! Where are you? You've got visitors."

  A robed figure shuffled out of the murk, leaning heavily on a walking stick. The silver knob and ferrule glinted dimly. With a slight start, Kane recognized it as a mate, albeit a longer one, to Sindri's walking stick.

  The man who stiffly approached them was stooped and gaunt, his face but a pale blur in the shadow of his cowl. "Who are you?" he demanded, his voice brittle and hollow. "What are you doing here?"

  "Focus, Pop, focus," Sindri retorted patronizingly. "It's me. Your boy."

  The man halted abruptly. Incisively, in a tone that brooked no debate, he declared, "Bullshit. I have no son."

  Tightly Sindri said, "I told you to focus, old man."

  A narrow, trembling hand flung back the cowl. Kane, Grant and Brigid were all slightly startled by the man's appearance. Even by Lakesh's standards, he was old. His face was a network of deep wrinkles, his toothless mouth a straight, slightly quivering line. An untidy mop of white hair that resembled a snarl of thread topped his liver-spotted skull. Only his bright blue eyes showed any sign of vitality.

  "This is the esteemed Dr. Micah Harwin," said Sindri with a cryptic smile. "Biologist, psychologist and a self-styled musician. Pop, these are friends of mine, recently arrived from Earth by way of Parallax Red ."

  Harwin's unblinking gaze darted across their faces, his eyes blazing with a cobalt flame. "Earth?" he said scornfully. "Bullshit. A dead world, nuked to a cinder."

  In a tone of aggrieved patience, as if he were talking about a not very bright child, Sindri said, "Please forgive Pop's manners. He's fairly inflexible about some mattershe's particularly so about his paternal relationship to me. He denies he sired me, but the DNA tests proved otherwise, didn't they...Pop?"

  Harwin ignored the harangue. He shuffled a few feet closer, the weight of his stare almost palpable. "Are you really from Earth?"

  "Where else could they be from?" Sindri demanded, no longer sounding patient, but definitely aggrieved. "You fucking knew everybody in the compound. Do these three look familiar?"

  Tears brimmed suddenly in Harwin's eyes. Haltingly he said, "I was taught from infancy that my great-great-grandparents came from Earth. They survived its destruction, but they could never return because there was nothing to return to. It broke their hearts."

  In a remarkably gentle tone, Grant said, "Earth's still there. Not exactly the same one your folks came from, but it's still there."

  Harwin doddered forward, reaching out with palsied fingers to lightly touch the side of Grant's face, as if he were a work of art. His whispery voice sounded like wind-stirred ashes. "You've come to take me back? Please tell me you've come to take me back."

  Sindri placed the end of his walking stick against Harwin's chest and pushed him back half a pace. "You're embarrassing me in front of my friends, Pop. Do what I saidfocus. Show them you're a demented old philanderer only part of the time."

  Two pairs of blue eyes locked on each other. Tension seemed to crackle around Sindri and Harwin in an almost physical aura of commingled anger, resentment and hatred. But there was a deeper emotional connection between the two of them, a mutually shared grief that neither could acknowledge.

  Kane couldn't help but be reminded of Baron Sharpe and Crawleror himself and Salvo.

  Micah Harwin drew himself up in what passed as a posture of indignation. To Sindri, he said, "You keep coming back here. I told you not to, and I meant it. This is my place."

  Sindri smiled thinly. "As I keep telling you , it's my place. You live here at my sufferance."

  Harwin returned Sindri's smile, but there was a hint of amused contempt in it. "That, Little Bubba, is nothing more than your insufferable arrogance."

  Kane tried to repress a chuckle, but it came out as a laugh. "Little Bubba? That's your name?"

  Harwin smirked. "His childhood nickname, bestowed upon him when he was still dimpled and cute. His full name is William Paulo, but 'Little Bubba' fitted him best."

  Sindri stood motionless, but flickers of raw, soul-deep fury and shame passed through his eyes. "Enough, old man. You know why I've come. Stop the song, goddamn you. Stop the song."

  Chapter 24

  Harwin's smile didn't alter, but at a slow, dignified pace, he turned around, facing the dais and the network of strings. "You know I've tried to stop it. I've tried every day for a year. What I did, I cannot undo."

  Sindri snorted out a scornful laugh. "And you dare to speak to me of arrogance."

  To the others, he announced coldly, "As I told you, my father was exiled from the compound. Having few choices of where to go, he came here, hoping to solve the mysteries of the pyramid, which had eluded generations of colonists."

  Without turning his head, Harwin declared, "I came far closer to accomplishing that than any before me."

  "That I cannot deny," Sindri retorted. "He reasoned out that a science was at work here, the mastery of the vast and subtle forces of nature. He knew that here on Mars, for uncounted centuries, had been those who manipulated them. He had to find out if even a scrap of their knowledge remained.

  "In doing so, Pop experimented with the frequencies of the transmitter. And in experimenting, the song of the Danaan became a death ditty for all of us, not just the Archons."

  Kane's eyes traveled up and down the mass of stretched-out strings, to the tiny lights sparkling along them. The filaments vibrated gently, continuously, producing the bass note that he sensed rather than heard.

  "Pop was here when the revolt broke out in the compound," Sindri went on. "Safe from the blood and death he had caused. I've allowed him to live only on the off chance he can stop the song."

  Micah Harwin laughed, a gargling cackle. "I've told you and told you that I cannot. I've told you to go ahead and kill me. But you never do. You keep coming back here to torment me with demands that I do the impossible. I've challenged you, the clever Little Bubba, to stop it. But you haven't even the courage to try."

  Sindri pointed the end of his cane at Harwin's back, shouting angrily, "It's your responsibility to rectify your error!"

  Harwin laughed again, shaking his head in pity. "As I've asked you, ad nauseam, why do you assume I made an error?"

  "What do you mean?" Grant demanded loudly. "You deliberately caused infertility in the colonists with your tinkering?"

  "He's lying," Sindri barked. "It's the cowardly way of avoiding blame, like some kid who screwed up while trying to be smart and saying 'I meant to do that.'"

  "How do you know for sure he didn't mean to do it?" Brigid asked.

  "Because he's not intelligent enough to control Da-naan technology for his own purposes."

  Harwin said, "So you keep saying, Little Bubba. Say it often enough, and maybe you'll finally be able to convince yourself. You can't tolerate the notion that someone anyone may know more than you, may have an agenda that you can't pick apart. You're a textbook example of overcompensating for an inferiority complex that you disguise with overweening pride and ego."

  "Spare me the sandbox psychoanalysis, old man," Sindri snapped. "Stop the song."

  "You stop it, you little freak bastard."

  Sindri glared at the man's robed back, lips writhing over his teeth in a silent snarl. His body trembled. Then, with an inarticulate roar, he lun
ged forward, cane raised like a bludgeon.

  For a helpless second, the outlanders thought he intended to club Micah Harwin to death. Instead, Sindri roughly shouldered the old man aside, bowling him off his feet. He fell to the floor with a bleat of surprise.

  Sindri rushed along the stone walkway circling the room and down a narrow passage to the dais. He scrambled up a short flight of steps and began hammering the metal shaft with the knob of his walking stick, holding it in a two-fisted grip like a sledge.

  A deep, gonglike chime rang, and the webwork of filaments shivered furiously. Another note, discordant with the first, echoed throughout the huge room. Before it died into silence, another sounded and another, so that the walls filled with vibrating chimes, the dim light glittering from the strings.

  Kane was aware that his body resonated to the conglomeration of notes flooding the room. He shook with a jarring dissonance. He felt it as little prickles of pain that would have been torture had they lasted longer. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Brigid and Grant jerk in reaction to the shock wave of sounds. Kane caught a glimpse of the three trolls twisting in acute pain. One of them opened his mouth to voice a howl no one could hear, clapping his hands over his ears. A trickle of blood crawled from his right nostril.

  Sindri shrieked as he beat his cane against the shaft, his face frozen in a mask of fury and frustration. They couldn't hear a word, but they saw spittle flying from his lips. Micah Harwin hiked himself up on his elbows and watched the little man impotently flailing and pounding away. He threw back his white-haired head and laughed uproariously.

  At length, Sindri's wild blows became weaker. Finally he stopped altogether and sagged panting against the shaft, his arms at his sides.

  The music in the tiered room reached a crescendo and hung there on a long chord. It didn't end, but simply hummed down in pitch, achieving the same bass register note all of them had heard upon entering.

  Sindri dragged a sleeve across his sweat-beaded brow. Harwin continued to laugh from his place on the floor, an ugly vocalization with no mirth in it at all.