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THE SLEEPERS OF TARTARUS

David J. West



One of the things that comes with putting together an anthology is there are so many things that can happen dealing with so many authors, be it existing commitments preventing their participation, or personal issues meaning they need to back out. Writers are human, and life can happen.

This story was originally written with a spot in Baen’s Sword & Planet anthology in mind, and things just didn’t manage to come together in time. So, when David J. West said that, with some retooling, it would fit in perfectly in this anthology, we were excited to see it.

Then I saw that this was a riff on The Man Who Would Be King that opens with a quote from Robert E. Howard, and I knew that this story ended up right where it belonged all along.

***

The gods of yesterday are the devils of today.

—Robert E. Howard


They said it was a suicide mission, but that didn’t matter to Cormac, he had nothing to live for beyond the dream that in serving his country his legacy would last as long as mankind had a tongue for it. He would be the first man to go beyond the moon and reach an outer body, even one as small and nearly unknown as Cruithne.

The rumors of a foreign power backed by the billionaire tech giants building their own military space force prompted the hawks who held the keys to the black budget to triple their work at a secret new arms race. For a man with nothing left to lose, Cormac could not have been happier to be a part of it. The other choices had been retirement and sitting in front of the TV alone watching the cancer eat him alive or the somewhat intriguing flight security detail for that peculiar dig in Antarctica codenamed Sleepers of Tartarus.

Little choice for an operator with an ego as big as Cormac’s.

When some egghead detected that the nearly forgotten Cruithne was giving off particularly high electromagnetic readings, a whole henhouse of eggheads started clucking furiously at the implications, and of course the hawks wanted control of whatever this might entail. Every possible advantage had to be taken, by any means necessary.

A special orbiter shuttle was outfitted with extra boosters and rations, everything a man might need for a one-way trip; there was no way to give him enough for a return. Once he landed on the three-mile-wide asteroid, he would let the sensors do their work and secure an automatic drone weapon installation to hold down the fort—before he ran out of both food and air. It was a sacrifice he was more than willing to make. Since his wife and son had been taken by a drunk driver, there was nothing left on Earth for him.

He laughed. He had been diagnosed with bone cancer soon after their deaths and would have been cut out of any program no matter how black, except that this one was a suicide mission.

Blessings come with the curse.

He spun the Masonic ring on his finger. It was looser than it used to be. He’d spent the last many weeks alone in space, and he had reread all the books he brought several times over. He liked to reread his favorites, classics like The Iliad, The Lord of the Rings, The Sun Also Rises, and Potocki’s The Manuscript Found in Saragossa, but also newer works like Night Winds, The Haunted Mesa, and Red Nails. They all spoke of loss in their own way, and he wondered if that was why he gravitated toward them.

A klaxon flared to life, alerting him of a looming target. Glancing out into the deep black, he caught sight of a shape blocking out the stars.

“This has got to be it.” He had been talking to himself a lot more than he ever dreamed of before. “Cruithne dead ahead.”

He smirked over the words “dead ahead.”

Any signal of his landing would take hours to get back to Earth, so he no longer thought of communication with them as anything in real time. It was more like e-mail. Waiting for a one-sided response. They sent daily updates, but he no longer cared. He would do the job then go out with style. Once his oxygen was down to the last few hours, he would get as drunk as he ever had. He’d brought two cases of scotch, and he still had one left. It was gonna be a helluva one-man party.

The klaxon blared a warning once again, just as the shuttle began to shake violently. “What the hell?”

Glancing at the instrument panel, he wondered if interstellar sand or some other debris was causing the jarring movement, but scanners detected only the same orbiting body.

He rechecked a variety of systems and concluded that a powerful magnetic field emanating from Cruithne itself was causing the wild movements.

Electrical systems shut down randomly like Christmas bulbs burning out, first one, then another. Lastly, even the alarms, thrusters, and lights went out, leaving him in the grip of absolute darkness.

“Unbelievable,” he growled. “Better start drinking now.”

The shuttle drifted toward Cruithne, but he was without any steering capability or means of slowing his approach. In fact, if he didn’t know better, he would think his speed was increasing toward the small, black rock.

“Damn it to hell! Looks like I won’t even have time to get shit-faced before I’m smeared all over that thing.”

The shuttle continued to rattle like it was threatening to fly apart, so he strapped himself in, but not before grabbing a bottle of scotch. He opened the bottle and took a long, deep pull.

“Hope them eggheads can see me hit paydirt. I’ve got enough oxygen left, there ought to be some kind of fireball, if only for a second.”

Cruithne loomed closer, and Cormac kept his eyes open even as his body tensed for impact. The tilting ridgeline of Cruithne disappeared from the cockpit’s view, and he guessed he wouldn’t see it coming. The shuttle sped up, and he wrinkled his forehead. He should have touched down already. He looked out the cockpit window then down at the instruments. “What the hell?” He was circling the tiny asteroid in a bizarre, rotating ellipse.

“Looks like I’ll lose my lunch before we hit.” He frowned.

The shuttle circumnavigated Cruithne a half dozen times before Cormac completely lost track and was forced to close his eyes as bile rose in his throat.

Each rotation got him closer to the iron surface, and soon the shuttle would slam into the pockmarked ground, rending the shuttle apart like a cheese grater. He’d probably be unconscious by the time that happened.

Straining against the brutal shaking, he manually flipped the switches for life support, thrusters, lights, anything. All to no avail.

Out the window brief images of black and stars, then swirling gray hills, then black once more flashed in his vision. It was vortex of nightmares he had to face one last time.

He toggled the switch on the thrusters one more time, and they blasted with what now seemed a deafening roar. His speed increased as he continued to circle the rock, and still he did not strike it but lost all consciousness to the blurring of black and gray and orange.


Cormac awoke with the blackness of space still spinning above. Stars zoomed by, but at least the nausea had abated, and the shuttle no longer shook. He took a long pull on his scotch then unstrapped himself, bracing for what he might see.

The shuttle rested on the surface of Cruithne as the asteroid hurtled through the heavens. He gauged that somehow he had come to rest on the surface, but perhaps the shock of impact had knocked the organic satellite on an altered course. The small shuttle shouldn’t have been able to do that, but what was the scientific conundrum that bumblebees shouldn’t be able to fly either?

Color broke the perpetual black—blue, white—and flashed before his eyes. The asteroid, with him riding shotgun, was tumbling above the Earth!

He slapped himself in the face and rubbed at his eyes. He had to be dreaming. How could he have returned so suddenly? The rotation was slowing, and yet, there he was, parked about five hundred miles above the Earth. His heart rate sped up, pounding in his chest. Would the small moon now be a threat to Earth? The asteroid stopped spinning. Stopped advancing.

“Am I in hell? Who’s driving this thing?”

He spent several minutes trying to reach Houston, but to no avail. In fact, he couldn’t get anything on the comm—no surplus signals from the myriad channels and receptors he knew very well were pointed out into the night to bounce across a belt of satellites. No static from dying stations. Nothing.

“My radio must be broken.” He shook his head. It was the only logical explanation.

The slight course of Cruithne as it orbited Earth and a glance at his fuel gauge, helped him to make his decision. He pursed his lips as he released the automated drone system onto the asteroid, regardless of its new proximity to Earth. Since there was enough fuel and oxygen left in his shuttle he decided to go home to be debriefed about his peculiarly swift return.

Firing up the shuttle rockets, he was relieved to see that all systems were nominal, and he easily escaped the weak gravity of the invading moon.

Cormac gasped and his eyes widened as he rocketed toward home. He spun about in the seat, eyes darting around in every direction. His hands gripped the armrests, fingers going numb in shock as he stared at the scene above his home world.

A trio of spheres hung in the heavens, watching like God’s own eye. Great Saturn and her rings, then the white iris of Venus, with the deep red of Mars as the unblinking pupil. They loomed impossibly close, with Mars itself larger than a full moon. Venus hovered farther back yet higher and closer than it ever should be, and Saturn took up a greater portion yet.

“I’ll be dipped,” he mumbled.

A blazing column of plasma seemed to emanate from the trio in the sky and touch down somewhere in the north as if planting a golden axis upon the earth.

Already stupefied by all the impossible images before him, he nearly convulsed as a dark speck at his three o’clock fired up its thrusters and moved toward him with blinding speed—on a direct collision course with his shuttle.

“Nothing on Earth is that fast,” he said, shaking his head as he remembered that his own arrival had been beyond the ability of even the blackest of DARPA projects.

Working on pure instinct, Cormac made a slight change of course just as a blaze of glowing hornets flashed past his left side.

“Son of a bitch is shooting at me!”

The orbiter was not made for dogfights, and he didn’t even have any weapons on board any longer, but he did his damnedest to escape and evade, though the attacking ship pursued him doggedly.

He caught a glimpse as he banked hard to the right once more. Astounded, he recognized the craft as a secret officially known to exist to but a few airmen and astronauts. The ship was nicknamed the Black Knight Satellite and had been seen for decades as it made a curious polar orbit of the Earth. Some of the more esoteric leaning eggheads claimed it had to be thousands of years old, not that any of that guesswork mattered now.

No one had ever seen it move like this before, and the way it was firing at him, Cormac didn’t think he’d get the chance to tell anyone about it either.

Glowing sparks lanced over the nose of his shuttle. His first thought was that he had been hit, but his sharp re-entry as he evaded the Black Knight, had caused his ship to burn.

The Black Knight Satellite slowed down; it seemed that it wasn’t about to put itself through the same amount of atmospheric damage as Cormac forced the orbiter through.

Molten gold volleys from the Black Knight arced over the shuttle as Cormac jerked the stick, forcing the shuttle down hard.

The nose burned red and the klaxons blared as he brought the spacecraft down faster than any speed previously attempted. He had wanted to die in the dark cold of space, just relax and fall asleep with a drink in his hand and music in his ears, but someone shooting bright fire at him brought the fight or flight raging back.

Cormac racked his brain for something he could do offensively to the Black Knight, but he didn’t have anything more in the cargo hold. Or did he? He did have a .45 semiautomatic and his trusted Bowie knife, but they were no good for this fight.

Blasts rocked the left side of the shuttle as whatever the Black Knight was firing shredded the titanium delta wing.

New warnings blared as an air pressure leak added to the vibrant chaos.

Semi-recognizable land below the clouds revealed itself to Cormac. The Sinai peninsula wasn’t an ideal landing spot, but it was the best he could do.

The glow of the burning entry had dimmed, but the orbiter handled badly with the shot-up delta wing, and the Black Knight Satellite had not given up. Another volley bit across the rear, and Cormac worried it was going to break up at ten thousand feet.

Remembering a handful of survival items near the rear of the cabin, Cormac leapt up and threw back the locker door. There was a parachute. Only one, as he had been the only occupant. He strapped the chute to his back as he made his way to the rear door, praying the aircraft would hold together long enough for him to get out. On a hunch he grabbed the small keypad that could remotely control the weapons’ drone on Cruithne. He should have used it when the Black Knight first attacked him, but it was far too late now.

He heard another volley from the Black Knight, and winds blasted his face as the cargo doors were ripped off their hinges.

Choice vanished. Exit was now the only option. With the door torn off, Cormac was flung into the great blue yonder. His vision faded around the edges and his eyelids became heavy, hard to keep open. He lifted a weak hand, unsure if he had the strength left to pull on the ripcord, but somehow, he did it.

The ominous black ship loomed behind the falling wreckage of the orbiter. If they chose to fire on him, there was nothing he could do. He spun toward the Earth and the chute jerked him hard when it caught enough atmosphere to fill. He lost his grip on the keypad, and it fell away as darkness took him.


His vision was nothing but a blur when he awoke. A fine blanket of dust covered him, and something tugged at his legs. He kicked, and a woman cried out in pain.

Brushing the clinging dust from his face, he struggled to see who he had attacked. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know what was pulling on my feet. Thought maybe it was a dog.”

“You think I am a dog?”

“No, uh . . . sorry, ma’am.” He sat up and struggled to stand. He felt her fingers on the bare skin of his arm as she helped him gain his balance. His flight suit was torn to shreds.

“I thought you were dead. I saw the black smoke and believed they had made an example of someone.”

“They?”

She waved her hand heavenward. “The titans. The Anunnaki.”

He shook dust from his ears, convinced he could not have heard her right. “What did you say? Who?”

Beautiful wide green eyes stared at him, and curling auburn hair fell from beneath her open head scarf. Her clothing, or lack thereof, made his own eyes widen. She appeared to be on her way to a belly dancing festival, as she wore little more than a sheer skirt with a sash covered in tiny bells and a top that strained about her bosom, also with silver bells and tassels.

She narrowed her eyes at him, folding her arms across her chest as if to hide it from his roaming eyes. “I do not know your face. Where are you from?”

“Culver City,” he said with a grin. “You heading to some kind of a party?”

“Cul-Ver?” she repeated with visible confusion. “I’ve never heard of such a place. Who lands there?”

“I do. Where are we right now?”

“We are near the landing place of Akkad.”

“What?”

“Near the kingdom of Shinar. I have not heard of your country, Cul-Ver.”

He laughed but stopped when she frowned. “Sorry, you speak pretty good English, I thought I was going down near Egypt. Judging by your outfit and accent, this must be Israel though.”

She cocked her head at his words. “And I was going to say you speak good Nessian, but I already suspect that the magic of the gods is what affects our tongues.”

“That makes as much sense as anything.”

“The places you named; I do not know them. But I have also never been beyond the borders of our servitude.”

Now that his vision had cleared, he took in the grim surroundings. There was a scattering of mud-brown homes that matched the desert floor. Farther on were taller buildings but of an equally drab brown shade; a tall ziggurat towered over those. He turned in the opposite direction and a mile or more away, the remains of the orbiter was wreathed in flames. Black smoke belched into the air.

“Lot more fuel left than I would have guessed,” he lamented.

She pointed to the sky. “Do the Anunnaki allow mere men to pilot their ships?”

“Mere men? Did you say Anunnaki?” He blinked to get the rest of the dust from his face.

“Yes, they are our masters. Did you steal the ship? I will not betray you, but they will come soon, we best go inside.”

She was as beautiful as any woman he had ever seen, but this was all so insane. Maybe she was crazy.

She pled with him. “Come with me, we must hide you from them.”

“I’d like to believe that. What’s your name? I’m Cormac.”

“I am Tanay. I am part of the pleasure cult to occupy the miners.”

His brow furrowed. He wondered if he had landed near a place of slave labor and human trafficking. Maybe she wasn’t crazy, just naïve.

Tanay scowled, somehow reading his thoughts on his face. “I am a dancer, not a whore. But if I do not serve, my people will be made an example of. This servitude is my lot.”

He bristled at her fatalistic demeanor. “I’m not judging you, just this place. What did you say it’s called?”

“Shinar.”

“And it is ruled by the Anunnaki? Like the Sumerian gods?”

“I do not know that name, but they act like gods. They are giants, endowed with power from beyond. You must know this. They control all.” She pointed at the sky.

Cormac had to admit that the very cosmic nature of the planets hanging above the Earth in barbell fashion was a strong sign that what Tanay said was true. “I must be the crazy one.”

“What did you think? I am crazy? Come or stay, but they will be here soon, hurry.”

He rubbed at his jaw. “Giants? From another planet?”

“They come from Nibiru,” she said.

Cormac felt for bumps on his head, though this made as much sense as anything, considering what he had already been through. Cruithne carried him back to Earth across space and time, perhaps thousands of years into the past.

She shook her head, worry troubling the corners of her mouth. “I have not meant to speak ill of our lords. But you are not like any man I have ever known. You fell from the stars. And yet lived? Come, quickly.” She tugged at him and they hurried toward the mud-brick buildings a few hundred yards away.

Cormac looked skyward, wondering how he might explain to her when there was no other concept she could be familiar with. “I suppose so.”

“Only the Anunnaki have the means of flight, but you do not look like one of them, you look like a man,” she continued and tentatively touched his bare shoulder.

“Of course I do, why wouldn’t I?”

She stared into his eyes and shook her head disbelievingly. “If you are from the stars, why do you not appear as the Anunnaki? Are there others like you up there, where you come from?”

“Maybe.”

“Is that a riddle?”

“No.” He glanced all across the plain, looking for any sign beyond his ruined orbiter. The enemy ship was nowhere to be seen. In the distance, a flash of light from the city with towers and square buildings waving in the desert heat caught his eye, but he did not see any movement.

“Bring all of your things, we must leave nothing or they will know you are here.”

“My chute? My orbiter is enough for them to know someone was here.”

She nodded. “Perhaps they will think you died in it.”

“Good point.”

“How did you find yourself out here to come across me?” he asked as he attempted to roll the lines of the chute up in a bundle. Thankfully he was not fighting any wind.

“I was hunting for star flowers in the sands when I saw your red ship coming down. The dark defender, she made sure you crashed, then returned to the far places in the sky.”

He grimly nodded. “I don’t suppose you know anyone with another ship, do you? Something to get me back . . . home?” He finished rolling up the chute and carried it under his arm as he followed her toward the village.

She shook her head. “Our kind are never allowed such things.”

“Our kind?”

“The Adamu.” She paused as they reached the shade of buildings and felt his forehead. “You don’t have a fever.”

He pulled her hand away. “What’s the difference between us and them?”

Her eyes widened, and she looked toward the heavens. “They are giants, tall as cedars. Their skin is like bronze, and they pilot ships that go to the stars. Our kind have no such things. We are their slaves. Are you one of us or one of them? No one speaks like you with such abandon for our ways.”

Cormac looked about the barren landscape. “That’s a loaded question. I’m no one’s slave, but I’m no master either. Why don’t you fight back? Revolt?”

Now it was her turn to look at him as if he were the crazed one. “They would destroy us in an instant. We have no weapons, no ships that can fly, no men of metal that fire lightning. We know naught else but to serve. There is no other choice if we are to live.”

“Well, that’s gonna change if I have anything to say about it,” he said, unsure of how he might accomplish his boast, but there was no backing down now.

“Do you serve Enki? He is the most sympathetic of the Anunnaki.”

“Never met him.”

“We had best go inside before a scouting party comes to see the ruins of your ship,” she urged again.

“You didn’t happen to see a keypad, did you? Small box, this big?” He gestured the size with his hands.

She shook her head.

“I was hoping, since you found me . . .”

She shook her head once more.

Movement on the horizon caught his eye. An aircraft sped toward them.

Tanay saw it too and darted off in the opposite direction.

“Hey, wait a second, who is that?” he asked as he attempted to unencumber himself of the chute and damaged flight suit.

Tanay continued her flight as the approaching ship grew. It was not the Black Knight Satellite returning, as Cormac first suspected, but its own terrible surprise.

It looked like a flat patrol boat with an open-air canopy, yet it had boosters along the bottom allowing it to have incredible speed, and a hovering power lifting it at almost thirty feet in the air. A troop of men were aboard. Cormac shuddered in horror as he realized they were not mere men but giants, at least twelve feet tall, wearing a bizarre mismatch of archaic looking armor and spectacular tech—such as a robotic arm where one had apparently lost a limb.

The craft landed with a great blasting of dust over the top of Cormac, and the giants disembarked.

“This one must be an escaped slave,” said one to another.

“I’m no slave,” Cormac shouted.

“He barks like a dog!” said the one with the cybernetic arm.

“I’m an Airman of the United States Air Force and must be treated as stated in the Geneva Convention.”

“Convention?” repeated one.

“Air-Man?” asked yet another.

“We shall see.” This one came at him, confident in his much greater size. He lunged for Cormac with his massive arms outstretched.

Cormac knew the giant could squeeze the life out of him in a heartbeat, but he wasn’t about to let that happen.

Cormac was only half-out of his flight suit and chute, and instead of looking at those as encumbrances, he used them. As the giant stooped to grab him, Cormac bolted right and wrapped his chute cords across the neck of the giant, racing around to cinch them tight, pulling with all his strength.

The giant grasped at the cords about his throat and dropped to his knees.

Another of the giants caught sight of Cormac’s Masonic ring. “He bears the sign of the heavens upon a ring.”

“Who gave you that?”

“You wouldn’t know him,” Cormac growled.

The other giants moved toward him, ready to attack, but Cormac challenged them. “I’m not your enemy, but I am not a slave to be ordered about.” He released his grip on the chute so the strangled giant could free himself.

“Who are you!” one demanded.

“Major Cormac ‘Jack-Hammer’ Ross, U.S. Air Force.”

The lead giant took on a different defensive posture. “Who is your master? Did he give you the ring?”

“Master? I ain’t got no master,” Cormac growled. He moved his hand subtly toward his .45. “Name is Cormac.”

“Who do you serve, Corn-Mat? Who is your lord?” rumbled the giant, as his hand went to his gargantuan club. “Where did you get the sign?”

“It’s Cor-Mac!”

“Me,” answered a woman’s voice. “He will surely serve me and my pleasure.” She had a powerful, brassy voice.

As she exited the parked airship, Cormac noted that she was not only a giantess but stunning. She wore an ornate gown and had long golden braids framing her face, but there was something imperious and cold in her demeanor. The giant who had been ready to flatten Cormac with his club quickly cowed and moved back in deference to the queenly giantess, as did the others. The one who had been strangled glowered at Cormac but also moved away, hanging his head like a whipped dog.

Cormac stood atop a stone that granted him another foot of height, and the giantess still looked down at him despite being noticeably shorter than her male counterparts. No, counterpart was not right, they were her inferiors.

She eyed Cormac with icy interest. “Where are you from?”

“California,” he answered uncomfortably.

“Where?” She cocked her head slightly then a bemused smirk crawled across her ruby lips. “I have never heard of such a place.”

“It’s on the opposite side of the world from here,” Cormac said.

The giantess nodded. “You have said you are not an enemy, and yet you laid hands upon one of my men. It is forbidden for any of the Adamu to strike one of the Anunnaki. Yet you bear the sign of the heavens upon your ring. Whom do you serve?”

“No one you would know.”

“I know everyone worth knowing. Enlil? Enki? Marduk?”

“No. I just wanted it known that I am not to be manhandled by them. I’m no slave.”

“You came in that ship that the Defender destroyed. That means you were not authorized to be here. Are you a member of Enki’s rebellion?”

“No.”

“But you have a star ship. Where did you steal it?”

“I did not steal it. I am an airman for the United States. That wreck was my orbiter. I was shot down by a big black ship.”

She scrutinized him for a moment then glanced back at one of her men who answered her unasked question. “There have been strange fields at play. The moon of Nergal has returned from its annual exodus.”

“That might explain things,” she said. “Very well, as you have said, you are not our enemy. Know that I am the mistress of this backwater colony, and I have uses for you. What do they call you outlander?”

“My name is Cormac,” he gruffly answered.

“And I am Innara, director of the Kingdom of Shinar. Accompany me on my flotilla and let us retire back to the city for more of this discussion, out of the heat of the day.” She beckoned to the airship, and Cormac, deciding he had no real choice, took off the remains of his chute and ruined flight suit then strode to the craft and stood upon the bow near the pilot. The giantess and her guardsmen followed. Then they were airborne and whisking away toward a city on the plain replete with ziggurats and a myriad of smaller rectangular buildings nestled between groves of palm trees.

At least Tanay had escaped and would not be implicated as a part of his landing.

Cormac watched the pilot as best he could, trying to understand how the airship worked. It seemed very basic, though the controls were made for a much taller person than himself.

They landed near one of the larger ornate buildings. Huge mechanical doors opened, and cool air rushed out.

“Before we enter, I wish to know that we are on friendly terms. Please give me your weapon,” said Innara.

He thought she meant his pistol until he realized she was pointing at his knife. He reluctantly handed her the knife, but no one made a sign that they even knew what his pistol was, so it remained with him.

They entered the finely furnished room, and Innara handed Cormac a beaker of wine, which he greedily gulped down.

“You enjoy that?” she asked. “I have more, and food that would rival the nectar of the gods.”

He momentarily lamented losing his remaining scotch in the crash and was grateful for this heady liquor. He thought for a brief moment that this place might not be so bad.

Innara said, “Gursum, take him and put him into the slave analyzer. I wish to see what he has been encoded with.”

Gursum moved with incredible speed for a giant and took hold of Cormac’s jacket and lifted him as if he were but a kitten being hauled about by the nape of his neck.

Cormac strained against Gursum’s grasp, but he could do little other than squirm. He decided to keep his gun secret for the moment, if these giants did not know what it was, he ought to be standing on his own two feet before firing.

Gursum carried Cormac into a nearby building that looked aged on the outside but was spotless inside, with ivory smooth walls and glass chambers like small sunrooms, but why sunrooms indoors? Cormac couldn’t imagine.

Gursum dropped Cormac and shoved him into one of the small glass-enclosed rooms.

“Queerest jail cell I ever saw,” spat Cormac.

“Silence!” the giantess ordered. “We will now have a look at you.”

A bar of orange light moved up and down along one of the walls, and Cormac felt its intense gaze, though there was strangely no heat.

Gursum glanced at the giantess and spoke excitedly, “He does not have the adjustments. I thought he was a feisty one! This would explain his candid demeanor. I might have guessed he was one of the wild men, but he wears too many clothes for that.”

“So, he is not a spy for Enki?” Innara asked.

Gursum scanned the readout. “I can’t see how he would be. He has none of the hormonal weaknesses we give the Adamu. Could he be an unserved agent of Enlil? Maybe a wildman that discovered a cache of our relic ships?”

Innara examined the screens, reading all about Cormac’s vitals. “He flew a starship. He is not one of the wild men. Look at that, he has aggravated stage three bone cancer.”

“Is he even worth the trouble?”

“I can take care of that,” she said. “No point in having a useful slave who will die next week.”

The bar of light changed to a neon green and moved rapidly up and down in the cell, painting Cormac with its strange glow. As much as he disliked how they spoke about him, he had to admit that something about the light actually made him feel better, as if their super-science was curing him of his personal cross to bear.

“Despite the cancer, he seems beyond the ken of most of the Adamu,” said Gursum. “Where could he have come from?”

The giantess moved closer to the glass and peered down at Cormac like she was eyeing a meal. “He must be from far outside the containment area, or even from across the void. Maybe there is a half-truth in what he said.”

“There were some anomalies in the field. Gates might have opened,” Gursum offered.

“Keep men on constant watch for any more trespassers,” she ordered. “I want no issues during the conjunction. I will ascend.”

“Yes, director,” the giant said with a bow. “And this one?”

“I will deal with him and discover what he knows and how he might benefit my plans against Enlil.” She was beautiful, but her crimson lips looked far more predatory than Cormac liked.

He considered drawing his pistol and destroying the glass prison, when she abruptly opened the door. It slid sideways with a hush that caused Cormac to wheel about in surprise. He had missed that trick when Gursum had tossed him inside.

She smiled again. “You are a feisty one. What really brought you here? Speak the truth.”

Cormac wondered at what to say, but what was there beyond the truth? “I told you and your men already. If you won’t believe me, I can’t change that. I am from Earth, but it wasn’t anything like this when I left. I don’t even know for sure how long I have been gone. How many years have passed for it to be like this. Nothing makes sense.”

“Very well, come with me.” She strode away with the sure expectation that he would follow. She was a woman used to having her way in nearly every facet of life.

Cormac followed. What the hell else was he gonna do? “Can I ask you something?”

“What is it?”

“Is this your home?”

She tipped her head back and laughed. “No. This has been my punishment. But soon it will just be a bad memory. That’s why I want you to do something for me. When the time comes, you will deliver a message for me. Your ring shows you are trusted among the order of the heavens. That which has been barred to me for too long.”

Cormac grimaced. No good would come of having anything to do with this giantess.

“Enter here and all will be made known unto you.” She gestured into yet another closet-sized room, though this one did not have the luxury of glass walls.

“What does this one do?”

Innara’s nostrils flared in irritation that she seemed to be barely keeping under control. “It will cleanse you.”

Cormac sniffed. “I’d rather not.”

“It doesn’t work that way,” she said. “You do what I command here, and then I will give you a new command, and that is how it will continue all of your days. You are mine now, and you will obey. You are a slave.”

Before he could argue further, she shoved him with a slight sweep of her left hand, and being the giantess that she was, he was nearly thrown off his feet into the chamber. A lock snapped into place, and a mechanical vibration stirred at his feet. A dynamo hum proceeded from a vent above, and the air pressure shifted rapidly.

The other chamber had cured his cancer, or at least it felt like it had, but this “cleansing” room made his skull rattle, and the only washing, he suspected, would be of his brain.

No time like the present to utilize his pistol.

He shot into the vent above and where he guessed the snaps for the locking mechanism were.

The tortured squeal of a gear grinding against metal sounded from the vent, and the burnt smell of an electrical fire filled the chamber.

Cormac threw his shoulder against the door and it budged a little. A third strike and the chamber door popped open.

“How did you do that?” asked Innara.

Cormac held the pistol outward. “Forty-fives can punch a mean hole. Now how about you let me go on my way.”

She gave him a sly look and gestured at a door to his left. She whispered, “A projectile weapon. Damn you Enki.”

“Much obliged.” He made his way to the door, but as he reached for what he thought was a knob, the door slid open sideways.

It was not an exit.

Cormac faced a dozen giants, all as large and fierce looking as Gursum. They were eating in a mess hall.

“Aww hell,” he said.

“Kill him!” shouted Innara.

Three of the giants jumped up from their tables and moved toward Cormac.

He took aim and shot the closest one dead center in the forehead. The thunderous crack smote the twelve-foot-tall man and he collapsed. Though for Cormac’s money, he guessed the bullet had only knocked the man unconscious. He bled, but the bullet appeared to be wedged in the thick skin of the giant as if Cormac had done no more than David of old and merely stunned this Goliath.

“There will be more of that if you don’t let me outta here,” he thundered, hoping to sound as intimidating as possible.

One of the giants took a step forward, but Cormac aimed the pistol at his head. The giant halted.

Innara frowned and took a few steps back as she now apparently feared what the gun in the small man’s hand might do to her porcelain skin.

Cormac carefully traced his way in the other direction, and when he moved back a pace, the door slid closed again with him and Innara on the same side of it.

One of the giants stepped forward and the door slid open, but Cormac shook his head and the giant stepped back, forcing the door to close.

“I just want out, and I’ll leave your little kingdom,” he said to Innara.

“How dare you!” she growled through clenched lips.

“That ain’t the answer I’m asking for. Where is the real exit?”

“You will never reach it alive; my guardsmen will squash you like the insect you are!”

“Flattery will get you everywhere,” Cormac chided with a laugh. “Move.”

They went out the door and Cormac saw more than a dozen of the giants and twice as many humans watching him from around corners and windows.

Cormac barked a command. “You all better let me borrow one of your aircraft, and none of the rest of you tall fellers better do anything to hinder me or you’re gonna be looking for a new queen!” He emphasized his pistol pointing at her.

Innara gritted her teeth. “You will pay for your insolence. There is nowhere in the world that you can hide from me!”

“Such a sweet mouth, but with such bitter words coming out of it,” taunted Cormac as he moved toward the pad where an airship had been brought.

Cormac moved to the pilot’s wheel, still keeping the pistol trained on Innara. He guessed he could fly it, save that it would be hard for him to see where he was steering while working a couple of pedals and a flight module that seemed to adjust the hovering height of the ship. But he had to escape this place.

He motioned Innara to back away as he turned what he thought was the ignition. The ship fired to life, and as he pressed a foot upon the hovering module, the ship jerked into the air.

He staggered as it lurched upward. Then it crawled forward over the top of the city.

Arrows and spears shot toward him but glanced harmlessly off the bottom of the metallic ship. Cormac had to peer around the side of the wheel to see where he was going and at one point narrowly avoided colliding with a tower that stood twice the height of all other buildings in the city, with the exception of the great ziggurat.

“This ain’t so bad,” he said to himself.

A grappling hook and cable lanced across the bars along the gunwales and jerked the airship to a terrible halt. Cormac slammed against the wheel and accidently struck the module, sending the whole thing careening down. It hit an adobe building, caving in half of it as the airship tumbled end over end, landing in an alley. Having been stuck to the pilot’s wheel was the only thing that saved him from being tossed from the falling airship.

Relatively unhurt, he jumped to his feet and hurried down the alleyway, hunting for any avenue of escape.

A skinny man was just about to unsaddle a palomino horse when Cormac stopped him. “I need that. I’ll pay you for it later.”

The man cowed to him without a word.

Cormac scanned the animal, wary of any tricks, such as loosening his bridle or saddle, but sighting none of those, he mounted up.

He wheeled in the saddle, spying the giant queen. He needed to remember how fast giants could run.

“Stop!” cried Innara.

Cormac waved his pistol in her direction. “Now, you behave and let this go, and we can all remain friends.”

She screeched at Cormac as much as at her guardsmen as he rode away. “Kill him!!!”

He was racing through the bizarre cityscape when he heard a cry that sounded oddly familiar. The woman, Tanay, clung to the bars of a slit window, calling to him.

“Go north toward the Pillar! You can lose them in the foothills!” she cried.

He could do no more than give her a grateful nod as he wheeled the palomino to his right and headed toward the glowing plasma pillar and the hills beyond.


He pushed the palomino to run as fast as it would go, and yet he heard the thundering footsteps of the giants as they raced after him. Hardly daring to look behind, he managed to turn the horse hard and avoid a spear that slammed into the ground just beside him. It was as thick around as a fencepost and three times as long.

“Faster, you damn nag!” He gave heels to the startled horse. They climbed a light slope and rushed around a dense thicket of trees, almost falling into a swift canal that merged beside the forked road. He had been a hair’s breadth from leading the horse into the drink.

The giants were fast and relentless, sooner or later either he or the horse would make a mistake. Better to face the fear. Nothing to do but stand.

Cormac wheeled his horse about.

Three giants were racing toward him with three more behind them that he could see.

Cormac took careful aim. He didn’t have much ammunition, so these had to count.

A spurt of blood flowed from the forehead of the lead giant, and he stumbled to the ground. Whether it had killed him or merely stunned him, Cormac couldn’t tell. He carefully aimed and fired at the next one who still held a spear.

He missed, but it was enough to give the giant pause at the range of perhaps fifty yards.

Cormac held his fire.

The giant sensed his hesitancy and took it for weakness as he hurled his spear.

Cormac fired and hit the giant in the left breast.

The giant collapsed to his knees with a gasp then let out a bloodcurdling roar and got back to his feet as if animated by a sinister dark force. His eyes were a fury as he drew a knife as long as Cormac’s leg.

“Damn it!” cursed Cormac. He aimed and shot the giant in the neck.

Crimson flowed, and the giant fell back.

“I’m warning you. You don’t want none of what I have to offer!” he challenged.

A giant almost a hundred yards away cast his spear. Cormac narrowly got the palomino to dodge the titanic missile.

The cracking of timber warned that at least one of the giants was trying to flank him. He gave heels and hurried on. A short distance down the road the flanking giant crashed through the underbrush, his outstretched hands just missing the palomino’s tail.

Cormac wheeled in the saddle and gave the flanker a point-blank blast from the .45.

The giant clutched at his stomach and dropped to his knees. He scowled darkly at Cormac, gulping in deep breaths. He was down, but only for the moment.

“I warned ya,” shouted Cormac, as he rode on. For now, it seemed his pursuers had given up the chase.


He rode the palomino hard into the surrounding hills where unexpected trees gave him needed shade and the feeling of shelter. He expected one of those flying airships to be on his heels at any moment, but none came, and relief washed over him at the cover he had beneath the leafy boughs.

He was wary, though, and kept a vigil no matter how far into the forest he rode. Even as night fell, the trio of aligned planets hung in the sky along with the central plasma pillar emanating from them, casting an eerie glow over the silent forest.

“Maybe this is as good as it’s gonna get on this world and I should get some sleep.”

The palomino neighed softly in response.

“You don’t have to agree to make me feel better,” Cormac said with a chuckle.

A strange chittering broke the stillness.

Cormac racked the pistol in response as his ears scanned the gloom as much as his eyes.

Movement twitched among the foliage all about him, but whatever made the disturbance did not yet reveal itself.

Cormac gauged that it had to be at least four or five somethings. He was sure that whatever it was walked on two feet.

“You know that I know you’re there, so you might as well come out and show yourself. No point in playing games,” Cormac said loudly.

Bursting from the underbrush, a brutish man of muscle holding a stone axe faced Cormac and gave an unintelligible roar. He had wide-set eyes, a sloped brow, and dirty long hair. He seemed almost as much an animal as a man. Two more leapt from over the top of a fallen log. Each was similarly armed with stone clubs.

“You better be a little more friendly or I’m gonna learn you,” Cormac said with his pistol raised.

One of the ape-men bared his teeth and grunted as he raised his obsidian flanged club.

Cormac shot the club, shattering the sharpened stone edge.

Dumbfounded at the terrific report, the ape-men backed away, disappearing behind the cover they had so recently come from.

“You are not one of the Anunnaki’s men,” proclaimed a voice.

“No, I’m not. Who’re you and your thugs trying to impress tonight?”

A well-muscled man stepped forward. He was young yet covered in scars and haggard from rough living. “I am Kord. I refused to be one of Anunnaki’s slaves. I was tasked with finding you.”

“Me? By Innara?”

“Never! She is a witch. I have help from on high. I am to bring you to a wise one.”

Cormac glanced at the brutish ape-men and nodded. “All right, but I’ve had enough of tricks lately.”

“This is not a trick. I have no guile.”

“So, you say.”

Kord looked Cormac up and down. “Where are you from? You look nothing like any man I have seen before, and your weapon, it sounds like thunder.”

“Yeah, they can put the fear of God into you,” Cormac answered with a grin.

“Which god?”

Cormac cocked his head at Kord. “For this place? All of them I suppose.”

“Come, we best hurry.”

Cormac was puzzled, but Kord was already leading him farther into the verdant forest.


They traveled through the underbrush on foot and into a deep chasm that cut between the hills like a sword slice. Behind a large boulder the trail took a quick jog that led to a place where a man could just squeeze through sideways. Deep chested and large as Cormac was, it was still easier for him to slide through the gap than it was for the ape-men.

Kord offered him a wineskin, then gestured toward a large cylindrical crystal that was set in a candelabra. Kord touched the crystal and light grew within like a flame catching fuel until it illuminated the entirety of the massive chamber.

“I will call upon him,” Kord said in a tone of reverence.

“What do you mean? Pray to your gods?”

“He is not my god, though there are some who would believe such.”

The large multi-hued skin of a beast hung squarely on the wall. Kord took hold of the edge and pulled it free, revealing a large dark screen.

“This can show things in each direction, so I take cautions that some cannot find me,” Kord said.

Cormac nodded. “I get it.”

Kord faced the screen as if expecting it to respond to his very presence. He called out, “It is I, Kord, son of Tanelorrn. I have the one you seek.”

The phrasing struck Cormac as odd. Cormac eyed his hirsute companions, but the ape-men were busy eating and drinking at the edges of the chamber. They didn’t act like this was an ambush, though Cormac was initially suspicious at Kord’s words.

The screen flickered and a light washed across it. Apparently, the owner also kept his covered with a cloth.

The being that stood upon the other side and looked at them was clearly one of the Anunnaki. If the screen he stood before was any indication, this being was likely fifteen feet tall. His skin was bronzed and his eyes a jade green, each stood in stark contrast to his purple and gold trimmed robe. He was bald but had a trimmed white beard. His voice was deep like it was coming from the bottom of a well.

“This is the man who came through the gates with the moon of Nergal?”

“Yes,” Kord answered. “He is known as Cormac. He carries the sign you told me to watch for.”

“Cormac, come forward that I may better get a look at you,” the being commanded. “Hold out your hand that I may see this ring, the sign of the heavens.”

Cormac put the wine skin down and stepped forward. “And who are you?” He held his hand outward so the Anunnaki could see the Masonic ring.

“It is good. I am Enki, Lord of the Waters and the Stag of the Abzu.”

“Uh huh.”

“Tell me, I ask you as a stranger—going to the West,” he said with emphasis.

“Where have you come from?” asked Cormac.

“From the East,” Enki replied, “And I am hoping that you will give him the message on the Square—for the sake of my Mother as well as your own.”

“Are you a . . .”

Enki answered, “I am a Grand Worshipful Master here.”

Cormac solemnly nodded.

Kord glanced from Enki to Cormac with abject stupefaction.

Enki smiled with a somewhat sinister edge. “It is all right, Kord, this is why I need him to perform a task that you could not despite all of my guidance.”

Cormac frowned. “Just because we share a brotherly bond and I don’t care for Inanna and her ilk, doesn’t mean I’m gonna be a tool for someone else with an axe to grind. Got enough problems of my own without being used.”

“You understand very well, traveler, and while this is indeed a war between the Anunnaki, I have a vested interest in your people’s survival. All of you are my people too, and your timely arrival with the moon of Nergal is fate. A peculiar blessing in disguise.”

Cormac snorted at that final word as much as Enki’s rhyming poetic flair.

Enki continued. “In hand-to-hand armaments, you cannot possibly overcome the full force of the Anunnaki. Kord and his ape-men can barely remain free in the hills and forests. Were it not for my guidance they would have been captured and put to death long ago. Now is the hour, the time to strike before the great conjunction is finished. Only at this precise moment in time can you, Cormac, strike and break their stranglehold on your world.”

“This place is insane. They have star ships and flying craft and yet they were dumbfounded by my forty-five. What gives?”

“It has been so long since any of the Anunnaki had need for an explosive projectile weapon that they went out of fashion generations, millennia, ago. There had never been such weapons as ours upon this planet before, as the automated defenses are so far beyond the ken of the humans that it seems the gods blast lightning from the ships. And our massive size precludes any chance that one of the Adamu could stand toe to toe in mortal combat. The Anunnaki have forgotten what an equalizer your firearms can be. But they will learn swiftly how to counter your weapon. Powerful as it is, it cannot last you long unless you do as I say. The real power here is the sign and your ability to act on your initiation into the order.”

Cormac glanced at his ring, remembering when he had been inducted, passing through the rituals of brotherhood. All to fit in with his fellow pilots and officers. Was there something more to it than mere fraternal bonding?

He was dubious and looked to Kord and the ape-men beside him. They looked in awe of both Enki and himself.

Kord gave him a solemn nod. “Trust him.”

“You, Cormac, have the ability and strength to act on my instructions and free your world.”

“How?” he asked, stretching his shoulders and raising his lantern jaw.

“Give him the box. He will know how to use it,” Enki said to Kord. The wild man removed a skin from over a carved spot in the living rock. He reached inside and produced the keypad that controlled the weapons’ system left upon Cruithne. “You may not realize, but it is useless without my help in forwarding any signal between Ki and the moon of Nergal.”

“Ki is Earth? You asking me to rain down hellfire on Shinar?”

“No.” Enki shook his head. “You will use that once the Anunnaki flee from before what you will do to the pyramid during the conjunction in six hours.”

“Six hours?”

Enki nodded gravely. “Listen and do exactly as I bid you, and your world can be made free.”


They moved swiftly, covered in dusty robes to conceal themselves and blend in with the throng of slaves that clustered about the base of the pyramid.

Horns blared, calling the faithful to attentive prostration. The humongous Anunnaki foot soldiers crowded at the base of the multi-stepped pyramid. The massive conjunction of planets overhead took up almost the entire view of the heavens. The plasma column covered the city in its unearthly glow.

“If it wasn’t for the conjunction, the guards would be more watchful and we would never have been able to get back into the city,” Kord said under his breath.

Cormac grunted in answer. “It is one helluva distraction.”

Kord shuddered and barely contained his ire. “Look there, Inanna has Tanay. She is taking her and others to the sacrificial altar.”

“Let’s do this.”

Enki had given very specific instructions. Cormac wasn’t sure how much he could trust the wizened looking being, but he took confidence in Kord’s trust. The wild man was a man of action and deed, and if the renegade Anunnaki had won his trust, what else could he do but extend a bit himself? Besides, he knew all the phrases.

The ape-men had walked as erect as they could manage and, covered by the robes, passed as lowly beggars until they forced their way to the front ranks of the gathered slaves. The humans of Shinar had given room for the jostling muttering of men, unwilling to bicker with anyone who pushed their way to the forefront of this grim spectacle.

A dozen women were bound with Tanay, along with another matching set of young men. They were led like lambs to the slaughter up the steps of the pyramid. Some steps were of more than twice the height for the Anunnaki to comfortably climb, while the mere humans had three times the amount of smaller, close set steps.

Kord muttered to himself, “Oh, divine beings hear us and help us break the chains.”

Cormac had never been much of a praying man, but he had seen enough that he still cast his two cents in. “Lord, wherever and whoever you are, guide my hand.”

The flickering glow of the plasma column above shifted ever so slightly, allowing anyone on the ground to perceive a fluctuation as it seemed to center itself directly atop the gleaming ziggurat.

“Now!” shouted Cormac as he withdrew his pistol and shot the titanic guardsmen on the right and then the left.

If the colossal Anunnaki weren’t dead, the ape-men rushed forward, howling for blood as they raised their clubs, battering the fallen giant foes.

The crowd of slaves cried out in fear, confusion, and ecstatic delight at the grim ballet.

The imagery of the capstone atop the ziggurat was blinding, it caught both sunlight and the glow of the plasma column and held them in its embrace as if it were molten.

Cormac glanced back at the enemies surrounding him and hurried up the steps. If it weren’t for the smaller mid-steps made for people his size, he never would have been able to outrace the giants that came from farther to the side.

Fire licked at the stand surrounding the altar, and Tanay cried out in anguish as the smoke curled about her reddened body.

The witch queen, Innara, stood by with a knife held high.

Cormac raised his gun. “Back off!”

Innara sneered at his bravado. “My warriors will crush you underfoot. You cannot stop the conjunction.”

Cormac fired, and the lead slug struck the knife from Innara’s hand with a brace of sparks. “I don’t need to stop it, just you.”

Innara cried out in pain as the knife sliced her as it flew away. Blood ran down her arm, and her ivory gown had a long crimson stain running down her leg.

“I warned ya, back off! Them too!” he signaled toward the giants that had paused in their ascent.

Innara waved a hand, keeping the giant guardsmen at bay if only for the moment.

“I want them where I can see them, keep them all on this side. If any one of them tries sneaking up the back side, I’ll give you one in the forehead.”

“It wouldn’t kill me,” said Innara with a mouthful of contempt.

“Do you want to find out?”

She hissed at him as he moved closer and drew a knife with his left hand to cut Tanay’s bonds.

The heat of the fire was torturous, and he was amazed at the woman’s strength in not crying out worse at where it had seared her naked flesh.

Innara took a step forward, and Cormac leveled his pistol. She stepped back. He looked at the crystalline capstone of the pyramid. Energy from the conjunction caused it to pulsate with inward power a mere dozen paces away.

Innara saw his gaze and fear finally took her by the neck. “No! Take your woman and go.”

Cormac gave her a half-smirk. This was all the truth of Enki’s words he needed to know. It would work. He sprinted up the steps, the giantess on his heels.

They raced to reach the pinnacle.

Innara grasped him about the ankle and yanked. He held on to the stone with all the strength of his left hand while the right turned and fired the pistol point blank into the giantess’s bronze flesh.

She gasped and let go, struggling to gain her feet and reach the capstone before him.

It was close, but Cormac was swiftest and shot a hand forth into the mirrorlike surface. On the other side he felt a hand take his own, as if they shook. A being from beyond the veil was on the other side. Who it was, Enki had never said, but Cormac felt real flesh and bone. No words were spoken, but the message was received. He was given a sign and token and gave the returned answer. He let go and pulled his arm back through to this side of reality.

“No!” Innara screamed. “It was my turn!”

The pulsing crystal capstone went dark, and the flickering glow of the plasma column above shifted violently as the conjunction was broken. Saturn, Venus, and Mars had held together like a great eye above the Earth, but now twisted and raced apart in opposite directions. If Cormac hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, he never would have believed the cosmic majesty. The non-ecliptic shift was mesmerizing. Then the earth shook, and the pyramid blocks tumbled about him.

Any of the titans who had nearly been upon Cormac now fled back down the steps.

The crowd of human slaves ran for cover too, though their hovels tumbled with the quaking, and the brown towers of the Anunnaki fell in clouds of dust.

“It’s done. I knew how to break your eggshell empire,” Cormac snarled.

Innara shook her head disbelievingly. “We were betrayed. Enki is behind this. But we will return and destroy you vermin!” She raced down the steps, falling to her knees multiple times as Cormac, Tanay, and Kord held their ground upon the platform, reluctant to run down where the blocks had a chance to strike an unfortunate.

They watched Innara as she went to the field where one of her airships lay docked.

“She is getting away,” Tanay said.

“It’s all right, I want her and her men in that ship. I’ve got another surprise for them.”

The airship rose into the sky, powered by fire blasting from rearward turrets. It climbed higher into the dissipating plasma column until it was hardly visible inside that molten stream.

“They have escaped, there is nothing that can be done,” lamented Tanay.

“That’s where you are wrong. I have a little something up my sleeve, thanks to Enki.” Cormac held the keypad and scanned himself in, then, playing with the field of controls, tapped his signal into the wave finder of the palace and connected to the weapon drone that waited hungrily upon Cruithne.

Firing it up, a system of rockets and a laser zeroed in on Innara’s ship. A terrible red blast exploded across the azure sky despite the invisibility of its origin.

Havoc wracked the ship, and it began a terrible trajectory back to Earth.

Innara’s face flashed upon the screen. “What have you done? How did you have allies in orbit?”

“Don’t matter now, you’re going down,” Cormac said with satisfaction.

“Emergency landing actions for Tartarus,” Innara said to one of her crew members before the screen went black.

“Where is that?” Cormac asked Tanay.

She scanned a globe and pointed to what Cormac knew as Antarctica.

“Perfect, even if she lives, she dies,” he said to himself.

Tanay seemed unsure. “They will sleep and dream until they are awoken in a safe time. Perhaps far into the future.”

Cormac thought on that and remembered his one-time chance at flying security for a dig in Antarctica. He watched the screen as the ship came closer and closer to ground, finally slamming home into a bank of deep ice.

“It can’t be,” he murmured. “I cause what happens in the future? The dig? For them to be awakened again in my own time?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I have to get there and end them. They can’t ever wake up,” he said grimly. “Sleepers of Tartarus. It wasn’t just a code name, it was literal.”

“You can’t go there, It’s impossible.”

“I’ll have to retrofit one of their airships, fly there, and make sure they are good and dead.”

“You won’t do it alone,” said Kord.

Enki’s face appeared on the fuzzy screen. “You have done well, traveler. Save for those that yet remain hidden on your world, the bridge has been broken. The Anunnaki will trouble your kind no more. Fare thee well.” Then he was gone.

It was all so sudden. Cormac’s mind reeled. He was supposed to die in deep space, cancer eating away at him, but he was back on Earth, thousands of years in the past, cured of his illness, and saving the world from the giant aliens he had always doubted existed.

Tanay clung to him, and the people emerged from the edges of the ruined city, shouting in joy. “What now?” she asked.

“No rest for the wicked,” Cormac said. “There is a lot of work to be done.”


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