Judas Unchained

“I went over to the generator building. I managed to start it up, as you can see. The town has power, the hypergliders are charging up.”

“It is not far to any building. Is the generator difficult to start?”

“No, it isn’t. It was primed ready. I had to physically press three buttons. It started straightaway.”

“Did anyone go with you?”

“No.”

“We left the hangar together,” Anna said. “I went to find the tether cables for the hypergliders.”

“Did you find them?”

“Yes. There’s a stores building at the end of the hangars. They’re kept in there.”

“Oscar?”

“Memory implant. The induction systems are at the back of this hangar. I didn’t know anything going on outside. In fact, the killer could have been in there with me, I wouldn’t have known.” The thought made him clammy with nerves.

“I see. Jamas?”

“Kieran and I went to find the jeeps to tow the hypergliders.”

“I called Adam and told him we found them,” Kieran said. “Their tanks were just about empty, so Jamas went and found the main tank. I stayed with the jeeps to take a look at their radio modules. We need them for the observation. I was going to look for the tether anchor drill, but I hadn’t heard from Adam for a while. Jamas came back, we headed right over here and found him.”

“And then the others arrived,” Paula said.

“Yeah, these two came in together.” His carbine pointed out Wilson and Anna.

“Is there any sign of anyone else here?” Paula asked.

“No,” Kieran said. “I’ve not seen anyone.”

“Me neither,” Wilson said.

“You and Adam were talking together in the Volvo after we found the sabotage,” Rosamund said to Paula. “Did you have any idea who the traitor was?”

“No.” The Investigator seemed to be losing interest.

“Adam was only going to take two gliders,” Kieran said; he gave Oscar a strange look. “That’s what he told me.”

“When?” Paula asked.

“It was just about the last thing he said. I’d told him we’d found the jeeps, and he said we only needed two.”

Jamas smiled brutally. “He knew it was one of you.”

Oscar held back from saying anything. The Guardian trio were so hyped up and trigger-happy they probably would shoot someone if they had half an excuse.

“He didn’t say that to me,” Paula said. “We were still trying to work it out.”

“Then there’s nothing else we can do right now,” Wilson said. “We need to get the hypergliders over to Stakeout Canyon. There’s not much time left.”

“Are you fucking insane?” Jamas cried. His carbine swung around to point at Wilson, finger tight on the trigger.

“This changes nothing,” Wilson retorted. “We kept going after the crates were sabotaged, we keep going now. Only this time we do not split up again. From now on we do everything in groups of at least three. Everything.”

“You’re not flying up that mountain,” Kieran snarled. “You’ll wreck the planet’s revenge.”

“There won’t be any planet’s revenge without the observation from Aphrodite’s Seat. All three of us will fly. That way the odds protect us.”

“Dreaming heavens!” Kieran appealed desperately to Jamas and Rosamund. “What do we do?”

“He’s right,” Rosamund said bitterly. “They have to fly.”

***

The control center for the planet’s revenge was huddled at the back of a cave in Mount Idle, named so because it was a lot smaller than the surrounding peaks. It had slumped over the millennia since the Dessault range had been formed, its rocky pinnacle crumbling away into a lackluster mound, while its sides were liberally smeared with long swathes of loose scree. Even the cave wasn’t worth the Guardians using as one of their forts: too small, too visible with its yawning mouth.

Samantha’s Vauxhall jeep reached the entrance long after dark, its headlights revealing a slight shimmer in the air caused by the force field the Guardians had established a couple of meters inside. Three sentries greeted her, and the force field reduced to allow her to drive right in.

There were a number of Charlemagnes stabled inside, along with a variety of battered four-by-four vehicles she knew only too well. Two huge dapple gray horses were also standing next to the Charlemagnes; the saddles on the posts beside them were beautifully sculpted black leather with embossed gold patterns of DNA.

“Barsoomians,” Valentine said in a respectful tone.

The control center itself was right at the back of the cave, which was illuminated in a soft green light. Ten wooden tables were arranged in a circle around the large array, covered in consoles, screens, and supplementary electronic modules. Three or four Guardians were sitting at each one, engrossed with the schematics and data flowing across the screens. The array itself was a black cylinder two meters high with a couple of small red LEDs glowing on the top. Samantha gave it a solicitous glance; she’d been part of the assembly team, which made it her baby. And a troublesome one it had been. It had taken them over a year to integrate the bioprocessors and get the software running smoothly as they ran innumerable simulations.