As he got closer to his lodge, Gall’s concern grew. Bullets Hew by, mostly high, but it told him the enemy was not far away. One of his wives ran past, shepherding some young ones. She did not meet his eye or halt at his yelled questions, and Gall felt a heavy weight press down on his chest.
The bodies lay outside of his lodge. His eldest wife, his youngest daughter who just this morning had filled him with such joy, and one of his sons. Dead, struck down by the bullets of the blue coats. Gall dropped to his knees and picked up the body of his daughter. He peered into her lifeless eyes, closed the lids, then slowly put her back down.
He could hear more firing now. The sound of horses in agony. Men yelling, in their tongue. Some of them white men. Warriors ran or galloped past, heading to the south. Gall stood and pulled open the entrance to his lodge. His hatchet, steel blade gleaming, lay just inside. He picked it up, feeling the heft of the handle. He also picked up the satchel with the skull and it looped over his shoulder. Then he turned and moved to the south.
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
The cloud of radiation reached the southeast suburbs of Moscow and crept inward, the most successful invader of Moscow since the Golden Horde of the Khan many centuries previously. Between Moscow and Chernobyl, the land was more scorched and dead than even the Mongol invaders had accomplished.
To the east, panic was beginning to ripple through Europe. People stared at wind reports with intensity, noting every little change and hoping against the realistic words of the scientists that something would happen to forestall the curtain of death that was coming toward them.
THE SPACE BETWEEN
Dane hovered just above the top of the Shadow Sphere, slowly turning and looking in all directions over the Inner Sea. Earhart was by his side.
“Nothing,” Dane reported.
Instead of replying, Earhart opened her suit and stepped down onto the surface of the sphere. She carefully walked down to where the black water met the craft and knelt.
“Be careful,” Dane warned.
“Something’s coming,” Earhart said.
“What?”
“We’ll see it when it gets here.”
Out of a crew of one hundred and eighteen, ninety-six had volunteered. From that number, Anderson had picked two of his reactor specialists, given the nature of the task. The two men had suited up in the bulky radiation suits and now were ready, standing in the holding area in front of the large hatch that was in the first shield wall between the front of the sub · and the rear. One of them carried the wired skull, the other a large hatch wrench. The hatch was unbolted and they stepped through; the hatch shut behind them. They moved down a short passageway and opened a second hatch, moved through, and shut it behind them. They were now in the emergency operations room for the reactor. They’d both been here before on maintenance checks. Inside a suit, a man could safely work in the room for thirty minutes.
They moved to one side where there was another hatch plastered with red warning signs. The man with the wrench opened it, and the one carrying the skull stepped through. He waited as the other man slipped inside, closing one hatch be· hind them and then opening the next one, again covered with warning signs.
The sailor with the wrench paused before the final turn and looked back at his partner. Peering through the clear plastic visors of the headgear they stared at each other for a few moments, knowing what the next action would bring. Neither d a word. The sailor turned back to the door and twisted the wrench. The hatch opened. Although there was no apparent difference, both men cringed, as if hunching down inside their suits would make a difference. They knew they were being bathed in radiation from the reactor core, but it was an instinctual reaction. They moved to the core and the one with the skull put it in position as Frost had directed.
Both jumped back as they were bathed in a bright blue light The skull was the source of it, the intensity so strong, they couldn’t look at it for more than a second before turning their eyes away.
The captain s voice came over the intercom. “Are you men all right? We’ve just picked up a fifty percent power drop in reactor strength.”
They stared at the skull, which was now pulsing with blue power, realizing that somehow it had tapped the reactor core of that much energy in an instant. They also knew that if it was holding that much power, it had to be giving out radiation far beyond the ability of their suits to block. One of them checked the small card clipped to the outside of his suit. It was bright red, meaning they’d just received a fatal dose in an instant.
“We’ve got a problem, captain,” one of them called out.
“What is it?” Anderson’s voice echoed through the core.
“This thing is hot now. Very, very hot. If we remove it from the core and bring it forward of the shields, it will contaminate the rest of the ship. At fatal levels.”
In the control room Anderson turned to Frost. And waited.
Frost was seated in a battered metal chair, his white hair unkempt. “The skull has the power to open the gate large enough for the submarine to pass through.”
“To where?”
“To where we must go.”
“And then?”
“I can’t see that far.”
“That’s pretty slim.”
“It’s all been pretty slim, but if you had not listened to me, you all would be dead by now along with everyone else.”
“Not much of a life here.”
Frost waited, letting the emotion run out of Anderson. Finally the captain sighed. “All right.” He keyed the intercom and gave the orders. Every man on the ship heard them and knew what they meant.
When the intercom went silent, the sailor who’d carried the skull. In went over to the wall and grabbed a set of metal tongs. He went back to the core and picked up the skull, holding it between the metal jaws. “Clear the way,” he called out; the message was picked up by the live speaker and transmitted through the ship. Forward of the reactor, a pathway was cleared of all personnel, not that the steel bulkheads were any safety against the deadly rays being emitted by the skull.
The two men quickly retraced their steps, exiting the reactor and sealing all hatches behind them. After the months of being crowded, they found it strange to move through the ship with no one else in sight. They reached the base of the sail and found the hatch to the ice cap open. They moved outside without hesitation, a snowstorm beating against their radiation suits. They didn’t look over their shoulders as the hatch was slammed shut.
They moved forward of the Nautilus about a hundred yards to the point where they couldn’t see their ship anymore through the swirling snow. Both halted. The one holding the skull hesitated, then put it down on the ice, expecting it to melt through and disappear.
It didn’t
Instead, as soon as it was released. The skull rose up and came to a hover four feet above the ice, unaffected by the strong wind that blew by.
The skull shot out bolts of blue into the descending snow. Directly in front of the two sailors, the air crackled and snapped. Both men took an involuntary step backward as a,lack oval three feet wide by six feet long, opened. It began to grow larger.
A crashing noise from behind diverted their attention for a moment. The large bow of the Nautilus appeared, smashing through the ice. Someone was on top of the deck, waving at them. They walked closer. A slab of ice being broken lifted both of them higher. They staggered to remain upright.