by J. J. Green
“I know,” she conceded. “I know you’re right. But that doesn’t mean we have to be the same as them. We can be better. If we stoop to their level, we’ve become like them. Then they’ve won, haven’t they?”
“As I see it, if we don’t stoop to their level, they will win.”
“You sound like Medwyn,” she said bitterly. She’d thought Meilyr was better than this.
“I see his point of view, but I don’t believe we’re the same. Medwyn won’t feel a thing for any Crusaders who die tomorrow, but I will feel sad for the innocent lives lost. I’m not completely callous. However, death is inevitable in war, and we didn’t start this war, though I hope we’ll finish it.”
He stepped down from the rise and left.
Taylan’s heart sank. She hated going against the brothers. Most of them had been nothing but kind to her. If it hadn’t been for Marc finding her after she’d been shot and Meilyr nursing her back to health, she’d be dead. She’d been hoping Meilyr might change his mind when he heard her thoughts, but he’d come down on Medwyn’s side. Madog couldn’t be blamed for feeling the same.
The sun disappeared behind a cloud and a chill wind started up.
Thoughts of the people who would die in the morning already grieved her, and she hadn’t forgotten her earlier fear that, by some remote chance, her own children might be among the throng.
It wasn’t only a matter of refusing to take part in the scheme, she couldn’t allow it to happen. She had to stop Meilyr and the others from planting the devices tonight. But how could she do that? She’d tried reasoning with them and it hadn’t worked, except perhaps for Marc. He seemed to agree with her. She couldn’t physically stop the men. It would be three against one. Could she hide or destroy the devices? It was unlikely. Medwyn would keep a close eye on them now he knew her feelings.
She traced Meilyr’s steps, leaving the high ground.
In a few hours, most of the Crusaders would be sleeping. They would go to bed early in readiness for the midsummer sunrise. The brothers would sneak into the areas closest to the mounds and hide the incendiaries. When the celebration was at its height they would set them off by remote control, and terror and bedlam would ensue.
She couldn’t allow it to happen.
Returning to the hidden place near the hedgerow where the brothers were waiting for the right time to make their move, Taylan’s stomach churned with discomfort.
What the hell was she doing?
She was trying to figure out a way to protect Crusaders, the very people who had killed her friends and neighbors and separated her from her children. They supported Dwyr Orr, who had tortured Wilson horribly and committed who knew how many more atrocities.
Her feelings were all screwed up. She wished she could talk to Abacha, but he was far away aboard the Valiant while the ship underwent repairs. Even to cuddle Boots might help, but she didn’t know where the cat was anymore.
She was alone, and she had to decide the right thing to do, and then how to do it.
Chapter Thirty-One
“What I don’t understand is,” said Wright, “why we’re trying to kill the Dwyr but not this other alien who’s with her.”
Merlin and Arthur were walking ahead of him along a trail between two high hills. Arthur’s long stride and Merlin’s apparently inexhaustible stamina meant he was often lagging behind them. It was hard to keep in top shape when you spent most of your time living on a starship, and they’d already walked over a hundred kilometers. Still, tomorrow was midsummer’s day, and Taylan would begin her return journey soon. They probably only had another few days’ walk ahead of them until their paths crossed hers...somehow.
“I said,” Wright remarked, preparing to repeat himself—
“I heard you,” Merlin replied without looking back. “But I don’t quite understand. Why would we try to kill the Dwyr’s companion?”
“Because she has to be mixed up in all this too. She was at the launch ceremony, Ellis said. Right beside the Dwyr. Who knows, she might even be responsible for the Dwyr’s messed-up thinking.”
“In my experience, humans are quite capable of messed-up thinking all by themselves.”
Choosing to ignore the insult, Wright went on, “How do we know this alien isn’t the power behind the throne, so to speak?”
That certainly seemed to be how things were with Merlin and Arthur. It was their relationship that had prompted his line of thought. Arthur did whatever Merlin told him to do, basically.
“Maybe we’ve been targeting the wrong person all along,” he said. He hadn’t forgotten Merlin’s refusal to enter the Dwyr’s castle grounds, saying there was a barrier he couldn’t cross. What had that been about? Had it been something to do with the alien on the enemy’s side?
Merlin slowed his pace a little so that Wright caught up to him and Arthur walked ahead of them both. “I have to say, this time we’ve spent together has been somewhat eye-opening for me. Every so often, you say something impressively insightful.”
“Well, thanks, but I’m not interested in impressing you. A simple answer to a straight question would be nice, though.”
“Hmpf.” Merlin didn’t seem insulted. He studied the thin line of bare dirt they were following for a moment, then stooped and picked up a rock about the size of his fist. He held it up for Wright’s perusal. “Tell me, Major. If you were to try to kill this stone, how would you go about it?”
“Kill the stone? What do you mean?”
“I mean, would you strangle it, shoot it, blow it up?”
“I suppose blowing it to pieces would destroy it.”
“And would it be dead then?”
“No, it would just be separated into smaller fragments. You can’t kill something that was never alive.”
“This stone was never alive? Are you sure about that? Do you know what it’s made from? What if it’s limestone, formed originally from sea creatures?”
“From the non-living shells of sea creatures,” Wright corrected. “And even if it was kind of alive once, it isn’t any longer.”
“How do you know?”
“Because it doesn’t move, reproduce, respirate...” he trailed off, trying to remember his biology lessons from when he was a kid.
“It doesn’t meet the definition of a living organism, according to the criteria humans have decided.”
“Yes.”
Also, it’s clearly not bloody alive.
“Are you confident those criteria are correct?” the alien asked.
Wright sighed, wishing he’d never begun the discussion. Maybe that was Merlin’s intention—to confuse him and tie him up with semantics, distracting him from something important.
“You’re saying we’ve got our definition of life wrong?” he replied. “Get to the point. Are you trying to tell me the rock’s alive, but as a poor, dumb human I can’t tell?”
“No.” Merlin tossed the rock to the side of the trail. “What I’m trying to tell you, is that you might as well try to kill that piece of mineral as kill Dwyr Orr’s companion.”
He strode faster, rejoining Arthur’s side and leaving Wright behind.
Wright had a brief vision of grabbing the rock, leaping on the alien’s back, and smashing his head in with it.
He put the vision to one side.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Taylan opened her eyes. A little farther along the hedge, barely visible in the gap beneath it, Angharad’s sons lay sleeping.
At least, she hoped they were asleep. The men had come back from planting the incendiaries more than an hour ago, and now they were supposed to be taking a short rest until just before dawn. Then, they would wake, slip closer to Bryn Celli Ddu, and set off the devices.
She’d deliberately chosen to sleep at a distance away from the men. Outwardly, she’d given the appearance of being sickened and saddened by what they were doing. That hadn’t been hard to fake. But it had only been a ruse to explain her decision to physically separate from them. In
fact, she wanted to be able to leave without notice when the time was right.
She wasn’t only saddened because of what the brothers were doing, her heart felt heavy at the knowledge that this was where she would part ways from them. After what she was about to do, they would never accept her into their company again. If they saw her, they might even try to hurt her. She couldn’t return to the hideout in the Preseli Hills. Her short time in the West BI Resistance was over.
She climbed slowly to her feet, trying to avoid making too much noise. The wind was strong, and the creaking and rustling of the hedge should cover the quiet sounds she was forced to make. She grabbed her nearly empty pack.
Keeping to the vegetation, she walked away from the sleeping men, planning on cutting over the fields when she couldn’t be easily observed.
Footsteps sounded behind her.
She swung around. A figure loomed.
As her hand flew to her knife, the man said, “Taylan, it’s only me.”
Marc.
She relaxed. “I didn’t recognize you. It’s too dark. What are you doing?”
“I’m coming with you.”
“No! You can’t. Why?”
“You’re going to remove the incendiaries, aren’t you?”
Despite agreeing with her when she’d first mentioned her reservations about sabotaging the midsummer festival, Marc had gone with his brothers to plant the devices. She’d guessed that, when it came down to it, he hadn’t wanted to stand up to the others. She hadn’t blamed him. He was only young, about seventeen or eighteen.
“What I’m doing is none of your business,” she retorted. “Go back and leave me alone.” Speaking harshly to someone she liked so much was painful but necessary. She didn’t want to be responsible for Marc provoking his brothers to hate him.
“I want to come with you. I don’t agree with what they’re doing. It’s like you said, it would be wrong to hurt the children and babies. They haven’t done anyone any harm.”
“Go back, Marc.” She strode away from him, worried that one of his siblings would wake up and see them.
He followed her, trotting at her side. “You don’t know where we planted them. I do. I can take you to them, and we can remove them together.”
It was true. She didn’t know exactly where all the incendiaries were. She’d hoped to find them by guessing where she would have put them.
“And then what?” she asked. “What will you do then?”
“I’ll sneak back. They’ll never—”
“There isn’t enough time. One of them is bound to wake up and notice you’re gone. Then they’ll see I’ve left too, and they’ll put two and two together. Your brothers love you, but they’ll never forgive you for this. I can manage by myself. I don’t need you.”
“You do. I’m telling you, you do. You’ll never find them all. And I don’t care if they find out I helped you.”
“You should care. They’re the only family you have left, and, believe me, you need to stick with your family, now more than ever. Don’t make my mistake.”
They’d walked a fair distance while they had their hurried, whispered conversation. Taylan estimated it was safe now to turn and head for the ancient mound. She had to get there soon. The Crusaders’ camp was already stirring and a few people were wandering between the pavilions, even though none had opened yet. She was taking a risk of being challenged as it was.
“Marc, please. You’re making this harder for me.”
“Then stop arguing. I’m coming too, whether you like it or not.”
She relented. What else could she do? He might be young, but he was tall and strong, taller and stronger than two of his brothers. She couldn’t stop him from accompanying her if he insisted on it. And he was old enough to make his own decisions.
Without answering him, she turned and began to jog across the rough grass. His boots thudded along with her on the soft, damp ground. The outlying pavilions drew closer.
“The nearest one is over there,” said Mark, pointing at a candy-striped canopy. “Medwyn took care of that one. I’m not sure exactly where he put it.”
There were probably quite a few places in the pavilions to hide a device. They were little bigger than Taylan’s palm, flat and round and magnetized on one side. The enormity of what she was trying to do began to hit her. They’d brought thirty of them, and she only had a short time to find them all.
“Did you plant some on your own?” she asked.
“Yeah. I’ll collect them first, then we can find the others.”
“We should stop running,” said Taylan. “It’ll look suspicious.”
They slowed to a walk. Trying her best to look like a freshly woken Crusader stretching her legs in an early morning stroll, she approached the outer edge of the pavilions with Marc.
“You’re sure there’s one in there?” she asked, nodding at the brightly colored canvas.
“Positive.”
“Okay, I’ll go and take a look. I suppose you should find the devices you hid,” she added reluctantly. “But for god’s sake be careful. I’ll meet you south of the mound.”
Marc loped away.
Taylan angled the direction of her walk to bring her close to her target. Its vivid hues were pale and grayish in the early morning light. Sounds of the wakening camp came to her on the breeze: babies crying to be fed, parents scolding children, someone chopping wood.
When she was within two meters of the pavilion, she took a quick look around to make sure she was unobserved, and then veered sharply left. Another quick survey, and she stepped between two overlapping edges of canvas.
In the dim interior, it was hard to figure out what was what. As her eyes adjusted and her nose caught a familiar scent, she realized she was in a beer tent. Kegs were stacked behind a chest-high bar. Tall stools stood around similarly tall bar tables. The grass had been trampled flat and turned to sticky mud.
Where would Medwyn have hidden the incendiary? It had to be somewhere the servers and customers wouldn’t usually have cause to look at.
She quickly inspected the undersides of the tables and stools. They were all bare. There was no point in searching among the kegs or glasses, she reasoned. When the workers arrived to set up, they would be the first places they would go.
She checked behind the bar, running a hand on the lower surface and peering into all the nooks and crannies.
Nothing.
She straightened up and turned a circle.
Where could it be?
Had Marc been wrong about Medwyn hiding a device in here?
Or had Marc been lying?
She halted.
Had the brothers anticipated her plan and persuaded him to trick her, to send her on a wild goose chase, wasting her time until they finally triggered the incendiaries?
It was possible, but she didn’t believe it. Marc was too honest and decent.
Regardless, she had no choice except to carry on looking.
Medwyn hadn’t felt any scruples about endangering the lives of the Crusaders. He would have put his device where it would be the most dangerous, where the fire would catch and spread quickly.
Her gaze rose.
The canvas.
After several days in the sun, the cloth was stiff and dry, and she doubted the EAC encouraged its people to use anything so technologically advanced as fire-retardant chemicals.
There it was!
At the junction of an upright strut and a roof support, a black, curved edge poked out. If she hadn’t looked directly at it, she would never have noticed it. Grabbing a stool, she ran to the base of the strut. In another second she’d climbed up and lifted out the device.
One down. Twenty-nine to go.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Since the BA’s global presence had dwindled, Lorcan had scaled down the armed personnel at the Kamboto Mine, as he had at many of his semi-legal and illegal operations around the world as a cost-saving measure. Consequently, when no guards had challenged
him as he approached the mine in the rented car with Hale, he hadn’t been too concerned. But when they got closer, up to the fence around the site, and there was no sign of even a security team, his anger had begun to boil.
Traveling with Hale and hearing her constant criticism was bad enough, but his experience at Kamboto had topped even that. He was relieved to be finally on his way back to the Bres, though he had plenty of work to do. The cobalt mine had been an example of what happened when he took his eye off the ball for too long. He’d been distracted by Hale’s interference in the Project. That was his biggest problem, but he couldn’t do anything about it.
He recalled the mine manager’s widening eyes and gaping mouth as he appeared in her dirty little office, Hale trailing him. What an annoying, obsequious woman she’d been. But no amount of creeping and obfuscating could hide the facts.
Mining had been Lorcan’s business from the early days. It was what he’d built his empire on. And he was not so out of touch that he couldn’t tell at a glance what should be happening, where, how, and using what equipment.
After a lot of feet-dragging and excuses, the manager had finally agreed to a snap inspection. With a surly look and her shoulder’s hunched, she’d escorted them to the elevator shaft and taken them below ground. Lorcan had insisted on seeing everything.
The woman had been cutting corners and bending rules with an arrogant flagrancy that shocked him, seasoned though he was in his experience of the business.
He’d seen a boy of perhaps twelve or thirteen standing at a ventilation shaft, operating a fan.
Processes that should have been automated were being carried out by children.
A temporary measure, until I can get it fixed, the manager had spluttered. The younger the laborers, the cheaper they are. I barely have to pay them anything at all.
Lorcan couldn’t remember what he’d said. A red rage had descended on him. He might have struck the woman. He simply couldn’t recall his actions. What he did remember was Hale screaming at him to calm down.
