Area 51: The Legend by Robert Doherty Page A

Gwalcmai, who met her gaze and nodded very slightly. She took a deep breath, then spoke, knowing she had to lie in order to achieve a higher goal. “It is worse than you imagine. Do you think it was just coincidence that she grew ill four days before you were to be inducted into the ranks of the high priests?”
    “What are you saying?” Jobb demanded.
    “The Airlia Gods do not care about humans except that we serve them. You have spent many years in preparation to serve. Your daughter would have stood in the way of that. That is why there is the rule against high priests or Guides having family. They are to serve only the Airlia, with no distractions.”
    The Airlia did not pick stupid humans to become high priests. Jobb connected what she had said within seconds.
    “You are saying they killed her?”
    “Not the Airlia directly, but the high priests who serve them. They killed her twice,” Donnchadh said. “First by making her ill. Second by refusing to treat her.”
    Gwalcmai reached down and slid his hands under the dead girl’s body. “I will take her and make sure she is buried.”
    Jobb blinked. “Why?”
    “So you may have vengeance,” Donnchadh said. She went to the wall and retrieved the red robe of the level-four supplicant. “When they come, you must have this on and tell them you are ready to fulfill your duty. Any other action and they will kill you.”
    “But”—Jobb tried to think it through—”once they take me into the palace and I touch the golden pyramid, I will be theirs.”
    Donnchadh reached into her pack and pulled out a thin silver chain. She slipped it around the top of Jobb’s head, hiding it under his hair. “This will stop the golden pyramid from affecting your brain.”
    “Where did you get it?”
    “From the Airlia,” Donnchadh said.
    “How can that be? Everything is guarded tightly in the temple. Only the high priests have access.”
    “And soon you will have access,” Donnchadh said.
    “But how did you get this?” Jobb asked.
    “You would not understand if I told you,” Donnchadh said.
    “Who are you?” Jobb demanded,
    “I am like you,” Donnchadh said. “I am the enemy of the Airlia. I can help you get vengeance for your daughter. I too lost a child to them.”
    “They are not Gods, are they?” Jobb asked, staring at the body that Gwalcmai gently held.
    “No.”
    “I always feared that. Even in training. Even in the temple. It is what none of us would speak of, even when we thought we were alone and could not be overheard. It was easier to believe. And we feared the high priests and Guides. Any word of dissent or heresy would be dealt with on the X-cross. I saw one of my fellows suffer that fate for asking too many questions of a high priest.”
    “It was easier in the short run to believe,” Donnchadh said. “But we are concerned about the long-term outcome of all of this. We need your help.”
    Jobb got to his feet and walked over to the wall. He took the robe and slipped it over his head. Then he went to Gwalcmai and leaned forward, kissing the cold child in the warrior’s arms on the forehead. “They should have saved her,” he whispered. “They will pay for that.”
    Three weeks later Jobb came back to the house. He wore the white robe with silver fringe that indicated he was a high priest. Around his neck was a silver medallion with the image of the eye within the triangle, the access keythat allowed him into most places inside the temple and palace.
    Donnchadh had spent the three weeks anxiously awaiting his return. The silver chain was a device her people had discovered inside the mothership on their planet, in a tray near the Master Guardian. Her fellow scientists said it was used by technicians who serviced the alien computer, allowing them to be in contact with it without having the mental field affect them. It had never been tried by a human, so they did not know if Jobb was still free or a Guide as he came through the door. Would he be