“Satellite sensors could still detect moving objects.”
I considered the problem for another few seconds, then commanded, “We’ll go that way. Start the troops moving. I want to be ready to get across the beach by midday tomorrow.”
They all made reluctant salutes.
“And if we see any Skorpis patrols we lay low and let them pass. No firing unless they shoot first. I want to get into those ruins undetected, if we can.”
We spent the rest of that day working our way along the ridge of mountains, down to the cleft where the river cut through on its way to the sea. With the fading light of dusk we maneuvered down to the riverbank, where we made camp for the night. No fires. And no Skorpis patrols in sight.
I did not even try to sleep that night. I skulked through the shadows, every sense straining, knowing that the Skorpis were at their best in the dark, wondering if they really were complacent enough to sit snug inside their base, wondering above all if they knew that we were near. The river made a rushing sound, as if hurrying to be reunited with the sea. The wind blew in off the water, warm and moist, like a lover’s breath. The night was dark, moonless, and the stars scattered against the black sky meant nothing to me; I could not recognize any of the familiar constellations of Earth.
I saw the gleam of a light, far down the river, almost at the point where it widened into a broad and deep bay. An enemy patrol? Why would the night-loving Skorpis need a light? It couldn’t be any of my troopers; they were all behind me with strict orders not to make a fire or even strike a spark.
I edged carefully toward the light, the rushing river on my left, keeping as much as I could to the brush and stunted trees that lined the base of the cliffs we had descended. I eased my pistol from its holster.
The light grew, brightened, and suddenly I knew what I was seeing. I knew who was there.
Boldly I left the protection of the foliage and slipped the pistol back into its holster. Sure enough, Aten the Golden One was standing in an aura of radiance, arms folded across his chest, an expectant smirk curling his lips. He no longer wore a military uniform. Now he was decked in a long white cloak atop a glittering metallic formfitting suit.
He looked like a god, I had to admit. Splendid of face and form, as ideal a human specimen as Michelangelo or Praxiteles could carve. Yet I knew that his appearance was an illusion, a condescension, actually. Aten’s true form was a radiant sphere of energy; he assumed a human aspect merely to deal with his mortal creations.
“You are doing well, this time, Orion,” he said to me, by way of greeting.
“Is this planet so important to your plans that my entire troop has to be sacrificed for it?”
“Obviously so,” he answered. “Why do you think I placed you here? I have great faith in your abilities. After all, I created them, didn’t I?”
We were temporarily outside the space-time continuum, I knew, wrapped in a bubble of energy that neither my own people nor the Skorpis could see.
“You created my soldiers, too?” I asked.
“Those things? Oh no! How little you must think of me, creature, to believe I would make such limited tools. No, they have been developed by their own kind, the humans of this era.”
“And what is so important about this era?”
He smirked. “How to specify time to a creature who perceives it so linearly? You see, to those of us who understand, Orion, time is like an ocean—like the great sea that lies out beyond your pitiful little camp. You can be at one place on that ocean or another, but it is still the same ocean. You can travel across it, or even plumb it to its depths.”
“There are currents in the ocean,” I said.
“Very good! There are currents in the sea of space-time, as well. Quite true.”