Assault on Atlantis a-5 Read online

  Looking up, Nahimana saw the uncountable stars overhead, twinkling in the clear night sky in the space between the bare branches from the trees on each bank that framed her view. She felt very small and alone. All her visions seemed foolish now. How could she — and the child inside of her who now wanted to come out-matter in light of such vastness? Why should she and her child be chosen, as she knew they had been? And chosen for what fate?

  Her child-the thought made her pause. It was tradition for a woman to leave the village to give birth, but not one scrupulously followed, especially when the weather was so dangerous. However, she had another reason to give birth away from the eyes of others. Although she had not slept with another man beside her husband, she was worried about what had grown inside her. Slightly more than eight moons ago, in the Moon of Shedding Ponies, she had awoken in great pain while Crazy Horse was off on a bunt. The dogs were barking loudly as if a bear had wandered into the camp. It was just few weeks past the night; she knew she had conceived with her husband. Her hair had crackled as if a summer storm were passing overhead. But such storms were still a few months off. Her abdomen was wracked with pain, and she’d feared she’d lost the child. But examining herself, she’d found a small, fresh cut on her stomach.

  While warriors scoured the camp, she’d covered the wound with a poultice. She knew in the way she had always known such things, that something had been done to her. What, she had no clue, but she feared for her child.

  The next night she’d had a dream. She “saw” her son leading their people to a great victory over the white skins, their soldiers falling into camp and her son killing many. But for some reason she couldn’t pin down, she’d felt no elation at the vision. Since that night, she’d had the same dream many times, of soldiers falling into camp and her son defeating them, but she shared it with no one. Because in concert with that vision, she had another. One of a dark-haired man with blue eyes who was with the white skin soldiers. This man disturbed her greatly, because she knew he was connected to her and also knew his fate. But still he charged into battle.

  She also had dreams of skulls. Not the white bleached skulls of the dead when left on their funeral platforms, but skulls that were solid yet clear in a way she did not understand. The man with blue eyes carried several in a bag tied off on his pony. Sometimes her son did, and sometimes he didn’t. The skulls were very powerful, but their purpose eluded her.

  The latest bout of recurring pain pushed aside such musings and returned her attention to the task at hand. She knelt, putting the pouch down to her right. She grimaced as another contraction rippled through her body. Despite the chill in the air, sweat ran down her forehead and along the chiseled lines f her face. It was so cold that small ice beads formed underneath her chin before the sweat could drop off.

  Nahimana used her fist to punch a hole in the nearby thin ice. She cupped a handful of water and splashed it over her face, trying to distract herself from the pain in her womb. She began to hum to herself the tune her mother had taught her to focus her mind elsewhere and hold the pain at arm’s distance. She opened the pouch and pulled out a small flint knife that bad been her mother’s and her mother’s mother before her, through the long maternal line of the family. She pulled her garment up to her waist, spread her feet apart and waited, pressing her back against the bank for support, feeling the.train in her thighs. This was her first child. And although she had witnessed a few births and had consulted other women, the experience was novel to her.

  He child came surprisingly easily. She used the flint knife to cut the umbilical, then reached forward to wash him with the river water when pain once more spiked through her abdomen, causing her to collapse back against the riverbank. the baby on the buffalo hide stared up at her with wide, The baby on the buffalo hide stared up at her with wide, against the cold riverbank.

  Another child? She had not seen this. Or felt it. A shiver passed through her, some cold, mostly fear. She remembered the cut that had healed slowly. The pain that night eight moons ago. The warriors coming back saying not only had found no tracks of beast or man. But she knew dogs did not ark like that for nothing. She’d had a visitor.

  She cried out as the pain came again and lingered for several moments before subsiding. The second baby would not be born. She reached down and flipped the edge of the buffalo robe over the silent child to protect him from the cold.

  She strained with effort, trying to force the second child Out of her body. But to no avail. After almost a half-hour. The line was growing intolerable and blood soaked the pebbles and sand below her. She tried once more, and then collapsed sideways onto the pebbles, staring directly into the eyes of her first-born. She could feel the wet between her legs and. reaching down, drew back a hand covered with dark red blood.

  She would die here. The thought angered her. She had always had the sight, and she had never foreseen this. She had visions of her son—, it was a son who stared back at her, and they had extended from his early childhood to his great victory. How could she die here and now?

  She had not had visions of another child. A brother or sister to her first-born had never appeared in her dreams. Then again, what had happened eight months earlier-whatever it was had never appeared, either.

  She heard a low rumble, like thunder but muted, even though it sounded nearby. A strange feeling passed over her skin. One she had experienced before during the night of the strange visitor who left no tracks.

  She tried to right herself. To let gravity help. But she couldn’t get to her feet or even her knees. If she died, would they find her son? Would he fulfill the destiny she saw for him? Or would he die here on the shoals of the Greasy Grass, frozen?

  With a painful hiss, she reached up with a blood-soaked hand, grabbing a root that extended out of the bank. She tried to pull herself up and was almost back in the crouching position when the root gave way, sending her tumbling onto the smooth pebbles of the shoal.

  Through her pain, she was vaguely aware of the sound of someone or something coming closer through the underbrush on the far side of the river. She looked in the direction, and fear washed over her, blanketing the pain for a few moments. There she saw a figure with smooth white skin unlike any she had ever seen before, floating six inches above the water, moving without any apparent motion.

  The eyes scared her more than the strange mode of movement-they glowed slightly, and were red and bulging. This was no human, of that she was certain. It had to have come from the world beyond where the Great Spirit dwelled. The figure floated to a halt just in front of Nahimana. She noted that it had a pack looped over one shoulder.

  The young Sioux reached down to grab her first child as she noticed starlight glinting off of blades on the end of each of the creature’s fingers. It was a demon creature, coming to kill her and her son. She gasped in pain but gathered up the buffalo robe and held her firstborn tight against her chest.

  Nahimana blinked as the front half of the figure split from the back half, swinging open, revealing a woman inside, as if tie hard white exterior were a garment of some kind. A pale-skinned woman, like those she had seen at the white-man’s fort to the east, with curly, short brown hair and dressed in a one-piece garment from neck to booted feet, stepped out. She took the pack from the shoulder of the white skin suit.

  “I am here to help,” the woman said. her accent very strange and the Lakota words pronounced with difficulty.

  Nahimana closed her eyes and sank to the pebbles. A hand on each shoulder helped her up, back to her crouching position against the bank. There was a strange odor in the air, one she had smelled only once before, in her lodge on the night of the pain during the Moon of the Shedding Ponies. She knew now that this woman had visited her that night. Why? And ‘why was she here now? What had the woman done to her?

  Nahimana cried out in pain as another contraction futilely passed through her body. The hands left her shoulders and went between her legs. She felt the invasion as they penetrated into
her, but she welcomed the relief as the small hands righted the breached baby. In a moment, the second child was free of her body. Nahimana tried to reach for the dropped flint, but the movement was too much and she slid down into a seated position.

  Her benefactor picked up the ceremonial knife and cut the umbilical. Then she passed the newborn to Nahimana, who opened her robe and held both babies close to her bosom. Another boy. A great blessing, Nahimana thought.

  “Thank you,” Nahimana whispered.

  There was no immediate response. Nahimana peered in the darkness, able to see more as the first hints of dawn were appearing above the bluffs to the east. The person was indeed a woman, Nahimana realized, which didn’t surprise her, as no man would have known how to help her. The woman’s face was lined beyond her apparent age.

  Two sons. Nahimana had not seen this. All her visions had been of one. This thought troubled her and muted her happiness over the dual birth and her rescue from certain death.

  She looked closely at the second-born and was shocked to see icy blue eyes reflecting the first of the morning sun’s rays. And the skin was paler than the first-born’s. like the woman’s. This could not be. They bad both come from her womb and been born of her husband’s seed. Or had they? What had happened that night?

  Nahimana realized she had seen the second son in her visions. He was the one who rode with the white skins guiding them into the great battle against her first-born. He was the one who carried the strange skulls.

  The woman knelt in front of Nahimana. The woman pointed at the first-born, then at Nahimana, nodding. Then she pointed at the blue-eyed child. Then back at herself. Nahimana frowned, trying to understand. The message was clear as the Woman reached out and took hold of the second-born, trying to pull him from the cocoon of Nahimana’s robe. Nahimana tried to fight. And the woman paused and then stopped. She placed both hands on the side of Nahimana’s head, pressing in.

  Nahimana gasped as a sharp pain passed through her skull. Then everything went black for a moment.

  “A great destiny awaits your son,” the woman’s voice was surer with the language as if drawing it straight from Nahimana’s mind in some way, “as you have seen before in your visions.”

  “And the other?” Nahimana asked.

  “He, too, has a destiny, and he is yours by virtue of the past nine months,” the woman said. “But he is also mine.”

  “How can this be?”

  “They are connected,” the woman said. “By your womb and by your blood and by the time they have spent together. They will share that connection for the rest of their lives. And they will bring about that which is needed when they come together later. They will be together again at the end but against each other, to bring about that which I cannot show you, nor would you understand. The fate of the world and all those who walk upon it rest upon their final meeting.”

  The woman removed her hands from Nahimana’s head and reached for the child once more.

  Nahimana wouldn’t let go.

  The woman paused and looked deep into Nahimana’s eyes. “You know the truth. There is nothing but doom for your children. For your tribe. For your people.”

  “No.’’

  “It is the truth. The people with skin like mine come from the east. They are like a mighty river that cannot be stopped.”

  “So why are you here?”

  “Out of doom comes great power.”

  “What do you mean?”

  The woman tapped the side of her head. “Our minds are very powerful, more so than we realize.” The woman reached into the pack and pulled out a crystal skull like the one Nahimana had seen in her visions. It was beautiful, enticing. Despite her fear and pain, Nahimana reached out with her free hand. The woman let her touch it. The surface was perfectly smooth. It gave off warmth, although there was no flame. Starlight glinted through the crystal and sparkled. There seemed to be a slight blue glow inside the skull, but Nahimana couldn’t see the source.

  ‘’There is something greater than your tribe, your children, your people. Greater than my people.”

  “There is nothing greater than my people for me.”

  ‘’There is the Great Spirit’s domain, which goes beyond the borders of your people’s land, of my people’s land, even beyond what you know of the river of time and of this world.”

  Nahimana frowned. “What are you talking about?”

  The woman spread her arms wide. “The world. The future for all children. The battles, past and future, where so many b.ave already died to try to save the world.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I don’t understand it completely, either” the woman said. “There is an evil force. The Shadow. It seeks to destroy our planet. Power is needed to fight it.” She held the crystal skull once more. “This will be his-” she indicated the blue-eyed boy. “With it he will turn defeat into power for victory.” The woman put the skull back in the pack and tapped the side of her own head once more. “There is great power in the mind. You know that, but you don’t know how powerful it can be under the right circumstances. These two-” she indicated the two babies — “will bring about the right circumstances.”

  “And my people? You say they are doomed?”

  This gave the woman pause. “I am sorry. I am not responsible for what will happen to your people. It is inevitable here and now. But in their sacrifice, and the sacrifice of others, many, many people will be saved. It is like the fall when much must die before there is rebirth in the spring. A winter comes for many which your son must help prevent.”

  Nahimana knew the words were true. It was the curse of the “sight,” to know the truth when it was spoken, even if it was a terrible one. She had seen the blue-eyed one grown, and she had seen the skull. And she had seen her son leading the people into battle.

  The woman rested a hand on Nahimana’s shoulder. ”Your son will gain a great victory, one that will be talked about for many generations.”

  “But in the end his people lose.”

  The woman said nothing.

  “Where are you from?” Nahimana finally asked.

  The woman looked past Nahimana, her eyes becoming unfocused. ‘The Space Between.”

  “‘Between’?”

  “The world I came from and this world. The time I came from and your time.”

  It made little sense to Nahimana. She looked at the two children snuggled against her chest. It was the blue eyes more than the words that made the decision for Nahimana. She knew Crazy Horse would see those eyes and wonder what magic was afoot. He might even proclaim the child to be possessed by a demon. Nahimana opened the buffalo robe and nodded at the woman. The woman stood with the children in her arms.

  Nahimana raised a blood-soaked hand as the woman turned back to the strange suit that still floated in the air. “I am Nahimana, the mystic one, hearer of voices and receiver of visions. This one-” she indicated the child she still held-“will take his father’s name, Crazy Horse.”

  The woman nodded. “That is the name he should have.”

  “What is your name? And what will you call the child you take?”

  “The child’s name I cannot tell you, as he who I bring him to will give him that,” the woman said. “My name would mean nothing to you.”

  “It is a sign of trust to exchange names.”

  The woman gave a sad smile. “My name is Amelia. Amelia Earhart. I, too, hear the voices and see the visions. They are what brought me here.”

  “You were with me before.” Nahimana didn’t phrase it as it question.

  “Yes.”

  “Will you take the child to this space between?”

  “No. I take him to the white skin people to be raised.” Earhart paused. ‘They will meet again here.” She waved her hand about, taking in the Little Big Horn River and the surrounding bluffs. “It will be a great battle. A terrible victory and a terrible defeat. But it will help those in another place and time.”

  “Nahim
ana wanted to ask more, to understand, but the woman was already moving away toward the suit. Earhart wrapped the child in the pack; head exposed, and hung the pack over the suit’s shoulder. Then she stepped into the suit as if consumed by it. The two halves closed. Nahimana watched as the figure floated back over the steam and up the far bank slope. In a minute, it was gone from view. There was a sound of muted thunder once more, and Nahimana felt her skin crawl with the strange sensation for a few moments, then return to normal.

  Nahimana looked down at the child in her arms and shivered once more. Not so much from the bitter cold, but from the bitter truth. It was terrible indeed to know fate.

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE PRESENT

  “ Some say the world will end in fire; some say in ice.” The words were muted by the thick muffler wrapped around the speaker’s face. As if to emphasize the statement, he brushed Way the thin layer of ice that was encrusted on the cloth, and then aimed. “I never thought 1 would see it end in both.”

  A burning crescent of light touched the southern horizon, chasing away the soothing darkness of the long Arctic night and illuminating the man and his companions-a handful of men swathed in heavy clothes. Standing on the small bridge top a nuclear submarine’s sail that had punched up through the surface. Stenciled on the metal was the craft’s name: USS “’AUT/LUS. The rest of the submarine was still below the five-foot thick Arctic ice.

  The light was tinged with red. As if the sky to the south was n fire. The submarine had been chased by the sun ever northward for the past week, sliding under the shelter of water most of the way during daylight and now trying to hide behind the cover of the long Arctic night. As the sun began to move along the horizon. Never fully appearing. The men on the conning tower slid dark goggles over their eyes to protect them. The long Arctic winter was nearing an end, and they knew the sun would slowly climb higher and higher until one day soon it cleared the horizon. It was an inevitable law of physics. It was also a law of oxygen and supplies that they could only stay submerged so long.