The Zygan Emprise: Renegade Paladins and Abyssal Redemption (59 page)

Aliyah’s voice cracked. “You mean, John—John
wants to k-kill himself to take this thing to…” Her lips
trembled.

John extricated himself from my grip and slid
next to Aliyah, pulling her close to him with a firm arm. He
whispered a few words of Arabic in her ear, before turning back to
me.

“Shiloh,” he said gently, “Ever since I was
created, I have had a mission to learn, to know, and to understand.
I know now that this world, this world of three material
dimensions, is only a piece of the whole. And the answers I seek
will not be found in this universe, or in any brane, in Level 2.”
His warm smile almost convinced me. “Taking the Somalderis to
Yeshua in heaven is a sacrifice I embrace with my entire being.
Earth will have its timeline restored, and I will have my
answers.”

Almost. I stood up and stared down at the
couple with the hint of a sneer. “And you would leave Aliyah
behind? Alone?”

The arrow hit bullseye. I saw real pain in
John’s eyes. “I would hope she—you, Aliyah--would join me in Level
3 someday.” He blinked back tangible tears. “Shiloh, I’ve always
loved my family. But I never thought I’d develop feelings for
anyone else.” He squeezed Aliyah’s shoulders, stroking her hair as
tears crested over her lids and misted onto her hands. John looked
up at me and smiled. “I will in the end have to practice what I’ve
preached regarding patience.”

“Don’t do this.” I prayed my businesslike
tone disguised the churning inside me. “The solution is clear. I’ll
take the Somalderis to Level 3, and you two live happily ever
after, all right?”

“Not all right,” interrupted Spud. “I
apologize for disrupting your competitive heroism, but you need to
be aware of a realistic possibility you haven’t considered.”

Three sad faces paused to gaze at Spud. We
waited.

“If you restore the timeline, it is likely
that your sisters and brothers—and mine—will be resurrected.”

Yeah, Spud, we know. That’s the point.

“But some of the people who currently exist
in this new timeline, will exist no longer.”

Okay. So? Oh. Aliyah.

“Or will never have been born at all,”
intoned Spud.

The sob came from my brother.

* * *

I didn’t join John and Aliyah in their
moonlit foray outdoors to find us some sustenance. Our makeshift
Ergals were perfectly capable of turning those old animal bones in
our cave into a tolerable ham sandwich, but none of us was terribly
hungry. Anyway, John and Aliyah needed some time alone, and so did
I.

The somber-faced couple did bring back some
figs and dates for us to munch on. Under better circumstances, I
would have enjoyed them. We all lay on our mats, staring at the
cave’s roof and pretending we were able to sleep.

I crawled over to the fire after a few
useless hours trying to dampen my racing thoughts. Spud and John
soon joined me, and, heads together and whispering, we spent a
fitful night parsing the paradoxes. Over and over, we searched
desperately for a loophole that would allow us to complete our
mission, and save my brother’s love. Like the math puzzles that had
one rowboat transport sworn enemies back and forth across a wide
river to safety, we labored over one scenario after another that
failed to solve our conundrum.

We’d
survived the timeline change,
Spud reasoned, because we’d been completely outside Earth’s space
time and brane. We could go back to Benedict’s Brane 5 with Aliyah,
but, then we’d have to leave her (and maybe us) there while John
returned to this brane with the Somalderis and got himself speared
into Level 3. There’s a good chance we then might not have a way to
get back—
if
we survived another encounter with Benedict. On
the other hand, if we left Aliyah here, and John’s sacrifice
reverted the timeline, she might still disappear. And how many
other Aliyah’s would we be murdering by returning the timeline to
what it once was?

“People that never would have existed without
your intrusion in the first place.” Spud played devil’s
advocate.

Exhausted, we’d finally dropped off into
weary sleep. Perhaps rest would clear our minds and dawn would
offer us a ray of hope.

I woke up with the sunshine toasting my
exposed skin. The brightness and—peeking out of the cave—the
location of the sun in the sky hinted that it was at least
mid-morning, and maybe even close to noon.

My stomach growled, and I realized we might
wish to Ergal ourselves some anamorphed bone brunch. To shore up
the brain cells with some energy for Plan C.

I rubbed Spud’s shoulder before turning to my
brother and running a hand across the top of his head. Then I
noticed the empty mat. Where was Aliyah?

“I don’t know,” John said, looking around, “I
thought she was sleeping next to me all night.”

Spud knelt next to Aliyah’s mat, meticulously
examining the area from our beds to the opening of the cave, eyes
and nose to the ground, dusting and sniffing like an
over-caffeinated bloodhound.

John groaned. “Of course we—“

Spud held up his palm. “No, that’s not what
I’m after. There are muddy impressions leading to and away from the
mat that have the distinct odor of basil. The herb,” he added, as
if we hadn’t already guessed.

“Maybe she’s cooking up something good—I’m
getting hungry,” John offered. “Date bread’d be a real treat.”

I waved a hand, signaling that we’d best wait
for Spud to finish his investigation. Spud made his way outside the
cave, then ambled down to the adjacent stream and around a jutting
rock beyond which we couldn’t see. It took him a half hour to
return, carrying a small object in his toga, his expression
sober.

“What?” John didn’t hide his anxiety. “Where
is she?”

“I am not yet certain. I can say with some
certitude that I observed multidirectional footprints near the
stream. I also found,” he pulled out the vase, “one of the amphorae
that had been rubbished in our cave.”

“Water? We’d already gotten some in one of
the cave’s tributaries yesterday. She didn’t need to go out, we
could’ve Ergaled more,” John sighed. “Why hasn’t she come
back?”

“Perhaps a second set of footprints that
arrived from the north might be a clue. The Professor seems to have
walked alongside this companion for a few yards along the road,
before the companion’s footprints veered off into the tall grass,
and I was no longer able to observe the impressions.”

Spud shook his head before we asked. “The
sandalprints were smaller than the professor’s, and the sandals
seemed more unevenly worn. Estimate of leg length and height would
indicate that the companion was most likely a small woman.”

John seemed a bit relieved. “Why do you say
woman?”

“Both walking and running, men’s and women’s
gaits differ due to differences in pelvic anatomy and Q-angle. I
can draw you a picture of the angles and—“

John raised a hand, “So where is Aliyah
now?”

Spud shrugged. “I returned to the path and
followed the trail of the Professor’s sandalprints for over a
kilometer. There seems to be a sizable village on the other side of
those hills about three kilometers to the northeast. I considered
continuing thence alone, but seeing the number of pedestrians
crossing my path as I neared the town, I thought it would be best
to come here and get my back-up,” Spud paused, hesitating, “I did
not see Aliyah’s prints returning in this direction.”

John shrugged, his tone unconvincingly light.
“Well, maybe she found something that could help us at that
village. Including delicious local food. Let’s go check it
out.”

We gathered our Ergals and a few thick
branches we might use as walking sticks or defensive weapons, and
set off behind Spud towards the nearby village.

The sun beating down on our backs was
blisteringly hot. I was grateful to be swaddled in white robes head
to toe, and worried that Spud’s pale arms and legs would be burned
to a crisp by the time we arrived. Why
had
Aliyah run off in
this direction? The path to the village was covered by dirt and
rocks, yet quite a few Judean pedestrians seemed to be journeying
back and forth along this road. Fortunately, we did not run into
any Roman guards. Bet they weren’t fans of this heat.

We were just at the base of the large hill
Spud had described when we heard it. From the other side--a
bottomless scream, a cry that froze us in our tracks, followed by a
counterpoint chorus of shouts and laughter.

I recognized the voice. Aliyah. At the
precipice, staring into the gaping jaws of death.

Chapter 26

Rescue 911

A Judean village—two thousand years ago

Clutching our branches, we clambered over the
hill at top speed, racing towards the direction of the cries. The
downward slope before us was dotted with small houses built of
stone and bricks. A few boys and girls skipped between the homes,
throwing pebbles and rocks at each other with giggling glee. Women,
their heads covered with large kerchiefs, craned their necks
through tiny windows and peered off into the distance ahead where a
large crowd of men had gathered.

I’d neglected to morph myself into a man, so
I hid between Spud and John as we made our way into the valley,
pulling my own hood over a few unruly strands of my spiky blond
hair. Running with sandals through rough grass and rocky ground was
a challenge; our pace slowed down after we’d turned our ankles more
than once.

The spectacle of the gathering seemed to be
sufficient distraction for the villagers to keep them from stopping
us as we neared. A vocal group of 25 or 30 men were packed
three-deep in a circle—we could not see beyond their waving arms
and shaking backs. Their shouts reminded me of my training mission
to Aldebaran’s fifth planet, Krittika, where I’d stumbled on a
holiday ceremony that mimicked animal sacrifice. Dressed in
colorful robes, the city managers in Nakshatra, the largest city of
the country of Parveen, would lead a procession of hundreds of
thousands to a central plaza where they would launch the annual
tradition of Tzabek, the slaughter of the demons.

Aided by liberal doses of a legal
hallucinogenic, the Nakshatrans would excite themselves into a
frenzy, their cries and shouts growing louder and louder with each
beat of the Tiba drums. Finally, about thirty citizens chosen to be
honored in the ceremony were handed serrated gold swords and
cheered on to attack a braying golden animal the size of an
elephant and the shape of a bull, and subdue it into silence.

I had M-fanned into the city on a recon
assignment early in my Academy days with my classmates Spud,
Matshi, and Ulenem. We’d been tasked with the goal of locating a
theoretical cache of illegal fusion bombs, allegedly hidden
somewhere in Nakshatra by Benedict’s terrorist Andarts.

Witnessing the spectacle of Tzabek, I’d been
appalled by the animal brutality of the attacking citizens towards
the unfortunate bull. Despite Spud’s scolding “Observe and
Preserve” to remind me that we should not interfere, I drafted my
other two companions on a rescue mission to save the wounded
beast.

I grabbed several swords from a vendor at the
fringe of the crowd—they made of were pliant plastic, but we
intended to intimidate, not injure. Cueing Matshi and Ulenem to
follow, I ran screaming through the crowd, shouting Krittikan
curses and waving my wobbling weapon, Matshi and Ulenem on my
heels.
I
became the spectacle
du jour
within a few
moments. The crowd paused their cheering and turned to gaze at the
Chidurian, the Madaian, and the crazy humanoid disrupting their
ceremony with an unscheduled performance.

By the time we’d reached the bull, the
ceremonial attackers had also stopped their assault, letting their
swords hang from their middle arm down to the ground. The wounded
animal stood silently, its eyes glaring at us, as we neared.

And then I saw the wires. And the circuits.
Yes, the “animal” was clearly an inanimate—or actually,
animate—robot, remotely controlled from a few yards away by a
baffled Krittikan unsure of what to do next.

As was I. Oh, well, best to bluff through.
Trying not to blush, I raised my sword high, and cried in Zygan,
“Victory and Health!”

“Run for it,” I’d whispered to Matshi and
Ulenem, as we raced back through the crowd and dove into a waiting
tuk-tuk, the three wheeled vehicle Spud was driving. Spud sped off
as the stunned crowd watched the local gendarmes run fruitlessly in
pursuit. Didn’t get an A on that one.

I had no doubt that the frenzied crowd before
us would be much less sanguine and much more sanguinary than the
Krittikans. Our Ergals translated their Aramaic phrases as “Kill
her!” and “Die, Whore, die!”

Spud and John were taller than most of the
rabid villagers and peeked over the men’s shoulders to see what
havoc they were wreaking to wrench those screams.

I had never seen my companions so disturbed.
Spud had begun shaking, his pale skin blanched as white as
Agriarctos’ Ursan fur. John was flushed fiery red with anger from
his forehead to his sandaled toes. Using a hand on each of their
shoulders to push, I jumped up—and saw these, these primitives,
aiming large stones at a collapsed Aliyah’s bleeding head.

“Stop!” cried John in Aramaic. “Stop now!” He
charged through the circle, threatening those before him with the
thick branch in his right hand.

Spud, too, aimed his branch at anyone who
dared move within a few feet, shouting “Maximus Occisor!”

As they broke into the clearing, I covered
their tail by wagging my own stick violently back and forth,
catching a few stray stones and lobbing them back at their sources.
Glad John had taught me to play baseball—I managed to hit quite a
few of the stone throwers squarely in their faces with my
swing.