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Axler, James - Outlanders 02 - Destiny Run
he meant by that. He said I could not understand because I had no sense of our
clan's destiny." The last word hissed out contemptuously from Boro's lips.
As Brigid translated, Kane knew the Mongol was mixing half truths with
deliberate exaggerations. The man had been in on his son's plan, at least at first,
and now he regretted his cooperation. It was easier to pose as a helpless victim
of circumstances rather than as a willing conspirator who had been betrayed.
The Mongols had given their lives, their devotion to survive in this hard land.
All they knew was what belonged to them and kept at the price of their own
blood. And if they could protect their land using the magic weapons of a long-
dead ancestor, then so much the better.
He thought about the old days in America, long before the barons dominated all
facets of human behavior. Old dreams of freedom and old hungers for a manifest
destiny were no longer permitted. Only in this bleak Asian wilderness were the
primitive needs to shape the future still indulged.
Perhaps if civilized man, organization man hadn't allowed transitory political
systems to kill their sense of adventure, their sense of justice, to kill their
awareness that all around them was a living, wonderful world, then Earth
wouldn't have been such a sitting duck for the Archon takeover.
Grant, ever the blunt pragmatist, brought the subject back home. "All right, now
we know the back story. Time to plan how to write fini to it."
"We must enter Kharo-Khoto," said Sverdlovosk firmly. "From this base, it is a
half day's overland travel and a bit."
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Axler, James - Outlanders 02 - Destiny Run
"You're expected," Brigid said, "but Shykyr is obviously suspicious of you. He
won't allow any of your party near the vault."
"And," put in Grant, "he may have been psi-linked through the implants to his
brothers and is aware of everything that happened here."
Brigid thought that over for a moment, then shook her head. "Unlikely. The
implants are designed for psychological conditioning. The deaths of his brothers
may be accidental, an unforeseen byproduct of the process."
"Boro claimed Seng and Oborgon couldn't speak Russian, but they did," Grant
argued. "They could have learned it through thought transference."
"Even so, it doesn't necessarily follow that Shykyr saw and heard everything that
transpired through the implants in the twins."
"But you don't know," prodded Kane. "We know damn little about true Archon
tech. All the stuff we've encountered so far has been manufactured here, by
humans, following the Archons' specs."
"You're right," she admitted. "But we do know that the Archons are psychically
anchored to one another by hyperspatial filaments of the mind. But it's a passive
link, probably subliminal. It's an evolutionary, organic feature of their brains.
The odds of Shykyr possessing an artificial equivalent are very, very low, simply
because of the difference in our brain structures."
"It's still a gamble," Grant declared. "I don't like the percentages."
Kane forced a grin. "What's another one-percenter to us?"
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Axler, James - Outlanders 02 - Destiny Run
Grant returned the grin, though a little sourly. It was a private piece of
philosophy between the two men from their long careers as Magistrates. Their
half-serious belief was that ninety-nine percent of things that went awry could be
predicted and compensated for in advance. But there was always a one percent
margin of error, and playing against that percentage could have lethal
consequences.
Sverdlovosk massaged his eyes with the heels of his hands. "We will do
whatever is necessary, but the actual details can wait for a while. Let us rest,
have something to eat and get back together in three hours. Boro and I have
some& things to attend to."
Grant opened his mouth to object, then shut it when he saw the grateful glance
Boro cast the Russian. The men needed to deal with arrangements for their dead
children's bodies. Boro probably had clan funeral rites to perform, and
Sverdlovosk was probably pained by having his daughter simply lie in a body
bag in a storage shed.
Standing up, Sverdlovosk said, "There is a cafeteria in the building across the
way. The fare is simple but filling. We will reconvene here at " he checked his
wrist chron " 0900 hours."
Accompanied by Boro, he left the wardroom. After a few moments Kane and
Grant exchanged shrugs, then trailed after them. Brigid left the blockhouse, but
didn't follow the men across the compound. She walked slowly in the opposite
direction, head bowed against the cold breeze.
The night sky wasn't black, since there were few clouds. The constellations
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