The circuit went quiet. Leppo eased into a gentle turn to avoid highlands ahead. The gunship moved up to position itself a few hundred yards astern and to one side. After several agonizing minutes, the voice came back on again. There was a distinct note of disappointment in it. “Okay. Continue the turn onto a course of two-seven-three degrees back to the site. There are two desert-camouflaged troop carriers on the ground there, next to some other flyers and shacks. Put down in front of the carriers. We have a missile homed on you. One sudden move and we fire.”
“Understood,” Leppo replied.
* * *
The view on the wall screen in the forward lounge of the incoming craft from Asgard showed the shelf high on the plateau side, where the Zorken survey camp had been sited. The Mule transporter that had borne Justin Banks and his team was there, along with the two vessels left by the military support unit. But now there were two more carriers as well, painted in brown and pink blotches. “I don’t know who they are,” the flight commander’s voice said over a speaker from the front cabin. “It was supposed to be empty there. The thermal signatures on the ground say they’ve only just shown up.” The original intention had been to land at the archeological expedition’s camp, which from high altitude had been spotted a few miles away across the valley floor. Radio contact with the leader there, the Professor Hashikar who had tried unsuccessfully to plead his case with Banks, had revealed, however, that Keziah Turle was not present at the camp. Nobody there knew where he was. And so, as the vessel continued its descent, attention had shifted to the Zorken site not far away.
Achilles stared at a hand mirror that he’d had with him all through the trip. “It’s getting worse!” he lamented. “We’ve got to find him. I can’t stay looking like this.”
“It isn’t your livelihood,” Mervyn Quinn reminded him. Throughout, the flight had been a contest between them of whose vanity was the most injured.
“Oh stop, both of you,” Marissa said wearily.
“Turle might have gone back there for some reason,” Thornton Velte said. “At least there are obviously people there who might know something. That’s more than can be said for any of those scientists.”
Gilder gave orders to the flight commander to redirect descent to the Zorken site on the plateau side. The flight commander responded that he had just received a radio contact from there, demanding identification. Gilder told him to connect the channel through and requested a repeat.
“My name is Colonel Sedger, acting ground commander,” a none-too-friendly voice informed them. “Identify yourselves and state your purpose.”
“This is Hamilton Gilder, chief executive and president of Zorken Consolidated. We own that entire area, Colonel. I don’t have to justify myself or my purpose to you for anything.”
There was a short pause. Then, “Land at your convenience.”
As the ship lined up tail-first to make its approach, two more craft appeared from the east, coming in slow. The first was an unusual looking blue-and-white flymobile that seemed to be in trouble and went straight in for a landing, drawing up alongside the two desert-camouflaged transporters. The other, a gunship that appeared to have been escorting it, made a slow circle around the area while the vessel from Asgard landed. As the engines died, Gilder’s flight commander reported another inbound radar contact.
“What in Hell’s going on?” Gilder asked the others bemusedly. “Half of Mars seems to be coming out here.”
“At least, someone in all this should know where Turle is,” Slessor Lomax muttered.
But further interest in Keziah Turle quickly evaporated. They didn’t need him anymore. The screen showed four figures getting out of the blue-and-white flymobile and being surrounded by troops with leveled weapons. Two were white, one large and black, and the fourth, in a red EV suit, a shade of brown. An instinct made Gilder have the flight commander zero in on him with a zoom view of the head inside the helmet. It was as something had told Gilder it would be: the figure in red was the Khal of Tadzhikstan!