Resurrection (26 page)

Present Day

In a small room in a business hotel in the heart of Cairo’s commercial district, the Engineer lay on the bed, his eyes closed. His wife sat at a small table at one corner of the room, watching the unmoving dot that represented the Mechanic on the monitor they had brought from the cave. The Doctor did no more than glance at the monitor every few minutes, for the Mechanic had remained at his current location—another Cairo hotel—for some time. From small motions on the monitor, they could see him moving about his suite of rooms, but he had not ventured out of the hotel in three days. Thankfully, the signal from the Mechanic’s tracer was clear from his present location.

Pruit and Eddie were waiting for the Mechanic to move, waiting for him to give some indication that he had struck a deal and would be handing over the manuals. But there had been no motion since the day Pruit had been captured.

The room was a gaudy mix of polished white marble and gold- and silver-colored fabrics. From the windows, there was a view of the Nile River, a broad brown waterway bracketed by roads and crossed by dozens of wide bridges. Out on the water, modern feluccas plied up and down the river, their triangular sails adorned with advertisements for sodas and laundry detergents. On either side of the river were ugly high-rises whose busy geometrical forms stood out next to minarets and old churches.

Cairo was one of the most highly populated metropolitan areas on Earth, and on this warm day, the polluted air of the city seemed to hang over the packed cars on the roads.

The Doctor was studying an Earth atlas, her eyes wandering through pictures of natives from every part of the world. It was an odd thing to see the planet she had lived on for several years, in its cultural childhood, suddenly grown up and at the verge of advancing into the universe. It was hard to feel that she was in the same place, yet the location of their old survey camp was less than fifty miles from this hotel.

The television was on with the sound low, for the Engineer often liked to watch it. Unheard by the occupants of the room at the moment, a newswoman reported cases of miraculous recovery from the Ebola virus. Infected villages were coming back to life throughout Central Africa.

On the bed, the Engineer was not asleep. He was holding himself still in an effort to get his thoughts to do the same. His wife and those two others were chasing after the Mechanic. They were chasing him to get something. He should be able to help them. There was something he knew, or once had known, that would make all of this so much easier.

He brought his hands to his forehead and pressed gently. His thoughts faded in and out without pattern. There was the Mechanic…There was the Lion…Ah, the Lion, a great and loyal friend…And the Lion’s father and mother…There was something bad about them, a feeling of sadness and confusion. There was a ship and a shaking and a cave, and it was all disconnected, and he was not even in the center of it; he was standing off somewhere looking at these thoughts as they blew by in a gale.

He lost himself again. It took several moments to remember the room and his wife.

There was a knock on the door, and his wife got up to let Eddie in. Yes, Eddie, he remembered that young man’s name. Eddie leaned over the table and examined the little rectangular screen his wife had been looking at. They began talking, though the words meant nothing to the Engineer.

“Any motion yet?” Eddie asked.

“No, not yet.”

“How’s your husband?”

“Much the same,” she said, her voice toneless.

Eddie squeezed her shoulder. “Here, I brought you some lunch.” He set down the bag he’d been carrying. “Fresh fish from across the street.”

“Thanks, Eddie.”

He nodded and withdrew from the room.

When he had gone, the Engineer forced his body up onto unsteady feet. The Doctor turned and smiled at him. He came up beside his wife and dropped heavily to his knees. He grasped the monitoring device with both hands and shook it, willing himself to remember the significance of what he knew.

“We’re monitoring the Mechanic,” the Doctor said patiently.

The Engineer stared at the monitor, then back to his wife. He saw something in his own mind, something that almost made sense. He reached for it, but it was already gone. With a cry of anguish, he buried his head in his wife’s lap.

The Doctor leaned over, hugging him.

“It’s all right,” she said softly. “It’s all right.”

But it was far from all right.

In the next room, Eddie walked in to find Pruit lying on the bed, a blanket draped over her. Her eyes were closed. She had been ensconced in her fullsuit day and night for three days, emerging only a single hour in every twenty-four to stretch and test her body and force herself to eat.

Eddie sat down on the bed next to her, and her eyes came open.

“How are you feeling?” he asked. The bruises on her face and neck were gone. She looked tired but almost normal.

“Better,” she said weakly. She nodded to her shoulder and he moved the blanket to look at the knife wound. It was still an ugly purple. He ran a finger lightly over it, and she winced. “Still sore.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right. I feel almost well. The Mechanic?”

“Nothing yet. He hasn’t moved. Do you want water? Something to eat?”

“I should, but I don’t feel like it right now.”

He brushed a strand of hair from her face. “I’ll get you water.” He brought her a glass and helped her sit up to drink. When she had taken several small sips, she shook her head, and he put the glass aside. She rested an arm on his leg, and he held her other hand. Their motions with each other had become much more intimate after the hospital.

Eddie felt the warmth of her hand lying along his thigh. He gently lifted it and kissed her palm.

“I miss you while you’re in that suit.”

She studied his face and touched his cheek with her palm. In the half-sleep of her suit, she had dreamed about him. “I know,” she whispered. She said it softly, and both of them knew that things between them were different.

“You know?” he asked quietly, looking down at her.

“Yes.”

Pruit gently pulled him toward her. “Eddie…”

Their lips met, and it was clear to both of them that they needed this contact, that the last weeks had been building to this in a way neither of them had quite predicted. They began to kiss each other, very gently at first, then more deeply.

Pruit did not know when she had begun thinking of Eddie romantically. Was it that night in the cave when he had comforted her? Was it later, when he had saved her from the doctors at the hospital? She did not know the exact moment, but she knew that it was right. There was something peaceful about Eddie, and she felt pleasure in his presence. His life had been so different from hers. He had never borne the weight of his planet, of his race. There was an innate happiness in him that she could not understand, but which nonetheless made her happy to be near. And he was dedicated to her. That much she knew.

They broke away from each other and smiled for a moment at the pleasant realization that human kisses spanned cultures and worlds and were the same for both of them.

Eddie moved the blanket aside, and his lips were on her body. She was pulling his shirt off, and the heat of their bodies against each other was blissful.

“Do you want this as much as I do?” he whispered in her ear.

“Yes,” she breathed.

He moved carefully, and she could feel the length of his warm body on top of her. Then he was making love to her, gently and passionately, and Pruit had tears in her eyes at the intense pleasure of their union. It was somehow sad and strange and perfect and right.

Later, they showered and made love again, and then they lay in bed together, her head on his chest and his arms around her.

Eddie was in the grip of an epiphany that had started when he pulled Pruit from that filthy hospital and had only now reached its full magnitude. Something in him had altered its basic structure, and he no longer felt himself a disinterested observer of life. When he was with Pruit, he had a sense of the infinite and felt that he himself was part of it.

“Do you remember your past lives?” he asked her quietly.

She could hear his voice vibrating through his chest, a pleasant, intimate sound. She lifted her head up and looked at him. Her reddish hair was tousled, and her face looked tired. Eddie thought she was beautiful. “Why?”

“I just…want to know.”

“I remember some things,” she said. “Not everything.”

“Like what?”

“It’s like early childhood. There are long stretches of nothing and then a few very bright and clear images.”

“Tell me.”

She thought back, scanning through ancient memories. There were so many, and they had always been there, even when she was a child, a record of herself through countless incarnations. It was taken for granted, when she grew up, that everyone would have such memories. But on Earth such self-knowledge was not accepted by many religions. She could see Eddie reaching for understanding.

Her face changed as she found the memory she would share, became distant. “I remember the caves, before we built the dome,” she said slowly. “I could feel the radiation getting to me. We could all feel it. We were dying. For months and months we were dying. My jaw ached, and my stomach was cramped, and my bones were turning to dust. We were eating anything we could chew…

“Later, maybe hundreds of years later, I remember the struggle to keep babies alive. There was a long stretch when we really were in danger of becoming extinct. The lab breeding wasn’t working very well. The mortality rate was so high…I remember holding a baby as it died. For several minutes after birth he was fine, and then his organs simply didn’t work.” Her eyes became wet as Eddie watched her. “He just died, and I held him and I cried, thinking why does it have to be so hard?

“I remember a scouting mission. We had a ship that could travel in space, but it was so slow. It could barely crawl out of the atmosphere. The Lucien had quarantined us, and we were sent to run the blockade…I was a man then, too short, but very handsome…” She smiled; then the smile faded. “They shot us, three shots that nicked the hull, then a direct hit. Their ships were so much better…I remember the fire billowing through the tiny room. I was dying, and I thought, ‘You haven’t won, you won’t win…’” As she said this, her face took on the austere, determined look Eddie had seen many times before. “You won’t win,” she whispered again.

She shook her head and looked at Eddie, her eyes slowly coming back to the present. “There are more, but those stand out.”

He put his hands gently on her face. “Pruit, I love you.” He had not intended the words, but they formed regardless.

She looked down at him, his handsome face turned toward her, his body lying against hers. It was good to hear that he loved her, but she could not return the sentiment. She cared for him very much, but “I love you” was something she had only said to Niks. She let her head rest on his chest and kissed him there. “Why?”

“Because you’re the girl who never gives up.”

“There’s no choice.”

“Will you take me with you when you confront the Mechanic?”

“Yes.” She said it without hesitating. He had come after her when Jean-Claude took her. He had hunted the city, then saved her from the hospital. He deserved her trust, and if he was willing to be her partner in this mission, she would gladly take him with her.

“Good.” He stroked her hair and kissed her forehead. He could not tolerate the idea of her facing the Mechanic or the Lucien alone. He was still haunted by the thought of her lying unconscious in that filthy hospital. She was the girl who never gave up, and he would be the one who ran behind her, protecting her where he could.

The Khan al-Khalili bazaar was a dense warren of old buildings covering more than twenty acres of land at the east side of Cairo, about a mile from the river. Through this warren ran cobblestone alleys, narrow dirt passages, archways leading through ruined courtyards, and dozens of cement streets. On any day but Sunday, which was taken by most shop owners as a day of rest, the bazaar was packed with humanity. On Saturdays, it attracted tourists, but for the rest of the week, it belonged to locals. There were shops filling the bottom floors of the bazaar’s structures, and outside the shops were stalls, elbowing into the walkways. Everything, from spices to clothing to inlaid backgammon boards and jewelry to fresh catches from the sea, was sold. On the upper floors were dilapidated apartments and offices, crowded into tiny hot rooms, many with balconies overhanging the bazaar. The architecture was a mish-mash, like all of Cairo, some brick buildings, some wood, some plaster, most of it rickety but somehow still standing. Above it all was a blue-brown sky, choking with exhaust fumes from never-ending traffic jams on all sides of the bazaar.

On this morning, Pruit and Eddie threaded their way through the crowds, following the monitor as they walked, which Eddie held concealed in his hand. The Mechanic was finally on the move. They had been following his sporadic signal for an hour and were now closing in. His signal had been strong since they entered the bazaar, as there was little electronic communications traffic in that low-tech environment to interrupt it.

“Go left,” Eddie said as they reached an intersection of several alleys.

They turned left, entering a covered arcade where fish mongers displayed the day’s fresh catches on iced platters. Despite the early hour, it was already sweltering hot, and the relative cool of this arcade was a relief. Women with covered heads leaned over the fish, arguing over prices.

Pruit had dressed like the local women, wearing a loose, flowing robe of black cotton, with a thick white shawl draped over her head and around her shoulders. Eddie had acquired brown contact lenses for her. With them covering the blue of her eyes and the shawl covering her hair, she was indistinguishable from the thousands of other women who thronged the Khan al-Khalili. She had cut long slits in the sides of the robe to allow her access to the gun and knife strapped beneath her ribs.

Eddie wore a gray gallibiya and a small white skullcap. With his deep tan from the days in the desert, he too could pass for a local on cursory inspection.

They passed through the arcade and emerged into an open cobblestone street, where the shops were given mainly to women’s clothing. Specimens of this clothing hung from doorways and the bottoms of balconies and was laid out on folding tables and blankets on the street itself. The heat hit them again. Their robes clung to their skin, and Pruit wiped her brow on a sleeve. She scanned the street. For a moment, the crowd thinned, and she could see a long distance ahead. A hundred yards away was the Mechanic.

“I see him, Eddie,” she said, nodding in his direction. Eddie’s eyes found him as well.

The Mechanic was surrounded by the short American man who had accompanied him before and a tall, burly white man in his fifties who appeared to be a replacement for Jean-Claude. Around them was an escort of three local Cairo policemen in blue uniforms with machine guns. As Pruit and Eddie watched, the party turned a corner at the end of the street and disappeared from sight.

Pruit quickly checked her weapons. Then she turned to him, putting a hand on his arm. “Eddie, I don’t know what will happen here. If he has the manuals with him, I must get them. There might be fighting. I don’t know. If there are Lucien here, I will have to kill them.”

“I’m ready,” he said. He was nervous, but also elated. He felt the tough core of commitment in his gut, a new sensation, and this gave him strength. He squeezed her hand, then tucked the monitor into a small backpack and checked his own weapons, a knife and a gun, both strapped at his calves.

“Keep your eyes out for other Lucien. Either humans who look like me or true Lucien. They will be wearing full robes if they’re here, I suppose.”

He nodded, and they jogged after their target. They passed from the cobblestone street into a wide cement quadrangle, one of the central spots in the bazaar. The square was packed with vending stalls, and the crowds were heavy. For a moment, Pruit found herself faced with a group of elderly women and their grandchildren, slowly picking their way through the stalls and blocking her forward progress. She ducked around them, slipping behind a fruit seller, and saw the Mechanic again. He was heading to the far end of the square.

Pruit turned and saw that Eddie had been separated from her. His eyes met hers, and she gestured that they should split up and work their way up opposite sides of the quad. He nodded and moved away. Ahead of them, the Mechanic was only fifty yards away.

The Mechanic approached the meeting place, ensconced in his escort. Since Jean-Claude’s disappearance, Nate had helped him acquire a new slave, Marcus. Marcus was a middle-aged German, built like an oak tree. It had taken a prodigious amount of the Mechanic’s special solution to enslave him, but the need had ultimately been established, and Marcus lost all of his natural stature when his dose of antidote wore off.

Though the Mechanic was sweating in the morning heat, he took perverse pleasure in the fact that Nate was nearly drenched in perspiration, his dark suit jacket soaked through. Around them, at Nate’s suggestion, were three Cairo police officers the Mechanic had hired.

Nate had advised against this meeting, but the Mechanic had ignored him. He was more than a little intrigued by Adaiz’s offer. Adaiz had offered him two things. First, he promised the Mechanic the Kinley girl who had been following him and who had set Jean-Claude free. According to Adaiz, this girl had come to Earth from Herrod. She would bring the Mechanic’s past to haunt him and take vengeance upon him for stealing the Eschless technology. Adaiz would give her to the Mechanic to dispose of and thus save the Mechanic from her retribution. This was a gesture of good faith to demonstrate Adaiz’s seriousness in his offer of negotiation.

Second, Adaiz offered the Mechanic mobility that no other country could give him. He had hinted that this would be a shuttle vehicle that would allow the Mechanic to travel off-planet. Naturally, Nate did not believe this a realistic offer, but the Mechanic knew better. Like the girl, Adaiz had come to Earth from elsewhere. Though Adaiz had not been specific in revealing his point of origin, the Mechanic assumed it was some Kinley colony that had grown up over the last five millennia. Such a shuttle vehicle would do much to ensure the Mechanic’s safety.

Most enticing of all was that Adaiz asked for no exclusive right to the technology. The Mechanic would still be free to sell it to the country of his choice. Such an offer, in the Mechanic’s mind, was quite worthy of a face-to-face meeting. But he had acquiesced to the necessity of guards in case Adaiz turned out to be dangerous. He would find some way to get rid of these men when he sat down to negotiate terms.

Up ahead was the tiny café where they were to meet. It was little more than a room wedged between two taller buildings and kept dark by an overhanging awning. In front of the café were two men in full robes. One of these was Adaiz, and he stood with the hood of the robe drawn back, leaving his head bare. The other, taller man had his hood pulled over his head, completely obscuring his face. This man reminded the Mechanic of the nomadic desert tribesmen the survey crew had encountered in the Egyptian deserts. He felt a pang of worry as he looked at him. There was something ominous in his robed anonymity. Was he overreaching himself?

Adaiz-Ari and Enon-Amet stood together in front of the tiny dining establishment they had chosen for this meeting, watching the Mechanic and his retinue approach. The restaurant behind them was empty of customers. The lone chef and waiter stood patiently in the shadows, waiting for the men who had rented their business for the afternoon. Adaiz had chosen the café because of its small size and its ready access, through a back door, to a narrow, but clear alley that would lead them quickly out of the Khan al-Khalili, if that were necessary.

Adaiz stood stiffly, his wounds partially healed but still painful. He had performed daily healing meditations. These had helped greatly, but his body still needed time to repair. He felt vulnerable, both from physical weakness and from lack of a gun. His own gun and his favorite knife had been lost back in Jean-Claude’s apartment. He carried only his spare dirk at the moment. Enon, however, was well armed.

He glanced at the underside of his gallibiya sleeve, where he had attached the thin monitor for Pruit’s remaining tracer. She was closing in on them. On the monitor he had watched her reach the bazaar and then, over the past ten minutes, slowly wend her way closer. Her presence at this meeting would be essential to his own plans. He had found the Mechanic’s weakness. The man was terrified of who he had been in his own past. Adaiz had used this to his advantage, creating, in the Mechanic’s mind, an image of Pruit as a Kinley soldier who would do nothing less than try the Mechanic for his past misdeeds and punish him for stealing the Eschless technology. He had frightened the Mechanic enough that it would now be a small matter to get him to kill Pruit. This would serve both of their purposes. With her dead, the Kinley would lose the Eschless technology forever, and Adaiz would be free of the questions she stirred in him.

She was no more than fifty yards away. Adaiz casually turned his head to the left and scanned the crowds. He could not see her yet. He waited as the Mechanic got closer, then scanned the faces in the crowd again, careful not to look concerned or eager.

He saw her. She was dressed as a native married woman and standing in front of a shop selling African beads, her face in profile to him.

On the other side of the square, Eddie approached. The Mechanic and his group had their backs to him. He threaded his way toward them. Their destination was now clear.

Eddie moved closer. In front of the café, he caught sight of two robed figures, one was a young man with bare head who looked like he could be Pruit’s twin brother. The other was tall and thin and hooded. Eddie felt his heart skip. Was that one a Lucien?

He saw Adaiz, the human Lucien, surveying the crowd. What was he looking for?

The crowd had thinned as the Mechanic reached the café. This section of the square was populated with less desirable shops, and the main course of foot traffic passed it by for the most part.

As the Mechanic emerged from the crowds, guards in tow, Adaiz stepped forward to greet him.

“Hello, friend,” Adaiz said. “Allow me to introduce my partner, Enon.”

The Mechanic put out a hand, but Enon kept his arms folded in front of him, his right arm up his left sleeve and vice versa. Instead of shaking hands, he bowed slightly toward the Mechanic.

“Shall we go inside, out of the heat?” the Mechanic asked, his words being translated by the device on his jaw.

Adaiz glanced at his sleeve. Pruit was a mere twenty yards away. He dared not look for her, for she would certainly see him. “Before we go inside,” he said, “I would like to make good on the first of our offers.”

“Very well.”

Adaiz turned to the three policemen. “Do not look yet,” he said. “There is a young woman standing twenty yards away, on my left. She is wearing a black caftan and white shawl. If you pass through the café and down the alley, you can come out of the shop behind her. She is to be arrested and held.”

The guards looked to the Mechanic for confirmation. Adaiz was happy to notice all three were sufficiently trained to avoid staring over at Pruit and giving themselves away.

The Mechanic nodded curtly, and the guards headed into the café.

Pruit watched as the guards were dismissed, then turned back to watch Adaiz and the Mechanic. Adaiz was still in pain from their fight, she noticed. She edged slightly closer, moving herself into a protected location behind a vending stall. She was not close enough to hear their words, but she could not approach further without exposing herself.

Fifty yards from her, Eddie was also watching the disappearance of the guards, but his attention quickly came back to Adaiz and his companion. They made no move to enter the relative privacy of the café. They seemed content, for the moment, to stand where they were. He wondered why.

After only a minute or two, the three policemen emerged from a tight passageway between buildings and closed in on Pruit’s location.

Eddie saw them move, felt his legs jump into action as he automatically began to run toward Pruit. A moment later, the vending stall that had concealed her pitched forward, and Pruit came into full view, grabbed by all three men, her legs kicking and her arms struggling.

Eddie pushed people from his path, heading for her.

The Lucien and the Mechanic turned to watch the struggle. The Mechanic played with the grip of the gun he carried beneath his linen jacket. Marcus flexed his hands, ready to draw his own gun.

Passersby stopped to watch. Pruit got one of her arms free and, with it, landed a punch in the neck of one of her assailants. He gasped and clutched his throat. Another of the men grabbed her right arm and her hair, yanking her backward.

Eddie was closing in. He saw that Pruit might well win this struggle. She used one man’s grip on her leg as leverage and kicked him with her free foot, sending him sprawling to the ground. With her free hand, she grabbed the knife at her ankle. He was awed by her fighting ability.

The man she had punched was now drawing his handgun. He would shoot her, perhaps not fatally, but enough to stop her. Pruit got a leg wrapped around a man behind her and tipped him forward, throwing him onto the man with the gun. Both hands free, she armed herself with one of her own guns.