Ascent

by Thorby Rudbek

  Eric gestured to the comparative quiet of the truck’s interior, and they went in. “Did the police injure either of them?”

  “It doesn’t seem likely; most of their guns were melted to slag before they could use them. Three troopers were injured by laser burns and two were killed, one as his gun blew up in his face and another as his car exploded as the result of a laser hit on the fuel tank.”

  “Impressive!” Eric’s eyes opened wider as he took in the details. “They must be really mad now!” He shook his head in wonder. “Don’t worry, sir. Major Glenn has this place sewn up like a body bag. Nothing can get in or out of here. Maybe they can beat a few police, but they’ll never defeat this arsenal.”

  “I hope you’re right.” Baynes looked back with doubt in his eyes. “Let’s get everyone to full battle alert, just in case.”

  ***

  Ed turned away from the aide and tried to contain his frustration. “It’s been four hours since Richard and Karen broke through that police road block, and they are still at large.” His comment was directed at no one in particular.

  “I requested that all hospitals be checked for recent admissions, on the off-chance that one of them was injured, but all the responses were negative. Actual visits by federal agents will be completed later this morning,” the aide replied.

  “That would have been too lucky. Still, I’m glad it’s being done,” Ed commented wistfully. “I hate being outwitted by a pair of kids.”

  “Sir, they may only look like kids,” Judy’s voice sounded more tired than ever as it issued forth from the radio loudspeaker as she listened in from her ambush point. “But they may be much more than that.”

  “Never underestimate the enemy, huh?” Baynes grinned at the expressionless radio. “You may be right, Brisson, but so far they don’t seem to be that extraordinary. They’ve done all sorts of dumb things.”

  “What kind of things do you mean?” Leroy’s voice cut in.

  “Picking that flashy model’s car out of all the nondescript vehicles on the highway, for one. If they had picked something less conspicuous, we might never have traced them to Springfield. Then there’s the warehouse. Another hour and the employees would have gone home, then she could have controlled the guard while he tied him up.”

  “What about the laser?” Leroy began, backing up Judy’s argument. “They could have just killed all the workers there and removed as much beryllium as they liked. It would have been hours before their handiwork would have been discovered. Perhaps their logic is based on information we don’t have.”

  “Any kid can carry a machine gun and scare people with it, even kill a few with it. A trained killer would have done just what you said. But these kids aren’t trained. They’re very dangerous, but that doesn’t mean they’re not kids still.”

  “I think you’re right there, sir,” Judy agreed, seemingly flip-flopping her opinion, much to Leroy’s disappointment. “But what about the mind powers that Karen seems to have?”

  “Yes. If they are really hers, she’s exceptional all right,” Baynes admitted. He jumped up and tapped the aide on his shoulder. “Keep in touch with all units, but especially push for the on-the-scene reports from the hospitals. Fraser! Brisson! We have to consider that the enemy may have bypassed your ambush points. Even kids must wise up sometime. I want you both back here to help co-ordinate all aspects of the defence. Fraser, you and Kirouac will handle the air and land approaches respectively; I’d come by air if I were them, but maybe they only like flying in their own craft. Brisson, you’ll handle the seaward approaches. When you get here I’ll update you on the deployment of forces. Understood?”

  Both replied in the affirmative, and radio contact was broken.

  Ed walked out and checked the area once more. He wandered up the slope and got himself admitted through the electrified fence. Once inside, he walked across the embankment of dirt thrown up hastily by the engineers to bridge the crater. About half way across, something long and white, gleaming in the light of the floods on the far wall of the crater, caught his attention. He hesitated for a moment, then plunged down the steep slope and walked across to the object. It was about a foot long, and generally tubular in shape. One end was shattered, but the other was equipped with a bulge that even a very amateur archaeologist like Ed Baynes could recognize. It’s a human thighbone! Very old, too! He resisted the temptation to pick it up, and just leaned down closely to get a better look at it. Sure enough, the bone was just below a cavity in the side of the crater, and within the cavity there was the telltale gleam of another bone, barely visible where it was poking out of the dirt. Ed leaned on the lower slope, causing another mini-avalanche and exposing more of the second bone. His heart started to beat faster as he recognized this as a part of a pelvis. This could be a break-through! Or maybe it is just a coincidence that there is a body buried near this craft. Privately, Ed had already decided that he no longer believed in coincidences.

  Within minutes, Ed had climbed back out and contacted Eric and then Leroy. They arranged to have a qualified archaeologist brought in later in the day to examine the area for further remains. Ed returned to the scene and looked down at the suspect area for a long time before he walked on and passed through the canvas door into the ‘inner sanctum’, as he now unconsciously considered it. He pointed his flashlight up at the underside of the strange structure, where it hung above him in the air. Although this part of Citadel had been underground until just a few hours earlier, no trace of soil could be found adhering to the matte black surface.

  He reached up and touched the curved surface, wondering just how long it had lain undetected on American soil, aware that the quiet calm that seemed to emanate from the cool material might change to murderous rage if the two fugitives were allowed to return. He turned abruptly and walked rapidly away, determined that he would personally ensure this never happened.

  ***

  Some two hours later, Ed, Judy, Leroy and Eric were standing in the morning sunshine at the bottom of the crater, watching as the archaeologist, an elderly but spry gentleman dressed in tweeds, painstakingly finished the uncovering of the full extent of the skeleton, leaving the soil that had filled the body cavity to retain the positioning of the bones. It appeared to be complete, apart from the legs, and that was only because they had been violently removed by the explosion the previous evening.

  “You will probably want this to be scientifically verified, as far as the exact dating is concerned,” began Professor Wilkins. “But I think you will find that my estimate is remarkably accurate.” He smiled with the total confidence of overwhelming experience. “One gains a certain knack for this kind of thing, after forty years or so.”

  “So what is your estimate?” Ed asked with great interest, as soon as it became obvious that the professor would not continue without further prompting.

  “You will observe that the side of the excavation here is of uniform consistency from this point upwards, and that the body is located approximately fifteen feet below the present-day surface?”

  Everyone nodded in agreement as Professor Wilkins regarded each of them in turn. “This indicates that extraordinary effort was taken to bury the body, as all of the considerable mass of soil above the body was placed there after the body was ‘committed’, shall we say. Perhaps the unfortunate one who now lies so ignominiously before us was once a highly respected man.

  “You will also notice the unique discolouration of the bones; this is a subtle but almost foolproof method of ageing finds stored under these conditions.” The professor was obviously enjoying himself, and had revelled in the opportunity to direct the National Unusual Incident Team members to assist him as the excavation progressed. “Sometimes other factors might modify the rate of decomposition, but I have found no evidence of such factors. I cannot of course confirm this without a broader exploration of the environs.”

  He was not unaware of the canvas structure a few feet away and to the right of their position. He ha
d not been invited to view whatever was inside it, and his curiosity was rapidly reaching unbearable levels. Still, he shrewdly kept his thoughts on that aspect of the ‘find’ to himself, and restricted his comments to the body in which they had expressed interest.

  It became apparent that no further information would be released without another prompt, and Leroy stifled the urge to smile, wondering if senility had forced the Professor into early retirement.

  “So, excuse me Professor, but do you have some kind of estimate of the age here?” Baynes pressed as gently as he could, but it was obvious that he was extremely anxious for a number he could ‘get his teeth into’. “It doesn’t matter if it is very rough, just some indication...”

  Professor Wilkins stood up and assumed the pose of a lecturer at university, something he had been for a great many years, until his semi-retirement to a small town not far from Redcliff, a little more than a year before their request had brought him back to his only real love. “My dear man, I can do more than that, I can provide you with a most precise time band. Tests will narrow the band somewhat, but I can state unequivocally that this man was buried here between five and six hundred years ago.” He finished and bowed slightly to emphasize the gift of knowledge he had just imparted.

  Ed’s brain started to race, then he tried to convince himself that this must mean that the body was not connected with Citadel. No one spoke for quite some time, as each of the party came to their own conclusions regarding the origin of the skeleton before them.

  Judy leaned forward and reached out towards the exposed backbone, for the body had been buried face downwards. “What about the orientation of the deceased? Don’t bodies usually get placed on their backs?”

  “Maybe they just dropped him, and he fell that way up?” Eric turned his comment into a question, and grinned at Leroy behind the Professor’s back.

  Judy glared at him, then turned back to the old gentleman, relieved that he did not seem to have heard the facetious remark.

  “I suppose it would be possible to excavate the body cavity?”

  “Yes, my dear. That would be the next step, once a full set of photographs had been taken.”

  Judy signalled to Leroy, and the tall and powerfully built Negro pulled his Canon camera around from its resting place against his side and shot off a series of frames from various angles. Afterwards he showed Professor Wilkins the images on the digital display.

  “We could proceed, now?” she asked simply.

  “Of course.” The Professor sounded a little distressed at what to him was a display of unseemly haste.

  Judy touched something that gleamed where it lay, partially concealed by the thin layer of dirt that still adhered to it. “Can you expose this more fully, without damaging the specimen?”

  Professor Wilkins shook his head sadly. “Tut, Tut, my dear. We must always try to remember to respect the ‘find’; one day we might be the one to be uncovered by a future society, and I think we would all wish for that one attitude. Respect.” He leaned forward, his reprimand forgotten as he got a closer look at the artefact Judy had pointed out. “Yes, a most interesting bonus; it would appear that some jewellery was buried with the man. Perhaps it will give us some clue to his origin.” The professor flourished his brush like an artist and rapidly removed the covering layer of dirt. He then proceeded to excavate below.

  The others fidgeted restlessly, as he was entirely blocking their view of the body. Then there were several gasps as Professor Wilkins stepped back and allowed them access once more. Before their eyes, encircling the spine of the skeleton was a black and silver-striped belt in what appeared to be mint condition.

  “This looks familiar, somehow.” Judy reached forward and took hold of the band of material at two points a few inches apart. They all watched as she flexed it. There was no doubt that the belt had some kind of strange elasticity that was still in evidence, after a seemingly impossible length of time.

  “The pictures of Richard and Karen!” Kirouac exclaimed, partly redeeming himself, at least in the eyes of his colleague, Leroy Fraser, and his superior, Ed Baynes.

  Judy only nodded her agreement, her face still rather grim.

  “Mr. Baynes,” Professor Wilkins began with some agitation in his normally serene voice. “I came here as a personal favour to a colleague of mine, whom I believe your Mr. Fraser contacted on behalf of the government of the United States of America.” Here he nodded with polite deference to Leroy. “I asked no questions, as I understood there to be a need for secrecy, but now I think that perhaps you owe me an explanation. Is this an elaborately planned attempt to create the ultimate hoax? If it is, then you have succeeded. This belt is the only thing that is misplaced, the only component of the scene that cannot be believed.” He looked at Ed for some time before the chief of NUIT responded.

  Ed cleared his throat nervously. “It is no hoax, Professor,” he assured him at last. “This man has indeed been here, with the belt, for a considerable length of time. I see no reason to doubt your estimate as to the amount of time involved. Let me ask you one further question, before I provide you with the explanation you so richly deserve.” He led the archaeologist through the canvas door, and watched as the old man’s eyes widened at the sight of the curved black surface and the battlements that almost touched the canvas roof above their heads.

  “If this structure,” here he indicated Citadel where it half lay, half hung above them. “Had been here for the same length of time as the man whose body is now uncovered before us, could it have somehow escaped the notice of the archaeologists of this country?”

  Professor Wilkins did not answer aloud, but his response was clearly communicated in his expression of confusion.

  “Yet here we believe it has lain, for all of those centuries, unnoticed by all… until now.” Ed Baynes let his point sink in before he took his guest back into the seclusion of the observation vehicle and provided him with a fairly full version of the story of the discovery of Citadel.

  Once this rather lengthy explanation had been given, there followed the inevitable swearing to absolute secrecy of the now thoroughly shaken but still illustrious professor. He was lead back to his vehicle by Judy, who felt some kinship to this rather irascible old man because of his many years dedicated to archaeology, an occupation she felt that was cousin to her own vocation.

  But none of them could ever hope to deduce the complete story of how Commander Vochan had met his death, so many years before, and how his team had indeed tipped his body into the available hole, and had continued despite seemingly insuperable barriers, until Karen alone remained to conclude their indefinitely extended task and finally attempt to remove Scout Craft Seven from its ‘temporary’ resting place.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Rebellion is irreversible – Shoonan saying

  Terry turned off the device he had grown used to thinking of as a ‘plastic welder’ and stood back with a satisfied expression on his face. That should do it. He checked that the temporary supporting struts were still in place, taking the strain. Just give it a few minutes to set, and it will stay up there all by itself. He turned away from the bulky contraption that was now part of the airlock wall, and walked back to the observation port halfway down the ‘Railcar’, as they had unofficially begun calling the utility/power module that had previously been the domain of Latt, and Latt alone.

  “Have you got anything else you want me to do, Isaac?” Terry called through the open doorway into the laboratory.

  “No, Latt and I can manage here with the infrared laser – everything else is ready,” was the faint reply.

  “Okay, I’m going to see if I can get that viewport to open.” Terry sat down on a handy box and opened the service panel below the port. This should be a piece of cake compared to what these guys have had me doing these past few days.

  He pulled over the diagnostic unit and plugged it in. Ignoring the strange symbols on the front of the unit, he waited until the schematic was disp
layed. Pressing the button that Latt had assured him was labelled ‘Test’, he waited for the connecting lines to start glowing. A small part of the diagram failed to become illuminated, so Terry pressed another button which he had been assured was labelled ‘Stock’, and two lines of symbols appeared on the display. This in effect meant that he had narrowed the cause of the problem down to two units, both of which were in the stash of spare parts in the Railcar. All he had to do was locate them in the electronics section of the stores.

  Searching through the thin flat drawers took a few minutes, but at length he had located both of them. He took one of them, and located the point of insertion. After struggling with the old component for a full minute, Terry managed to remove it. He held it up next to the replacement. They were both covered with little blocks somewhat like encapsulated silicon chips, but these ones had no visible electrical terminals, and were brown, with rounded edges, unlike their Earth-technology counterparts. He slid the replacement into place easily enough, but found, when he tried to open the shutter on the viewport, that it had had no effect.

  Terry put the part he now discovered that he had removed unnecessarily into the storage drawer, as this was easier than removing the replacement once more. The second unit came out more easily, but the replacement caught on the frame for a moment; a tap with the heel of his hand solved that problem.

  “Of course, it would be the second one,” he muttered to himself a little testily a couple of minutes later. He closed up the service panel below the port and pressed ‘open’ once more. The port cover slid up out of the way, exposing the view, except… There was none. Terry could hardly see the ground immediately below the window for dust.

  “Hey!” he called as he ran back into the laboratory. Isaac and Latt stopped working on the laser at the sound of his voice and turned around questioningly on the temporary platform they had constructed under the centre of the domed ceiling.