David Sakmyster - The Cydonia Objective

Suddenly, Calderon’s face appeared in his sight, jarring the vision. “What are you seeing?”

Montross had gone pale. His lips trembled. “I think… it was the beginning.”

“Of what?”

“The end of the world.”

Calderon nodded, with a light dazzling in the darkest centers of his pupils. “I may not be psychic, but that’s one vision I’ve seen as well. Many, many times…”

“This is crap,” Orlando said with a groan about thirty minutes later. He thumbed through the papers, the small-print, the few photographs of the region, the caves seen from a distance, some satellite maps, and a blurred-out picture of a little girl working in the fields with what may have been her parents.

“I agree.” Phoebe snatched up the last photograph, unclipped it from the folder’s edge. “This here, this is all we need. The other stuff will only cloud our thoughts. Focus on her, and let’s get this over with.”

“But there’s a lot of that ‘other stuff’ in here. If this is true, Jesus. She’s only ten! The daughter of an American missionary and a Bamian native woman. Watched her mother butchered before her eyes.”

“Stop,” Phoebe insisted. She closed the folder, tossed it on the floor. And with a scornful glance at their sleeping companion, she reached into her pack and pulled out a scrapbook. Two pencils. Offered one to Orlando and ripped out a sheet of paper.

“I’ll use… damn. No laptop.”

“Sorry to bring you back to the Middle Ages, but just grab a damn pencil.” She took a deep breath, leaned back and grasped her pencil lightly between her finger and her thumb. In a moment, as Orlando watched, her eyes rolled back, her mouth opened and her arm shook.

Orlando sighed. “All right then. Don’t wait for me.”

First: a full vision of Blue. Deep and tranquil like the depths of the Caribbean. Close, and yet impossible to grasp, like the sky.

Phoebe struggled. Pulled back. Sent her questions away from the depths, toward more solid ground. Toward the past…

Blue again. But this time, the pure infinite blue of the Afghanistan sky. Down to the great cliffs of the Kohebaba range. A rock wall pockmarked with caves, ridges and steep grooves beside an immense hollowed out niche. Its smaller twin far to the right.

Pull back…

The fields. Dust and sand. A few straggly juniper bushes. A goat here and there. In the blistering sun, a crowd of villagers stand in the center of a loose scattering of adobe shacks. A lone rusty well sits untended and unused at the edge of the village, and scrawny buzzards perch on its rotting boards.

Riding horses, three men carrying AK-47s are keeping the villagers together in a group. Forcing them to remain. To watch.

A mujahedeen fighter, all in black astride a white horse, unravels the sash from his face. A single eye glares at the villagers; the other—the left, is hidden behind a black patch with jewels embedded in the cloth. He raises his gun and shouts toward the cliff wall, addressing the seemingly empty caves. “Bring her out!”

The walls are silent. The largest niche, holding only the rubble now of the largest statue ever built, trembles slightly as if the earth had just rumbled.

The man known as The Eye shouts again. “Bring her out, infidels! Or the will of Allah will fall upon your friends.” He makes a motion with his left hand, a nonchalant waving in the direction of a bewildered young man standing by himself.

Another fighter on horseback rides up behind the youth and with a ululating cry, brings down a scimitar, silencing the boy’s sudden cry of fright. A spray of blood across the sand, and the other villagers erupt in shrieks and cries.

“NOW!” the Eye shouts again to the hills. In a moment, he points to another villager, a huddled old woman.

But then, motion in one of the caves. A man and a woman emerge, heads bowed. Dressed in tattered clothes.

The Eye holds up a hand restraining his men. Gallops ahead a short distance. “Show me the girl!”

The man’s shoulders slump as he steps away from the woman, letting a small girl walk into the sunlight. Blinking, shielding her eyes, she walks to the edge. Trying to appear brave, she raises her dirty face to the sky and spreads her arms as if they’re tiny wings.

And the villagers murmur to themselves. Some drop to their knees, others whimper.

“Enough!” hisses the Eye. He motions to his men. “Bring her down.” And as they gallop toward the base of the giant niche in the cave-riddled mountainside, he stares at the girl, not more than seven or eight. And he finds it difficult to look at her, despite the grime and dust covering her face and hair, her shredded clothes.

She’s glowing, reflecting the painful brilliance of the sun.

But in minutes, the three of them are down, herded like wayward sheep into the clearing.

The Eye dismounts and stands before them.

“You gave me a good chase, girl.” She refuses to look up at him. Her eyes—bright blue like the sky—stare only over at the headless young man at the edge of the clearing. Her father squeezes her hand tight and her mother clasps her other hand.

The Eye considers the three of them, then tells the girl, “You have the look and the stink of your American father about you.”

“Leave her alone,” the father says, daring a tone of defiance. “We don’t know why she can do what she does, but it’s not evil. It’s not—”

“I know that, infidel.” The Eye grins, and taps his jeweled eye patch. “She is a gift from Allah. A gift I was meant to find. And use.”

“No, please—” the mother starts, and tries to pull her daughter back.

At a motion from the Eye, one of his men yanks the woman away. He pushes her to her knees and pulls out the same bloody scimitar that had just seen action.

“No!” her husband yells, but he too is restrained, dragged away from the girl until she stands there, arms splayed, hands empty.

“You’re my gift,” the Eye says. “But you must understand that I have to ensure your compliance. I leave the choice to you, Hummingbird. Your mother or your father. Which would you have stay in this world?”

She turns to him, and now meets his cold one-eyed stare.

“No,” the father yells. “You can’t make her choose. Take me, kill me.” He struggles, almost frees himself but then the butt of a rifle slams into his back and pins him to the rocky sand.

“Choose,” the Eye repeats, stepping closer so his hulking shadow envelops the girl. His robes flow and whip in the rising winds and sand devils blow around them both.

“Please don’t…” the mother whimpers.

The girl looks over to her, a cry on her lips. “Mother—”

“Good enough for me,” the Eye says, and nods to his man. The woman’s head scarf is tugged back. Her neck exposed and then torn in a jagged, swift cut as the blade digs deep. Flesh and muscle parting, blood escaping. Her eyes go cold with surprise and then… acceptance.

The Hummingbird turns away, an unvoiced cry in her throat.

The father whimpers his breath into the rocks.

And the girl focuses not on the object of her hatred, but on a lone boy standing in the crowd. A grime-faced curly-haired boy her own age. A boy trembling with fear, but whose eyes hold such emotion. He struggles against the clutches of his parents, who hold him back from running to the girl…