Damocles (36 page)

“What the hell? What are they doing?” Po stared from Meg to Cho to Loul. “They’re banging on the temple? They’re going to get shot!” Loul shook his head, but Po punched his shoulder, pointing to the barricade. Soldiers were lining up with shields and rolling pom-cannons. The three generals stomped in uneven lines before them, shouting orders and listening to orders being shouted through radios. All eyes moved from the guns to the slab.

The Searcher grabbed Loul’s arm. “Son, if you know what they’re doing you’d better explain it to those soldiers right now. Once those cannons are activated, it’s going to take more than diplomacy to turn them off. Can you think of any good reasons they’d be defacing the temple slab? Have they destroyed anything else? This isn’t the time to be coy, Pell. If she’s told you anything, you had better come clean or this is going to get ugly really fast.”

“Nothing.” Loul watched Cho lead Meg away toward their shelter. Prader had returned to her toolbox and Cheffson and the leader stood together talking and shaking their heads. Cheffson still wielded that heavy metal bar. “They’ve never shown any interest in the slab before. The ship did some damage when they landed, burned off the top edges, but as far as I know they’ve never even poked at it.”

“Did anyone tell them it’s sacred?”

“Sacred?” Loul punched his hips in frustration. “We can’t even find the word for
lunch
. You think we managed to catch up on religion? I don’t even know if they have gods.”

The generals finished their tirade, stepping away from the now organized soldiers. The pom-cannons whined as their ignition switches activated. The Searcher sighed. “Well if they do have gods, any more damage to the slab is a good way to get back to see them.”

Cho kept his hand on the back of her neck. She sweated against his palm, the sun and her anger making her too hot, but she didn’t move away. He felt solid and calm. He felt like he could single-handedly keep her world from blowing to pieces. She could feel the bent clasp of the locket chain pressing into her skin, and that little point of pain helped her focus.

“Meg.”

Cho’s grip tightened at the sound of Loul’s yell. “This isn’t the time, Meg. Trust me, it would be better if he gave us all a little room.”

“It’s not his fault.”

“It’s nobody’s fault.” He pulled her closer, turning her to face him. “It isn’t. They’re angry. They’ve been busting their asses trying to find that silicate. Jefferson’s been a crazy person tearing through files. He’s only half-hinged as it is, and when he found out the silicate might be on the seafloor, he just fell apart. It’s such a stupid situation. To be this close to what we need and not be able to reach it. Boats. We came all this way through space and we’re stopped because we don’t have a boat.”

“It’s not their fault.” Meg looked up at Cho, keeping her neck long so he wouldn’t move his hand. “It’s not my fault. You know this isn’t how I wanted it to go, right?”

Cho sighed a soft laugh. “You mean do I think the crystal committed suicide because it read your mind? Of course not. But I’m not a deep spacer either, not like those three. Not like Aaronson. It’s just…”

“It’s just what?”

Loul shouted her name again and Cho squeezed his eyes shut. “It’s just that you wasted no time getting in tight with them. You let them in.”

“That’s what I do. That’s what my job is. That’s why I’m here, why I made this mission in the first place. What was I supposed to do?”

“You left the site. You left the site on your own and went out with them when all of this was going down. We didn’t know what was going to happen and you just left us, Meg. You took off with your little friend. You weren’t here when Aaronson called in distress. You weren’t here when she made her decision to stay with the ship. You came back here laughing and smiling like you’d just been to a party when—” Meg cut him off, dropping her head onto his shoulder. He rubbed her back, kissing the side of her face. “They’ll come around. They have to, don’t they? You’re the only person the Dideto can talk to.”

They heard Loul’s breathless approach, the frantic hitch of his thrum as he stopped just a foot from where they stood. Cho muttered a curse as Meg lifted her head. They both knew she had to talk to him. He wasn’t going to just go away. With a weary nod, he released her and she turned to her fidgeting Dideto friend.

“Meg.” He waved his fists in either direction. To his left, he jabbed toward the slab where Meg could see deep cracks crisscrossing the upper edges. To his right, he pointed to the
approaching line of soldiers pushing carts holding blunt tubes. “Meg, not good/bad. Very.”

The rest of the crew noticed the organized approach as well. Prader took her firearm from the toolbox drawer and slid it into the pocket of her pants. She kept her fingers on the end of the weapon. Meg saw Wagner unfasten his own gun pocket, knowing he kept his weapon with him at all times. Jefferson kept his gun with Prader’s. All he had was the heavy wrench that he gripped before him with both hands.

“Meg?” Wagner moved back a step, keeping in line with Jefferson, moving toward Prader. “Want to tell me what’s going on?”

She saw Cho walking slowly backward to the shelter. He crouched down smoothly, reaching behind him into the tent for the gun she knew he stashed in a pocket by the opening.

“Everyone stand down.”

“Fuck that,” Jefferson said, hefting the wrench.

“Those are guns,” Prader said.

“Let me find out what’s going on. Everyone, just give me a minute.”

Jefferson spat between his feet. “Yeah, because I’d hate to get any bad news today.”

“Loul.” Meg sidled up to him, keeping her movements small and her eyes on the soldiers. “Talk this to Meg. What the hell is this?”

Loul stomped his foot, obviously frustrated since he’d been trying in vain to get her attention. He jabbed his fist again toward the landing slab. “Not good/bad.” His fist moved in a jagged pattern in the air. “Bad. Very.”

“What’s bad? The ship?”

“Cheffson.” He banged his meaty forearms together.

“Jefferson?” She followed his hand again as his fists drew jagged lines in the air. He pointed to the slab and banged his arms together again. “It’s the slab. We’ve damaged the slab.”

“That pisses them off?” Jefferson asked with a harsh laugh. “That? That’s what it takes to get these ugly monkeys pissed off?”

“Jefferson,” Wagner warned, “this isn’t the time.”

“Shit.” Jefferson spun away from the captain, letting the wrench swing free from one hand. “Time. Time is the one thing we’ve got boatloads of. I mean, oops! Can’t say boatloads, can we?” His voice grew louder as he let the weight of the wrench spin him around. “We can’t put boats in your fancy translation program, can we, Meg? Because they don’t know what boats are. They’ve never built a goddam boat, and since they don’t know how to swim, we don’t get to get back on our little boat, do we?”

He stopped spinning, the wrench banging against his shin. “Hey, question for ya. If they don’t know what a boat is, what word do you suppose they’re using to say ship? Banana? Underpants? Lavender?”

“Jefferson!” Wagner moved closer to him, putting himself between the geologist and the slowly approaching soldiers. “Knock it off.”

“Sorry, Captain, just free thinking, you know.” His Galen drawl got thicker as he loosed a wide, stupid-looking grin. “That’s what we’re gonna hafta do, aren’t we? Just like ole Meg there. Think outside the box. Think like we never thunk before, right Meg? Get inside those hairy little skulls since we’re gonna be stuck here with them for the rest of our freaking lives.”

Meg clenched her fists. “Shut up, Jefferson. Just shut your mouth.”

“I will, Officer Dupris. I will stop talking and I will start reaching out to discover the wonder that is the Dideto.” He exaggerated each syllable of that last word. “As a matter of fact, I’m gonna start right now, and I’m gonna find out just what it is about that slab that’s got these boys so worked up. Whaddya think, Prader?”

Prader’s laugh hissed in the coms. “I think that’s a very scientific approach.”

“Both of you,” Captain Wagner said, “stand down now.”

“Aye-aye, Captain,” Jefferson said. “Let me just get rid of this wrench.”

Meg didn’t breathe as she watched Jefferson heft the wrench over his head, his long strong arms swinging the heavy metal bar over his head in ever-widening circles. She wanted to scream, to close her eyes, to shoot him, anything to stop him from what she knew he planned to do. But she couldn’t do anything but watch as the wrench whipped out of his grip and sailed end over end, smashing against the upper edge of the landing slab.

Nobody moved. Nobody spoke. The soldiers stopped their approach and every thrum fell silent. The only sound was Jefferson’s labored breathing. Until the cracking started.

At first it sounded like sand pattering to the ground. Then a crackling, grinding sound arose. A dark web of cracks skittered across the surface of the slab, racing out from the point of impact, stretching far past the nose of the ship. Everything grew silent once more for just a moment and Meg watched in horror as a dozen feet of the front of the slab disintegrated into rough chunks that crashed to the ground in a cloud of dust.

Loul fell into a deep crouch. He wasn’t alone. The Effans, Hark, Po, Kik and crew, even The Searcher dropped down low to the ground as an enormous section of the Roana Temple crumbled into pieces. The soldiers stopped their advance, stunned at the sight. Nobody could speak. Nobody could look away.

In that minute Loul didn’t believe in anything. He had never really believed the temple slab was an actual footstep of the Sea Gods. He didn’t even know if he believed in the Sea Gods to begin with. He realized he’d never truly believed in the ornate, complex structures theorists had depicted being built on the stone. He didn’t believe that if someone ran across the surface they would be transported to one of the other six slabs around the globe. He didn’t believe that inside the slab lay the remains of the Sea Gods themselves or that any ancient creature was chained beneath the stone waiting to wreak havoc among the living. He didn’t believe science would ever explain the presence of the seven slabs and at that moment he didn’t care.

What he cared about was the slab itself. All its mystery, all its history, whatever it was, it was a piece of his world, the world he’d been born into, the world he loved. Nobody touched the slabs. Nobody crossed them or defaced them or drilled into them. Nobody. When he had seen the Urfer ship perched on that slab, it had only driven the point home more solidly. The slabs, whether the Roana Temple or the Steps at Ga or twin slabs of North Her Mer, it didn’t matter which slab it was, the slabs mattered. They were sacred. What kind of being, what kind of human being would purposefully and recklessly damage one? To what end? Another thick section of the slab crumbled, and in the rosy light filtering down through the dust, Loul saw the Urfers in a new light. They had never looked more alien.

The Urfers stood frozen. Meg’s eyes were enormous, her hands clamped over her mouth. A sea breeze picked up, spinning the dust in little twisters through the work site, picking up as the sky color shifted. It was like the planet itself felt the damage to the slab. It felt like the wind was angry. Tiny pebbles thrown by the wind pinged against the metal cases on the work site. Another set of fissures widened, cracking loudly before separating into
jagged boulders and crashing to the dirt. For one horrible moment, Loul found himself calculating how long it would take for the entire slab to disintegrate.

General Ada’s radio crackled, breaking the stunned silence. All around him people broke into muttered sounds of protest and despair. Loul never thought he’d see anything harder to believe than the presence of an alien vessel on his world. The shattered corner of the ancient slab changed that forever. He heard Meg saying something low and urgent to the Urfers, something that made them break their stillness and move slowly toward the center of the site. They walked with the same careful precision they had used when they had first arrived. They moved like animal trainers frightened of spooking their charges. He almost laughed. It was a little late for that precaution.

Ada shouted an order and the soldiers settled back into their formation, the pom-cannons level and loaded. Loul saw the Urfers’ hands moving toward their legs. That’s where they had kept their weapons when they had landed. He thought they had put their weapons away. At some point they had all managed to replace them. Slowly, in rhythm, the five long-legged aliens stepped closer to each other, bony fingers flickering at the sides of their legs. It was like watching their arrival in reverse. It was like watching reality unravel.

The little one, Prader, stumbled over one of the tools she had kicked from her toolbox, and the sudden motion made two soldiers on the end of the line raise their shields aggressively. Agnar and Cheffson reacted quickly, drawing slender weapons from their pockets and aiming into the barricade. Someone barked another order, and the first pom-cannon ignition switch was opened. Loul felt a curious detachment. He’d never seen a pom-cannon fired before. He’d seen the aftereffects, the shrapnel and
flaming debris; he’d even heard the roaring boom on tape. He wondered if it would hurt his ears to hear one go off this close.