The console hummed as the data in the ka was integrated with the basic profile of Aspasia, then sent to the figure in the glass tube through the line, into the wires and thus to the brain. The imprinting took slightly over a minute. The probes were withdrawn from the figure’s head.
The eyes blinked, awareness filling them as Aspasia’s Shadow came to life once more. The green fluid drained, leaving Aspasia’s Shadow lying on the tube’s floor, trying to get oriented. The tube slid up and he tentatively stepped out. He wiped himself off with a towel, then pulled on the garments that had been left by his previous incarnation.
Dressed, he paused, staring at the black tube that had held his former self. A shiver passed through him, knowing that he would bring this body to that tube sometime in the future. Already, the green vat was humming, beginning work on the next clone to await his presence. Despite being in a body that was the equivalent of a very healthy twenty-year-old, Aspasia’s Shadow felt weary.
With great effort, Aspasia’s Shadow went back to the Guardian chamber and sat in his throne in front of the golden pyramid. He accessed the computer’s database.
Egypt was a mess. He’d known that before he’d regenerated.
The Airlia base at Cydonia on Mars was secure and all was well, according to data relayed from the Guardian on the Red Planet.
And Artad? What of him? It had been a while since Aspasia’s Shadow had checked on the other side’s leader in the civil war. All seemed quiet and Aspasia’s Shadow knew that it was very doubtful that Artad would break the truce without something dramatic changing and so far nothing like that had occurred.
Still. He would have to send a probe in that direction soon. Of course, for Aspasia’s Shadow, who thought in terms of centuries and millennia, the term “soon” was relative. At that moment, all he wanted to do was sleep.
A cold wind blew from the western desert, scouring the side of the three-thousand-foot-high hill. There was no doubt the formation was not natural, as the slopes in all directions were uniform and nothing grew on the wind-blasted dirt that covered the mound. It was a desolate place, normally empty of life and avoided by those who lived nearby.
There was one human currently in the area, though. A woman, heavy with child, staggered into the wind, holding a tattered cloak tight around her swollen body. She had one hand cradled underneath her belly, the other holding a small flask made of black metal that had not come from the Earth. Her teeth chattered in the chill and her exposed skin was growing numb.
She went downslope, following the power of gravity. She had no destination in mind even though her village was to the north, about fifteen miles away. She knew she would not be welcome if she showed up there and she doubted if she could make it that far in her condition.
She was cursed and had been sent out into the wilderness to die along with what she bore inside her. She reached the base of the mound and peered about in the dark. A black line ahead indicated trees lining a riverbank and she staggered forward, heading for the water. She tripped over something and fell hard, cutting her cheek. She blinked in the moonlight, not quite believing what her eyes showed her as the cause of both her fall and the cut. A pile of bones.
The woman realized then that this was the remains of another like her, another sent out into the desolate land to die.
She did not want to die. A cry of pain and anguish escaped her lips as she got to her feet. She was only seventeen and had been a virgin nine months earlier when she had been chosen by her village to be their yearly sacrifice to the Gods of Qian-Ling. The choice had not upset her, as no one could remember a year when the Gods had taken the offering. Usually the chosen was taken to a spot a quarter of the way up the mound and tied loosely to a stake. Two days later, the priests would come back, and untie the girl, and take her back to the village — the duty done, the gesture made.
No one knew when the tradition had been started but it had seemed best to continue it. The girl had not been overly concerned when chosen; indeed she had felt she was being honored, as those girls who had been chosen in previous years had always returned to the village to acclaim. She’d walked in the middle of the processional to Qian-Ling and allowed the rope to be lightly tied around her waist and watched her people disappear to the north. Her greatest concern had been spending two nights alone on the mound.
That changed the first night when she heard a rumbling noise and the ground shook. She tried to untie the rope, but the knot was too complicated. Then a man had appeared in the darkness, holding a long spear. He’d cut the rope where it was attached to the stake and pulled her with him, taking her into an opening on the side of the mound, which sealed behind them.
The horrors that had happened after that she had blotted from her mind. One hand was still cradled under her swollen belly, while the other crept to her neck, to the shunt that had been put in place there.
She reached the line of trees and stopped, seeing in the starlight that the ground dropped off abruptly. With difficulty, she slid down the steep stream bank. There was a slight shoal consisting of small pebbles between the bank and the water. Ice framed both sides of the flowing water, leaving a free-flowing center channel. The stream was not deep, a few inches at best.
The girl slumped back against the dirt bank, exhausted. Looking up, she could see stars and remembered her grandfather pointing out the various animals formed by the twinkling lights.
She cried out as a place deep inside her mind remembered the touch of six-fingered hands on her body while red cat eyes peered at her. She stopped her mind from going further along that thread of thought.
Pain ran through her body, focusing her brain on the situation at hand. She whimpered as a contraction rippled through her. Despite the cold air, sweat began to run down her face and along her body.
The girl cried out for her mother. The only answer was the howl of the wind. She had witnessed numerous births in the village, but there had always been a midwife present to supervise and assist. Pain consumed her and she pressed back against the bank of the stream, her sweat merging with the dirt into mud.
When the child came it was as if it were ripping its way out of her body with single-minded determination. Her screams echoed up out of the streambed and across the plain to the mound.
After ten minutes the baby was out and she used what little strength she had left to wrap it in the rag that had covered her body. Naked, she instinctively curled her body around the infant to keep it warm.
She gazed at the child her body protected. It was not crying, nor had it made any noise, but its chest rose and fell as it breathed, indicating it was alive. Its eyes met her gaze and she was startled to see a thin sheen of red covering the black pupils. The child leaned into her body, taking her warmth.
She barely noticed when it opened its mouth and tiny teeth tore into her throat.
CHAPTER 6
Nosferatu was better prepared this time, having learned his lesson on the last awakening. Instead of leaving the tube and blundering forth, he left the lid to the tube slightly cracked each night and lay still, conserving energy, until he caught the scent of something alive. He slid out of the tube and found several birds resting on the cliff. He refreshed himself as best he could, experiencing again the nausea from imbibing nonhuman blood.
Strengthened, but hardly satisfied, he made his way north along the coast, knowing he could not attempt the interior of Africa in his present condition. He had barely made it back to the Skeleton Coast alive after leaving Nekhbet in her mountain crypt. Between the mountains and the west coast had been mile after mile of desert, then thick jungle, then, as he neared the coast, desolate, rock-strewn desert once more.