Driver less, the wagon careened against the right side of the temple gate with a sickening crunch, and off into the streets of the city, weaving wildly form side to side.
The flames fed in the temple of
Thylosson
, beyond walls that would never rise to completion.
In mist and ash, the tomb was sealed.
Old
Barsinious
, hair as white as mountain snow, though he'd known but forty years, sat atop the old rug, eyes downcast at the memory, speaking in hushed tones as the story drew to its close.
He fell silent then, lost in memories, and the children shifted about restlessly, wanting more.
"It is late," the storyteller said at last, "and there will be plenty of tales for other nights.
It is time for you to go to rest."
"No!" one boy cried.
"Let us feed the fire and hear the rest.
Tell us of the idol."
Barsinious
' eyes widened at mention of the flames, and he held up a gnarled hand. "There will be no flames in my camp," he said softly, and there is no more to tell.
"I went back to that temple one time, with the nobles of the city, seeking their king.
Nothing remained of
Xenocydes
but a scorched bit of stone and the ring of his office, molten to that cylinder.
The idol was gone.
There was dust and ash where the fire had burned, nothing more."
"Where did it go?" the boy demanded.
"The sorceress and the king were dead..."
"Yes,"
Barsinious
agreed.
"Yes they were.
His hollow, deep-set eyes shifted their gaze to the shadows beyond the camp.
"It is dark, young ones, and it is best that you leave me now."
There was a murmur of protest, but
Barsinious
had already turned away.
In his head, the soft drumbeats had risen, and the chanting begun.
Beyond his camp, fires burned brightly and he tried not to stare into their depths.
One day he would falter, step too near the flames too late in the night.
They were waiting, hungry, patient, vengeful, dancing in the tattered shadows of his mind.
Roberts stared at the screen above his workstation.
Sweat crawled down his spine and dampened his armpits.
His hand rested on the base of a compact electron microscope.
The screen depicted the contents of the slide currently under the lens.
The sudden realization that he was touching that instrument, and the instrument was touching the – thing – on the screen cut through his lethargy like a white-hot blade.
With a small cry he withdrew his hand and jerked back from the workstation.
What writhed in the pink, jellied solution he had used to prep the slide could not exist.
He worked in a clean lab.
The samples he worked with were genetically pure – proteins and enzymes.
The entire workstation was cleansed three times daily, as was Roberts himself.
All of this flashed through his mind and speared his brain with a single word.
No.
He should already have hit the large, red, mushroom-shaped button that rose beside his keyboard.
The button would set off alarms, flashing lights, and galvanize a dozen men in pristine white lab suits into action.
He should have sealed his workspace until the cleansing unit arrived.
He did none of these things.
Instead, Roberts sat down, forced his reluctant fingers to the controls, and increased magnification on the microscope.
In the back of his mind, he knew that the alarms should be sounding, with or without action on his part.
The spike in his own nervous system was detectable.
In the white, clean world of EXOTECH, it was an infestation.
As much as he hated the word for all its science fiction connotations, it was an anomaly.
The thing moved.
Tentacles shot out from either side, seeking sustenance.
Roberts blinked, glanced at a small graph display on his desk, and swallowed.
The thing was twice the size it had been when he first spotted it, and appeared to be growing exponentially.
Roberts calculated from what he'd observed, whistled, and backed away again.
Too fast.
It was growing too fast, and if it continued, more than just his workspace might be compromised.
Still he hesitated.
There was something in the slow, sinuous motion, something with a barely concealed pattern.
He tried to place the sensation but failed.
He reached out his hand to smack down on the contamination alarm, and froze.
He stared at the perfect image on his screen and bit back a scream.
The thing – the anomaly – was gone.
The slide contained only the standard "control" base he used every day.
In his mind he still felt the tug of spiraling tentacles.
He tasted the bitter bile in the back of his throat brought on by the thought of the cleansing to come, the quarantine, and the silence.
He blinked his eyes but the screen remained clear.
Trembling, he sank back into his seat.
Soft leather formed about him, separated from his clothing and his skin by slick plastic.
Roberts reached for his control panel, stopped as his hands were gripped by an intense trembling.
He closed his eyes and breathed deeply until his nerves calmed.
When he glanced up, he saw that the roving security patrol had stopped outside his "pod" and was staring in at him.
Roberts raised a hand to signal all was well.
The guard didn't move.
He pressed his shielded face close to the window and stood, watching.
Roberts reached out for his controls.
This time his hands were steady.
He lowered the magnification back to its standard level and began his process.
The guard watched for a few moments longer, then moved on down the corridor.
If it hadn't been for the built-in gauges and fail safes, Roberts was sure the guard would have questioned him.
He focused on his work and tried to press the disturbing hallucination from his mind.
There was no room for error.
The proteins and genetic material he worked with was brought in from Earth in small quantities.
Supplies were limited, and it was months between deliveries.
A single small error could cost millions.
His work, combined with that of a team of more than two hundred other scientists, each working in a similar environment, formed the backbone of EXOTECH'S prime technology, a process Roberts' colleagues termed genetic cleansing, and that was marketed to governments and the masses as "
Exotechnology
".
The term had no serious meaning.
EXOTECH'S earliest work was in the field of
exoskeletal
human enhancement.
When they slipped over into the realm of genetic manipulation, they used the company name as a smokescreen.
The scientific community, as a whole, did not endorse what they were doing, which was another reason for the off-world facility.
Roberts never gave it much thought.
He was a technician, and the pay for this project would allow him the freedom to complete his education on his return to Earth, or to retire.
Twenty-four months of isolation in an absolutely clean environment.
The compound, a space station locked into orbit around Mars, was a hive of separate quarters, workspaces, and routines.
Each and every person assigned had volunteered for the work and only been accepted after strict background investigations were complete.
They were joined at the brain via the main computer bank when off duty, able to converse, share ideas, and retain their sanity, but in the workspace even this weak umbilical was cut.
The isolation had begun even before they left earth.
Biological, emotional, and mental examination, testing, and monitoring cleared their minds and their bodies to interact with the super-clean environment of EXOTECH'S lab.
The training was simple enough; memorization of sequences and codes, and a thorough grounding in procedure was the core.
The experiment itself, and the results gleaned from the research, had been outlined and was monitored every step of the way by technicians on Earth.
Roberts had only to provide his data in a constant flow and to maintain vigilance against contamination.
The rest of the day's work proceeded without incident, and Roberts closed his workstation with a heavy sigh of release.
There were no more incidents with contaminants that didn't exist, and the guard passed him by without notice on all rounds subsequent to what Roberts now termed "The Anomaly."
He sealed his results, began the decontamination sequence.
He stepped into the bio-suit he wore between his workspace and his quarters, and stood motionless inside the door of his pod until scanners had checked every inch of his protective clothing for the slightest hint of anything outside the strict parameters allowed on the station.
Roberts would be back in the pod in sixteen hours.
He would eat, read for a while, spend a little time on the computer system trying to find something to talk about with the other technicians, and then he'd sleep.
His vital signs would be checked and monitored as he slept, and when he woke, any deficiencies that might affect the quality or efficiency of his work would be addressed by supplements added to his breakfast, which would be delivered to his quarters through a thirty-minute decontamination process and a tri-level lift system that would not proceed from one step to the next until the preceding level was sealed.
A claustrophobic person would have gone insane in an hour, but Roberts was very self-contained, and after four months barely missed the distractions of the world he'd left behind.
He did miss sex, but there would be plenty of time for that when he got back.
He told himself over and over that he'd managed to make it the first seventeen years of his life without it, and a few more months wasn't going to kill him.
In fact, nothing but very random chance could kill him until his assignment ran its course.
His health was monitored and pampered constantly.
There was no illness on the compound.
There was little or no discomfort.
There were no germs.
He felt like he worked in a dream state.
Only the short periods of conversation with the others broke the illusion.
They had little to talk about after the first couple of months.
Each of their jobs was very similar to the next.
They monitored the effects of certain chemical and sonic reactions on gene structure.
Each change was infinitesimal, the results carefully recorded and transmitted, but none of them knew the exact purpose of their own part in the greater puzzle that was EXOTECH.
There was speculation, but it fizzled under the weight of apathy.
It was more stimulating to talk about what they would do when they returned to Earth, and that is what filled most of their on-line hours.
Roberts logged off early that night and sat staring at the white, blemish-free wall of his quarters.
His mind painted the writhing tentacles across the smooth surface.
He still felt the itch of something just beyond the reach of his memory, or his perception.
There was something he should know, but he couldn't bring it to the forefront of his mind.
The walls dimmed from luminous white to blue.
Roberts rose, went through the familiar rituals of cleaning his teeth and washing his face.
None of it was necessary, and all water that contacted his skin was immediately purged from the station to be recycled, cleansed, and purified off-station before returning to the system.
As the walls faded through shades of blue toward deep purple, Roberts lay on his cot and drew his thin blanket up to his chin.
He didn't need it.
The environment was programmed to respond to minute reactions in his nervous system.
If he got cold, the small bedchamber would simply become warmer.
The blanket was another old habit that had refused to leave him.
Too many such rituals could disqualify a person from service with EXOTECH, but some ritual was encouraged.
It made transition back into life on Earth simpler.
Roberts closed his eyes and wiped the last of the writhing image from his mind.
The air was slowly infused with a mild sedative.
The deep purple glow of the walls soothed him.
The world dropped away to darkness, and he slept.