There was only one reason why this would be happening, Donnchadh realized. The Airlia would not simply abandon this base and leave it empty. It was not their way. On her planet, each outpost that the Airlia had retreated from had been brutally destroyed as soon as it was cleared. It had been a scorched-earth policy on a planetwide scale.
Donnchadh turned away from the spire. She noted that the shield wall surrounding the inner island had been turned off — probably when the mothership had arrived from wherever it had been hidden. She pondered that development as she made her way out of the city. If the shield was off, whatever the threat had been was no longer feared. Had the Airlia here defeated whoever had come? She knew where to find Gwalcmai now that the shield wall was down. He was just outside the metal grate, waiting in the canoe.
“Look,” Gwalcmai said, pointing up as she climbed on board.
The gangway retracted into the mothership and the door slid shut. The mothership moved smoothly and without sound to a position a kilometer and a half above the palace. Larger cargo doors in the front of the Airlia craft opened. Two golden saucers exited a door just above the base of the palace. Below them, caught in a tractor beam, was an object that Donnchadh had heard of but never seen — the one on her world had been destroyed in the nuclear explosion that took out the palace — a massive crouching Black Sphinx, over a hundred meters long from the tip of the paws to the rear. The Hall of Records. It was supposed to have been the place where the Ark and Grail were securely stored.
The two saucers flew the sphinx into the cargo bay and set it down. As soon as they released it, they raced back to the palace and made several more trips, each time carrying a twenty-foot-high golden pyramid.
“They’re bringing out the guardians,” Gwalcmai noted.
“They’re deploying to Stage Two,” Donnchadh said. “Dispersing.” She stiffened as one of the saucers came out of the temple with a red pyramid caught in its beam. “The Master Guardian.”
“That means they’re really abandoning this place,” Gwalcmai said.
“We need to get out of here.” Donnchadh grabbed an oar and began paddling.
As they reached the innermost ring, the cargo bay on the mothership closed and the huge craft began to move away to the southeast. They leapt out of the canoe and raced across the land to the next circle of water. Even as they slowly madetheir way across the land, the mothership disappeared from sight.
Aspasia sat in the command chair in his mothership. His tactical display indicated that Artad was in orbit, shadowing his movements to make sure he complied with the terms of the truce the two had agreed on. It was a patchwork solution to a problem both had contributed to. If the Swarm had transmitted the location of this star system to a Battle Core, then there was only a slight chance they could survive — and that slight chance would revolve around making themselves as scarce as possible and making it appear that the Airlia had abandoned the system. The ruins of the transmitter on Mars would help in that matter. A Battle Core might harvest the humans and be satisfied with that. Even if the Swarm had not sent a message out, Artad’s precipitous destruction of the interstellar array on Mars had made an already bad situation worse and implicated him in Aspasia’s isolation. There was no way either could return to the empire without getting to at least Phase IV of the seed program on Earth. That would take at least ten thousand revolutions of this planet around its star. A long time for the humans, but not so long for the Airlia, especially given the fact they had the deep sleep tubes.
Aspasia watched as the mothership passed over a strait connecting two oceans — what would be known as the Atlantic and Mediterranean and the rocks on either side would be called the Pillars of Hercules — and flew along the northern coast of Africa almost to the eastern end of the continent, where it paused above a lush land with a large river coursing through the center and emptying into the Mediterranean. On the entire planet, this was the place where Aspasia’s scientists had decided human life could best develop. Because of that report he had sent his chief engineer, Rostau, to prepare the site many years previously for part of Phase II. This was going to be a bit different, but the site would serve nicely.
They flew upriver to a point where a stone plateau projected up on the west side of the river. Aspasia had the mothership halted. A weapon fired from the nose of the massive ship, cutting into the rock, burning out a large hole at a spot that Rostau had predetermined and programmed into the ship’s weapons. Two saucers emerged from the forward cargo bay, the Black Sphinx in tow. They carefully lowered it into the still-smoking hole, far enough down that even the high top of the head was not above ground level. They quickly followed it with the red pyramid.
Aspasia watched all this while six of his subordinates entered the control room and came to a halt in front of him, heads bowed, awaiting his commands. Isis. Osiris. Horus. Amun. Khons. Seb. Three female. Three male. All young and in the prime of their long lives.
“It is almost dark,” Aspasia said in the language of the Airlia. He pointed one of his six fingers upward. “Artad is above us. Watching to make sure we fulfill the parameters of the Atlantis Truce. I have no doubt that he will violate it; is already violating it in fact. He will try to destroy me while I sleep. It will be your job to watch out for any strike he might make. It will come from a direction you might not expect, so you must be vigilant.”
“And if the Swarm—” Isis began.
“If the Swarm comes for the harvest, then you die. If another scout comes, you destroy it. Is that clear?”
As Aspasia spoke, the mothership descended until it was just above the stone plateau. A gangplank was extended from one of the cargo bays in the bottom of the ship to the ground. On the screen, they could see four high priests unloading the Ark.
“I am leaving you the most valuable thing we have — the Grail. Seal it inside the Hall of Records. Guard it with your lives. ”
“And the key to the Hall?” Osiris asked.
Aspasia held up a golden scepter, a foot long and two inches in diameter. The top of it was made in the image of a lion with ruby red eyes. “ The key remains with me.” They all knew that meant that while they might have the Grail with them, they could not access it.
There was no response and Aspasia looked each of the six in the eyes for a moment before moving on to the next issue. “Listen to me.” He tapped several hexagonals on the control console on the left arm of his chair. “We were not idle all those years although it appeared to most that we were. I had this place prepared for implementation of Phase II. There are tunnels below this plateau, some connecting with the place we have just placed the Hall of Records. You will find them on the plans prepared by Rostau. There are also chambers prepared where you can live quite well. Deep sleep tubes. Food. A fission power source that will last you as long as you could possibly need. All of this was built and put in place by Rostau long ago.”
What Aspasia did not tell them was that Rostau had done more than just prepare tunnels and chambers for Phase II. He had placed some other things down there — precautions and contingencies.