“We’ll find it,” grated Grant. “If we have to raze the compound to the ground, we’ll find it.”
“Not with all my people howling for your blood. You’re unarmed, trapped on a hostile world. Like the old man there, you live only at my sufferance.”
Kane swung on Harwin. “Do you know where the gateway unit is?”
Harwin’s lips parted, but Sindri shouted, “Shut up!”
Shaking his head remorsefully, Harwin said, “He’s right. I’m sorry, but he’s right. Without him to protect you, if you show up in the compound the transadapts will tear you apart. They hate all humans. He is the only reason you’ve stayed alive this long.”
Grant paused in midstep, uncertainty flickering in his eyes.
Sindri smiled at him with smug self-possession. “Nor will a hostage situation lead to anything but your deaths.”
“Maybe dislocating your arms and legs and neck would make you willing to tell us where the gateway is,” Grant countered.
Sindri shrugged. “Mr. Grant, believe me when I say that I’ve lived so long with pain that what you propose would be no more than a minor discomfort to me.”
The little man turned to face Brigid, gently touching his chin. Sincerely he said, “Miss Brigid, I apologize for your ordeal from the bottom of my heart. The last thing I wanted was to distress you.”
She inhaled sharply, exhaled slowly. She asked bitterly, “Did you find what you were looking for?”
“If it means anything, yes. The sperm samples collected from Mr. Kane and Grant are more than adequate to begin the gene therapy.”
“What’s the point?” Brigid snapped.
“I don’t understand.”
“You need healthy ovum for the sperm to fertilize, and your females are barren. Do you have in vitro eggs so the genes can be spliced?”
Sindri shook his head. “No, we do not.”
“Then where will you find healthy eggs to implant in the women?”
Squinting up at her, Sindri said, “I presumed you had it all figured out. From you.”
Brigid stared at him for a long silent moment, then began to laugh.
Chapter 25
Sindri’s frown was deep as he waited for Brigid’s outburst to cease. When it did, he said, “Perhaps you will be so courteous as to share the joke with the rest of us.”
“No,” she replied, eyes jade bright. “It’ll keep until you make your first attempt at hybridizing a transadapt with our combined genetic material.”
Sindri eyed her curiously. “And that will be funny?”
Brigid presented the image of pondering over the query for a moment. At length, she said, “Only to me.”
Tersely Sindri said, “Explain yourself.”
She smiled a small, frigid smile. “I thought you enjoyed guessing games.”
Sindri stared at her. She stared back. Then he heeled about, striding toward the arched entrance. “Time to leave.”
Harwin touched Grant’s sleeve. He extended a hand toward him, mumbling, “Pleasure to meet a Terran.”
As Grant took his hand and shook it, the old man’s lips formed the words He lies . His forefinger tickled Grant’s palm, the long nail tracing an impression into the fabric of his glove.
Keeping his face composed, Grant said simply, “Same here.”
He released the old man’s hand and fell into step with the entourage formed by Sindri, Brigid, Kane and the three trolls. They followed the same route as they had when they arrived, passing under the spiral-engraved archways until they reached the bullet-car platform.
Once they were strapped inside with the hatch secured, the vehicle started up, sliding effortlessly along the raised rail. The forewall became transparent again, and they silently watched the interior of the pyramid speed by.
Sindri didn’t speak. He stared out of the port, his blue eyes at once fierce and vacant.
Kane wondered at the meaning of Brigid’s bitter laughter and mocking words. Such behavior was not normally in her cool, reserved character and made him feel distinctly uneasy.
The bullet car raced out of the cavity in the base of the pyramid, raising a wake of red dust that billowed out on either side of it. Overhead the sky flared with pink and saffron hues.
Kane looked out on the desolation of the Cydonia Plains. It was full of silence and peopled only with the shapes of wind-eroded rock. Far in the distance, he saw the squat, mesa-shaped formation again. He resisted the impulse to ask Sindri if it was the monstrous stone head. He really didn’t care if it was. On the horizon, sharp-pointed peaks arose, far too regular in shape to be mountains.