The woman raised her arms and twirled about, dancing, feeling the rain on her face. The man watched her dance with a slight smile for a few moments, then opened a cargo door. He pulled out a bundle, which he opened to reveal red web netting. He carried this to the rear of the ship and draped the netting over one of the engine pods. Then he went back to the cargo bay and removed a similar bundle. He put that netting over the other pod, connecting the two with wire loops along the edge.
As he retrieved a third bundle, the woman finally stopped dancing and joined him. They worked without a word, completely covering the craft in the red netting. The woman climbed down the slope of the craft and onto the plain while the man reentered the ship.
The craft lifted and went back over the plain. The stones were lifted by the traction beam and placed on the plain above the cavern that had been dug. Two were placed upright, set deep into the ground, while the third was placed across the top, forming a lintel.
Then the craft carefully edged forward into the cavern it had dug, sliding along the bottom of the opening so the netting would not be disturbed. At last, after its long journey, the craft finally came to rest.
The screen once more went blank.
And once more, Garlin pressed the Ark of the Covenant to probe.
Standing on the plain, the woman was watching the stones. Steam began to rise out of one of them. This went on for several minutes. Then the woman stepped forward toward the structure when the outline of a door appeared on the left stone. It slid open and the man exited, a large pack on his back and another in his arms. The door slid shut and the outline disappeared. The two looked at the structure for several moments, then the man gave the woman the pack he had carried. He pointed in a direction and they set off across the plain, leaving the strange marker behind.
The screen flickered and went dark.
The craft was indeed on Earth — and buried. But where exactly were these strange stones that marked the site? That was what the Swarm still had to discover.
Turcotte was blindly following the furrow in the snow that the SEALs had made earlier and that he and Mualama had trudged up. He reached Morris’s body and paused for a moment, looking at the frozen blood and mangled flesh of the medic. A man dedicated to saving lives, Morris had given his own so Turcotte could make it to the sword. He knelt next to the body and removed the Special Forces crest from his parka and placed it on Morris’s chest.
“De Oppresso Liber,” Turcotte said as he stood back up. To Free The Oppressed. The motto of the Special Forces. Turcotte realized it fit the war he had been fighting against the aliens perfectly. He felt a surge of guilt, standing over the dead man. He had almost given up. He stiffened to attention and saluted. He held his position for several moments, then his hand fell to his side. He spun about and faced downhill.
With some renewed vigor he made his way down the ridgeline until he arrived at the two climbers’ bodies frozen in the snow. They had died years previously in a vain attempt to make the summit. Turcotte stared at them for a few seconds, wondering why people would give their lives for such a selfish pursuit. Was it for the glory, he wondered? Over the course of the past few months, while battling the Airlia and their minions, he had never really stopped to consider how humans might be viewed by other intelligent species. Besides physical appearance, how were we different than the Airlia, he asked himself. Which brought him back to the same question he’d had from the very beginning, once he realized the Airlia had been here so long ago: Why had they come here? What did they want with the planet and with us? The Airlia had had plenty of opportunities to wipe mankind out, but had never followed through completely. Indeed, what he had learned was that it seemed as if both factions of the Airlia had gone out of their way to keep humans around.
Turcotte shook his head, his mind too tired and oxygen-starved to delve deeply into such issues and questions. He used the ice ax to tear the climbing rope from the top of one man’s pack. With great effort he anchored the rope through the harnesses on both bodies, then tossed the end over the side of the ridge, down the southern slope, where the bouncer was. Since both were frozen to the mountain, he felt confident they would serve as a good anchor. He peered down. The end of the rope reached the top of the alien craft.
He looped the rope around a snap link in the front of his harness and turned his back to the open air on the south side of the ridge. He pushed off, rappelling down toward the golden craft wedged into the mountain. He barely had enough energy to pull his rope arm in and brake as he descended. He slammed into the side of Everest, his bulky clothes breaking the fall a little, his body too numb to notice the pain of the impact. He pulled his knees up to his chest while supporting his weight with the rope, then pushed out and away, pushing out his rope arm at the same time so it would slide free through the snap link.
His knees buckled as he landed on top of the bouncer and he continued through the fall, collapsing on top of the alien craft. He lay there for several moments, futilely trying to catch his breath. With great difficulty he unhooked the rope from the snap link. He crawled over to the open hatch and fell inside. He didn’t have the energy to climb back up the ladder and close it. He slid into the pilot’s depression and pulled back on the controls.
The bouncer shuddered and vibrated, but didn’t move. Turcotte leaned on the controls, not accepting defeat now. Ice cracked and very slowly the craft began to break free of Mount Everest. Then with an abrupt snap it was airborne.
There was none of the loss of power he had experienced arriving here. He directed the craft up the mountain toward the location he had just come from.
The magnificent north face of Everest was before him. Even in his exhausted, oxygen-starved state, he couldn’t help but admire the mountain. The peak was above, twenty-eight feet above twenty-nine thousand in altitude. Adjusting the controls, he directed the bouncer back up the mountain, retracing his route down.
Turcotte gasped for breath as he edged the front end in toward the narrow cave where the scabbard rested. Touching the mountain, he released the controls. He clambered up the ladder, out the hatch, and carefully made his way down the top of the bouncer. He stepped onto the ledge. Working as quickly as he could with the ice ax, out of breath and fighting the cold, he dug the scabbard out of its icy tomb, then retraced his steps into the bouncer, putting the scabbard down next to him, leaving the sword’s blade exposed.
Turcotte pulled the bouncer away from the mountain. He pointed the forward edge down and to the southwest, accelerating away from Everest and the resting place of so many who had tried to conquer the mountain and failed.
With his shaking free hand he reached for the mike to the satellite radio. “This is Turcotte,” he whispered.
There was no answer. “Turcotte here.”
There was a burst of static, then Quinn’s excited voice. “Major! Where are you?” “In the bouncer. Coming down.”
“Thank God. You’ve been off the air for a while. We thought you were dead.” “What’s happening?” Turcotte asked. “Easter Island? Qian-Ling?”
“The shields are down in both places. As near as we can tell from tracking their craft, Aspasia’s Shadow and Artad are fleeing.”
“Fleeing to where?” Turcotte asked. “Uh — well, we don’t know. Artad is heading southwest and Aspasia’s Shadow to the west across the Pacific.” “Duncan?” Turcotte asked. “Nothing on her location.”