They walked over to check on the two wounded men. Father Chicanis was actually recovering rather well. He was in considerable pain, but nothing major had been damaged that could not be repaired. He was certainly functional. The same could not be said for Mogutu, whose abdomen had been penetrated by those barbed claws. Under normal battle conditions, he would already have undergone surgery and been put in a tank, recovering perfectly, but these weren’t normal conditions. They had nothing with which to diagnose his wounds, and no physician to do anything about them anyway. All they had was some powerful painkillers and sterilizers, and precious little of those.
“It is a mercy that he remains unconscious,” the priest commented. “Feeling my arm, just thinking about what he must feel with those wounds is chilling. There has to be a great deal of internal bleeding. Those poor creatures were designed for quick killing; they hadn’t the strength or sheer power for a real fight. They pounce and by their ferocity and those claws and teeth they became killing machines. What a terrible life they must have had. I hope that God gives them the peace and joy they were denied here.”
Colonel N’Gana was taking Mogutu’s condition hard, but he was the consummate professional. “Father Chicanis here insisted on going back out to the little terrors and giving them last rites,” he said, shaking his head in wonder.
“You disapprove, Colonel? You do not believe in such things?” The priest knew the answers before he asked the questions.
“They were animals. I don’t risk anything to pray over dead vicious animals, no. And, frankly, I’m not certain what I believe in any more. At least, that’s partially true. I don’t know if there’s a God, Father, and I’m not certain I’d like a God who could create a universe so full of misery. I never could quite accept your idea of God, anyway. It never made any sense. If such a God were wholly good and the epitome of perfection, why does everybody keep rebelling against Him? Such a God is also the father of evil.” He looked down at the unconscious Mogutu. “Now, evil is something I believe in. I’ve seen it, heard it, smelled it, fought it. Most people haven’t believed in evil for a thousand years or more. Everybody’s misguided or misunderstood. You think of those things as victims. Perhaps, but they did not evolve, even unnaturally, from a state of grace, Father. They were designed as instruments of evil.”
Father Chicanis sighed. “I am sorry you feel that way, Colonel. To me—well, the basic genes that were used to create them could have been from my own family. I do not believe that a creation of evil who has no choice can be held to a moral standard they cannot comprehend. That is the key difference between the devil and his minions and those poor creatures. The devil and his followers chose their path. A god of love is not a god of rigid order and discipline, a dictator creating sycophants. Worship, love, all that is of value is meaningless if it is not freely given. And if it is to be freely given, then the option not to give it, to reject it, must be present. No, Colonel. Those who choose evil define it. That is the key.”
N’Gana shook his head sadly. “And in the meantime, in your universe, creatures of evil kill men of good and all’s right with the cosmos.” He paused a moment. “We must leave him to die, you know. Or kill him out of mercy lest he awaken and die in agony.”
The priest looked stricken. “Colonel! We can’t just abandon him! What were we just talking about? I’ll not accept a choice like that!”
“Then you can stay with him if you like. We cannot bring him. I’m not sure how we’re going to get across this river yet, but we must do it and do it today. We’re sitting ducks here and the stakes are too high. The remains of Sparta are just over there, and beyond them the hills, and then Ephesus. Ephesus has what we are here to get, but it is also one anchor base of the Titans. The sergeant understood, as I did, that the mission was the only thing that mattered. He’s a liability to that mission now, and he can be of no help to anyone. The best we can do to honor his gallantry is to complete the mission. Still, I will not leave him here to die in agony. He deserves better than that. So, either one of us stays or he is mercifully sent to his reward, whatever and wherever that is. I’d rather not spare anyone, and I can’t spare the others, but the choice is yours.”
The priest sighed. “I cannot morally sanction such an action, yet I understand your position. I will stay. It is probably for the best anyway, as I can’t possibly swim with this arm. If he dies, I shall give him last rites and a Christian burial and then I will try and find what remains of my people to restore God’s mercy to them. If he lives, we shall go together.”
N’Gana shrugged. “Suit yourself. But be aware that Sergeant Mogutu was never a Christian. At best we might call him a lapsed Moslem.”
“Colonel—it is the same God.”
“I suppose it is at that. Very well. We’ll leave what we can here for you, but that’s precious little.” He stood, looking down at his longtime companion, and for a moment there was a slight quiver in the lip, a stray trace of emotion in a man who considered it a weakness. He then stood erect, saluted the unconscious sergeant, and walked away toward the others.
“Come, then! We have a river to cross!” he announced.
Neither Harker nor Kat Socolov liked leaving the two behind, but there was little that could be done and, as N’Gana said, it was the mission that mattered. All of them were expendable if those codes could be broadcast.
Now they stood by the riverbank looking out and trying to guess a possible route.
“It’s a young river,” the anthropologist noted. “In fact, I’d say it hasn’t been here for very long at all. Possibly it’s another that’s shifted its course, but it’s clear that very little has been dug out. You can see where some trees and even bushes poke out of the water.”
“Yes, but how deep is it?” N’Gana asked rhetorically. “If the tall grass was typical in height, so if we see the top fifteen centimeters of grass then we can assume the river is no more than two, maybe two and a half meters deep in that area.”
“Shallower, I think,” Harker said, looking out at the expanse. “Lots of mud bars, whole areas of minor silt build-up, and even some rises that are original and still above water. Our big problem, I think, won’t be the depth but rather that it’s so damned muddy we can’t see what we’re walking on.”
N’Gana nodded. “Let’s walk up a bit. There seems to be more of the original slope still—”
His voice trailed off, and his hand instinctively went to the gun barrel truncheon around his waist. The others made similar moves as they saw what the colonel had suddenly spotted.
“I didn’t hear anything at all,” Harker whispered. “Where in hell did they come from?”
“They’re not like those others,” the anthropologist noted. “They look like kids. Kids out of some text on ancient human origins, but kids.”
The two girls and a boy presented a bizarre sight. Burned a deep leathery brown by the sun, with long, stringy hair and wearing only ornaments of stone and bone, they nonetheless showed scars of a harsh and violent life. What was most striking was that their bodies bore elaborate mosaiclike tattoos that seemed designed to eventually cover them. The boy had the most, up both legs and on his stomach and back as well.
“Hello!” the boy called to them, apparently unafraid. “What Family are you from? We have been searching for someone for many days!”
The speech was oddly accented, with certain differences in tone, pronunciation, and emphasis, but it was clearly based on the Standard tongue the others all knew and understood. If anything, it was more familiar than they had expected.