Music of the Spheres (18 page)

There had been no reluctance or second thoughts when he’d
agreed to join Michael’s expedition to Honduras. George, ever-curious,
ever-helpful, was dead.

When the two of them had been captured by the Cruzados, it
had been a frightening few days, but at the back of his mind, Michael never
really thought their lives were in imminent peril.

It was Michael’s fault. He had dragged George halfway around
the world only for him to be murdered in a jungle.

Before his grief could consume him, Michael heard a sharp
whistling sound as a bullet sped past his head and splintered a tree branch.

Yaxche grabbed his arm with both hands and shook him.
“Prisa,”
he said, and Michael’s paralysis broke.

They were only a few dozen meters from the road. Though he
hated himself for leaving George’s body behind, Michael knew he and Yaxche
would most likely join him in death if they tarried.

Trying to block out thoughts of his friend, Michael hurried
down the makeshift trail after Yaxche. Another shot rang out, and Michael ducked.
He felt a tug at his shirtsleeve as the bullet narrowly missed him.

There were angry shouts behind him, but Michael couldn’t
make out any of what they were yelling.

Quelling the blinding panic that tried to seize him, Michael
scrambled up the embankment at the main road and quickly scanned for the copse
of trees Humberto had mentioned.

He pointed. “There!” Pulling Yaxche alongside him, he raced
across the dirt road.

By the time they got to the patch of trees, the Cruzados had
crested the road. There was another brace of shouts as the men spotted them.

One of the men chasing them dropped to his knee and raised
his rifle to take careful aim. Michael pushed Yaxche out of the way as the man
fired.

Letting out a curse in Spanish that Michael couldn’t identify,
the Cruzado started shooting wildly in their direction.

For a brief moment, as Michael and Yaxche reached the other
side of the copse of trees, he thought either they had run to the wrong area,
Humberto had set them up, or someone had stolen the truck before they got
there.

Michael let out an expletive of his own and threw his hands
up in frustration; but then Yaxche tapped him on the arm and pointed. In the
shadow of a jicaro tree, under a hasty covering of leafy branches, was a beat
up gasoline-powered truck similar to the one he and George had rented, though
this one was a light blue color and had a canopy over the short bed.

They both sprinted toward the vehicle and jumped in. The
keys were in the ignition, and when Michael pumped the gas and turned the
switch, the engine fired up immediately.

Slamming it into gear, Michael drove the pickup as fast as
he could through the field, directly away from the Cruzados.

The rear windshield suddenly spider-webbed as a shot ricocheted
off it, but by the time Michael got the truck back up on the main road, they
had left the Cruzados too far behind for them to have any hope of hitting their
fleeing quarry with another bullet.

Michael hit the steering wheel with the heel of his hand in
anger.

Yaxche spoke in an assured voice.
“Tu amigo vela por
nosotros desde el cielo.”

‘Your friend watches over us from heaven now,’ Michael
figured out after a moment.

Setting his jaw, Michael fixed his eyes on the road ahead
and concentrated on finding his way to Santa Rosa de Copán.

27

Lucis Observatory :

Venus Orbit :

Terry
saw himself
as a young boy at the height of the
Mayan civilization. Dressed in traditional costume, he stood on a raised
platform with four others his age.

In the field, throngs of Mayans were
gathered together as the astrological advisor to the king spoke about the
coming of the fourth world, and that it would be signified by a great omen: the
sky would turn to fire and the heavens would burn. Lightning would strike the
earth and destroy their temples, and the gods themselves would fall from the
sky and smash into the world. Conquerors from a distant shore would arrive in
the aftermath and rebuild the world according to their own design.

In order to save themselves from the wrath
of Hanub Ku and survive in the fourth world, they must build a monument in his
honor; a staircase to the heavens where they could rise above the coming
disasters and ride out the chaos.

The king, his priests and his most trusted
astronomers had chosen that spot where Terry and the other four boys stood to
begin construction.

To commemorate the undertaking, they had
chosen the five boys as a special sacrifice to gain Hanub Ku’s favor.

Two large men grabbed Terry by his arms and
bent him backwards over a sacrificial altar.

The priest approached him with a long
knife—

∞

Terry shot straight up from his cot and
gasped in panic. His eyes scanned the darkness of the small room he’d been
sleeping in, and he clutched one hand to his chest where his heart thumped like
a hammer. Slowly, his breathing returned to normal when he realized he’d been
having a nightmare.

Swinging his legs over the side of the cot,
he found his shoes and slid his feet into them. He closed his eyes, held his
head in his hands, and thought about what he had just dreamed.

Terry’s grandfather always stressed the
importance of dreams, and the need for remembering nightmares. The Mayans of
old believed dreams were a way of communicating with the gods, and with other
people both living and dead, revealing knowledge that could not be shared
during their waking hours.

Always regarding this as mysticism, Terry
had never paid too much attention to his grandfather’s interpretations. Now,
however, with the realization that there was far more substance to the legends
his grandfather had recounted, Terry had become a believer.

Calming himself by sitting up straight and
regulating his breathing, he tried to remember his nightmare before the threads
of his memory evaporated like smoke in the wind.

He had no idea what it meant, or why he had
dreamed it. Although he’d had more frequent dreams of the ancient Mayans since
Itzel’s death, none of them had ever dealt with human sacrifice or portents of
the remaking of the world before; nor had any seemed so much like a vision.

Before he could sort out the reasons for
his nightmare, and whether it had been one of the special dreams his
grandfather had talked about, the chime on his nightstand sounded and a
familiar voice issued out of it.

Jose said, “Terry, we’re heading up to the
lab to begin with the next subject. Klaus wants you there standing by in case
he needs something during the experiment.”

Like coffee or a sandwich,
Terry thought to himself. Out loud, he said, “All right. I’ll be
there in a few minutes.” And then he clicked the communicator to shut it off.

He rubbed his head as if the action would
clear his thoughts from the nightmare. Padding over to the washroom, he
splashed cold water on his face to wake himself up. Finally, he went out to
fulfil his role as servant to a madman.

∞

Terry arrived at the lab just moments
before Klaus and Jose. Both men bore determined looks. Behind them, several
large Cruzados escorted the fourth subject for the Kinemet radiation trials.

It was the woman. Major Turner.

Terry had completely forgotten about her.
He had been preoccupied with the recitation of the Song of the Stars for Klaus
and performing menial tasks for him. At no time had he gone to check on her or
any of the prisoners, but even if he had wanted to look in on them, he couldn’t
have. The section of the observatory where they kept the prisoners was under
heavy guard, and no one was permitted entry without express orders from Klaus,
Jose, or Captain Gruber.

As they dragged the woman past him, he got
his first good look at her. Her eyes did not focus, and he recalled that she
was blind.

Her long hair was disheveled and her cheeks
were streaked with tears. Major Turner looked like she had been through a tough
few days, but she held her head high and set her jaw defiantly as her escorts
steered her past Terry and toward the lab.

“Jose,” Terry said, finding his voice. “She
is a woman, and she is disabled. We can’t do this.”

Jose glanced up at Terry, but it was Klaus
who raised his hand sharply to cut him off. “On the contrary, boy, we can and we
will. If it makes you feel any better, I really have only one more variable to
test for. She’s got a fifty-fifty shot of becoming the first fully transformed Kinemetic
human. Of course,” he added with a wry smile, “she still might die from
radiation poisoning. We’re really just stumbling around in the dark hoping for
the best here.”

It was too much for Terry. He knew there
wasn’t anything he could do against six men who were much larger and more prone
to violence than him. He could feel himself shaking from frustration and anger.

Although he had undertaken combat training
at the monthly camps the Cruzados held, Terry had never really taken it as
seriously as the others, and never committed himself to the instruction. He had
believed from the beginning that his destined part in the movement was geared
more towards a leadership role than as a fighter. But he wasn’t even a
figurehead in the Cruzados revolution; once he had unlocked the door to the
Song of the Stars, they had relegated him to being nothing more than Klaus’s
servant.

All he could do was stand there while the
brutish Cruzados herded the woman into the lab.

Inside, one of the men reached over to
unbutton Major Turner’s shirt at the collar. She swore at him, and Terry couldn’t
make out her exact words. Her meaning, however, was very clear. She punctuated
her words with a slap to the Cruzado’s face.

The man immediately belted her across the
cheek with the back of his hand, knocking her into the examination bed.

Terry instinctively stepped forward to help,
but a strong hand grabbed his shoulder. Klaus’s fingers dug into his skin.

Reaching up, Terry ripped the hand away from
him with as much strength as he could summon, and glared at Klaus, who was
smirking back.

Terry pointed toward the other room. “Is that
really necessary?”

“We can’t risk the possibility of
contamination from her outfit,” Klaus answered, mistaking the cause of Terry’s
protest. He weighed Terry with a critical eye, and his voice carried a heavy
undercurrent of disdain when he spoke again.

“You really aren’t cut out for this, are
you? You’re a dreamer, and dreamers never survive in the real world.”

There was a scream from the lab, and Terry
turned to see the four Cruzados forcibly strip the clothes from Major Turner.
Naked, she fought wildly, but another slap disoriented her long enough for them
to haul her up on top of the table and strap her down. One of them inserted a
needle in her arm from an intravenous drip. When Justine tried to pull her arm
away, the man punched her in the face.

Blinded by outrage, Terry pushed Klaus out
of the way and raced over to the door of the lab.

One of the Cruzados, a big man named Esteban,
saw the movement and hurried over to block the entrance. He was far too large
for Terry to handle, and by the time Terry could figure out how to get past the
big man, both Jose and Klaus grabbed him.

Klaus spat out his words. “I thought you
said you could control him, Jose.”

Instead of answering Klaus, Jose barked an
order out to his man. “Esteban, take him to his quarters and seal the door.”

To Terry, he said, “I’m very disappointed
in you,
niño.”

As he was dragged out of the lab, Terry saw
behind him that Major Turner was already unconscious, and Klaus had returned to
his computer station to begin the Kinemetic transformation trial.

Once again, Terry had completely failed in
his efforts, and the cost would be another life.

∞

Terry only had three meters of floor on
which to pace, and he made the round-trip at least a hundred times. All the
while, he fumed at Klaus and Jose, damning himself for his role in the entire
affair.

When history wrote his story, they would
not hail him as a hero, or visionary, or savior of the Mayan culture. No, he
would go down in the books as a traitor to humanity. A thief, kidnapper, and
accomplice to murder.

There had to be a way to redeem himself.

But what could he do? He was just one small
man against dozens of Cruzados.

By now, Major Turner would be well into the
experiment. She would be nothing more than a series of photons swirling around
the room. In less than three hours, the speck of Kinemet Klaus used to kick-start
the reaction would expend itself, and then she would either be transformed into
a quantum navigator, or she would die a horrible and painful death, as had the
previous subjects.

Terry had to do something.

As he paced, the seed of an idea formed in
his head. Maybe he could play Jose and Klaus off against each other?

He held his breath, as if the plan might
escape with his next exhalation.

Could he do it? Was he capable of following
through? Or was his mind leading him into yet another foolish act?

Forcing himself to calm down, he closed his
eyes and tried to even out his breathing. When his heart returned to a normal
rhythm, he slowly opened his eyes once more, and then began to work out a plan
of action.

He returned to the door and checked the
peephole once more, but didn’t see anyone in his limited range of vision.

The doors of the residential quarters only
had locks on the inside. Carefully, Terry slid the latch open and gently pulled
the door back a crack, and then peeked out.

Esteban was half a dozen meters down the
hall, sitting in a chair and leaning back.

Keeping the door as close to the jamb as he
could while still giving him enough of a gap to see through, Terry watched him.
The man had to be bored out of his mind with the mundane guard duty. He already
looked as if he were ready to doze off. Terry just had to be patient. With slow
movement, Terry removed his boots and then approached the door once again, this
time in his stocking feet.

Like a jaguar stalking its prey before an
ambush, Terry peered through the gap and watched and waited. He kept his eyes
fixed on Esteban and stood still.

When the big man’s head dropped a notch
fifteen minutes later, Terry still did not move.

Even when he heard the first light snore
come from the Cruzado, Terry remained motionless.

He waited an additional five minutes after
he thought Esteban was asleep, and then delicately opened the door wide enough
to slide out into the hall.

The layout of the observatory’s residential
area was such that there were two ways Terry could have gone. The first was out
toward the cafeteria and common area, but there would assuredly be any number
of Jose’s men loitering there. The only other way was in the direction of the
laboratories. That was where Terry wanted to go anyway, but in order to do so,
he would have to creep by Esteban without waking him.

He raised one foot and put it softly down
in front of the other as he picked his way past his guard.

He was directly in front of Esteban when a
loud clanging sound echoed down from the opposite end of the hall in the direction
of the kitchen. Terry heard someone curse lightly, as if they had dropped a
pan, and he froze, staring intently at Esteban.

For a brief moment, he thought the guard
had woken with the sound and was staring back at him. But it was a trick of the
shadow and light in the hall; Esteban continued to snore.

Terry resumed his deliberate pace until he
rounded a corner two sections down, and then he quickened his steps.

At the lab area, he turned toward a flight
of stairs and followed them down to the lowest level.

He would need help if his plan were to have
any chance of succeeding; and there was a distinct lack of friendly faces in
the observatory.

∞

The hallway to the empty lab where they
kept the American soldiers was unguarded. The lock on the main door to the room
had been reconfigured to lock from the outside, and there was no way the
prisoners could get through the electromagnetic latches. No one expected any of
the Cruzados or any of Klaus’s men to open the door and let the soldiers out.