return here again. Accede this world fully to me. It’s no longer your project. It hasn’t been for half a millennium. It’s mine.”
“No.”
“I understand humans far better than you do. They’re not worth your time. They don’t deserve to be exalted, only ruled and managed. Look at those two over there. A killer and a slave. And they’re about the best of the lot.”
“Humans are admirable. As a race. As a whole.”
“Stop deluding yourself.”
“Stop trying to delude me.”
“I’m being honest. Perhaps it’s time you started being honest with yourself.”
“I’m not listening to you. I listened to you before, and…”
“Yes, that turned out well, didn’t it?”
“Be quiet!” Quetzalcoatl snapped.
“You and Quetzalpetatl…”
“I said be quiet!”
“Sisterfucker,” Tezcatlipoca spat.
Quetzalcoatl hauled Tezcatlipoca sideways, so that his head was over the breach in the confinement unit.
Fire lashed out in flickering lambent arcs, touching Tezcatlipoca’s face.
Tezcatlipoca screamed.
So did Mal, in protest. So did Stuart.
Quetzalcoatl held his brother’s face to the scorching curls of plasma. He closed his eyes tight. Tezcatlipoca shook and shuddered, bucked and squirmed. Skin blackened and peeled. Flesh melted. Smoke coiled upwards. Soon bone showed through.
Quetzalcoatl let go only when his brother’s body fell still. He dropped Tezcatlipoca to the floor and heaved a deep, trembling sigh. He stood staring at the faceless corpse for several moments.
“It had to be this way, Tez,” he said. “Don’t you see? It had to be.”
Mal Rose. “What have you done?” she said, in cold fury.
“Freed you. Liberated you.” Quetzalcoatl’s tone was matter-of-fact. What could be more obvious?
“But the failsafe… The fusion plants…”
“Tezcatlipoca had your race so brainwashed, so cowed, you’d fall for anything he said. Luckily I was able to see through his deceit.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“I know my brother. This was a desperate, last-ditch gamble. Of course it was. He was preying on my one real weakness — you humans. He would never — ”
Faintly, through their feet, they felt a vibration. It swelled then faded, like the hum of a tuning fork.
“He would never…” Quetzalcoatl repeated, faltering.
The vibration came again, stirring up dust.
Quetzalcoatl took off, zooming up through the hole in the roof.
Mal knelt by Stuart again. “Think you can move?”
“Everything hurts, but yes.”
Their suits of armour carried them unsteadily skyward. Outside, above Tenochtitlan, Quetzalcoatl was scanning the horizon in all directions. His movements were agitated.
“This can’t be,” he muttered. “He wouldn’t. He didn’t.”
“You fool,” said Mal. “You big fucking arrogant twat.”
“How dare you talk to me like that?” But it lacked conviction.
“It’s happening, isn’t it? Just like Tezcatlipoca said.”
“I…”
“You didn’t listen. You were too bound up in your petty vengeance. And now look what you’ve done.”
“I can fix it.” This, too, lacked conviction.
“Oh yeah? Fucking how?”
“I can…” Quetzalcoatl broke off. He bowed his head. “I don’t know how.”
“You’ve screwed us all. Do you realise that?”
Faintly: “Yes.” Then, with a little more strength: “But I can save you. You two, at least. Come with me.”
“Where to?”
“Tamoanchan.”
“Tamoanchan exists?” said Stuart.
“It’s a world,” said Quetzalcoatl. “And such a world, too. A world where there are many like us. Where you can be like us.”
“You aren’t gods, are you?” Somehow, Stuart had known this all along. Ever since his first visit to the underground ziggurat. “You call yourselves that, and by comparison with us you are. But you aren’t. Not really. You’re scientists, that’s all. Scientists and warriors.”
Quetzalcoatl’s silence confirmed it.
“From somewhere like earth.”
Another silence.
“You live longer than us, you’ve discovered more than us, and you enjoy being hailed as gods by us. But you aren’t and never have been.”
“It seemed as good a description as any,” Quetzalcoatl said. “A useful shorthand. And what is ‘god,’ after all, but the name a lesser being gives to a superior one? A dog’s owner is god to that dog.”
“Superior?” said Mal scornfully. “That’s a laugh. You’re so superior, how come you just signed our planet’s death warrant?”
“I’ll say it again: come with me. We’ll join the others. There’s still time. We can leave. Tamoanchan lies just a sidestep away. Our underground ziggurat isn’t just our beachhead, it’s our transportation — a gateway through the interstices between worlds.”
“Go with you,” said Stuart, “and be treated like talking monkeys for the rest of our lives?”
“It won’t be like that.”
“Oh, no?”
“I can look after you. I’ll — I’ll hold you up as ideal specimens of your kind.”
“Specimens,” snorted Mal.
“Look at the two of you. Oneness in duality. Duality in oneness. My people will respect you. Revere you, even. I guarantee it.”
The sky had begun to shimmer — waves of gossamer iridescence rippling across the blueness. The surface of Lake Texcoco pulsed and heaved. The walls of Tenochtitlan quivered. Birds took to the air, squawking in fright.
“It’s that or perish,” Quetzalcoatl insisted. “I’m offering you survival. Just you two, alone out of billions. You should be flattered. Honoured.”
Stuart and Mal looked at each other.
“Choose,” said the Plumed Serpent, holding out a hand to them. “Now or never.”
THIRTY-THREE
Same Day
They alighted atop a high, undamaged tower. They removed their helmets, smoothed out their hair, raised their sweat-drenched faces to the breeze.
You could feel it. Hear it. The earth groaning. The world turning on itself, harming itself. Hot, unnatural gusts of wind blew, constantly shifting direction. Whitecaps criss-crossed on the lake in overlapping layers. The sun seemed to dance in the sky.
