“Yes, but-” Dane didn’t finish.
“But what?” Earhart asked.
“We don’t have this technology,” Dane said. “So if the Shadow is a parallel Earth, it’s one from the future, where people look like this and they’re willing to destroy other · worlds to keep their own going. It means mankind isn’t getting better-it’s getting worse.”
“Worse in that time line,” Earhart corrected.
Dane didn’t want to argue the point. He looked at the console. It was completely dark. “This isn’t much help. It must need power to be used.”
“If they could fly this thing, we can,” Earhart said.
“What makes you so sure?”
“I’m a pilot.”
“This isn’t an airplane,” Dane said.
“Is there a reason you’re being so negative?”
Dane reached forward and poked the dead body. “If an Earth time line developed into the Shadow, then people like us must have been wiped out.”
“Has it occurred to you that people like us might be the Ones Before?” Earhart asked.
That gave Dane pause, because he hadn’t considered it. ‘Then why aren’t they more direct with their messages?”
“Maybe they’re doing the best they can, just like we’re doing the best we can.” Earhart turned away from the bodies and console. “Let’s take a look at the engine room.” She pressed forward against the outer surface and popped out of sight. Dane followed and almost ran into the back of her, as he had stopped on the outside of the control pod.
“What’s wrong?” He could feel the raw emotion of trouble and danger coming off of her.
“Don’t you feel it?”
Dane sent his mind out once more, probing. “It feels like a storm is coming.”
“A very powerful one,” Earhart said.
Dane didn’t say anything further, and they went to the bottom of the chamber where a shaft went straight down. They descended it for several minutes before emerging into another circular open area. This one was a hundred feet across and very dimly lit. From the route they had taken, Dane knew they were at the very bottom of the huge sphere.
In the center was a thick black rod with a golden globe on top. The walls were lined with couches into which bodies were strapped. Dane floated over to one side and checked one of the bodies. It was human with the head half solidified into dullish gray material with small specks of crystal mixed in-exactly like the crashed sphere he and Earhart had gone in on a parallel world.
Dane remembered what Kolkov had said about the crystal skulls. “Maybe these people aren’t pure.”
“What do you mean?” Earhart asked as she joined him.
Dane reached out and touched the nearest skull. The gray material crumbled under his fingers. ‘These people. Their brains were used for energy, but they didn’t turn into pure crystal.” He was thinking, trying to connect the disparate pieces of this quest they were on. “You said that the crystal skulls can pick up power from being around people in desperate situations. That means normal people, people without our gift-or curse-have some power that can be tapped.”
Dane pointed at the golden globe on top of the black rod. “I bet that’s something very similar to a crystal skull. I think it takes the power from all these people-” he indicated the bodies circling the room. Dane looked more closely at the closest body. “Here.” He pointed at several leads that ran from the enclosure into the body. “I think. those were designed to kill these people. Slowly. And they knew it. A hell of a way to produce power.”
“Don’t knock it,” Earhart said.
“What?”
“It’s what we plan on doing.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“Sound officers’ call,” Custer ordered Trumpeter Martin. “The twenty-fifth of June,” Custer said to himself as he counted days, in his head. The centennial of the United States of America was to be celebrated in less than two weeks. As the bugle call brought his officers to his tent, Custer calculated whether the telegraph wires would be working going east. If the regiment engaged the Sioux today, he could send a messenger to Fort Lincoln and then, if the wires were up, the word of the Victory would most certainly make it to the celebration that would be taking place in Philadelphia in early July.
Custer frowned. But if the wires were down, the news might not get there in time. “Hurry up!” Custer snapped as his officers slowly gathered around.
He rubbed his forehead to push away a growing pain there. He was responsible for every damn thing in this regiment. His Indian scouts were chanting their death songs, and his own officers were moving like molasses. Damn fools, all of them. Custer looked over the sunburned faces of his twelve troop commanders. “Each company commander will immediately detail one NCO and six troopers to the pack train.”
He could see the surprise on the faces of some of the officers as the Import of the message sunk in. They’d been planning on resting today. Ten years of Indian fighting had lll1pressea one tact upon Custer: If the regiment delayed, there Would be nothing in the valley of the Little Big Horn. In all those years he had managed to come to blows with his red foe Only once decisively, at the Washita, and then only by surprising the village at dawn. Here dawn was already come and gone and the Sioux knew he was here. They would have to hurry.
Because the regiment was moving quickly, they had no Wagon train for logistical support. Extra ammunition, grain and food were laden on mules, and the detail Custer had just designated would have the duty of controlling the mules that held each company’s resupply of ammunition.
There was so much more to this than the damn fools back east imagined, Custer fumed as he waited for his subordinates to relay that order and return. He had 175 mules in his supply train and only six skinners to work them, thus the detail. The supply train was like a leash around his throat, but it was one that he could only cast off for several hours before the regiment needed the supplies that were carried.
“There’s a village on the Little Big Horn, northeast of here,” Custer briefed his men. “But my brother informs me that we’ve been spotted.” Custer glared at his subordinates. There would be plenty of time after they took care of the Sioux to get to the bottom of the breadbox incident. He would find out which troop it came from and deal with the commander appropriately.
“Any sign the Sioux might attack us?” Major Reno asked.
Custer stared at his second-ranking officer in amazement. How Reno ever survived the Civil War, he didn’t know. “Major, they would not dare attack the regiment. The issue is, can we catch them before they break camp and run? If we delay there will be no Indians to fight.”
“Sir, if they are on the Little Big Horn,” Reno said, “we must wait until tomorrow for General Crook and General Terry to complete the encirclement. They will be on the river shortly. We will catch the hostiles between us in a classic pincer maneuver.”
“Are you not listening?” Custer said. “There will be nothing to encircle on the twenty-sixth. Besides, we are not certain that General Terry will have made it that far by then, and of General Crook there has been no sign.”
Custer’s fingers bore down on his riding gloves as another officer spoke up. “Sir, our orders are to move in coordination with-” Captain Benteen began, but Custer had no time for this.
“I know what my orders are, gentlemen.” His tone of voice indicated there would be no further discussion of the subject. “Commanders will inspect their troops and prepare them to move out. We will march in the order that the commanders report back to me that they are ready to move. The last commander to report in will guard the pack train.” Custer waved a hand, dismissing them and ending any further discussion. He missed the days when he had a divisional staff waiting to carry his orders to his subordinates and he didn’t have listen to the whining and complaints of mere company commanders.