They raised their heads. Artad pointed at the screen. “That is where you must go.” He reached to his side and drew out a sword. “And something like this is what you must recover. It is most important. I will prepare you as well as I can.”
Aspasia’s Shadow’s right arm ended abruptly at the wrist. Raw flesh and white bone marked where Turcotte’s shot had ripped the hand off. A tourniquet was tied around the middle of the forearm, cutting deep into the skin, but it had stopped the bleeding. His skin, pale to begin with, was ghostly white.
The bouncer he was aboard had just descended through the lake in the center of Rano Kao crater on Easter Island. The bouncer was a gold-colored disk about thirty feet in diameter. It moved through a tunnel at the bottom of the lake as easily as it passed through the air.
A half minute later it surfaced in a pool in a large cavern, went up into the air, and settled down on the dry rock, which made up the other half of the area. A half dozen US Marines awaited Aspasia’s Shadow. Their eyes were glazed over, as they were controlled by the guardian computer via a nanovirus coursing through their brains and blood. The nanovirus could send electrical impulses through the infected persons’ brains, controlling their actions, essentially making them part of the Easter Island guardian network. The chilling thing about persons infected by the nanovirus was that while it controlled and directed their nervous systems, a part of their minds was aware of this and unable to change it.
Three of the Marines, part of Task Force Seventy-nine, which had been captured by Aspasia’s Shadow’s forces, climbed onto the bouncer and opened the hatch. While two of them grabbed Aspasia’s Shadow and helped him out, the third picked up the Grail, which was covered by a thick white wrap.
Aspasia’s Shadow staggered as his feet touched the ground and the Marines held him up. He had lost more blood than he’d thought. The Marines helped him into a tunnel lit by lines in the ceiling. The tunnel sloped upward, then leveled and turned to the right. Aspasia’s Shadow and his escorts entered a cave. In the very center was a twenty-foot-high glowing, golden pyramid — the Easter Island guardian.
Aspasia’s Shadow frowned as he noted that plastered on one side of the pyramid was a shriveled mummy with various metal leads connecting the guardian to the body. Aspasia’s Shadow forgot about the figure as a Marine placed the shroud- covered Grail on a table to the right of the pyramid.
In his many reincarnations, Aspasia’s Shadow had known much pain. It felt as if his missing right hand were still attached but on fire. He forced himself to ignore the feeling and went to the Grail. He removed the shroud, revealing an hourglass-shaped golden object. The end that was up appeared solid.
Aspasia’s Shadow pulled a small wooden box from a deep pocket inside his cloak and opened it. Two stones were set inside — the thummin and urim of biblical note. They glowed as if from an inner fire. With difficulty, Aspasia’s Shadow took one of the stones. He held it over the edge of the Grail. The flat end irised open, revealing a small depression inside, the same size as the stone.
Aspasia’s Shadow paused. He knew his forces were moving and that much was happening around the world. He forced himself to put the stone back in the wooden box for the moment and go to the guardian. He leaned against the side, placing his only hand flat against the metal. A golden glow encompassed him as he connected with the alien device.
Acting with just a few commands from him when he had been headquartered at the Mission underneath Mount Sinai, the guardian had done an excellent job of preparing and initiating his plans. He was updated on his fleet moving toward Pearl Harbor; on what was going on above him on the surface of the island; he grinned when he saw the unanswered messages from the stranded Airlia on Mars spooled up and waiting for him — they could rot for all he cared, in retribution for the millennia he had suffered and fought here on Earth while they slept; his Guides were growing in power all over the world — all was going quite well. Centuries of battling, of maneuvering from the shadows in the halls of power, of seeing kingdoms and countries crumble, had made him suspicious of good news. There was always a weak link, a blind spot where disaster could strike from. Artad? Qian-Ling was shielded, the guardian informed him. While that might be an automatic defense reaction by the Qian-Ling guardian, it was just as likely that his ancient enemy had awakened. He knew the Ones Who Wait had been searching for the Qian-Ling lower level key.
He had to assume Artad was finally awake, or at the very least another Shadow of him had been imprinted. And if he were Artad or his Shadow? Aspasia’s Shadow had learned early in his many incarnations to think like his enemy in order to outmaneuver his nemesis.
The Master Guardian. It was the tool Artad needed to destroy him and rule supreme on Earth. Aspasia’s Shadow accessed the truncated line that had once been the link between that guardian and the Master Guardian. Nothing, which meant the Master was still powered down. He knew what was needed to free it, so he accessed the search program for Excalibur, the sword that was much more than a sword.
In the course of their long war against the Swarm the Airlia had had ships captured and worlds overrun. In the course of that, guardian computers, including system masters, had been lost to the Swarm. Because of bitter experience, the Airlia had learned to safeguard their computer systems with devices like Excalibur. While it did several things, it was primarily a microtransmitter that was on all the time. What it transmitted was the authorization code for the Master Guardian, which allowed it to power up and link and control its subordinate guardian computers. But the transmitter only worked when the sword was removed from the specially designed sheath, which was made of a material that blocked the transmission. Having such a device in such a compact form allowed one person to control all of the guardian computers. There was a destruct built into Excalibur that could be triggered, wiping out the memories of all the guardians and shutting them down in an instant. The way to initiate the destruct was something only the Airlia commander who wielded Excalibur knew. That way was one thing that had not been passed to Aspasia’s Shadow when he was first given Aspasia’s memories.
He knew the Watchers had hidden Excalibur long ago. The damn Watchers — Aspasia’s Shadow had killed many members of the meddlesome human cult over the centuries. And there had been times when some of them had not simply watched but tried to search him out and kill him — a most foolish endeavor, as many had learned just before they died.
He had tried to gain Excalibur during his incarnation as Mordred, only to be joined in mutual defeat by Artad’s Shadow masquerading as Arthur. And Merlin the Watcher? What had he done with the sword?
The guardian accessed scanners built into the slope of the volcano above and even reached out to Mars and the base at Cydonia where the few surviving Airlia who had followed Aspasia huddled in their underground caves.
They had picked up a signal from Earth’s surface. Aspasia’s Shadow knew immediately what it meant — the homing device on Excalibur had been activated. Since he hadn’t done it, there was no doubt who had. Artad was awake. And also looking for the sword.
And the location? When he saw the spot, Aspasia’s Shadow cursed. Damn Merlin.
On the other side of the guardian, the withered body twitched, indicating there was life somewhere deep inside. The eyes were crusted shut, the muscles atrophied and consumed as the body tried to keep its core alive, the skin dried and leathery.
Deep inside the mind, the essence of Kelly Reynolds felt the contact of Aspasia’s Shadow and the guardian like an electric shock, bringing her out of her almost-coma. She’d been there for weeks, ever since trying to link to the guardian when the island was occupied by the United Nations. She’d wanted to discover the truth about the aliens, to learn the advanced knowledge she had believed could be gained from the computer. Instead she had become trapped by the guardian, her mind scoured by the alien computer for information and then forgotten about.