I wanted to leap out into the raging storm and outshout the wind. I wanted to howl my triumph to Ormazd, wherever and whoever he was, and tell him that despite all his powers I had found my love and she loved me. I wanted to take her in my arms and hold her and feel the warmth other love.
But, instead, I simply stood before her, almost paralyzed with happiness. I did not even reach out to take her hand in mine. I was content to glow in the happiness of having found her.
“Orion,” she said, speaking low and swiftly, “there is much that you don’t yet know, much that is still hidden from you. The one you call Ormazd has his reasons for the things he’s done to you…”
“And to you,” I said.
She smiled briefly. “I insisted on coming here. I made myself human, mortal, on his terms. What has happened to me is my own doing.”
“And Ahriman? What of him?”
Her face grew somber. “Orion, my love, when you learn the entire truth, it will not make you happy. Ormazd may be right in keeping it from you.”
“I want to know,” I insisted. “I want to know who I really am and why I’ve been made to do these things.”
She nodded. “Yes, I can see that you do. But don’t expect everything at once.”
“Start me with something,” I half-begged.
She pointed out toward the storm. “Very well. We start with here and now. This squad of troops is part of an army of extermination. Our task is to annihilate the brutes, to rid this planet of them.”
“And once that is done?”
“One task at a time, my love. Before anything else can happen, before you and I can meet each other at the foot of Mt. Ararat or make love together in Karakorum, before we can meet in New York City — we must annihilate the brutes.”
I took a deep breath. “Ahriman is among them?”
“Yes, of course. He is one of them. One of their mightiest leaders. And he knows, by now, that if he can prevent us from achieving the task Ormazd has set before us, he can win the ultimate victory.”
I puzzled in silence for a few moments. “You mean that if we fail to annihilate the brutes, then we humans — you and I — will be the ones to be wiped out?”
“If we fail to annihilate the brutes,” she replied, “the human race — your species, Orion — will die out forever.”
“Then the continuum will be broken. Space-time will collapse in on itself.”
“That is what Ormazd believes,” Adena said. “There is some evidence that it is true.”
“Some evidence?” I snapped. “We’re neck-deep in a war of annihilation, based on some evidence?”
She met my angry question with a smile. “Orion, I told you that there is much you still don’t understand. Forgive the words I used. I wouldn’t ask you to fight this battle if it wasn’t necessary.”
My anger melted away, although the confusion in my mind remained. “Who are you?” I heard myself ask. “What are you? And Ormazd, what is he…”
She silenced me by placing a finger on my lips. “I am as human and mortal as you are, Orion. I was not always so, but I have chosen to be. I can feel pain. I can die.”
“But then you live again,” I said.
“So do you.”
“Does everyone?”
“No, not everyone,” she said. “The capability is there. Every human has the capability to live beyond death. But very few realize it; very few can succeed in actually bringing that capability to fruition.”
“You can.”
“Yes, of course. You cannot, though. Ormazd must intervene for you. Otherwise, you would live only one lifespan and die just like the others of your kind.”
“My kind. Then you’re not of my kind. You said you chose to make yourself human. That means you’re… something else.”
Adena’s smile was sad with the knowledge of eons. “I am what your people will someday call a goddess, Orion. They will build temples to me. But I want to be human; I want to be with you — if Ormazd will permit me to be.”
CHAPTER 36
I stood there gazing into her gray eyes and saw whirlpools within whirlpools, wheels within wheels, the entire continuum of stars and galaxies and atoms and quarks spinning in an endless cycle of creation and change. I did not understand, could not understand, what Adena was telling me. But I believed every syllable that she spoke.
I was in love with a goddess, a goddess who would someday be worshipped by human beings, human beings who were created by the gods. The cycle of creation, the wheel of life, the continuum of the universe.
And this was the continuum that Ahriman sought to destroy.
The silver aura surrounding us faded away, and a blast of icy wind sent a shudder through me. I heard its howl, then the muted voices of the soldiers inside the cave. Kedar’s hand closed around the tool he was reaching for. We were back in normal space-time.
“The wind has shifted,” she said. “The storm will be passing by in another few hours. They’ll attack then.”
I focused my attention on her, on the here and now. “Can we hold out against them?”
“As long as our power holds. Once the battery packs are drained, though…” She let the thought dangle.
“There are others,” I probed, “other units in the area, aren’t there? Can we get help?”
Adena hesitated a moment, then said, “This is the last battle, Orion. The brutes that are gathering out there are all that’s left of them.”
“And us? You mean that we’re all that’s left of the human army?”
“We’re all the humans there are,” she said.
“What about the commanders, up in the orbiting ships?”
With a single small shake of her head, Adena replied, “There are no ships, no commanders. The transmissions that Marek is receiving come from Ormazd. He doesn’t want us to know it, but we are quite alone here. There will be no help for us.”
“I don’t understand!”
That bitter smile touched her lips again. “You’re not supposed to understand, Orion. I’ve already told you far more than Ormazd wants you to know.”
She stepped past me, no longer the goddess now, but the human commander of a lost, trapped, expendable detachment of human soldiers. I stood at the cave’s entrance, letting the icy wind slice through me, almost enjoying its bitter cold. The thoughts spinning around in my head led nowhere, but out in that waning storm, I knew, waited the ultimate enemy. This tiny group of men and women carried the fate of the continuum in their hands. Soon the battle would begin, and the victor would inherit the world, the universe, all eternity.
“Orion?”
I turned and saw Rena standing there, an apprehensive little frown on her elfin face.
She tried to smile. “The commander says we should all get into our armor now and check weapons.”
I nodded and followed her back to the area where the cots floated in ragged rows. The others were pulling on their armor suits. I found mine and followed Rena’s example: the bodyshell first, then the legs, the boots, the arms, the magically thin gloves, and finally the equipment belt. I hefted my helmet; it had a two-way communicator built into it and a visor that could slide down to cover the face completely. The visor was completely transparent from the inside but opaque from the outside. Once the troops had them on, I could not see their faces. Only the insignias emblazoned on their shoulders and the names stenciled on their chests told me who they were.
Once we had checked out the suits, Rena led me to the power packs that Kedar was nursing so tenderly and we charged up our suit batteries. Then we joined the others as they lined up for weapons issue.
Adena watched as Ogun, the squad’s burly, sour-faced armorer, grimly handed each soldier a pair of weapons: a long-barreled, rifle-like gun and a pistol that plugged into the suit’s battery pack.
When I stepped up before him, Ogun scowled at me and turned to Adena. “Give him a pistol,” she said. “He will work the heavy gun, with me.”