elbow.
He groaned and she spun around and kneed him in the groin and clasped her hands together to deliver a crashing blow to his hunched-over back. She rose to catch her breath, but then Yeats whipped his head up, nabbing her in the jaw and splitting her lip. She staggered back into the chamber as he straightened up. He lifted his head to reveal cold, dead eyes in the dim light. His arm came up pointing his gun at her.
“Say your bedtime prayers, Sister.”
Yeats raised his boot and slammed it full force into her chest, driving her back into the crypt, which molded around her like clay. She felt a cold tingling inside her. It began in the small of her back, raced up her spine, and exploded throughout her entire body.
Suddenly everything began to go numb. She became very still, almost lifeless in the dark, but she could feel her heart pounding. Soon that started to fade. Then the crypt door shut and she felt nothing at all.
33
Conrad, still lashed to the column,could feel the walls of the silo throb as the powerful thrusters of the Solar Bark began to hum. The greasy air from inside the ship now seeped out and smothered Conrad. He could also feel it heating up. The sunken shrine’s open roof revealed the sky had turned overcast. Then the silo doors parted wider and loose rocks and debris began to fall.
Conrad closed his eyes as the dust came down. Blinking them open, he gazed out over the cavernous launch bay. For a moment, with all the smoke and confusion, Conrad couldn’t see the starship and feared she was gone. Then a curtain of smoke parted and he glimpsed the unreal image of the Solar Bark shimmering behind the smoke. He could also see an AK-47 lying on the ground, apparently dropped by one of Zawas’s soldiers in the panic of their retreat. But the machine gun was more than ten yards away, useless to him in his present predicament.
The air started to taste smoky. His eyes began to burn, his nose tingled in the grimy air. He struggled against the column, coughing on the smoke. With or without the Secret of First Time, he realized, the Scepter of Osiris was his only shot to reset the star chamber in P4 and stop the earth-crust displacement. And it was on board the starship. Somehow he had to break free and retrieve the scepter before the Solar Bark took off and fried him alive.
The thought of fire reminded him of the Zippo lighter Yeats had given him. He still had it in his breast pocket. If only he could figure out a way to get it into his hand, he could burn off the ropes. Conrad dropped his chin to his chest and pulled out his sunglasses with his teeth. He then slowly dug into his breast pocket with the glasses and attempted to lift the lighter. After a couple of minutes he gave up, his neck aching, but another jolt from the Solar Bark’s engines drove him to give it one more try.
This time it worked. He was able to scoop the lighter into one of the glasses’ lenses. Now with the glasses hanging from his mouth, the lighter balanced precariously, he decided to turn his head to the left and slip the extended goggle under the collar of his jacket and over his shoulder. If he could just reach the armpit of his sleeve…
The lighter slipped down his sleeve and with a few shakes landed in the palm of his hand. With some dexterity he flicked it on. The flame burned his hand and he cursed, almost dropping the lighter on the spot.
For a moment he froze, trying to figure out some way of burning the ropes off without inflicting third-degree burns on his wrists and hands. Finally, he concluded there was no way around it. He took a deep breath, clenched his teeth, and flicked the lighter. The flame stabbed his wrist as he worked on the ropes. Everything inside him wanted to drop the lighter but he forced himself to grip it tighter. Soon tears were streaming from his eyes. But he focused on the Solar Bark and the goal at hand.
The smell of his own charred flesh on the back of his hand-like burnt rubber-made him reel with nausea. Unable to bear it any longer, he felt the lighter slip from his fingers and heard it clank on the stone floor. The understanding sank in that he had lost his best chance for escape. Worse, he realized the smell of rubber had been the band of his wristwatch, which he had burned off.
Conrad groaned. With nothing left to lose, he attempted to pull his wrists apart. He felt the charred rope give a little before the sensation of it sliding across his wrists reached his brain and he shouted in agony.
One last time he pulled his hands apart, giving it all he had. His scorched, tender wrists strained at the ends of the rough ropes until finally the toasted strands began to shred, and suddenly his hands broke free.
Conrad lurched forward and stared at the rings around his trembling hands. He then tore two strips of cloth from his uniform and tied them around his wrists. He grabbed the AK-47 off the ground and ran wildly through the dust toward the Solar Bark.
He entered the rotunda and reached the outer door to the ship that he had found with Yeats earlier. It was closed tight, throbbing with energy that encompassed the entire giant obelisk. He placed his hand on the square pad.
The platform carrying Conrad emerged into the cool cryogenics level a minute later. Directly overhead he could see the hatch that led into the ship’s command module. The circle of lights told him that Yeats was up there with the obelisk.
He looked to his left down the corridor that led to the Osiris chamber and to his right down the corridor that ended with the Isis chamber. He turned right.
At the end of the dark tunnel was an eerie blue light. As he approached the cryocrypt door, Conrad could see that it was closed and that the grooves carved into its metallic surface were glowing. In an instant he knew “Isis” was inside. Yeats had frozen Serena.
“Damn you, Yeats,” he growled and struck the door with the butt of the AK-47.
He examined the square pad next to the door. He placed his hand on it and heard a high-pitched hum. The lights behind the grooves suddenly grew brighter, glowing with such intensity he had to shade his eyes and step back in the corridor. Then just as quickly the brightness faded to a dull glow, flickered like the last embers of a fire burning out, and finally went black.
Oh, God, Conrad thought. What have I done?
He struck the thick door, colder than ever, with his hands. He tried in vain to move it. But he knew it was futile. He gave up and let his body slide down the door to the floor when he felt it vibrate. The door was moving! He jumped to his feet and watched as the cryocrypt cracked open, an icy mist flowing out into the corridor. He didn’t wait for it to clear before he plunged in to search for Serena.
She was in the crypt, her translucent skin almost blue when he grabbed her and carried her out over his shoulder into the corridor. He set her on the floor and began to massage her arms and legs. She was barely breathing.
Oh, God, he prayed under his breath. Don’t let her die. “Come on, baby, come on,” he repeated. “You can do it.”
Slowly the color came back to her cheeks and her breathing became deeper and more rhythmic. When she opened her eyes, Conrad was shocked by their empty, lifeless quality.
“Serena, it’s me, Conrad,” he said. “Do you know where you are?”
She moaned. He brought his ears to her lips. “If you’re Conrad Yeats, then this must be hell.”
“Thank God.” He breathed a huge sigh of relief. “You’re OK.”
She struggled to sit up and get her bearings. “Yeats?”
“Up in the capsule,” he told her. “But he’s going to come down before the launch to put himself into the Osiris cryocrypt. When he does, I’ll be waiting for him.”
“And me?”
“While he’s with me, you go up into the capsule and get the scepter. Whatever happens to me, you’ve got to stop this ship from launching and get back to P4. Understood?”
She rubbed her temples. “So you really think we can stop the displacement?”
“I don’t know, but we have to try,” he said when the circle of lights above the central platform flashed.
“He’s coming down,” Conrad said. “I’ve got to take my position. You wait until he’s well along the other
