But the messages originated here and were sent to a guardian computer on Mars to be transmitted. The same exact message each time. Just a code, which indicated this particular outpost. No details. And all that came back from the Airlia Empire was a simple acknowledgment. Donnchadh searched the logs. The same acknowledgment time after time. No new orders. No updates. Ever since this outpost had been established.
Donnchadh thought about that, then realized that the Airlia were afraid of the messages being intercepted. The message system was simple and functional. And Donnchadh knew enough about computers to set up a self-sustaining loop by which the messages were sent to the guardian on Mars and returned with an indication they had been sent — and acknowledged — when in fact they had not been.
Then she checked on something — how long it took a message to reach the Airlia command center and how long it would take a ship to travel to Earth from wherever that was located.
She then looked in a direction that scientists from her own planets had gone — examining the master plan for the development of the humans on the planet. There was a set schedule depending on population spread and Empire need. The humans away from Atlantis were to be allowed to breed and at the same time given the rudiments of civilization to allow more and more to be sustained by less and less land.
At the same time, two things were to be insinuated into society: a common bond and divisiveness. The first was to be done through the concept of God and religion. The second through national and ethnic differences.
For the first, the Airlia would use the promise of eternal life. A real promise, given the potential of the Grail, but one they would shroud in the concept of various Gods and dogma surrounding each.
For the latter, the Airlia introduced slight ethnic differences into the human gene pool — skin color, facial characteristics, and other overall minor aberrations. Warfare among the various human segments was to be encouraged. Population was to be allowed to grow up to certain levels, at which time the herd would be culled via disease and warfare.
Right now, this outpost was at Level One — the human population had been thinly spread over the arable land and was growing in numbers. Strong control was maintained at the Airlia headquarters on Atlantis, but outside of there, little influence was being exerted.
Level Two was estimated to be implemented sometime in the next several hundred years upon authorization from the Airlia Empire.
When she was done, Donnchadh had difficulty breaking her contact with the Master Guardian. She tried to pull her hand back, but the field kept her in place. She was able to shift her eyes enough to catch Gwalcmai’s attention. With one hard tug, he pulled her away from the alien computer.
“Finished?”
Donnchadh could only nod. They quickly retraced their steps, heading down the winding ramp. Donnchadh half expected an alarm to be raised, fearful that somehow the Master Guardian had alerted the Airlia, but nothing happened. They made it out of the temple and back to Jobb’s small house.
“And what now?” Jobb asked as soon as they were inside.
“Now we wait,” Donnchadh said.
“How long?” Jobb asked.
Donnchadh exchanged a knowing glance with Gwalcmai. They knew how long it had taken them to journey tothis planet on board the mothership. They both knew it would probably be many, many years before the Airlia reacted to the lack of contact from Earth. More than Jobb’s lifetime, that was certain.
“I don’t know how long,” Donnchadh said.
“You are going back to wherever it is you came from?” Jobb sat down on his bed.
“Yes,” Donnchadh said.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Watch. Write down what you learn. We will come back here someday.”
Jobb stared at the two of them. “I will not see the end of the Airlia, will I?”
Donnchadh sighed. “No. You won’t. It will be a long time.”
“But I have helped?”
“Greatly,” Donnchadh acknowledged.
“Then I am done,” Jobb said. He gestured toward Gwalcmai. “Finish me.”
Gwalcmai shook his head. “It is not our way.”
“I can’t live like this anymore,” Jobb said. Without another word he drew the ceremonial dagger from the belt around his robe and slashed the blade along his forearm from wrist to elbow. Such was his determination that he was then able to switch the dagger to the hand with the cut arm and do the same to his other arm. Donnchadh belatedly tried to stem the bleeding, but Gwalcmai put an arm out, stopping her.
“It’s his choice.” Gwalcmai pushed her toward the door as Jobb slumped down on his cot, blood soaking the blankets and dripping onto the floor, his eyes closed. “There are worse things than death,” Gwalcmai said.
V
Darkness. Donnchadh woke to absolute darkness. She lifted her right arm and found that the movement was restricted by bands wrapped around it. She managed to get it in front of her face, the back of it lightly striking against something above her, and saw nothing. She pushed upward with both hands and realized she was in a tight, enclosed space.
Her heart rate accelerated along with her breathing. She reached out to the sides and hit cold metal. She blinked in the darkness, not even sure her eyelids were working, as she perceived no difference with them open or shut. Her mind wasn’t working right. She tried to recall where she was, when she had lain down to sleep, but couldn’t.
Where was Gwalcmai? Why wasn’t he by her side?
She slammed the palms of her hand against the metal above, hearing a slight thud, but experiencing no give in her prison top.
“Gwalcmai,” she cried out in a weak voice that only bounced back to her.
She screwed her eyelids shut and tried to concentrate. Where was she? What had happened?
A heavy weight suddenly hit her chest. Her son. Fynbar.
She knew he was dead.
But the name drew another thread of memory out of the confusion and she grasped onto it. A gray spaceship. Leaving a massive mothership. An Airlia mothership. Her mission. Gwalcmai’s and her mission. Earth. Atlantis. The high priest Jobb.
He had killed himself. That oriented her.
Time. That was why she was here. She was in the Airlia tube in the Fynbar. Coming out of the deep sleep.
Donnchadh fought to get her breathing under control.
She knew Gwalcmai was close by. In the other tube. He should also be coming out of the deep sleep. They had set the controls for five hundred revolutions of the planet around the sun. It had been just short of the number she had gleaned from the Master Guardian for the lack of messages from Earth to be noticed and a ship dispatched and travel the distance to the planet.
There was a latch. Donnchadh’s heart rate decelerated to normal as she remembered the latch on the inside of the tube. She felt to her right and her fingers curled around a small lever. She pulled it and, with a hiss, the top of the tube unsealed and slowly swung upward. At first it was just as dark, then faint red light invaded the tube and hit her eyes.
She had to close them for several minutes to adjust. This was the absolute minimum emergency lighting setting, activated by the movement of the tube’s lid as they had programmed, but it took a while for her eyes to be able to take even that much light after so many years of darkness. She used the time to remove the muscle stimulator bands from around her upper body.