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over his face and breathed deeply for a long moment.
Removing it he said, "Your naiveté astonishes me,
Major, or whatever you are. If it wasn't for Thrush,
I'd know nothing abut the multiverse or the lost
Earths or the danger of silent invaders. That's what
he calls visitors from parallel casements."
"Have you had many of them?" Brigid asked, .1
terest glinted in her green eyes.
"As far as I know, you two are the first. However,
all I'd have to do is report to the field marshal that
you two-and probably Major Kane-are not de-
voted servants of the Reich but silent invaders from
the hyperdimensions. If he didn't torture you for in-
formation, he'd have you executed."
"What good would that do?" Grant demanded.
"The bodies would be killed, but not us, the invad-
ers."
Lakesh crooked an eyebrow. "Are you so certain
of that you would want to risk it? At the very least,
your mind energy would be driven out of your host
body. You would either return to your home case-
ment and never be able to return here, or you'd float
around as a disembodied electromagnetic pattern."
Grant found the possibility too horrifying to dwell
on, and he said nothing.
Brigid retorted impatiently, "Let's stop swapping
threats, shall we? What do you want to know?"
Lakesh stopped short of smirking triumphantly, but
he posed a number of simple questions that were sim-
ply answered. All he required was a superficial
knowledge of their world. He asked nothing about
the Archon Directorate or the Trapezohedron, and
Brigid supplied no information. She told hi1I1 of their
encounters with Thrush in the past time line of their
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casement.
Lakesh's eyes went watery and vacant when she
mentioned Domi and how she had witnessed Thrush
executing Adolf Hitler.
"What happened to the child?" he asked in a faint
voice.
"She's alive and well at the installation 1 told you
about," Brigid replied. "She was wounded a while
back trying to save you-save your doppelganger,
that is."
Grant thrust out his jaw truculently. "You were
behind Domi's attempted insertion here, weren't
you? You supplied her with the equipment to breach
the sec system and the virus."
A tear slowly spilled from Lakesh's left eye and
worked its way down his deeply seamed cheek. "I
was. Not personally, of course, 1 went through sev-
erallevels of intermediaries. But the plan was mine.
And if you're aware of that, the field marshal is
aware of it, too."
"You sent that girl to her death," Grant grated.
"She volunteered. As a field operative for the
Preservationists, it was part of her oath."
The reply dampened a bit of the angry heat in
Grant's eyes. "There's a Preservationist group
here?"
''Yes, and I am one of the cell leaders. I take it
from your reaction you have something similar on
your home casement?"
Brigid shook her head. "Similar in concept. There
it's a myth crafted by your other self. It's only a
diversion."
"Here it is very real. Its formation stretches back
to the day of the Reich victory. It is an underground
resistance movement, drawing from the ranks of dis-
enfranchised Americans. There are many of us, in all
walks of our society, but I obviously don't know the
true number.''
"Doesn't look like the Preservationists have ac-
complished a hell of a lot in two and half centuries,''
Grant said grimly. "It might as well be the myth it
is back home."
Lakesh nodded sadly. "I wish I could argue with
you, but I cannot. The winter of the human race is
at hand."
Softly, in a rustling whisper, he quoted, "'For we
wrestled not against flesh and blood but against prin-
cipalities, against powers, against the rulers of the
darkness of the world.''
"Ephesians 6:12," Brigid said quietly. "There's
not much future in being a Biblical scholar on my
world, either."
Suddenly, she winced and her hand flew reflex-
ively to her head.
Lakesh observed sagely, "The fusion link is weak-
ening. Soon you'll be driven out or forced to con-
centrate completely on maintaining control "
Brigid lowered her hand "How do you know
that?"
"I was told."
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"By whom? Thrush?"
Lakesh wagged his head from side to side. "No,
he told me very little about silent invaders from the
lost Earths. If he knew I was talking to you, he would
probably execute me with his own hand."
"It wouldn't be the first time," Grant remarked
enigmatically.
Lakesh looked to be on the verge of asking him to
explain, but Brigid pressed, "Then who told you? It's
more than a little significant that you use the term
lost Earths to describe parallel casements."
Lakesh blinked up at her in mild curiosity. "In-
deed? Why is that?"
Grant made a sharp dismissive hand gesture.
"Enough. It's our turn to ask questions. Domi's mis-
sion objective was to screw up the so-called Battle
Class breed. Why that breed? From what I've seen,
you've got hybrids pretty much integrated in this so-
ciety."
"You seem passingly familiar with- hybridiza-
tion."
"We've had our own problems with it," Brigid
said dryly.
"I figured as much." Lakesh's gnarled hands
gripped the wheels of his chair. He rotated it and
headed toward the door. "Just like I figured you've
had problems with the Archon Directorate. Come
with me."
BRIGID PUSHED Lakesh' s chair into the wire-enclosed
lift cage at the end of the catwalk spanning the mez- [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]