The Mission

CHAPTER 8

The Guide Parker sat alone in the darkness, staring at the screen of his laptop. A trickle of sweat ran down his forehead, along his left temple, and onto the hard floor.

There was knock on the door to his room. He swung his chair around, wincing in pain. He closed his eyes for a few seconds, then called out.

“Enter.”

A young woman in her early twenties cautiously stepped into the dimly lit room, only a pair of candles and the screen supplying light.

“Guide Parker?”

“Yes, my child.” Parker’s voice was low and soothing.

The woman stepped forward. “I…” She paused.

“Go ahead,” Parker said. “You must speak freely.”

“I want to believe,” she said.

“I know you do.”

“The Airlia—” she began, then stopped.

“Go ahead. Speak freely.”

“The Airlia aren’t human. How can we be sure…”

Parker smiled reassuringly. “If they were human, there would be no reason to believe. The Airlia are more than human. For us to become more than we have been, we must follow them. Meet them — if we could have before UNAOC took its sacrilegious action. But we still have their technology to take us to the stars. To help us rise above the disaster we have inflicted upon ourselves on this planet. It is the path we must take. It is the only path that will take us out of dirt-locked existence. But to take that path we must be prepared to serve.”

The young woman nodded, but her eyes still wouldn’t meet Parker’s. “I understand… but the talk of doom, of death for the nonbelievers. I don’t know if…”

There was only the faint sound of the candles flickering for several seconds before Parker spoke, his voice softening. “Do you know the story of the Great Flood?”

The young woman nodded.

Parker reached out and took her hand. “Another Great Flood is coming. Not of water, but just as deadly. And the chosen ones will have to rise above the flood to survive. If you believe, you will be saved. If not…” He didn’t finish the sentence, and when he spoke again, he pulled his hand away and his voice hardened.

“Do you understand free will? Everyone on the planet knows of the Airlia now. They cannot claim ignorance. Everyone has a choice. It is our job to tell people of their choice. But it is their choice, just as it is your choice.” Parker’s voice slowly changed timbre and the room seemed to close in. “But once the choice is made, each person must bear responsibility for their actions. And the weight of that responsibility if they choose wrong will be most dire!”

Yakov leaned back in his seat, and they could all see how weary he was. It was as if after making his pronouncement of doom, he had lost what little energy he had left. “I don’t know where to begin. I’ve told you there are these Guides. People who have been directly affected by a guardian computer and do the bidding of the aliens. They are not many in number, since access to the guardians is very limited. And then there are the STAAR. Humans who are cloned.”

“Not just cloned,” Major Quinn interjected.

Yakov raised his eyebrows at that.

“Go ahead, Major,” Duncan said. She wanted to give Yakov a chance to get his energy back. She also wanted a chance to think. First this stranger, Harrison, calling about Black Death, and now Yakov using the same term.

Quinn ran a hand through his thinning blond hair. His thick, tortoiseshell glasses reflected the lights inside the room. “We did an autopsy on the two STAAR personnel.”

“And?” Duncan prompted.

“They’re not human. Not exactly.”

Turcotte glanced at Duncan before speaking. “How are they not exactly human?”

He remembered Kostanov telling him that Section IV had captured a STAAR operative in the early nineties, and that Russian scientists had discovered that the man was a clone. But a clone was still human. Turcotte had assumed that the bodies in the tanks at Scorpion Base were human clones; this shed a different light on that assumption.

“We’re not sure exactly,” Quinn said. “UNAOC pathologists and other scientists are still working on the bodies, but the first thing we noticed was that their eyes were red with elongated pupils. They’d been wearing cosmetic contacts and, of course, the sunglasses. Red eyes are definitely not human.”

Turcotte remembered the holographic figure that had guarded the passageway in Qian-Ling. It had had the same type of eyes. “They’re Airlia?”

“We think they are a mixture of Airlia and human genetic material,” Major Quinn said.

“Any indication of cloning?” Turcotte asked.

Quinn nodded. “Both bodies’ genetic material are almost identical. That indicates they either are twin sisters or else they were — shall we say ‘developed’?—out of the same genetic material. So, yes, cloning is a very real possibility.

“The scientists are still working to determine what the exact percentages are, but it appears they are mostly human. However, we do have to assume that the Airlia were capable of surviving unaided on this planet, given that they established a base here and kept it going for several millennia. Plus the figure you saw in the holograph was shaped roughly like a human. Their genetic background can’t be too far off from ours.”

“Interbreeding?” Duncan wondered out loud.

“It’s possible,” Quinn said. “The scientists think it’s more likely, though, that the Airlia played with human DNA, mixing in some of their own, and came up with these STAAR people.”

Yakov shook his head. “The STAAR operative we captured did not have these eyes. He was a perfect clone, one hundred percent human.”

Quinn raised his hands to indicate it was beyond him. “I’m just telling you what we found.”

“Did you see this body?” Duncan asked.

Yakov turned in her direction, his eyes narrowing. “No.” Before she could say anything else, he raised his hand. “Point taken.”

“Maybe the ones you examined at Area 51 were sleeping like the Airlia on Mars,” Turcotte said.

Duncan shook her head. “No, they’ve been awake at least since 1948. When Majestic got formed, STAAR was also formed as the Strategic Advanced Alien Response team, but as Yakov says, I think it existed before that.”

“Zandra told me that STAAR existed in case of alien attack, but now that we know they were part Airlia we know that’s a bunch of bull,” Turcotte said. “Maybe not,” Duncan interjected. “Maybe they were to guard against a specific alien attack?”

“Against Aspasia?”

“Zandra didn’t seem too keen on him coming here in the talons,” Duncan said.

Turcotte considered that. “That means STAAR was Artad’s version of the foo fighters and guardian. Left here to keep a watch on things, to make sure the truce between Artad’s faction here on Earth and Aspasia’s on Mars was maintained.”

“That’s possible, but we need to know more,” Duncan said.

“We’ve only got the two bodies,” Quinn said. “We’re still working on them.”

“You’ll have more bodies soon,” Turcotte said. “We found ten at Scorpion Base. I’ll have them shipped to Area 51 once the engineers unfreeze them.”

“That might help,” Quinn said.

“No further intelligence on STAAR itself? Where the rest of it went?” Duncan asked.

“UNAOC has contacted the intelligence agencies of every country and requested any information they have, but the response has been slow. Nothing significant so far.”

“UNAOC has no idea where STAAR is now?” Turcotte pressed.

“None.”

“What do you know of STAAR?” Duncan asked Yakov.

“STAAR is one of the many names that group has gone under,” Yakov said. “STAAR is the enemy of The Mission and the Guides. Artad versus Aspasia. The two warring alien groups in their civil war.” “Great,” Turcotte muttered.

“All right,” Duncan said. “Yakov, you said this thing in South America is the Black Death. What is it and how do you know that?”

“History.” Yakov poured himself another glass of water and downed it quickly. “I should have said another Black Death.”

“Another?” Turcotte was looking at the imagery of the dead village.

“The Black Death we know from history books devastated the world in the fourteenth century like nothing before and nothing since,” Yakov said. “I have done some research on it, because I believe it, too, was caused by the Guides.”

“No.” Duncan shook her head. “The Black Death was Yersinia pestis, the bubonic plague. It was spread by fleas on rats.”

“Yes, that is how it was spread,” Yakov agreed, “but what caused it? What started it? Where did it come from? Historians still aren’t certain. The first Western recorded instance of the plague was during the reign of the Emperor Justinian in A.D. 542. Why did it not devastate the world then as it would eight hundred years later? I believe that someone was experimenting, working with the organism that causes the plague. Plus, they might not have had orders to use it then.”

“They?” Turcotte asked,

“The Guides. The Mission. It is most commonly accepted that the Black Death as we call it in human history started in China in 1346. China, my friends. How did it get from Rome to China in those intervening years? And I believe we all agree that the Airlia had a presence in China. Some of you were inside of Qian-Ling. I think there was more going on with the Airlia in China, though, than just the guardian in Qian-Ling. I think there was a presence from both sides of the Airlia civil war in ancient China.

“The Black Death spread from China along the Silk Road through Mesopotamia and Asia Minor. In January of 1348, the plague reached Marseille in France and Tunis in Africa. By the end of 1349 the Black Death’s deadly fingers had reached all the way to Norway, Scotland, and Iceland, blanketing Europe and reaching even into my own Russia.

“Less than ten years after it started, it had killed over half of Europe’s population. The mortality rate of those infected ranged between seventy-five and ninety percent. The final toll is estimated to be 137 million dead. This is at a time when the entire world’s population was less than five hundred million people. Can you imagine the devastation? The Black Death was probably the greatest event in mankind’s history.”

“But man survived,” Turcotte noted.

“Maybe the goal then wasn’t to wipe mankind out,” Yakov said, “but simply to clean out the ranks. Historians acknowledge that while devastating in death toll, the Black Death was very instrumental in getting Europe out of the Dark Ages. It is very simple economics. There were fewer workers, the wages had to go up, and conditions got better for workers. Poor farm areas were abandoned as the surviving farmers took the better land. Oh yes, it was a great boost for civilization. Maybe that was the goal.”

“A rather brutal means to an end,” Larry Kincaid said.

“Do you think these things, these aliens, care anything for us other than as a means for their own end?” Yakov asked. “I believe they use the Black Death — biological warfare, if you like — whenever they see a need to control the human populace. I think destroying Aspasia and his fleet has told them that they not only need to control us, but need to wipe us out completely this time.”

“This isn’t the Dark Ages,” Duncan said. “Using just—”

“The Black Death in history books isn’t the only time a Black Death was used against mankind. I just came from South America,” Yakov said. “An ancient city called Tiahuanaco. The heart of a great empire — the Aymara — that stretched across the continent for thousands of miles and had a population in the hundreds of thousands. The Aymara empire disappeared around A.D. 1200. It was simply gone. What happened? No one knows. But I went there, deep into the Pyramid of the Sun, and found high runes, written by the last priests.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a photograph. He tossed it on the conference table.

“The Black Death. That’s what those runes in the center stand for. I know because I’ve seen it in other places. The Black Death killed everyone in the Aymara Empire, wiped it off the face of the earth.

“Before South America I was in Southeast Asia. In Cambodia. Historians have always wondered what happened to the ancient Khmer Empire. From the ninth to fifteenth centuries it was the greatest kingdom in Southeast Asia. Then it, too, suddenly disappeared.

“Did you know that Angkor Wat, the temple in the center of the ancient Khmer city of Angkor Thom, is the largest temple in the world? There’s more stone in that temple than was used in the building of the Great Pyramid. It was a great empire, a great civilization. I traveled there, braving the mines, the Khmer Rouge, the warring parties. And deep inside a hidden chamber in Angkor Wat, I found a panel with high rune carvings. The last record of another dying culture. And at the center was the same symbol — the Black Death.

“I think that whenever the guardians are tired of the humans around them, or need to stop our development in a certain direction, or direct it, or simply need a tactical victory in their civil war, they use the Guides to develop a biological weapon that cleans the slate, as you say in English. I think they are now ready for such another time, except on this occasion, I think they are ready — and have the technology — to clean off the entire planet.”

“I don’t understand,” Duncan said. “You say on one hand the Guides want to move society forward even if they use rather brutal means, and on the other they want to destroy it. Which is it?”

Yakov raised his hands in a helpless gesture. “I do not know what their ultimate goal is, so I cannot explain their actions. I agree that they do not make sense at times.”

“You say The Mission — the Guides — are behind this,” Turcotte said. “How do you know?”

Yakov shrugged. “It is, how do you say, a theory of mine.”

Turcotte sensed the other man was holding back. “What makes you think the Black Death is back?”

“This village being destroyed.” Yakov tapped the last imagery. “This tells you something is killing people. Majestic-12 was infiltrated by Guides. Your facility at Dulce was part of Majestic-12; in fact, it was the place the guardian computer that took over your Majestic people was brought to. And what went on there?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “You had some of your Operation Paperclip people. Nazi scientists. But those at Dulce were the biological and chemical warfare people. The ones who made the gasses in the camps. Who tested diseases on prisoners.”

None of the Americans in the room said anything, knowing that what Yakov was saying was one of the ugly legacies of the Cold War.

“General Hemstadt,” Yakov said. “Is that name familiar?”

“He was the German who was at Dulce,” Duncan said.

“But he did not die when Dulce was destroyed,” Yakov said.

“How do you know that?” Turcotte demanded.

“The digging at Dulce has been stopped, hasn’t it?” Once more Yakov didn’t wait for an answer. “Maybe someone doesn’t want what was going on there to be discovered,” Yakov said. “But not because of what was there, but because what was there is now at The Mission with General Hemstadt.”

“I know of no Majestic facility in South America,” Major Quinn said.

Yakov shook his head. “Don’t you understand? This is not about America. Or Russia. These Guides care nothing for countries. In fact, they like the fact that humans fight among themselves and have split the world into portions and stare across imaginary borders at other humans with distrust. Very convenient, don’t you think?

“This is a world problem. The Mission — I don’t even know exactly where in South America it is. All I know is that your Dulce facility was not the only one working on diseases. We had our secret labs in Russia. And who knows if someone from there isn’t now at The Mission along with Hemstadt and others.”

“How do you even know there is a place like this Mission?” Turcotte asked.

“It is no coincidence that General Hemstadt ended up there,” Yakov said. “I believe The Mission was founded many centuries ago. It is not a specific place, because what little I have learned says it has changed location over the years.

“When our troops overran Berlin at the end of the Great Patriotic War, we uncovered many documents. I have spent the last two years trying to find those documents and other material recovered. Some of it the KGB kept, and I have not been able to get access to it. But some of it I was able to find, and I uncovered some mention of The Mission. What I found strongly indicated that The Mission was involved with the Nazis during World War Two.

“Think of the work on biological weapons at Dulce and in my country and other countries. The fact that key personnel working at those facilities have disappeared. The fact that The Mission was a refuge for Nazis. The fact that Earth Unlimited launched this satellite and plans more launches — what better way to spread a plague than raining it down from above?”

“But why would these Guides want to do this?” Duncan asked.

Yakov gave a bitter laugh. “Why? I already told you I don’t know their ultimate goal, but I would say right now, perhaps vengeance? You destroyed the fleet. Killed Aspasia. But they still want to win their millennia-old war. Humans have been a pawn in this war as long as it has been going on. If I were the surviving Airlia on Mars controlling the guardian and thus the Guides, I would want to get rid of the opposition in the same manner they have done many times in the past. I believe you would agree we have not only become dispensable, we have become quite an irritant.”

“The only way to find out what exactly is going on”—Duncan tapped the satellite imagery—“is to go here and get a sample of whatever killed these people. And we need to find The Mission.”

“There must be a quicker way,” Coridan said.

Gergor pulled his pack off and put it down in the snow. “You know there is no quicker way here. Once we get to the southern shore, we can travel more quickly.”

The land around them achieved something Coridan had not thought possible — it was even more desolate than the terrain around the Section IV compound on the north end of the island. Whatever vegetation that had once struggled to live here had been blasted away over years of nuclear testing. They had been moving nonstop and were thirty miles south of Section IV, having crossed the first mountain range with great difficulty, but Gergor knew his way.

“How hot is this place?” Coridan took his own pack off and sat on it.

Gergor laughed. “You worry too much. Even though the ban went into effect, that doesn’t necessarily mean it was followed. The Russian military has tried to slip a few tests through here and there. In 1997 researchers recorded what seemed like a nuclear explosion on this island. The Russian government managed to convince them it was an earthquake. The other countries wanted to believe that — what else could they do? — so they believed.”

“Was it a nuclear test?” Coridan was looking about nervously.

“Oh, yes. I saw the mushroom cloud.”

“Then this is hot.” Coridan had brought the conversation full circle.

Gergor momentarily stopped what he was doing. “Yes, it’s hot. Worse than the nuclear weapons, Minatom, the Russian atomic agency, has been surreptitiously slipping in spent fuel here for many years. This place is an environmental disaster. But what do you expect? People are hardly better than the animals.” “I expect not to kill myself stupidly,” Coridan said.

“You think you have a right to your life? Your body, your life, belongs to The Ones Who Wait. As does mine. We do as we are ordered.”

“We did not wait in destroying Section Four,” Coridan noted.

“There is a reason for everything,” Gergor said cryptically.

Coridan snorted. “We did not find what we needed. And we killed many in accomplishing that failure.”

“We succeeded in one way,” Gergor said. “We know one more place where it isn’t. Plus we did get something worthwhile out of there.”

He returned his attention to the object he had pulled out of the pack. It was a black sphere, fourteen inches in diameter. The surface was completely covered with very thin lines shaped like hexagonals. Gergor pulled his gloves off, ignoring the bitter-cold wind. He turned the sphere in his hands, looking carefully at the very faint high rune writing on it, then pressed down on the top. A red inner glow lit the globe, highlighting the high rune hexagonals. Three panels on the bottom opened, extending short legs.

“What are you doing?” Coridan was shivering, now that the heat produced by moving was gone and the cold wind was biting through his outer garments.

“It would be stupid to carry this thing all the way only to find out it doesn’t work,” Gergor said. He had put the sphere down on top of his pack and was reading the markings.

He pressed. There was a low humming noise. Around the center of the sphere were eight hexagonals. One blinked red, then turned black. The next one did the same. Then the next.

But the fourth one blinked red and continued blinking. Gergor looked up at Coridan even as the fifth, sixth, and seventh ones all went black. The eighth, and final, hexagonal blinked red, then went down to a steady orange flash.

Coridan reached forward with a gloved finger and touched the one hexagonal that was a steady red. “How can that be?”

Gergor turned the sphere off and began repacking it. “You know what that means.”

“But I thought they were all destroyed.”

“You thought wrong.”

“UNAOC is launching the American shuttles to—”

“I know what UNAOC has planned,” Gergor interrupted.

“We have to tell Lexina. She has to know this!”

Gergor had his rucksack back on his back. “We will, but we can’t signal out of this area. When we get to the aircraft, we will call her.”

“Why couldn’t you have put the aircraft on this side of the test area?” “Because security was the primary consideration,” Gergor said.

Without a backward glance at the other, Gergor skied into the test range.

Ruiz stared at his arm. A deep trace of black welts crisscrossed the skin. His head was pounding, his throat and mouth were dry, even though he’d just drained a canteen full of water.

He heard deck boards creak. Lifting his head off his chest, he saw Harrison leaning over the plastic cases.

“Senor!” Ruiz croaked.

Harrison slowly stood and turned. Ruiz wasn’t surprised to see the man’s skin had a faint trace of the same welts. The American had a case in his hands. He walked over to the bridge shield and put the case on it.

“Ruiz.” Harrison nodded.

“We have it — what the villagers had?”

Harrison nodded.

“Did you know?” Ruiz asked.

“I suspected this might come, but it’s happening faster than I expected.” “You weren’t looking for the Aymara,” Ruiz reasoned out loud. “You were looking for that village. For this—” He held his arms up.

Harrison paused, then nodded. “Yes.”

“Who are you?” Ruiz asked. “You are no university professor.”

“I am a Watcher,” Harrison said.

Ruiz staggered, bending over double and vomiting over the side of the boat. When he looked up, Harrison had a videocamera in his hands, the lens pointed at Ruiz. He pulled out a tripod and set the camera on it, locking it down, then adjusting the focus.

“What are you doing?”

“We have to let others know the threat.”