Charles Sheffield - Aftermath

The Mars expedition had to get out of this underground labyrinth, as fast as possible. And they had to make sure that other people were warned.

Was she overreacting, worrying too much? If so, she could see no penalty to that. What she could see were practical problems.

First, where were they? It would do no good to escape to the surface and find you were lost in a wilderness. None of them was in any condition to trek miles over rough terrain. Reza had brought them down, to his best guess, somewhere north of Richmond, Virginia. The big question was their longitude. Were they east or west of the Shenandoah Mountains?

Second, where would they go if they did escape? Her instinctive answer was Washington. There the Mars expedition was sure to be taken seriously. Anything they said would be given plenty of attention — unless the country had totally disintegrated under the impact of Supernova Alpha, in which case nothing they said or did would make much difference.

Celine felt a tap on her arm. It was Naomi, pointing to the old-fashioned watch on her wrist and then to Celine’s plate. A question. Had she finished eating?

She nodded. “I’m all done. But I thought that our male companions were going to join us for breakfast.”

Naomi shrugged. It occurred to Celine that the assignment of a mute guide might be quite deliberate. Maybe her mining for information the previous night had not been so subtle as she imagined.

“Our unctuous friend only told us we’d meet them ’later,’ “ Jenny volunteered. “He was careful not to say when.”

“Which could mean anything from a minute to a year from now.” Celine turned to Naomi. “Unless you are to take us somewhere else, I would like to see more of the Legion of Argos headquarters. It seems fascinating. We arrived last night, very tired, and we were able to take in very little.”

It was worth a try, but Naomi shook her head. She tapped her watch, stood up, and beckoned them to follow. As they replaced their trays before leaving the dining room, Jenny whispered to Celine, “I was no help, was I. You want to get a good look at this place.”

“Sure. If we’re to find a way out . . .”

Naomi was with them again, urging them on, and for the moment Celine could say no more. The Legion member walked between her and Jenny, down another long corridor. There seemed an endless number of them, poorly lit and branching off at regular intervals.

Suddenly they were in a hurry. Naomi marched faster on a twisting, turning path. It was not the sort of tour that Celine had in mind, and she itched for a map of the whole place. Pearl Lazenby and her disciples surely had them. If they had been digging for twenty years, as Eli said, the whole countryside must be honeycombed. The corridor they were in now looked like an old working mine, drilled through grayish white rock and shored up in places with iron beams. As it narrowed they had to walk in single file, Celine in front and Naomi in the rear.

The tunnel took a final turn and Celine emerged into an open chamber, hundreds of feet across and with a knobby ceiling of whitish pink far above. The floor was white, uneven, and gritty beneath her feet. The illumination came from standing light fixtures, scattered here and there. She realized that they had entered a natural limestone cavern. A broad platform stood at the far end, with scores of rows of seats facing it.

Naomi walked past Celine and led the way forward along a central cleared aisle. The platform held a long wooden table and five chairs. Naomi indicated to Celine and Jenny that they were to ascend the dais and take the seats at each end. When they were in position she went to sit in the back row of facing seats.

Jenny looked along the table at Celine. “What now?”

She spoke softly, but the stone-walled chamber caught her voice, carrying it to the farthest corners and bringing her words echoing back.

Celine did not dare to answer that if Reza, their best geologist, could get a look at a cavern like this he might be able to make a good guess at their location. It was no longer the danger of Naomi alone overhearing what they said. The room was filling with gray-uniformed people, walking in through half a dozen entrances and quietly taking their seats. Every person in the front rows wore the scarlet talon on cuffs and breast. One woman set up a camera in the central aisle, sighting it on the platform. When she seemed happy with the setting she turned and extended one arm upward. The audience rose and stood waiting.

To stand or not to stand? Celine knew that Jenny’s eye was on her. She decided to remain seated and argue with anyone who didn’t seem to like it. To make sure that she would not be influenced by possible gestures from the audience, she leaned back and studied the cavern ceiling.

It had been modified from its natural form. Broken stubs of stalactites, painstakingly trimmed, stood out from the surface. Looking closely, Celine could see that the ceiling was not the uniform color of its first impression. Thousands of little scarlet talons had been painted on the original white limestone, blending from a distance to create the illusion of a continuous surface of light pink.

She glanced out at the audience. They were ignoring her, looking past the platform at something behind Celine and Jenny. She heard footsteps, and resisted the urge to turn until a hand touched her shoulder. Then she looked up and saw Wilmer settling into the next seat. Like her, he was outfitted in a clean white uniform. Next to him, in the middle, was Pearl Lazenby, and beyond her Reza was sitting down by Jenny.

Pearl Lazenby wore a long white sleeveless dress, dotted with the scarlet talons and blue-green globes. She gestured to her followers, and they settled into their seats. She remained standing.

“I know that many of you are becoming impatient.” She began without preamble, in an easy, conversational tone. “How long, you ask, before our role in the holy cleansing, so long awaited, can begin? When I returned among you, the Eye of God promised another portent. Until that time, we could not act. The Eye of God told you that we would receive a message directly from Heaven, brought to us by a human messenger. Most of you probably assumed that I would be the messenger. That is not the case.”

With the filled seats damping the echo, the chamber formed a natural auditorium. Pearl Lazenby’s voice carried easily, without amplification, to every part.

“Eight years ago, the governments of this world conspired to create an abomination. Not content to contaminate God’s realm close to Earth with human presence, they decided to invade another sphere. The nations would cooperate in building a ship to carry humans to the planet Mars, where another part of God’s creation would be despoiled.

“And so the Mars expedition was born. Conceived in folly, executed in sacrilege, doomed to failure. Before the expedition was over, even as the Eye of God had prophesied, the hand of the Almighty smote the impious nations. They writhe as I speak in chaos and confusion. The time of the Legion of Argos is close to hand. Yet the Eye of God knew, and foretold, that a final message must be delivered before we can rise in wrath and righteous action.”

Yesterday, Pearl Lazenby had seemed to Celine like a sincere but misguided woman, no different from any of the millions of professed psychics, clairvoyants, and seers scattered around the world. Certainly, she did not seem the person to create and lead a million-strong movement of religious extremists. But yesterday, as Pearl Lazenby had told them, was an unusual day for her as well as them. She was recently returned from judicial sleep, and she had been exhausted.

Today Celine could hear the difference. She would even say that she could feel it. There was no scientific explanation for the gift that some humans have, to take and hold and move a crowd. But the gift was real. Pearl Lazenby had that power, more than anyone Celine had ever met. It was an electric force, beyond words, reaching out to envelop her audience.