Atlantis Endgame (19 page)

"It's an evacuation," she said.

Stavros thumped a fist onto the rail. "We must find Ashe."

And Ross,
Eveleen said, but silently.

"We must first defend the boat," Kosta stated with grim portent. "If this is the big evacuation that the scientists posited, in reality that means people are going to do anything, anything at all, to get themselves a ship."

LINNEA HEARD WOMEN'S voices behind her and halted on the trail. A cluster of older women appeared, huddling around something. Two of them looked up in mute appeal, and Linnea hurried back up the trail to discover that the three women had fashioned a kind of stretcher from two staff's lashed together with lengths of woven fibers of some sort and cloth laid over the whole. On this stretcher lay the seer, her face blanched.

"She cannot walk," Ela gasped. "The goddess departed from her spirit with such speed, she could not at first find her body."

Meaning, she got herself a migraine?
Linnea thought, reaching for the end of one of the staffs. Ela paused to tuck the linen shroud more securely around the poor woman; then she picked up her end and they started down the trail.

At first they tried to keep their steps in sync, but the trail narrowed so abruptly in places it became nearly impossible. Added to that was the frustration of stumbling and slipping over stones that one could not see.

Before too long Linnea's hands ached, and her clothing was damp with sweat.
At least I get some exercise,
she thought with bleak humor; how the other women managed, she did not know. But her mind raced on, and she watched it race,

amazed at how one's thoughts will catch at any diversion from threatening danger: as a long tremor, one with a sickening jolt in the middle of it, silenced and stilled them all, what flitted through her stream of consciousness was the absurdity of discussing exercise machines with women who had lived three thousand years before she was born.

When the tremor stopped, they picked up their poles and started forward, halting again when an ominous rattling above heralded a landslide.

Hastening back up the trail, they watched in fear as boulders leaped crazily down, one smashing onto the trail and sending a chunk of it scattering down the hillside below. A hail of rubble followed, ending at last with a pall of choking dust.

"Come. We must push through," Ela cried hoarsely.

They stepped gingerly over the layer of dirt and stones nearly obliterating the trail and hurried on.

Abruptly the trail widened, and they were able to establish a rhythm. If the seer disliked the swinging, jolting stretcher, she said nothing; she gripped the poles at each side, her eyes closed.

The sun began to sink toward the west, and thirst had gone from pestering to agonizing when Linnea realized dully that they were rounding the last hill.

A gasp from Ela brought the stretcher parade to a halt. Her face, weirdly lit, was turned toward the north. Linnea stared in fear and wonder at the pre—Kameni Island, or what she assumed was that island.

The land itself was utterly obscured by a sky-scraping black cloud, one that had to be reaching at least twenty miles into the air. The cloud was not solid: writhing columns of smoke, from which flames of fire darted, reached like the fingers of death into the east.

"The holy snakes," one of the women whispered, in awe.

Without any warning at all the women were flung against the cliff side and then down onto the ground.

Pain lanced through Linnea's shoulder, but she was only peripherally aware of it. Why was the world sideways?

"Ayah," a voice moaned.

Linnea felt something sting her cheek, and who was pushing her so hard?

The ground, air, and sky roared, jolting her so forcefully she could not struggle to her elbows. Tiny stones clattered all around, pinging her face and arms as she tried to see who was moaning. Black surged overhead, darting down flames toward the mountain from which they had just come.

Clack! Something dark flickered across her vision; there was a pain across her temple, and the world went dark.

——————————

"WHAT THE—" Stavros never finished his exclamation.

As the three watched, the island seemed to shrug, and then shudders rippled down in rings from the mountain, churning the water into nervous, choppy wavelets.

They had come to a halt maybe a quarter mile from the shoreline, to avoid trouble. From there they watched the swarms of people pouring into every imaginable type of vessel, from the beautifully painted and decorated pleasure boats to the single-masted tradecraft.

As one boat veered near, Stavros shouted in Ancient Greek, "Where does everyone go?"

"The seer has spoken! The goddess says to live on the water, under the sky! The earth and fire demons are going to battle! I go to warn the other towns!" He pulled on the rope controlling his sail, and the little boat glided away toward the pre-Kameni Island.

Stavros turned to the other two, who shrugged. What the heck did that mean, other than "get out of here"? Had the Baldies somehow manipulated the oracle?

Whatever had happened, the entire population of Akrotiri appeared to have taken seriously the command to evacuate.

Even fishing smacks and little rowboats were crowded so dangerously some of them were so low the rails were a hand's breadth above water.

Eveleen watched as the evacuation began in an orderly fashion, turning desperate on the edges: there were, as Kosta had predicted, some fights for some of the boats. She winced, wishing there was something she could do, but they were helpless to interfere.

She watched one small family, consisting of a woman and two children, shoved back away from a skinny little fishing smack. The woman ran, crying, from one boat to another, until at last one of the great, decorated boats of the priests paused, and she and her children were pulled on.

That was when the side of the mountain gave a heave, and quake waves fled outward, flinging people down onto the ground, sending donkeys braying, goats scolding, and every bird on the island winging into the air, squawking in angry protest.

"It's the big quake," Eveleen whispered, appalled, but afraid to look away.

Wave after wave of shaking toppled walls, and cracks spiderwebbed up the few standing higher buildings. Then, with majestic slowness, the three-story buildings came crashing down, walls crumbling in either direction.

From somewhere jugs emerged, rolling down a cliff, some smashing, others hopping, until they fell a hundred yards into the sea below. Flames shot up somewhere else, as up in the sky, great writhing clouds of black sent out deadly jets of burning flame to lick the top of the mountain.

"Oil," Kosta said, pointing.

All it would take was one untended lamp and spilled olive oil; the flames spilled hungrily from the windows of a storehouse, just to be doused by the thunderous rumble and choking dust of a landslide.

On and on the shaking went, the clouds moving eastward raining down black bits of obsidian first in boulders, then in rocks, then pebbles, and finally in small, stinging bits of glass, until at last the firestorm and motion gradually subsided. By now the waves shuddered back and forth, some slapping back up onto the beaches, drenching terrified people, forcing them back up onto land.

But down they came again, from wherever they had been hiding during the deluge of burning rock, carrying children, animals, birds, and household goods, to cram into the boats.

Eveleen turned her head. Already many of the ships and boats were plying southward as fast as they could, oars rising and falling with fear-driven jerks, sails tautened by terror-strengthened hands.

They would get away. Maybe they would even make it to Crete, their beautifully painted jugs and vases to influence the painters there into a new style, a new way of looking at the world.

Eveleen, with a mental shrug, wished them well, and turned her attention back to the shoreline.

Where was Boss?

"Let us land," Stavros said at last. "Over there, out of sight of the evacuation. We must find Murdock, Ashe and Linnea Edel."

CHAPTER 18

AFTER ROSS'S "WHAT'S next?" he stepped back to wait for a reaction.

Ashe shook his head, but before he could speak, the Kayu spoke with clear urgency into the translator.

"This segment of the mountain is unstable. We will have to evacuate at once. The onset of chaos in the gravitational knot is releasing more energy than we expected. Now the Earth must find its balance point again."

Action, reaction.

Ashe said grimly, "It's going to be interesting, getting down the mountain if he means what I think he means."

Ross and Gordon turned their attention to the aliens, who had embarked on a fast exchange.

Gordon muttered under his breath, "I wish I could reverse that damn translator of theirs."

Then the first Kayu beckoned to the two Time Agents. "We shall give you our two wind vessels, though you cannot use our
⁰⁰
° for returning to the mountain. But you do not need that."

Wind vessels?
Ross mouthed the words to Ashe.

Ashe said under his breath, "Use 'em to spy on the Greeks and Baldies, I'll bet."

"You musst come now," the Kayu said.

Ross and Ashe followed the swaying robes, not back to the surface, but farther inside. Ross noted that they passed the room where he and Eveleen had been imprisoned for a night, and then they were all three enclosed in a cylindrical elevator shaft made of some stonelike white material, with a source of light impossible to detect.

A whoosh of air carrying a faint smell of ozone hit their faces, but they felt no accompanying drop in stomach like one experienced with elevators in their own time. Ross didn't know if they'd gone up, down, or sideways. The opaque door slid open again, and they emerged onto a cliff. Hot, smoky wind teased hair and clothing; the smell of sulfur fingered its way in even past their breathing masks.

The Kayu touched some kind of control that Ross didn't see because of the limited field of vision caused by his mask; a section of what had looked like solid rock flickered out of existence, leaving what at first appeared to be two giant bird shapes.

"Hang gliders," Ashe said.

"Sort of," Ross amended. He'd been hang gliding with Eveleen. These things looked different.

The Kayu said in its hissing speech, "It holdss humanss."

Gordon gave a shrug and bent over the closest one. Ross also bent, but what he tried to spot was the video projector that had projected the holographic rock. He couldn't find anything, even when he ran his hands over the rough pumice.

"Come on," Gordon said.

A tremor growling deep underground underscored the urgency.

He and Ross dragged the gliders out. At once the wind tried to take them, even though the wings were folded down.

Gordon examined them swiftly; from the look on his face he was doing some fast mental calculations.

Ross bent his attention to the controls, which appeared to be simple. Levers controlled the wing struts and the tails: levers for hands up front, for feet at the back. Out beyond the glider platform someone had painted great glassy bird-eyes on either side of a raptor's beak. So the Kayu had used these to glide in the air over the island, then, and to the locals they would look like giant birds. Had the Baldies seen them? If they were just gliding, there would be no energy signature to detect.

His thoughts were broken when Gordon thumped his arm and pointed. "Lie here. Strap in like this. I think we'll need to balance them for weight up front," Gordon said. "I suspect, from the look of these things, that the Kayu are lighter than we are."

"Is this a really stupid idea?" Ross asked Gordon as they dragged the gliders to the back of the cliff, giving themselves maximum running room. The straps, Ross noted, were made from some silky material that had enormous tensile strength. "I mean, where did that Fur Face go?"

"I don't know, but it looks as if this is the only way down," Gordon said. "And if they've used them, well, so can we." His mouth tightened in an ironic smile.

Another tremor shook the mountain, this one with an odd, jolting hop in it. A sudden roar beneath them sent both men to the edge of the cliff. Far down, just barely visible in the haze, they saw a tremendous landslide.

"Right," Ross said. "Let's get out of here."

"Now or never," Gordon agreed.

They gripped the handles of the gliders, flicked up the wings, and began to run.

Almost at once the gliders bucked and sidled as the wings and the wind played tug-of-war. Five, four, three, two—

There was the cliff edge, with a thousand-foot drop beyond. Ross's palms prickled with sweat, his heart thumped in his ears, as he swung himself out and slammed onto the platform.

The straps slapped themselves round him, the nose edged over the cliff, and the glider dropped.

"Whoo-eeeeeee!"
The sound tore out of Ross as his guts plummeted, then the wind current caught the glider and tossed it up back toward the cliff.