“Pods?”
“Near as I can figure, they pop up out of the ground when needed,” Barnard said.
“Like lawn sprinklers,” Price said.
“Yeah, like that.”
“What else have you got?” Price asked.
“Forty mike-mike Bofors autocannons mounted in the dormer windows of the central building,” Barnard said. “That’s some serious firepower.”
“Okay, I want all systems booted up and operational,” Price said. “But don’t pop up any of those lawn sprinklers until you have to.”
Wall was the first one to see what was happening. “Azoh!” he yelled.
Price looked up from the console to see Azoh standing at the sliding door, her hand on a small panel next to it.
“Stop her!” Price shouted, but it was already too late.
A bleeping from the door was followed by a low whirr and a grinding sound, as if the door had not been opened for a long time. It shuddered briefly, then began to move.
Brogan was the first to reach the door, slamming her hand down on the panel. It juddered to a halt, about halfway open, then began to slide shut.
It was already too late. A pair of Bzadians, a male and a female in clerical robes, stood open-mouthed in shock. They disappeared from sight as the door ground to a close.
Brogan escorted Azoh firmly away from the door, leading her to the seating area. The boy went to sit next to her.
“Dammit!” Price said. “Why wasn’t anyone watching the prisoner?”
“Why weren’t you?” Brogan asked.
“Now they know where we are,” Chisnall said.
“I should have known this Little Miss Nice routine was too good to be true,” Barnard said. “Don’t let her fool you into thinking she’s on our side.”
“She’s not on anybody’s side. Azoh does not take sides,” Brogan said.
“Then why did she try to escape?” Price asked.
“Ask her, not me,” Brogan said.
Price looked at Chisnall. “You do it, LT. You speak her language.”
“Shouldn’t we be getting out of here?” Wall asked. “They’ll be coming for us, now they know we’re here.”
“Where to?” Brogan asked.
“Why don’t we go back down through the tunnel?” Wall asked. “Hide out at the museum?”
“Inside the secure area?” Barnard asked. “We might as well give ourselves up. Besides, when the air raid comes, that’s a target. This building is not.”
“Then we’re trapped,” Wall said.
“For now,” Chisnall said.
“The building is well defended,” Price said. “And as long as they think we have Azoh, they’ll treat us with kid gloves.”
“We’re still trapped,” Wall said.
“The air raid is in less than ninety mikes,” Price said. “When it comes there’ll be a lot of confusion and panic. We can try to make a break for the forest. For now we just sit tight. How are those Puke coms coming?”
“Getting there,” Wall said.
Chisnall picked up one of the plastic chairs and turned it around to face Azoh. He sat and stared at her, taking in the intricate facial tattoos and the ornate jewellery. He looked at the boy, noticing for the first time small tattoos leading outwards from the ears, partially concealed by the thick arms of his glasses.
“Azoh,” he said, turning back to her and bowing his head.
She nodded in return.
“And this is?”
“Azoh-zu,” Azoh said.
The boy looked up at that name. Chisnall had guessed as much.
“Who the hell is Azoh-zu?” Price asked.
“Azoh’s successor,” Chisnall said. “Chosen by Azoh to replace her when she dies, or is unable to continue.”
“So we got first and second prize,” Wall said. “That’s going to really pee off the Pukes.”
Chisnall was still wearing the uniform of a Bzadian general. He took off his cap, to appear less intimidating.
“Why did you open the door?” he asked in common Bzadian, then repeated in the high language.
“It was necessary,” Azoh replied in perfect English.
Although surprised to hear her speak English, Chisnall made no comment on it. “What does that mean?” he asked.
“I cannot explain that to you,” Azoh said.
“Can’t or won’t?” Chisnall asked.
“I cannot, Chizna,” Azoh said. “Not yet.”
“So you know who I am,” Chisnall said.
“That is known to me, yes,” Azoh said.
“What do you know?” Chisnall asked.
“You are Lieutenant Ryan Chisnall of Recon Team Angel, Team Four,” Azoh replied. “Who called himself Chizna in the Bzadian tongue.”
“Our people have been hunting you for a long time,” the boy, Azoh-zu said, pressing his glasses firmly onto his face with a finger. His voice, although soft and light, still somehow carried tremendous power. His head bobbled slightly as he spoke. “They fear and respect you.”
“You have taken on a certain mystique among our soldiers,” Azoh said.
“Undeserved,” Chisnall said.
“Your modesty does not alter the truth,” Azoh said. “Your humanity and compassion have also earned our respect.”
“What are you talking about?” Chisnall asked.
“I think you know,” she said.
“Tell me.”
“You refused to take the lives of Yozi and his team in the desert at Uluru,” Azoh said.
“They were unarmed and tied up,” Chisnall said.
“You cried and sang when one of Yozi’s team, your enemy, died,” the boy said.
“He was just a child,” Chisnall said.
“As you are just a child,” Azoh said. “At Wivenhoe, the loss of so many lives, Bzadian and human, weighed so greatly on your heart that you lost your own will to live.”
Chisnall started to argue, but Azoh held up a hand. “A few hours ago you believed that killing me would end the war, and yet you would not do it.”
“You know about the salt?” Chisnall said.
Azoh and Azoh-zu looked at each other.
“The poison,” Azoh said.
“How do you know this?” Chisnall asked.
“I am Azoh,” she said, as if that were answer enough. Azoh-zu revealed his gap-toothed grin again.
“I’m not much of a soldier, am I?” Chisnall said, thinking of the words of an SAS officer, so long ago, in the sands near Uluru.
“There is more to being a soldier than killing,” Azoh-zu said.
Chisnall shrugged. He turned back to the Bzadian leader. “Azoh, we are going to take you away from here,” he said.
“If any harm comes to her,” Azoh-zu took off his glasses and rubbed them on his robe to clean them, “you’ll have me to deal with.”
Chisnall avoided the temptation to laugh. Then suddenly he didn’t feel like laughing. Looking into Azoh-zu’s eyes he saw that the threat was real, and he had a strong feeling that Azoh-zu was in some way very capable of carrying it out.
“We will not hurt either of you,” Chisnall said. “We intend to use you as bargaining chips to try to avoid the use of …” he hesitated, “terrible weapons.”
Azoh looked again at Azoh-zu.
“Will this plan work?” Chisnall asked.
“No,” Azoh said.
Flight Captain Molly Shaw gave no show of emotion as the last of the wreckage was pushed over the side of the USS Apple.
Seventeen people had died and twenty-four had been rescued from the water, with injuries ranging from moderate to serious.
Sixteen jets had been shot down but all except three of the two-man crews had ejected and been recovered.
Forty-seven casualties. On a ship with a crew of over five thousand that was almost a miracle, considering what had nearly just happened. However each one of the deaths was a human being, and the six flight crew were friends of hers.
Even while the
clean-up teams had been clearing the flight deck, technicians had been at work, checking and testing the catapult system, without which the planes could not take off.
The scream jets had been retrieved from the sea, where they had ditched after their defence of the ship. Now they were being reattached to carrier jets, ready for their next mission.
It had taken less than an hour between fending off the attack and being ready to launch an attack of their own.
The Bzadians would pay for what they had done to the ship, Shaw thought grimly. Just as they would pay for what they had done to the planet.
The Bzadians had sent only a single Dragon. That aircraft had almost destroyed an aircraft carrier.
The next time it would be five Dragons. Or ten.
They were not going to wait for that to happen. The raid, planned for noon, had been brought forwards an hour.
The Pukes were going to get hurt today.
“Why won’t the plan work?” Chisnall asked.
“Everything is connected, in every possible way,” Azoh said.
“What is this?” Wall asked. “A Buddhist retreat?”
“I tell you guys many time,” Monster said. “There is plan to universe.”
“Your friend is wrong. There is no plan,” Azoh said. “But everything that happens, from the quiver of a single leaf to the fall of a nation, is the product of an infinite number of other, seemingly random events. Everything you do has an effect on all that is around you. A single bird cannot see the beauty of the flock as it soars and swoops yet without each single bird there would be no flock.”
“I don’t understand.” Chisnall turned to Brogan. “I asked a direct question. Why am I getting all this?”
“Azoh will answer, but in her own way,” Brogan said.
“To understand the answer, it is often necessary to fully understand the question,” Azoh-zu said.
Chisnall looked at the child for a moment.
“Help me understand the question,” Chisnall said.
“Evolution,” Azoh said.
“What are you trying to tell us?” Barnard asked.
“Just as an ape cannot understand a future as a human being, so a human cannot foresee what lies in its future,” Azoh said.
“But you do?” Price asked.
“Of course,” Azoh said. “We are your future.”
“Forked tongues and vomit-coloured skin? No thank you,” Price said.
“The form is immaterial,” Azoh said. “The nature of the being is not dictated by the colour of its skin, or the shape of its tongue.”
“So you’re more evolved than we are?” Barnard asked.
“It is not an insult,” Azoh-zu said. “Our species is much older than yours. If anything it is a compliment.”
“How’s that?” Price asked.
“Humans have achieved in a few thousand years what took Bzadians tens of thousands,” Azoh said. “Had our ships arrived a hundred years ago there would have been no war. Bzadian technology was vastly superior.”
“Do we have time for all this?” Wall asked.
“You got some place better to be?” Barnard asked.
“Our history is a savage one,” Azoh said. “Two Bzadians would fight over a sack of food. If we favoured different sports teams, we would brawl in the streets. If we came from different sides of a border, we would fight to the death over the position of that border. If we disagreed about our gods, we would burn each other alive. We murdered our prophets and abused our children. Our brutality towards each other was limitless and inventive.”
“Sounds familiar,” Barnard said.
“The evolutionary journey is a long one,” Azoh said. “Humans will learn this. In the early days this savagery was necessary for survival. Then came civilisation, but the traits of your distant ancestors remain. In time these will be gone, as you complete the journey from savage beast to savage man; from savage man to true being. Crime, as you know it, will disappear. So will war. So will poverty and starvation. And then the Fathers will return, when you are ready for the next stage of your evolution.”
“What fathers?” Chisnall asked.
“The longheads,” Azoh-zu said.
“With long skulls like this?” Barnard demonstrated, using her hands.
Both Azoh and Azoh-zu nodded.
“Holy crap,” Barnard said.
“What are you talking about?” Price asked.
“Throughout human history there have been cases, all over the world, of people binding their skulls to elongate them,” Barnard said. “The Nazca did it, and early Europeans, so did Australian Aboriginal people and Pacific Islanders. Societies on opposite sides of the world that had no contact with each other. No one knows why.”
“This was true on Bzadia also,” Azoh said. “Our ancestors believed that looking like gods would make them into gods.”
“These are the Fathers?” Chisnall asked. “Ancient gods?”
“Not gods,” Barnard said. “Aliens.”
“The bringers of life,” Azoh-zu said.
“Whoa, wait a minute,” Barnard said. “You’re saying the Fathers created you?”
“That is our belief,” Azoh said. “That they guided the evolution of our species.”
“Guided how?” Barnard asked. “How is that even possible?”
“That is beyond your, or my, capacity to understand,” Azoh said.
“So they’re our creators also?” Chisnall asked.
Azoh nodded again.
“So the gods that Christians and Muslims and all the other religions in the world have been worshipping for thousands of years are just some cranially challenged space invaders?” Barnard asked.
“That is not what I said,” Azoh said.
“Then what are you saying?” Price asked.
“To a goldfish swimming in a bowl, its owner must seem like a god. But that does not make them a god. To early humans, the Fathers would have seemed like gods. But that does not make them gods either.”
“So there are no gods,” Barnard said.
Azoh smiled lightly and adjusted her cowl. “Who do you think the Fathers pray to?” she asked.
“LT, you need see this,” Monster said.
Chisnall stood up, then realised that Monster had been talking to Price. She really was their leader now and it gave him a good feeling to see it. She seemed to doubt herself constantly but she was a good leader. Maybe that constant doubt was why she was a good leader.
He remained standing as Price moved over and studied the video screens.
“They evacuating building,” Monster said.
Bzadians were streaming from the doorways. They seemed subdued but focused. It reminded Chisnall of fire drills at school.
Monster flicked through the different camera angles until he found a view of the main gates. Queues had formed, moving forwards slowly. The hold-up was clear. A group of soldiers stood at the gates, scanning every face with a handheld scope.
“They’re planning an assault,” Price said. “They want to make sure we don’t try to slip out among the regular folk.”
“We’ll be ready for them,” Barnard said, at the weapons console.
Chisnall sat back down in front of Azoh and the smaller version of her, Azoh-zu. The child was both intriguing and disturbing. Too wise, too insightful, too knowing.
“Tell me more about the Fathers,” Chisnall said.
In some way, that he didn’t fully understand, the Fathers were the key to understanding the Bzadians. In the middle of all that was going on, he had a strong feeling that he was missing something vital.
Azoh-zu made a strange sign with his hands. First he made the shape of a square, then he curled his fingers into a circle.
“A circle inside a square,” Barnard said. “That was one of the Nazca symbols. One of the oldest ones. One of the Palpa lines. Nobody knew what that meant.” She copied Azoh-zu, making the square shape, then the circle.
“It is the symbol of the Fathers,” Azoh sa
id. “The Fathers were the ones who showed us the way here. They gave us the technology for interstellar travel. Our planet was dying and we would have died with it. But the Fathers warned us of the primitive, savage nature of Earth. Even as we were preparing our transporters nearly a hundred million humans died in two world wars. We had to defend ourselves. Old blueprints were brought out and studied. We rebuilt our old armies.”
“What is she saying?” Wall asked.
“She’s saying that Earth is the Wild West, they are the plucky settlers, and we are the savage injuns,” Barnard said.
“Why Earth?” Chisnall asked. “Why did you choose our planet?”
“The choice was made by the Fathers,” Azoh said. “Perhaps it was the only planet within range. Perhaps the only planet with the atmosphere to support our kind. Perhaps the only planet with inhabitants similar to our own.”
“Perhaps the Fathers intended Bzadians and humans to live together,” Barnard said. “Maybe that was part of their grand plan.”
“Yeah, or perhaps this war is just their way of amusing themselves,” Wall said. “Maybe to them we’re just two scorpions in a cardboard box, two fighting dogs in a pit. Maybe they’re up there right now taking bets on which side is going to win.”
“If these so-called Fathers are as powerful as you seem to think,” Price said. “I can’t believe they have just stood by and let all the terrible things happen, in this war and before it.”
“It is the way of the Fathers,” Azoh-zu said.
“Well, I don’t get it,” Price said.
“I think I do,” Barnard said.
“Then explain,” Price said, “because at the moment I’m feeling like we’re all just toy soldiers for some hyper-intelligent child gods.”
“That’s not it,” Barnard said. “I think the Fathers think of us the same way we see those long-lost tribes in the Amazon jungle, who had never seen the outside world.”
“Still living in the Stone Age,” Wall said.
“Yeah, like that,” Barnard said. “If we found a tribe like that, how would we treat them? It’d be hands off. We wouldn’t interfere in their rituals, in their tribal conflicts. But we might help them out here and there, especially in time of drought or famine. Perhaps we might try to prepare them a little also, for the inevitable, when they come in contact with civilisation. But it’s more than that.”
Vengeance Page 17
