EarthRise (7 page)

The words, which not only seemed to imply a knowledge of the great change, but the rather worrisome symptoms that plagued Hak-Bin of late, were far more effective than the Fon could have possibly imagined. The Zin felt sudden uncontrolled rage.

Mal-Dak saw the t-gun come up, knew what it meant, and was glad. Others might hang for days, might have their eyes pecked out, but he would escape. He would . . .

Hak-Bin squeezed the weapon’s handle, the weapon barked, and the dart punched a hole through the Fon’s thorax, hit the wood beyond, and blew the two-by-four in half. Like a tree falling in the forest, the cross toppled, and landed with a thump.

Much to Franklin’s amusement the humans produced a scattering of applause, and the Sauron leader, who knew what the sound meant, felt a resurgence of anger. Had the entire universe gone insane? Would everyone, Sauron and human alike, be allowed to defy his authority?

Enraged by the manner in which his own object lesson had been turned against him, Hak-Bin raised the t-gun, shot the blue-eyed man in the head, and proceeded down the line of crosses, killing humans until his weapon ran out of projectiles.

Hak-Bin’s anger had run its course by then, and the rational part of his mind was back in control. It questioned the true cause of his runaway emotions while simultaneously looking for some way to cover up.

Much to its owner’s horror Hak-Bin tossed the t-gun aside, allowed it to plop into a mud puddle, and shuffled toward the canopy-covered dais. His retinue, which included Ji-Hoon and the rest of her team, followed. Dro Rul, along with the rest of his peers, had arrived by then, and stood off to one side as the Sauron took his place before the enormous crowd.

It was no coincidence that a flight of seven Sauron fighters chose that particular moment to roar over the slaves. People ducked and eyed the sky in fear.

Hak-Bin took note of the fact that the humans appeared to be cowed—and made the decision to dispense with his opening remarks. He took his place behind the dais and eyed his audience. “You continue to live for one purpose, and one purpose only, and that is to work. Not just any work, such as you did prior to our arrival, but meaningful work. Look at the temple behind me, take pride in what you have accomplished, and continue to live.”

Hak-Bin paused at that point, allowing time for the words to sink in. “Or, and the choice is yours, you can die. For death is the fate assigned to all miscreants regardless of who they may be. This reality applies to humans, Ra ‘Na, and Saurons as well. If you doubt me, turn your eyes to the sky.”

Slowly, as if not quite sure they had heard correctly, the slaves looked up. Manning was no exception. The sky appeared to be clear—so the security chief was confused at first. Then he saw the black dot and heard the low-pitched hum. The lifter, just one of the many types of aircraft that the Saurons had stolen from the Ra ‘Na and adapted for their own use, came in from the north.

It looked like a single blob at first, but that started to change. The single image morphed into an H-shaped aircraft with something that dangled below. A cargo module? No, it was too small for that. Whatever the thing was it twisted back and forth at the end of its tether and seemed invested with a life of its own.

“As I said,” Hak-Bin intoned, his slightly stilted words booming out from the pole-mounted speakers, “
no one
is exempt from Sauron justice. Not even the stonemaster himself.”

There was a muted gasp as the H-shaped shadow fell over the crowd, and whatever it was that kept the alien aircraft aloft roared, blasting the hill with jets of hot air. Grit flew, clothes flapped, and hair whipped from side to side. The object was clear to see by then—and it was the Saurons rather than the slaves who stared up in horror.

The stonemaster, who, only hours before, had been the second or third most powerful being on Earth, now dangled beneath the lifter at the end of a long black cable. It swayed alarmingly as the lifter lost forward motion and hovered above the citadel. “Remember what you are about to witness,” Hak-Bin said gravely. “Remember as you watch over the slaves, remember as you haul stone, and remember when you dream.”

Then, by means of a prearranged signal, an order was given. The lifter’s copilot touched a switch, a coupling snapped open, and the stonemaster, still struggling to accept his fate, fell free of the cable. Strangely, or perhaps not so strangely, he never screamed. True to his calling, true to the knowledge inherited from his predecessors, and true to his own nature, the master architect spent the last few seconds of his life admiring what he had built, wondering why he had never thought to view it from that particular perspective before, and hoping his assistants would have the strength to deal with the political pressure from above, would refuse to compromise the citadel’s structural integrity in the name of speed, and would hew to the instructions laid down in the Book of Cycles.

And that was when the Sauron’s legs shattered against a partially completed dome, when shards of exoskeleton punctured his abdominal cavity, and light exploded before his eyes. The sight of the Sauron’s death affected different beings in different ways.

Sool winced and closed her eyes.

Franklin thought about how desperate Hak-Bin must be.

Dro Tog felt frightened.

Manning smiled coldly.

Ji-Hoon frowned.

And the man named Brian Banes finally snapped. A fact which wasn’t all that surprising in and of itself, especially given the fact that the Saurons had murdered most of the other patients in the mental hospital, sparing Banes because he was big and strong.
Very
big and
very
strong.

Propelled by emotions rather than concrete thoughts, Banes pushed his way through the crowd, sucker punched one of the Kan warriors, and broke through the security cordon. The ex-mental patient pulled the long heavily serrated kitchen knife out of its homemade sheath, held it up over his head, and charged up the hill. The roar of primal outrage turned many heads.

Strangely enough it was Hak-Bin who first noticed the would-be assassin. His first thought was to escape, to jump out of danger, but he refused to let instinct rule. No, appearances were important, especially then, with so much at stake.

That being the case, the Sauron resolved to stand his ground, to place himself in the hands of fate, and wait for one of his seemingly dim-witted warriors to kill the oncoming slave.

The truth was that in spite of the Zin’s doubts regarding their capabilities, no less than three of the shimmery aliens had turned uphill and raised their weapons only to discover that if they fired and even one of their darts flew wide, there was a high likelihood that it would hit Hak-Bin or one of the Zin dignitaries seated to either side of him. A definite no-no. They were still contemplating, still trying to decide, when Jill Ji-Hoon took action. Though some would question the ex-FBI agent’s judgment later on—it was training rather than political correctness that put her body in motion.

Ji-Hoon, who, along with the other members of the team had been standing just downhill from Hak-Bin, waiting for the event to end, stepped out to block the madman’s way. He saw her, roared some sort of challenge, and ran even faster. His legs pumped, his breath came in short gasps, and only one thing stood in his way. A tall woman with a look of determination on her face.

Though not responsible for Hak-Bin’s safety, Manning and his team were responsible for Franklin, and the sight of the knife was more than sufficient cause. Coats were whipped aside, heavy weapons appeared, and they stood ready to fire. That was when Ji-Hoon decided to intervene, and the security chief raised his hand. Fingers came off triggers as everyone waited to see what would happen. Ji-Hoon waited for the would-be assassin to get a little closer, shifted all her weight to her left foot, and kicked with her right. The lower part of her leg slammed into Bane’s midriff.

He seemed to hesitate, stutter-stepped in an effort to achieve more traction, and swiped at Ji-Hoon with the knife.

The ex-FBI agent jerked her head back, let the blade pass, and kicked her assailant in the right knee.

Banes felt something give, knew he was falling, and managed to recover.

Now, dragging one foot behind him, knife still in his hand, the ex-mental patient drove himself upward. Darts, fired from the top of the nearest observation tower half a mile away, blew divots out of the ground behind him, and those close enough to see what was taking place dove for the ground.

Ji-Hoon, who stood ready to hit her adversary again, was close enough to feel the warm spray as one of Hak-Bin’s ceremonial guards finally blew the madman’s head off. Blood spouted, the corpse toppled, and Banes was free.

Hak-Bin, who still stood frozen in place, allowed himself to relax. Though dramatic, the assassination attempt made a poor conclusion to an otherwise powerful presentation. But that couldn’t be helped, so the Zin looked out over the crowd, marveled at how quiet the scene was, and felt the first signs of the much-dreaded symptoms.

He would need privacy in which to wait them out, in which to scream unheard, in which to wish he were dead. That being the case, Hak-Bin kept his closing comments short and to the point. “You know what I require of you . . . You know the price of failure . . . You know what to do. Work hard, build well, and you will survive.”

The last sentence was a lie, for his kind as well as theirs, but such were the words all of them needed to hear. They required hope . . . and the gift was his to give.

The multitude watched in silence as the great Hak-Bin summoned the sedan chair, slid into place, and was carried away. That’s when a crow cawed, the slaves were released, and work resumed.

2

DEATH DAY MINUS 79

THURSDAY, MAY 14, 2020

Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered, yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives everything its value.

—THOMAS PAINE
The American Crisis, no. 1,
December 23, 1776

PUGET SOUND

It was nighttime, or would have been, except for the ghostly glow provided by the asteroid-mounted reflecting mirror the Ra ‘Na had constructed on behalf of the Saurons and referred to as “the bounce.”

Authorized by the now deceased stonemaster, and focused on Hell Hill so the humans could work around the clock, the intensity of the light started to fade a few miles to the south, where a group known as the Crips had established a temporary camp.

It was a pathetic affair, consisting of little more than a secluded cove, a jumble of weather-whitened logs, and a cluster of carefully camouflaged huts, none of which provided more than twelve square feet of usable living space. Veritable hovels by the standards of the indigents forced to dwell in them—but objects of delight to the wayward alien who floated belly up not fifty feet from the rock-strewn beach.

His name was Pas Pol,
Fra
Pol, the prefix Fra indicating his status as a member of the Ra ‘Na clergy albeit the lowest rung thereof.

Not that Pol, who was or had been part of Dro Tog’s diocese, had ever spent much time worrying about the needs of the religious bureaucracy. A fact that not only prevented his ascension to the next highest level of the hierarchy but kept him in perpetual trouble. A situation made worse when the wayward cleric surreptitiously witnessed a meeting in which Hak-Bin addressed his fellow Zin regarding the heretofore secret birth-death day.

Bishop Tog sat on the information at first, fearful that it might stimulate a revolt and thereby threaten the rather comfortable status quo. But the attempt to bottle the information up failed. Dro Rul learned of the secret, and the Ra ‘Na resistance movement was born. An effort to which Fra Pol had dedicated both heart and soul.

There were dangers attendant to such movements, however—and the initiate had been forced to flee. Yes, the manner of his departure from the dreadnought
Hok Nor Ah
had been something less than dignified, but Pol not only managed to survive the experience, but wound up in a veritable Ra ‘Na paradise thanks to the fact that the waters of Puget Sound were home to a natural buffet of bivalves, any number of which had already found their way into the initiate’s well-rounded tummy. And into
other
tummies too, since the Crips not only lived off the abundant seafood themselves, but used the watery harvest to buy the medications that many of them required.

Not that such matters claimed much of the Ra ‘Na’s attention since his mind was mostly occupied with the sensory feedback attendant upon the act of swimming. An activity mostly denied his race during their long captivity and one for which their lithe, fur-covered bodies had expressly been designed. The sensation had something in common with weightlessness but managed to be better somehow. Pol loved the resistance offered by the water, not to mention its cool embrace and the way the unseen currents tugged at him. Surely Balwur, the Ra ‘Na people’s fabled home world, had been like this, only better if such a thing could be imagined.

The realities of the larger context couldn’t be ignored, however, and much as the more sybaritic part of the cleric’s personality would have liked nothing more than to extend his responsibility-free lifestyle for as long as possible, there wouldn’t
be
a future if the Saurons had their way. Each time the sun disappeared in the west the great slaughter drew one day closer. A fact which meant that everyone who could do something
should
do something, and sooner rather than later.

Pol’s thoughts were delightfully interrupted when a clanging noise was heard, and the camp began to stir. What the humans referred to as dinnertime had finally arrived. It was the best moment of the day except for breakfast, lunch, and the snacks that came in between.