David Sakmyster - The Cydonia Objective

-His one friend.

The Hummingbird shakes her head slightly at him as if to say, ‘not now’.

“It is done,” the Eye says matter-of-factly. He points to the girl’s father. “Break his legs, bind him and bring him with us.” Then he kneels down, takes the girl’s chin in his hands and uses a dirty thumb to wipe a tear from her eyes. “You’ll do as I say from now on. You keep us safe, and your father lives. These villagers live. Fail me, and they all join your mother.”

With a flourish, his black robes whipping around, he scoops up the Hummingbird, sets her on his horse and climbs in the saddle behind her. With a joyous shout, he races toward the cliffs.

“And now, my sweet. You will help us navigate the tunnels, and when we have found a place of safety deep within the mountains, my brethren will join us, and our work can truly begin.”

Into the cavern, darkness covering them. A seeping of blue forms around the edges of the vision. Closing over the sparkling reality of everything in the center. The white of the horse’s mane, the thickness of the leather harness, the saddle, and the shaking little hands that hug the horse’s neck, drawing comfort from petting the magnificent beast.

“You will sleep,” the Eye says, “only when I let you. When I am in slumber you must cloud our presence—in the past, the present and the future—as I know you can do. Just as you hid yourself and your parents from me for months. You will do all this, and your father will live.” He strokes her hair as the veil of blue encircles the entirety of the vision. And his last words follow Phoebe out of it…

“The Eye and the Hummingbird. You and I, child. We will be unstoppable.”

Complete BLUE.

Phoebe pulled back. Twitching, eyelids fluttering. Dimly aware of the plane descending, the pressure tightening in her eyes. Stay in it, she thought. Focus… retreat, find something…

Back in the clearing. The villagers disbanding, returning to the fields. Tending to the dead. Saying prayers and moving on.

Except for one.

The curly-haired boy.

He slips away from his parents as they go to mourn and prepare the funerals. Scrambles toward the wall of caves, the place that holds such mystery for him, even though for others the caves are used merely for shelter, for makeshift homes.

He follows the tracks of the one-eyed man. Enters the cavern and quickly makes his way after them. Descending deep into the mountainside. Coming to a branching trail, narrowing passageways.

He follows the light ahead, dimming. But he sticks to the shadows and creeps along.

Blinking, Phoebe stirredand opened her eyes. Yawned and popped her ears.

Gotcha, she thought. The boy is the key.

And then she noticed Orlando, eyelids moving rapidly. His hand, wielding the pencil, was a blur of motion, creating a series of lines and diagrams, twisting trails through a maze.

“You’re seeing it too,” she whispered, but Orlando kept drawing. His lips were dry, cracked, and his face slick with sweat. Phoebe couldn’t help but smile. His face, so scrunched up tight, muscles in his neck taught. His curly unkempt hair falling over his face. Before she knew it, she found herself touching his hair, brushing it with her fingers as he dreamt.

“Sweet and productive dreams, my prince.”

Orlando zeroed inon the boy at once. At first he was but a shadow, a darker silhouette, like a jellyfish bobbing in the blue depths. But the motion was there, pulling at the remote-vision.

Ask the right question, get the right answer. Orlando smiled as he dropped deeper into the trance, willing himself to see it—to follow someone outside of the shield, someone else who tracked the girl. Come on, come to focus. Ah, there you are.

The boy, returning to the caves at night. With a knapsack full of an assortment of dried meats and a few nuts, a dirty bottle of water, an oil lamp, and a blanket. He stopped before the great sandstone cliff and gazed up at the hollow niche. He had been born after the statues’ destruction, but he often came here in the starlight and used his imagination, dreaming up a magnificent protector, a wise and living god to care for the village. And especially for Nadjee , the one they called the Hummingbird.

He moved forward into the cave and retraced his steps from earlier. He had played in these caves all his life, searching out their deepest regions, following miles of twisting passageways, until the rebel Taliban took up residence in some of the outlying tunnels and set up traps and mines. His older cousin, Jalik, had lost a foot in one of the subterranean passages last winter and then his parents had forbade any further play or exploration within the sacred mountain.

But this was different.

He scampered inside

And Orlando followed. Unconsciously sketching the map, diagramming the layout of branching corridors, dead-end caverns and places where the boy noted spring-mines or stepped over wire-triggered explosives.

On and on he moved, cautiously, reverently as if he made his way through the winding intestines of some immense, slumbering deity.

He slowed at one point, glancing to his left into a deep shadowy recess. The darkness blurred and the boy retreated, his back against a wall.

A haze of bright blue pierced out from the shadows—an instant before obscuring the figure of a man in white robes. A kindly face, a bald head and a long beard. A hand reaching out…

What the hell? Orlando thought, grimacing in a migraine-like vise of pain.

But then it was gone—the blue fading, fading, replaced by the dim orange glow of the oil lamp off the dusty rock cavern walls. The boy, moving again. He glances back, toward that alcove and the murky shadows. Shakes his head, then continues.

And Orlando resumes his sketching.

After another twenty minutes of winding passages, twists and turns, the boy slows. Extinguishes his lamp, and eases toward the faint glow at the end of the descending passage.

He creeps to the edge, where he hears soft voices.

It’s the girl’s voice, and the boy smiles, almost chokes on his gratitude for her safety. But then he hears her words…

“Don’t hurt him, please don’t…”

“Sorry, little one.” The Eye’s voice. “He’s managed to track us, and can’t be allowed to live.”

“No, please no, please!”

The boy freezes, then scampers back.

But he’s too slow.

Armed men turn the corner and descend upon him.

The last thing he—and Orlando—hears is the swishing of blades. Quick. Painless.

Then darkness.

Temple shook him,and when Orlando opened his eyes—streaming with tears—he forced himself to focus on Phoebe to help ground his dislocation.

“You’re back,” she said. “Back. Just relax. Take a deep breath.”

“They killed him,” he whispered. “Just a boy, they…”

Phoebe gripped his wrist. “The boy following the Hummingbird?”

Orlando nodded gravely. “Just killed him right there.”

Temple took the pages off Orlando’s shaking hands. “This it? The way to her?”

“Yeah. I saw it all so clearly. But I’d say you have to move fast. I’m not sure how they knew the kid was coming, but if they can see him, maybe they’re sensing us too.”