Bova, Ben - Voyagers 3 - Star Brothers

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PROLOGUE

LATE in the afternoon of the longest day of the year a solitary man drove a

sleek electrically-powered sports car southward from the city of Lima. Once

past the growling snarl of urban traffic the car lifted off its four wheels

and began skimming across the glass-smooth road surface on a layer of

invisible energy that held it suspended a few centimeters above the ceramic-

coated concrete highway.

A cruel joke of nature had placed the Earth's driest desert between the

surging expanse of the Pacific Ocean and the snowcapped peaks of the Andes.

The car sped down the curving coast road past the high sand dunes that heaped

along the restless ocean shore, a shining silver projectile alone on the empty

road. A late springtime mist clung to the huge ridges of sand, cold gray

tendrils sliding in among the rugged seaside cliffs like the ghosts of long-

forgotten ancestors.

The man, middle-aged, balding, plump, wore a strange expression on his round,

mustachioed face: as the slanting light of the afternoon sun flickered in

through the fog he seemed at one moment to be utterly serene, completely at

ease with himself, yet a moment later totally intense, concentrating with

almost superhuman determination upon a task that he alone could understand.

Hour after hour he drove, the speeding car tearing through the clinging fog as

a bullet tears through living flesh. The car's motor was as silent as death

itself; the only sound the driver heard in all his long journey was the

whisper of the wind rushing by. The road swung inland and the dunes dwindled

behind him. The car climbed through passes carved into bare rock, higher,

always moving higher as deep gorges of river valleys fell away from the

twisting road's edge. The sky

cleared into a perfectly cloudless cobalt blue. Past fields already green he

sped; past long irrigation canals dug a thousand years earlier.

Up onto the altiplano the car surged, into a barren flat world where fields of

bare pebbles stretched endlessly out to the dimly-seen masses of the mighty

Andes, their great bulk a hazy violet in the distance, their snow peaks

shimmering on the horizon as if floating disconnected from the world.

The stony desert of reddish brown seemed utterly lifeless. Completely barren.

Not a blade of grass, not a hint of green. Like the planet Mars, nothing but

stones and pebbles and the empty sky overhead. For kilometer after kilometer.

For eternity, it seemed.

Finally the man brought the car to a stop near the foot of a steep bare rocky

hill. Its wheels came down crunching on the stony ground. Then silence, except

for the eternal keening wind.

He got out, shivering slightly as he realized that the breeze was cold; the

night was coming on. Zippering up the light windbreaker he wore over his

corduroy slacks and thin cotton shirt, he slowly, patiently began to climb the

hill. The loose scrabble of dark pebbles slipped and clattered beneath his

suede boots. He dropped to all fours and doggedly made his way to the crest,

some sixty meters above the roadway.

At the top he straightened and looked out across the waterless plain. Despite

himself, his breath caught in his throat. As far as the eye could see

stretched the lines and figures, hundreds of them, thousands of them,

extending in every direction across the stark plain of Nazca. Animals, birds,

triangles, circles, an enormous rectangle, all crisscrossed by lines as

straight as any modern surveyor could draw. The work of countless centuries

ago, the only sign that life had ever existed beneath this empty copper sky.

With eyes that went beyond normal human vision the man saw the drawings with

perfect clarity in the last rays of the dying sun. The giant spider, the

monkey, the frigate bird with its puffed-up throat, the killer whale.

He sought one particular line, as straight as the division between good and

evil. In the dying golden light of sunset he found it, bright as silver

against the darker rocky desert. It stretched out toward the flat emptiness of

the western horizon.

The man felt his pulse racing as he waited. Slowly, with the dignity of a god,

the sun came down and touched the horizon. Exactly where the line touched it.

The man breathed a long sigh of contentment. Midsummer's day. He could sense

two of his brothers, each of them half a world away, sharing this moment of

serenity and cosmic understanding. We have done well, my brothers, he said

silently. And he felt their answering smiles in his soul.

It was hard to believe that only a year ago he had never heard of the man

Stoner. Only a year ago he had been an ordinary human being, no better or

worse than billions of others. But then Stoner had changed him. And the whole

world.

BOOK I

Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and

whoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment:

But I say unto you, That whoever is angry with his brother without a cause

shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother,

Raca, shall be in danger of the council; but whosoever shall say, Thou fool,

shall be in danger of hell fire.

CHAPTER 1

THE sudden heat was like a sodden, muffling blanket that weighed so heavily he

could hardly breathe

foao de Sagres gasped and felt sweat streaming from every pore of his body as

they struggled through dense jungle foliage Fronds slapped at his face Birds

cawed and shrilled overhead The ground was spongy, squelching underfoot His

expensive silk suit was drenched in seconds, stained and ruined He dared not

even to glance at his muddy shoes Yet the man Stoner seemed perfectly at ease

in this dripping, raucous, sweltering tropical forest Hardly a gleam of

perspiration showed in his intense, dark-bearded face

"Where are we'" de Sagres asked in a whisper

"Almost there," said Stoner

"How did

Stoner silenced him with an upraised hand On a branch high above, a long-

tailed monkey stared solemnly at them, then disappeared among the leaves in a

blur of motion

"Get down," Stoner hissed

Dazedly, de Sagres did as commanded and dropped to his knees in the bushes The

grass was alive with insects De Sagres saw ants the size of his thumbs

crawling busily across the leaves a few centimeters in front of his face He

shuddered and began to itch all over

"I don't understand "

"Shht"

He wanted to get up and run away, but to where' What was he doing in this

strange dank oven of a jungle' How did this man Stoner bring him here' We

should be in my office, speaking politely to each other over a civilized

drink, with the air conditioning and ice cubes at hand, with my aides and

servants and security guards protecting me

Yet he was kneeling in the mud of a tropical forest, bedraggled and sticky

with sweat, certain that poisonous insects were devouring his flesh, trembling

with fear. And totally unable to get away. It was as if he were chained to

Stoner, shackled to the man like a prisoner.

Stoner was peering intently through the dense foliage. De Sagres studied the

big man carefully. A fierce, uncompromising face, like an Old Testament

patriarch. Patrician nose, strong cheekbones, a full dark beard that now

showed drops of sweat in it, dark hair trimmed neatly. Powerful body, tall and

lean and flat-bellied as an athlete's beneath the simple khaki jacket and

whipcord slacks that he wore.

It was Stoner's eyes that unsettled de Sagres. They were gray, as gray as a

distant thundercloud or the tossing stormy sea. Yet his eyes did not look

troubled at all. Rather, they were as serene as any saint's, and terribly,

terribly deep; there were depths in them that seemed infinite. When de Sagres

had first looked at Stoner he had been startled by those strangely fathomless

eyes; it was like the first time he had peered into a telescope and seen the

universe of stars beyond counting.

For all his broad-shouldered build and fierce appearance, it was Stoner's

compelling gray eyes that held de Sagres in an unbreakable grip of steel. The

eyes of a madman. Or a mystic. They had fastened onto de Sagres's soul and

they would not release him. De Sagres had received no hint, when he had

welcomed Stoner to his private office in the capitol, that he would end up in

this rotting infested jungle. Stoner had led and he had followed, as helpless

as a lamb.

The forest went suddenly silent.

Stoner turned toward him. "Look. They're coming."

Despite himself, de Sagres hunched closer to Stoner and leaned on his strong

back as he stared out through the concealing foliage at a sun-dappled clearing

in the thick tropical forest. Massive rough-barked trees rose all around the

clearing, their boles soaring like the pillars of a cathedral, their canopies

a solid green carpet as far as the eyes could see. But

this clearing, about the size of a football field, was open to the hazy,

searing sunlight.

A line of grotesque dark-skinned men was forming on the farther side of the

clearing. Naked except for scraps of dirty cloth covering their groins, each

man was elaborately painted in garish designs that covered face and body Each

man carried a long, sharp-tipped spear.

Another line of forty-some men appeared on the opposite side of the clearing.

Also naked and painted and armed with spears.

"Where are we?" de Sagres pleaded.

Stoner shook his head. "Does it matter Watch."

The two lines of warriors confronted each other, separated by the width of the

clearing. They waved their spears and stamped their feet, chanting and yelling

back and forth.

"Notice the ground between them," whispered Stoner.

"It is worn down to bare dirt," de Sagres saw.

Grimly Stoner nodded. "This isn't the first time warriors have faced each

other at this spot."

"They're going to fight?"

"They are from two different villages. One of the men from one village has

kidnapped a woman from the other village. Her kinfolk have raised this army to

recapture her. And to steal as many of the other village's women as they can.

The kidnapper's village has brought their own army here to defend themselves

If they kill enough of their enemy they can raid the enemy village itself and

steal pigs as well as more women."

"How do you know all this?"

Stoner merely shook his head slightly and whispered, "Wait . I think--yes The

elders have arrived "

Half a dozen wizened old men, bent and grizzled with age, stepped into the

sunlight between the two armies. Their naked bodies were unpamted, they bore

no weapons. They walked slowly, with great dignity, to the middle of the

clearing and stood for many minutes, speaking earnestly among themselves.

"What are they doing?"

"Trying to prevent the war," said Stoner.

One of the white-haired men raised his hands above his head and spoke in a

loud quavering voice to the line of warriors at one side of the field. Then he

turned and spoke to the other side. The warriors shuffled their feet, looked

at the ground, glanced at one another.

Another of the old men spoke to each side. Then a third.

Finally the two groups of warriors turned and disappeared into the jungle as

silently as snakes. The old men waited several minutes more, then they broke

into two smaller groups and went their separate ways, each group following the

path of the warriors.

The birds began to call and whistle once more.

Stoner's bearded face broke into a broad smile. "They did it! They talked the

warriors out of fighting. They prevented the war."

De Sagres realized his legs were cramping painfully, he had been kneeling for

such a long time. He let himself fall back on his buttocks--

--and found himself sitting in his own office chair, behind his imposing,

immaculately gleaming desk.

CHAPTER 2

"HYPNOTISM!" snapped Joao de Sagres. Stoner made a wintry smile. "Something

like that." De Sagres glared at his visitor as he peeled off his sopping,

stained silk suit jacket and pulled his once-immaculate tie loose from his

shirt collar. His hands still trembled, even though he was safely back in his

spacious office. Through the long windows he could see the reassuring gleaming

towers of Brasilia.

I am the president of the most powerful nation of Latin America, he told

himself. And this man before me is a nobody. But he avoided Stoner's eyes.

He felt better, although his mind was still in turmoil. He was a smallish man,

with a high forehead and round face that would have been bland except for the

luxuriant black mustache and his probing dark brown eyes. This office was his

sanctuary, where he could sit on his elevated platform and look down on the

supplicants and schemers who came to beg favors from him.

"You tricked me," he accused.

"Not really," Stoner replied. "I showed you something very important."

"A band of savages in the Mato Grosso," de Sagres sneered.

Stoner, sitting in the leather armchair in front of the president's imposing

desk, replied, "They are men. And they are in New Guinea, not the Mato

Grosso."

"New Guinea! Impossible One moment we are here in my office, and then suddenly

ten thousand kilometers away? And then back here again? It was a trick! Admit

it!"

"I wanted to show you that even so-called primitive men have ways of

preventing war. Those elders, they are called 'the Great Souls' by their

people. They talked the warriors out of fighting."

De Sagres reached toward the intercom.

But Stoner suggested mildly, "Don't you think you could make your own drink?"

He pulled his hand back as if scalded. For a moment he simply sat in his high-

backed swivel chair, looking troubled, undecided, almost frightened. Then he

rose and walked shakily across the thick carpeting to the mirrored cabinet

that served as a bar.

"If you have some Jamaican dry ginger ale," said Stoner, "I'll have it with

brandy. On ice."

By the time de Sagres mixed the drinks and returned to his desk he had pulled

himself together somewhat. His hands barely trembled, the ice in the glasses

clinked hardly at all.

"You somehow talked your way into my private office, past

all my staff and security. Why? Merely to show me a conjuring trick?"

Stoner sipped at his brandy and dry. "Not entirely."

"Then what it is that you want?"

"I want you to become one of those 'Great Souls.'"

De Sagres's dark eyes flashed. Then he threw his head back and laughed. "You

want me to live naked in the jungle with those savages? No thank you!"

But Stoner was deadly serious. "I want you to prevent your military from

intervening in the civil war in Venezuela."

The president's mouth dropped open.

"Your general staff thinks they are clever enough to move their troops across

the border without having the Peace Enforcers intervene. Perhaps they are

right. I can't predict how the Peace Enforcers will react. The political

situation is murky, after all."

"We have no intention . . ."

"Don't lie to me. Your army has been supplying the Venezuelan insurgents for

more than a year. It was your army's agents who fomented the civil war in the

first place."

"That's not true!"

Stoner said nothing. He merely stared at de Sagres.

The president felt like a little boy under the awesome presence of a sternly

uncompromising priest. "We merely . . . the Venezuelan insurrection was a

genuine movement, we did not create it."

"You armed those farmers. Trained them. Led them to believe they could

accomplish more with guns than they could with negotiations."

"The government of Venezuela has ignored their farmers for generations!"

"And to rectify that injustice you are helping those farmers to slaughter one

another."

De Sagres ran out of arguments. He felt strangely empty, hollow. He tried to

turn away from Stoner's infinite gray eyes and found that he could not.

"You must exert your authority over your own military,"

Stoner said. His voice was soft, almost a whisper, yet there was implacable

iron in it.

"You don't understand how difficult that would be."

Stoner smiled slightly. "Yes I do. Would I be here otherwise? Would I have

taken you to that jungle if a simple request would have been sufficient?"

"The military ..."

"The military will take over your government unless you stop them now. Their

plans include not merely annexing Venezuela. They want their chief of staff to

sit in your chair."

De Sagres's heart constricted with fear. He realized that he had known it all

along, but had never found the courage to admit it, even to himself.

"What can I do?" he whimpered.

"Stop them now," said Stoner. "The people of Brazil will support you. The

Peace Enforcers and World Court will support you."

"But the army is too powerful."

"Only if you are too weak." Stoner leaned forward in his chair, stretching a

hand over the desk to grasp de Sagres's wrist. It was like being held in an

inhumanly powerful vise.

"You can become a 'Great Soul,'" Stoner said urgently. "You can save your

people untold grief and pain. And the people of Venezuela, too. If you don't,

the military will take over your government and you will be lost and

forgotten."

De Sagres wanted to run away and hide. But Stoner had him pinned down like a

helpless insect. His arm began to tingle.

"You have the power to do it," Stoner insisted. "Do you have the strength?"

The president wanted to admit that he did not, but he heard himself saying, "I

can try."

Stoner's smile beamed at him. "Good! That's all that anyone can do."

"If I fail ..."

"You won't be any worse off than you are now. The army won't kill you; they'll

keep you as a figurehead for their puppet government."

"A figurehead? Me? Never"

Stoner considered the Brazilian president for a long, silent, solemn moment.

De Sagres felt as if his soul was being stripped bare and examined, atom by

atom.

"Will you do me a favor?" Stoner asked at last.

De Sagres arched his brows It always comes down to a favor, he told himself

But Stoner extracted a small straight pin from the breast pocket of his khaki

jacket and pricked the tip of his thumb. A drop of blood welled up.

"This is as primitive as those 'Great Souls'" he said, "but I'd like to make a

blood bond with you, to seal the understanding between us."

Unwilling, but unable to resist, de Sagres held out his trembling hand and

allowed Stoner to grasp it in his own warm, firm grip. The touch of the pin

was painless, and then they were pressing their thumbs together like little

boys sharing a solemn, sacred oath.

"You have the strength to stop your military adventurers," Stoner said "You

have greatness in you One day you may even win the Nobel Prize for Peace "

The president of Brazil sank back in his chair as his unannounced visitor

strode purposefully to the door and disappeared from his sight.

CHAPTER 3

THE island of Cyprus, once torn by bloody conflict between Greeks and Turks,

basked in the Mediterranean sunshine and the money spent by ten thousand

members of the International Peacekeeping Force who made the island their

Middle

East headquarters Clerks, computer specialists, missile technicians, sensor

analysts, bureaucrats, warriors by remote control, each of the ten thousand

men and women who wore the sky blue uniform of the Peace Enforcers was paid

well and regularly

They had brought peace to strife-weary Cyprus, as Greeks, Turks, and even the

descendants of displaced Palestinians found more to be gained by earning Peace

Enforcers' money than by shooting at one another Prosperity did not end hatred

and long historical grudges, it merely put them to one side while everyone put

their best energies into the scramble for steady money

Banda Smgh Bahadur, commandant, IPF Cyprus, was a huge Sikh, still strong and

fierce-looking despite his eighty-odd years His proud curly beard was as white

as the immaculate turban wound around his leonine head His back was unbent,

his shoulders wide and square as a castle gate In bygone eras he would have

wielded a heavy curved sword against his foes, or fired a high-powered rifle

with merciless, deadly accuracy

Now he sat in a padded leather chair, surrounded by younger officers in a

comfortable air-conditioned office as they pored over satellite pictures of

poppy fields in Turkey The picture table was one large horizontal display

screen, and the-false color imagery he studied was being relayed in real time

from an IPF surveillance satellite several hundred miles above the Earth's

surface Four young men and one woman officer were hunched around the table,

bending over, scrutinizing the imagery

The entire span of the table top glowed with harsh colors that showed steep

lagged ravines deep in the Taurus Mountains, near Lake Van The face of an old

man, thought Bahadur as he studied the seamed craggy display Much like my own

"Papavei ^omniferum," said Bahadur's imagery analyst, a blonde young woman

from California "I'd recognize that signature anywhere "

Bahadur looked up at her with eyes of cold steel The young

officer touched a few buttons on the keypad built into her side of the display

table A spectral analysis of the region they were examining appeared in a box

at one corner of the horizontal screen Alongside it appeared a laboratory

spectrum that matched it so closely Bahadur could not tell the difference

"It's poppy fields, all right," said the intelligence chief, a stocky oriental

"And illegal as sin "

Bahadur nodded a ponderous agreement, yet still brought up the display that

showed all the legal poppy fields in the region They were small and under the

relentless control of the Turkish government The fields in the satellite views

twined through tortuous valleys far from the eyes of government inspectors

"They even tried to overgrow them so the satellite sensors would miss them,"

said the blonde imagery analyst

"We'll have to move against them "

Bahadur said, "Standard procedure Notify the Turkish authorities after we have

sterilized the fields Offer our assistance in arresting and interrogating the

farmers "

One of the young officers stepped swiftly across the office to a red command

phone

To his intelligence chief the Sikh said, "Trace the method of processing "

"Probably minimal," said the Asian "Just enough to make some potent opium They

wouldn't dare to try to operate a sophisticated processing plant "

"They could have made arrangements with a legal medical house to produce

extra, unregulated amounts of heroin," said Bahadur, his voice heavy, slow,

weary

"That is possible," the intelligence chief admitted "I will check on it "

The younger officers left after straightening up to attention and making

casual but correct salutes Bahadur leaned back tiredly in his chair, alone

with his thoughts

In his mind he saw Peace Enforcer planes swooping low over those rugged

valleys, spraying a nearly invisible mist of

biological agents that specifically killed the poppy species and nothing else

He saw poor Turkish farmers running from the IFF helicopters and paratroopers

that dropped out of the sky to round them up and turn them over to their

government police He saw smug men in expensive business suits sud denly

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PROLOGUELATEintheafternoonofthelongestdayoftheyearasolitarymandroveasleekelectrically-poweredsportscarsouthwardfromthecityofLima.Oncepastthegrowlingsnarlofurbantrafficthecarliftedoffitsfourwheelsandbeganskimmingacrosstheglass-smoothroadsurfaceonalayerofinvisibleenergythathelditsuspendedafewcentimete...

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