so. Now quit messing around so we can punch out of here.”
The combat variant scanned the tiles on the curvilinear walls, spotted the one that bore a pyramid, and saw the name haafa printed directly below it. Confi?dent that he had chosen the correct destination, Shaz pressed on the image, felt the tile give, and hurried to withdraw his arm. The lights began to fl?ash on and off, and a female voice issued from the overhead speakers. “The transfer sequence is about to begin. Please take your place on the service platform. Once in place, check to ensure that no portion of your anatomy extends beyond the yellow line. Failure to do so will cause serious injury and could result in death.”
There was a brilliant fl?ash of light as each individual was disassembled down to the molecular level, transmitted through hyperspace, and put back together within a nearly identical containment on Haafa. Shaz felt a moment of dizziness quickly followed by the usual bout of nausea. Then, eager to escape the radiation produced by the adjacent power core, the variant led the rest of the group out into the contamination chamber.
There was a hiss, quickly followed by a roar, as jets of hot water mixed with a broad-spectrum antibacterial agent struck human and machine alike. The wash-down lasted for three minutes and ended as suddenly as it had begun. The steam eddied gently as the outer door slid open. But, rather than the wave of artifi?cially cool air the variant expected, the invading atmosphere was even warmer.
A small delegation of Techno Society staff members was there to greet the newcomers as they passed through a beaded curtain and out into a sparsely furnished antechamber. “Hello!” a woman with long, black hair said cheerfully, as she offered Shaz a robe. “Welcome to Haafa . . . I’m sorry about the air-conditioning—but it went belly-up yesterday. We’re hoping to receive the necessary parts from Anafa during the next few days.
“My name is Anika,” the station chief added, as she continued to hand out robes. “Jorge here is in charge of security—and Cara is my subchief. We’re a bit shorthanded at the moment because most of the staff is out in the Segenni Desert with Chairman Tepho.”
“Chairman Tepho?” Shaz exclaimed as he belted the robe around his waist. “What in the hell is he doing here?”
Although Anika had never met the combat variant before, the station chief was well acquainted with the operative’s reputation for violence, and her long, narrow face paled as the operative shimmered half-seen before her. “The chairman spends quite a bit of time on Haafa,” Anika said nervously. “There are many artifacts in the city of Kahoun, and the Society must be alert to new technologies.”
The answer made perfect sense—but came as a nasty shock nevertheless. Because having lost contact with Norr and Logos, the last person Shaz wanted to meet was Tepho, but there was no avoiding it. The image in front of Anika began to stabilize as the combat variant brought his emotions under control. “Yes, of course,”Shaz replied. “It will be a pleasure to see the chairman again. . . . How far away is the desert you spoke of? And how long will it take to reach it?”
“Assuming you’re willing to leave early in the morning, I can have you there by midday,” the station chief replied.
“That will be fi?ne,” Shaz agreed levelly. “If you would be so good as to book us into a nearby hotel, we need to dry our equipment and get some sleep.”
Kane, who was over the worst of the pain by then, took a deep breath. The air was not only warm but redolent with the scent of Phan’s damp hair and the fragrance of fl?owers that lay without. It was good to be alive. Or dead! So long as one had a body. The spirit entity found that thought to be amusing and laughed out loud. The others turned to look at him—and the disincarnate forced Dyson to grin. What Kane didn’t notice, but the others did, was the slight odor of decay that surrounded him. Because the sensitive’s formerly healthy body was starting to rot.
At the very center of Kufu’s encampment, where it was protected by thousands of troops, stood the twelve- storyhigh tower made of timbers brought down from the north. It was remarkable in a number of ways, not the least of which was the platform at the very top from which wings came and went, hot-air balloons were routinely launched, and semaphore signals could be sent.
Below that lay many levels of curtained apartments, Kufu’s suite, which occupied the entire second fl?oor, and the bottommost level, which housed the armory, various repair shops, and was sandwiched between the gigantic iron-shod wheels that enabled the king’s teamsters to haul the tower from place to place, an arduous task that necessitated laying down hundreds of planks to keep the wheels from sinking into the sand.
Even one construct of that size and complexity would have been amazing, but from his vantage point about halfway to the top, Rebo could see similar structures in the distance! It was late afternoon, the worst of the day’s heat had dissipated, and the air was pleasantly warm. Tendrils of smoke marked the other towers, as did the long black shadows that pointed due east and the observation balloons that hung above them. Now, having been Kufu’s guest for the better part of two days, Rebo knew that both the balloons and the airborne variants were there not only to keep an eye on the slowly drifting pyramids, but the competition as well. Other than gauzy white curtains, the platform was open to the desert as a late-afternoon breeze caused them to billow outward, and Norr appeared at the runner’s elbow. Rebo resisted the urge to wrap her in his arms and kiss her, something the runner would have done a lot more often, had it not been for the fact that Logos was eternally present and therefore a witness to everything the sensitive did. The variant was equally aware of the AI’s presence, which was why she sounded so formal. “Are you ready?”
Rebo sighed. He’d been dreading that moment all day. The only thing worse than the prospect of holding a meeting with Logos and Lysander was the certain knowledge that something bad would probably result from it. Of course it was even worse for Norr—who would have to surrender her body to Lysander yet again. “Yeah,” the runner said reluctantly. “I guess so.”
That was when Logos, who had been intentionally kept in the dark up until that point, spoke up. “Ready?” the AI said suspiciously. “Ready for what?”
“For a meeting with Lysander,” Norr said tonelessly.
“Come on, Jak . . . Let’s sit down in the middle of the apartment. People are less likely to hear us that way.”
Rebo knew what the sensitive meant. King Kufu had assigned a minder to each of his so-called guests, and that made it diffi?cult to hold an unmonitored conversation. But the minders weren’t allowed to invade the space assigned to the off-worlders—and Hoggles would patrol the perimeter to ensure that they didn’t.
As the runner followed the sensitive out onto the handloomed rug that defi?ned the center of their shared quarters, and sat on a likely-looking cushion, Logos was processing what he had heard. And, having given the matter a full second’s worth of thought, the computer quickly came to the conclusion that he didn’t want to speak with Lysander. Not until Sogol was permanently off-line, thereby positioning him as the only entity that could reactivate Socket and thereby lay the groundwork for a new system of star gates.
