The dust-storms had been increasingly frequent since the abandonment of the Saharan Reclamation Project, a century before. It almost seemed that the desert was wreaking its revenge for a millennium of human domination by staking a claim to Cairo itself. Outside the window, there was nothing but swirling sand. The abandoned buildings across the street were barely visible, and the howl of the wind as it swept down the street all but drowned out the clamour of the hospital. Doctor Ali let the blinds fall over the depressing scene outside, and then raised them again in a sudden burst of curiosity. He had seen two figures trudging down the street in the teeth of the gale, their flowing robes wrapped tightly about them against the cutting sand. What had attracted the Doctor's attention was the height of one of them--obviously a Black from the interior of the continent, for there were very few Arabs who were more than two meters tall. What was he doing here in Cairo, and out in a sandstorm besides? The Doctor shrugged, let fall the blinds, and went back to his desk. He tried to attend to his paperwork, but exhausted from working all night, he was unable to prevent his head from falling on the desk.
He dreamed that the door opened, and a two-meter Sudanese entered, ducking his head under the lintel. Sand cascaded off his robe onto the floor as he threw back his hood, to reveal a bald head, a powerful face, and piercing eyes.
With a start, Doctor Ali realized he was not dreaming. He stood up and challenged the stranger's peremptory entrance, though he had little hope of backing up the challenge with force.
"Who are you?" he demanded. "How did you get in here?"
"I am Hassan. This is Tiphys." His companion was of mixed race, mostly Asian, and his eyes were two different colours, like a Persian cat. "You are the director of this hospital?"
"I am the chief doctor. Most of our administrators quit long ago."
"I know. This is one of the few hospitals left in Africa. You and your colleagues continue to work with a devotion that will ensure you a place in Paradise, but you have no equipment, no medicine, and little food. Not only is the desert reclaiming the continent, but so is famine and disease and war." He noticed the Doctor's microscope on the table beside him; he bent down and peered into the lens.
"Be careful. That's a very rare and..."
"I know what it is, Doctor. Do you notice anything strange about my companion?"
"His eyes are two different colours. Unusual, but..."
"They came from two different people, both of whom had been dead for two hundred years."
"What..."
"I was totally blind," said Tiphys. "And now I am Doctor Hassan's shuttle-pilot. I was unable to stand in gravity, and now I am walking on the surface of the Earth itself, under six times the gravity I was born to."
"Did you say Doctor Hassan?"
"Would you like to see my hospital?" The tall man smiled. "It's only a few hundred kilometres away."
"In what direction? There’s no other hospital within..."
Hassan raised his hand to the ceiling, just a foot or so above his head, and pointed upward. "That way, Doctor."
***
The rain-soaked prairie stretched for kilometres across the perfectly flat landscape, decorated with the occasional steaming snowdrift. What had once been cornrows and wheat-fields had long since reverted to the native grasses, and a few wild horses, descended from escaped domestic animals, grazed smoking and stamping in the cold mist beneath the damaged rectenna.
The lunacrete pillars were intact, of course, and indestructible, though overgrown with ivy. Much of the wire grid they supported had been removed long ago and sold for scrap metal, but as the economy of the continent collapsed, even raw materials became worthless, and several hectares of grid remained.
The operations centre building still stood, though bereft of window-glass and overgrown with weeds. The front door lay dangling on one hinge and the building offered shelter to several cats, numerous rats, and one human being, who was asleep in the corner of one relatively clean room, his bag under his head and his threadbare coat laid over him. He woke with a start at the roar outside, and felt for his pack, where a rare and valuable pistol lay wrapped in his spare shirt.
It sounded like a meteor, he thought, and sat up listening. In a moment he heard voices, and scrambled to his feet, but the intruders were already inside the building and headed his way, so he slunk back into the shadows, the weapon in his hand.
He saw a rather formidable creature and gulped nervously. The man was tall and broad-shouldered, freckled and red-headed, and spoke in a booming voice. His companion was small and apparently Asian in origin, and he carried a keyboard instrument of some kind.
"Orpheus," the big man said, "hook it up here." He swept the dust and trash from the surface of a workstation onto the floor. The smaller man set his keyboard down, attached it to the station, and tapped a few keys. There was a rumble, and a whirring sound and lights began to blink throughout the room.
The sleeper slunk back further into the corner and watched with trepidation. A swarm of gnats seemed to appear in the air beside the men and took the form of a beautiful dark-haired woman. "Hecate," said the big man, "are the satellites online?"
"Yes, Davis. We are ready to begin microwave transmission. Is the rectenna capable of receiving?"
"I believe so," said the one called Orpheus. The sleeper stepped back deeper into the shadows. Orpheus? Wasn't that a Greek god or something? Didn't he end up in Hell? And wasn't Hecate the goddess of death? He glanced toward the door, several meters away. The big man looked like he could cover that distance quickly, and perhaps the demoness could fly. She was hovering just off the floor, and he could see right through her.
"Captain?"
A woman's face appeared on a screen--an ancient Chinese woman. She looked to be hundreds of years old. Did he say captain?
"Here, Davis. I believe we're ready. Medea, bring us online." The old woman turned, and a teenage girl appeared behind her, sitting at a terminal. Behind her was a screen, on which he could see the night sky. The girl--wasn't Medea some kind of witch?--punched some buttons, found one too far to reach, and floated up out of her chair. The sleeper trembled, certain now that he was in the presence of supernatural power. And when the earth itself drifted into view behind the old woman and the witch, it was more than he could take. He crouched, ready to spring for the door.
"There's someone with you," Medea said.
"I know," said Davis. "We detected his body heat. Okay, we've got incoming micro..." The lights in the building blazed into full illumination. The sleeper shrieked in terror and pelted toward the door. He burst out into the corridor, raced for the building exit, and plunged into the damp night.
He stopped short and gazed with horror at the horizon, where the sky was ablaze with light. As he watched, new stars appeared in the south, one after the other, in a regular series, like a diamond necklace in the equatorial sky. He stood transfixed, until suddenly a huge hand was placed on his shoulder. He whirled and gazed up at the red-haired giant.
"What have you done to Winnipeg?" he demanded, pointing to the glow on the horizon. "You've set it on fire!"
"Not at all. We've just turned on the lights." Davis pointed to one of the new stars. "From up there."
"What kind of creature are you?"
Davis blinked in surprise. "I'm an engineer," he said.
***
Two figures, bundled in their furs, made their way down the snow-swept street. The crunch of their footsteps in the snow was the only sound to be heard, except for the occasional murmur of voices as they passed one of the few occupied buildings. A horse and wagon trundled by, the horse snorting and steaming in the cold, and except for the pneumatic tires on the wagon and the obvious fact that it had begun life as a motorized vehicle, the conveyance seemed perfectly at home in the antiquated street. The houses hung over the cobblestones on heavy timbers, their tile rooftops and brick chimneys sagging with age.
"It's beautiful," said Atalanta. "But I've never felt so cold in my life."
"Petersburg was purposely preserved as it had been in previous centuries," Fedorova told her. "Very little new construction in the downtown core, even in our time. It's as if the city was waiting for the clock to be turned back. As for the temperature, the climate was not so severe when the orbital transmitters were online. The weather could be controlled, within limits. When that system went down, the climate became extremely unstable. This is the building."
It was a grand building, with a broad stair and a pillared portico, and it was covered in fantastic architectural detail made even more baroque by the snow that clung to every horizontal surface. The ornate iron gate hung loose, and they were able to enter and climb the stairs. The high carved doors creaked as they entered, and a man looked up from behind a dark wooden desk trimmed with tarnished silver.
"Can I help you?" he asked.
Atalanta looked about, admiring the rows of books mounting to the ceiling in level after level, all accessible by means of ornate spiral staircases. In the faint light that filtered in through the dirt-covered glass of eyebrow windows high above, she could see mythological figures painted on the smoke-stained ceiling, and dust-motes whirling in shafts of light. An oil-lamp next to the man sent black smoke curling upward, adding to the gloom.
Fedorova opened her coat and shook the snow out of her hair, and Atalanta did the same. The man's jaw dropped.
"Angels," he said. "One dark, one golden. Why have you come down to Earth?"
Fedorova looked puzzled for a second, but Atalanta laughed. "If you only knew," she said, smiling at the young man, "just how close you are to the truth."
"We have been told that this is the most complete library still standing in Europe," Fedorova said in her businesslike way.
"That is probably so. The only reason this one is still open is that I live here. I have nowhere else to go, so I keep the books. Most people in this district spend so much time just trying to scratch a living from the earth that they don't bother to read, even if they've been taught to do so."
"We have also been told that you have computers."
"Computers? Yes, but they don't work, naturally. Your interest is archaeological, then?"
"Something like that. Can we see them?"
"Of course!" It was hard to tell which was more pleasing to the young man: the beauty of his visitors or their interest in his library. He took up his lamp and led them down a corridor to a dark room filled with boxes and discs and keyboards. Fedorova sat down, pried off a cover with amazing dexterity, and peered inside one of the boxes. The young man watched her work.
"She's an expert on these things, I suppose," he mused.
"You could say that," Atalanta said.
He shook his head in amazement. "Not only the most beautiful woman I have ever seen..." He blushed. "I mean... You, of course, are beautiful too, but..."
"She is Fedorova. There is no one else like her on Earth. I am Atalanta."
"Ah! She of the footrace and the golden apples. Well, you certainly look as if you could outrun everyone I know. I'm Booker, incidentally. I guess it's a nickname."
"Well, Booker, it seems as though Fedorova and I will be abusing your hospitality for some time. She's found what she's looking for."
"You can abuse anything you like, as far as... Oh my God!"
The lights in the room blazed. Heat began to rise from the long-cold heaters, and Atalanta shrugged off her cloak.
"How did you do that?"
"Davis did it. There he is now." The computers began to hum and blink, and a red-haired man appeared on the screen before Fedorova. She did not look up.
"Accessing records now," she said. "Uploading to Aries." On another screen, texts began to scroll at amazing speed. Fedorova sat peering at the screen, still bundled in her furs. She seemed not to notice the heat.
"You can take your coat off now, Nadia," said Atalanta.
"In a moment."
"Fur coats are why blondes were invented," Atalanta said to Booker. "That's what Davis says."
The one called Davis spoke again: "World-wide grid is online, except for a few places where the local rectennas were too badly damaged. We'll have to send robot teams to repair them."
His image faded and Fedorova turned in her chair. The text continued to scroll.
"You can take off your coat now, Nadia," Atalanta repeated. "How long will it take?"
Fedorova shrugged off her coat but remained seated. "The data in this library is already uploaded," she said. "Now the program is searching out other bases, wherever power is online. It should take several hours."
Atalanta turned to her puzzled new friend. "Do you have any food, Booker?"
"Uh, yes. What would you ladies like?"
"Fedorova won't be eating, but I'm starved." Atalanta took his arm and led him out of the room as Fedorova turned back to the screen, almost as if she could read the dizzying scroll. "I'll explain," Atalanta went on. "But it should take some time."
***
Jason crept through the dappled shade, his ship-boots silent on the mossy forest floor, his laser charged and ready. Tree-trunks soared to the forest canopy above, festooned with liana and creeper, orchid and fungus. Sunlight streamed in shafts through the green haze. The scent of earth and rotting wood filled his nostrils, and the screech of bird and monkey assaulted his ears. He fell to one knee and examined a drop of fresh blood on a leaf.
Boy hunts! the monkeys signed. Jason glared up at them. Boy hunts men, he signed, where men? The monkeys chattered and signed furiously among themselves for a moment, perhaps in surprise that he could speak their language, and then, to his amazement, they signed back: Men kill monkey. This way.
They cascaded through the trees, and he followed them to the side of a grey stone building, overgrown with forest. The entrance looked dangerous, so Jason climbed a tree and peered in through a high window with the monkeys.
There was a huge room beneath an arched ceiling. Light poured in through high broken windows along a catwalk, illuminating the interior. A staircase descended from one entrance and other entrances opened from below. Beneath a huge, broken four-sided clock, overgrown with ivy and vines, a man was roasting a monkey on a spit over a wood fire. Four or five other men sat nearby, dozing or cleaning their weapons. Three captives lay bound at the edge of the firelight--two men and a woman. One of the men was injured and bleeding, and the woman whimpered.
"Sanchez," Jason whispered. "I've found them. They're in a big public building. With pillars and carvings and huge windows."
"It's a train station," Sanchez said in his ear. "I'm entering from the street level, southern side, down a ramp. Where are you?"
"On an upper level, above a staircase, opposite a clock."
"Good. Athena?"
"Yes, Sanchez."
"Station the Cat by the eastern street entrance. Their only other way out will be down, into the tunnels. If I were them, I'd make that a last resort. God knows what they'd find down there."
"Sanchez," said Jason, "there's movement."
One of the men was dragging the woman by the hair into the firelight, and Jason could see that she was no more than a girl. She was screaming in terror and the male captives were shouting in protest, but could not even struggle to their feet, bound as they were.
Monkeys! Jason signed. Boy drive hunters away. Monkeys help. Yes?
Yes! they signed and added their own screeching to the general din. Jason levelled his laser on the would-be rapist, thankful that he did not have to try to aim a bow and arrow in this gravity. The man saw the spot of light on his chest and glanced up in shock, just as a neatly cauterized hole appeared through his heart. He slumped on top of the girl and his companions leaped to their feet, drawing their weapons.
A tide of monkeys poured into the room, swinging in through the smashed windows, cascading down the creepers and vines. They shrieked like demons from Hell and pelted the hunters with fruit and stones and faecal matter. The hunters hesitated for a moment, confused, and then broke ranks. One collapsed to the ground with a laser-hole in his forehead, and the others ran.
Two of them headed for the street entrance and were confronted by a terrifying sight: a nearly naked woman, powerfully muscled and covered with tattoos. In the firelight, the dragons and serpents on her skin seemed to be writhing like living creatures. There was little time to admire the sight, for one of the men had his jaw dislocated with a powerful kick and the other found himself flung into a nearby pillar. He slid to the floor unconscious.
Two others raced for the far exit and emerged onto the street, in the shadows of the ruined and overgrown towers that surrounded the station. They were blinded by blazing light and deafened by the roar of drivers as the Cheshire Cat descended before them and hovered just above the cracked pavement. Guns whirred into view along the vehicle's flank.
The men raced in terror down the street as bullets pelted the pavement behind them and stone chips rained about their heads. Then the Cat turned leisurely, sped into the station through the tunnel, and settled to the ground beside Sanchez and Jason, who were attending to the captives. Jason stood and signed his thanks to the monkeys, who cascaded jubilantly up the vines and out into the forest.
Sanchez was looking at him in astonishment. "You can sign Lab Simian?"
"Is that what it's called?"
The captives stared at them both in disbelief. The elder of the two men held out his hand. "I'm Ross," he said. "My son and daughter are with me. Our boat went aground in the bay, and we managed to get to shore, only to be captured by these animals." The youngsters embraced their rescuers, the girl hugging Jason particularly hard, as Sanchez noticed with a grin.
"We know," Jason said. "We saw the boat and the evidence of a struggle, followed the trail here."
"I'm Sanchez. This is Jason. And this is Athena."
The Cheshire Cat purred.
"You're Spacers. My God, we thought you were all dead up there, a century ago."
"Not all of us."
The lights in the ceiling far above flickered for a moment. A few bulbs exploded, but some of the others began to burn steadily. The clock chimed, badly out of tune, possibly for the first time in a hundred years.
"Will you look at the time?" said Sanchez. "Listen, Ross, can you direct us to the local library?"
Ross burst out laughing. "If I remember correctly, it's just up the street. We'd be glad to take you there. In fact, we'd be glad to help you in any way we can, just so we can watch you doing whatever the hell it is you're doing."
"We’re turning on the lights," Sanchez said, with a twinkle in her dark eyes. "We’re opening the library and bringing back law and order." Sanchez pointed to herself and Jason and the rumbling Cat. "We’re the Police."
She held out her hand to lead the way to the entrance. They left, the former captives peppering their rescuers with questions. The Cheshire Cat rose and followed them. Above the treetops, lights flickered on randomly in the long-abandoned spires of the city.
THE END