Though it was difficult, he did not allow himself to be affected by the contents of Pruit’s mind. No matter how strange and potentially unbalancing the visions in her head, he forced himself to categorize the information he had received only in terms of his own objectives.
There was one face in his mind that now mattered. It was a man called the Engineer. Pruit thought of this man as a broken repository of knowledge, but the knowledge she credited him with was great.
Another half an hour of walking—difficult with the stiffness of his muscles—and Adaiz had made his way through the commercial section of Cairo to a tall business hotel. He took an express elevator up and, in a few moments, had arrived at the Engineer’s door. He knocked.
“Who’s there?” came a woman’s voice.
Adaiz recognized the voice from Pruit’s memories. She was the Doctor.
“I am a friend of Pruit’s,” he said in English.
The woman’s eye came to the peekhole. Adaiz stood with a pleasant smile on his face. He looked so much like Pruit he had no doubt he could gain entry.
After a moment, the chain was drawn, and the Doctor opened the door several inches. It was a shock to see her face and features match so perfectly the image in his mind.
“Hello,” he said. She was wearing a jawline translator and could understand him. “My name is Niks. I am from the second Kinley mission. Pruit has asked me to see if I may be of assistance to your husband.”
“You don’t speak Haight?”
“No, I’m sorry,” Adaiz said, using his recent observations of humans to make himself appear friendly and open. He had spent many hours practicing body motions that looked human. “I was not trained in that language. I have other…specialties.”
It took several more minutes of convincing, but soon the Doctor stepped aside and invited him into the room. The Engineer stood leaning against the wall, looking at Adaiz as he entered. The Doctor explained Adaiz’s presence, but the Engineer continued to wear an expression of pained confusion.
Adaiz approached him and felt honest sympathy for the man’s condition. “I’m here for you,” he said softly.
“He may not understand you,” the Doctor said.
Adaiz smiled and took both of the Engineer’s hands in his own. He was still surprised at the feel of other humans’ flesh. It had a much different quality than Lucien flesh, slightly warmer and less resilient, and he had not grown accustomed to it yet. “It doesn’t matter. Words are one of the lowest forms of communication. Come.”
He lead the Engineer to the center of the room, then helped him into a cross-legged position on the floor. Adaiz assumed the same position across from him. The Doctor watched this, surprised at her husband’s willingness to follow the commands of a stranger.
“Now, you must relax,” Adaiz said. Then, remembering the Engineer would not understand, he reached out his arms and gently shut the Engineer’s eyes.
Adaiz began his breathing, following the steps of an Opening. After ten minutes, he had bridged the space between himself and the Engineer. He reached out to the spark he saw before him, then leapt inside, entering the man’s mind.
Instantly, there was a maelstrom. Adaiz felt himself swept up in a hurricane of disjointed thoughts, which were pouring into each other, whirling around each other, forming eddies of nearly lucid logic, then falling away, back into randomness.
For a moment, Adaiz lost all sense of himself. He was caught in the motion and thrown, dizzily chasing after thoughts. With effort, he pulled himself back to objectivity and studied what he saw.
There had been a terrible, near-death trauma to the Engineer’s body, and its ability to relay thoughts and commands had been damaged, almost destroyed. The thoughts and knowledge were still there, but any attempt to communicate them or study them rationally produced the hurricane.
Adaiz sent a feeling of calm to the Engineer. I see you, he thought. I see you, and I do not mistake you for the damaged functions you are living with.
In response to this thought, he felt an outpouring of gratitude.
I am sorry for your troubles. Let me be the conduit to communicate for you.
Again there was gratitude, then eagerness to say something. This eagerness brought on another deluge of disconnected images.
Relax, Adaiz thought. Let me look.
The maelstrom quieted somewhat. Adaiz moved himself deeper into the man’s mind. He moved through images of pain, waking from a great sleep, choking, and the first onrush of confusion. He moved to earlier images and saw the construction of a cave, sleepboxes lined in a row. There was the Mechanic, and attached to that image was a feeling of distrust. There was another man, with gold hair down to his shoulders. And there were a man and woman who were somehow gods and somehow simply human.
Adaiz could feel the Engineer’s attention growing stronger and more urgent. There was an image of his wife, packing her belongings, and the golden-haired man giving a warning. Adaiz was close to something important. He could feel the Engineer urging him on, and as he did, the images began to slip out of order, become confused.
Calm… Adaiz thought.
The Engineer relaxed again, and Adaiz continued to work his way back. Beneath all the other images, which now seemed to move about each other in slow and random circles, Adaiz sensed something else, a central image. He reached for it. Attached to it was a gleeful sensation of outsmarting someone. He pulled it closer. At last, he saw the image clearly and understood it. With his eyes closed, he smiled. It was the first time the human expression had been drawn from him naturally.
He opened his eyes. So did the Engineer.
Very good, Adaiz thought. I understand.
The Engineer felt his words. His own mind was no more clear, but he knew that this man had found the thought that was important. He smiled at Adaiz.
Adaiz gently severed the link between them and allowed himself a moment of exultation. He would steal the Eschless Funnel from under Pruit’s nose! He would steal it, and he would bring it home, and the Lucien would become masters of space and all that was in it. They would put an end to the Plaguer threat and expand uninhibited throughout the galaxy. He would kill the questions Pruit had stirred up in his own mind. He would redeem the death of his brother by making the mission far more successful than anyone could have hoped. Enon-Amet would be honored as a hero.
He jumped to his feet. The Doctor was staring at him.
“Your husband has been trying to tell you something, Doctor,” he said slowly. “There is something important we must do. And we must do it now.”
She looked from him to the Engineer, who seemed calmer now and almost happy. She looked back at Adaiz. “What is it?”
“I will get my car,” he said. “We will be driving.”
CHAPTER 48
Adaiz was in the driver’s seat of his green Jeep, maneuvering through Cairo traffic. They were on a street bordering the Nile, bracketed by city buses and taxis that pumped exhaust into the air. The Doctor sat in the passenger’s seat, and the Engineer was in the back, along with the supplies Adaiz had hurriedly loaded into the car.
“Are you sure Pruit will know where we are?” the Doctor asked.
“She will meet us there,” Adaiz said, his tone pleasant and reassuring.
The Doctor seemed satisfied with this. She was inclined to trust Adaiz, because of his resemblance to Pruit, but more importantly because the Engineer appeared to like him. It was the first time she had seen her husband happy, or nearly happy, since waking. She held a map and was navigating for Adaiz. This was a slow job at the moment. The cars on the streets of Cairo were moving at a crawl in lunch-hour congestion.
“We need to turn right at the next large street.” She pointed up ahead. “That will take us to the highway.”
Adaiz inched the car forward. Pedestrians walked freely in front of cars. The traffic lights seemed to have no relation at all to the motion of traffic. The Jeep was small and very hot with the noon sunlight beating down upo
n it.
At last, there was motion in the line of cars in front of them. The whole lane moved forward at the green light. Adaiz pushed down the accelerator.
When he reached the intersection, however, the light had already turned red. Cars on the cross street were beginning to move. Adaiz still had his foot on the gas.
“Stop!” the Doctor said.
Adaiz did, just in time. He was sticking out into the intersection and had nearly driven them into cross traffic. The car lurched with the abrupt halt. “Sorry,” he said. He had been distracted by thoughts of that cave. “I’m still new to this.”
She smiled. “So am I.”
Pedestrians were walking in front of them and behind them, threading their way to the other side of the street. There was a group of young schoolgirls in matching uniforms, all with long dark hair and dark eyes. They were lead by two women in long dresses and shawls. There were men in gallibiyas and skullcaps, carrying crates. There were teenage girls in Western clothing. Adaiz watched them without really seeing. They are not my kind, he told himself several times. They are not my concern.
The light turned yellow in preparation for turning green. A small boy on the sidewalk let go of his mother’s hand and ran into the intersection wildly, chasing a small finch that hopped in the crosswalk. A moment too late, the boy’s mother saw that he was gone. The boy was running around cars. He was so small he was difficult for the drivers to see. The bird he chased did not fly away. Instead, it continued to hop, picking at small bits of discarded food, careless of cars and humans.
The light turned green. Adaiz stepped on the accelerator. The boy leaped in front of the Jeep just then, mimicking the motions of the bird. When his feet hit the ground, the boy realized his mistake and turned his head, startled and scared. For an instant, Adaiz and the boy looked at each other. The car jumped forward. Then Adaiz stomped on the brake with both feet. The car bucked, sending the passengers forward, then back, but the vehicle, blessedly, had stopped. Behind them, a car screeched and narrowly avoided plowing into the back of them.
The boy stood completely still, looking in at Adaiz, paralyzed by his mistake. The grill of the Jeep was inches from his body. His mother ran at him, sweeping him up into her arms. She hugged him to her chest, burying her face in his neck as she carried him back to the sidewalk. The boy hugged her back and burst into tears.
Around the Jeep, traffic began to move. Adaiz did not take his feet from the brake. His eyes followed the mother and son back to the sidewalk, and they lingered there, watching the way the woman set the boy down, then crouched to look him in the face. She smoothed back his hair and kissed him on the cheek. He was precious to her, and she had realized this anew. And the boy had been precious to Adaiz as well. In that instant, nothing had been more important to him than saving him.
“Niks,” the Doctor said. “We can go.”
Cars behind them were honking. Adaiz tried to come back to himself. He was sitting in the Jeep; the Engineer and the Doctor were with him. He was on Earth, a human planet, eighteen years from his home. As he located himself, he knew that something had changed. He was now experiencing, long after the fact, the fruition of his egani-tah with Pruit. He had tried to reject the images he received from her, keep them separate from himself, keep them from inspiring emotion or feeling. Suddenly, he could no longer do this. That little boy had breached a wall within him, and Pruit’s experiences and every feeling she had provoked in him since he had first seen her now stood out in a new light. Humans were not his kind. He was Lucien. This was still true. But it did not matter. They were the same. Human, Lucien, or some other race not yet discovered, all were alike. He could no longer pretend it was otherwise. Each race trying to survive. Children, like that boy, like any Lucien child, were precious. Each race hoped to make existence better for future generations. The ways of humans were imperfect much of the time. They, like Lucien, often made decisions that were incorrect. It did not matter. Each wanted the same thing: life.
“Niks,” the Doctor said again. “We must go.”
Adaiz turned to her. He was gripping the steering wheel, and his face wore a new expression. “My name is not Niks,” he said.
CHAPTER 49
Pruit sat on the edge of the bed, her feet on the floor and her head resting in her hands. Her expression was blank, and she felt blank inside as well. Failure. This is what it felt like. Cold deadness. She could not cry or scream or do anything that might be an emotional release. There was no emotion. There was only the dread she had always felt.
She had sat numbly on the plane as they flew back from Geneva. Eddie had left her in silence. They were back in their Cairo hotel room now, and he was pacing slowly in front of her. She ignored him.
She had lost the Eschless Funnel. It had been there, in the Mechanic’s hands, only yards from her, and she had lost it. The only copy of that most secret of secrets had burned before her eyes, and she had been unable to stop it. Worse than that, she had brought on its destruction, for she had set Jean-Claude free and given him the strength to take out his revenge.
Back on Herrod, they were digging deeper holes to bury themselves in when the Lucien attacked. Her father and mother and brother, did they know about the Lucien now? Had the Sentinel begun telling the population what was coming? Telling them that, in a matter of years, they would all be dead? She wanted to feel the energizing burn of hatred for the Lucien, but even that was denied her.
Suddenly, Eddie stopped pacing and crouched down in front of her, putting his hands on her knees and forcing her to look at him.
“Pruit, that wasn’t the only copy of the technology.”
It took her a moment to remember English and understand his words. “What?”
“The Engineer. He knows the Eschless Funnel. He built the ship they used to get here. The last copy is in his head.”
“I’ve already thought of that, Eddie. But he’s no help to us now.” Her voice was flat.
“Maybe…maybe you can fix him. On your ship.”
“I’ve thought of that too,” she said. “But I have no access to my ship. My landing pod is destroyed.”
“We can get to your ship,” he said, becoming excited. “Somehow we can do it. We’ve already sent missions to Mars. We can reach Jupiter.”
“How long?” She was not really interested. She knew how primitive Earth’s space capabilities were.
“Ten years, maybe. The US will do it, when they know your ship is there. Callen can help us; we’ll talk to my father. We’ll use your fullsuit to prove who you are.”
“I don’t have ten years, Eddie!” she snapped, finally roused to anger. “The Lucien attack is in fifteen years! Even if we could get to Jupiter, even if we could fix the Engineer, that leaves no time to get the information home.”
Eddie stared at her for a moment; then he stood up and slapped her across the face. Pruit looked at him, shocked.
“What’s the matter with you?” he yelled. “Would you rather give up?”
Pruit just stared at him, feeling her cheek smarting.
“We’ll find a way!” he yelled. “We’ll find a way. You’re Pruit Pax. You don’t give up!”
She looked up at Eddie, seeing a man transformed. Where was the frivolous, lazy dilettante she had first met at the Cairo airport? He seemed to have disappeared and been replaced by this man, her mission partner. Suddenly, Pruit laughed.
“Why are you laughing?” he said, still angry.
“I don’t know.” She laughed again. The dread was receding. She did not have to face it alone. Eddie was with her.
Eddie studied her; then his anger disappeared, and his face broke into a smile. He slid next to her on the bed and took her into his arms.
“I’ve never heard you laugh,” he whispered.
“Well, you’ve never slapped me before,” she said, hugging him tightly.
Eddie smiled into her neck. “We’ll find a way to do this.”
“I know.” She drew back and looked in
to his face. “I know.” They kissed each other tenderly.
There was a knock on the door, interrupting them. They drew away from each other slowly, both reluctant to end the embrace. Then Pruit moved across the room to look through the peekhole, expecting a maid. Instead, standing just outside, was Adaiz. She drew back from the door.
“Who is it?” Eddie whispered, seeing her expression.
Pruit silently moved to the desk and picked up her guns, slipping them onto her hands. “The human Lucien.”
“What do you want?” she called in Soulene.
“I want to make you an offer,” Adaiz said, replying in the same language, his lisp coming through slightly.
Pruit studied him through the peekhole. She could see the twin bulges of knife and gun at his waist. But she was well armed. She had been inside this man’s head, and she was having difficulty maintaining a feeling of enmity. She could kill him, if need be, but she was willing to hear him out. Behind her, Eddie took hold of his own knife and gun. She opened the door.
Adaiz stood in the hallway, one arm on the doorframe, looking in at her. She gestured him inside with one armed hand, then kicked the door shut behind him. Adaiz glanced around the room, taking in Eddie and Pruit and the furniture with a cursory glance. He walked to the bed and sat down heavily onto the edge, in just the spot where Pruit had been.
Adaiz ran his hands over his short hair. He sighed and looked at Pruit.
“I have what you want,” he said. “At least, I know where it is. I can give it to you. I, a Lucien, will give it to you, my Kinley enemy. But, first, I would like to know what you have to offer me.”
Pruit studied him. He was not suggesting treason. He was suggesting something else. She knew the answer, knew precisely what he wanted and what she could give. She wanted the same thing, had ever since their minds had been joined. “I can offer you understanding,” she said. “For you, for me. For both of our races.”