The three Cerberus warriors instantly recognized his midnight-blue-and-scarlet coverall as the uniform of Erica van Sloan's so-called imperial troopers. The Asian face beneath the helmet was also familiar, but only Brigid remembered his name. As the possessor of an eidetic memory, it wasn't difficult for her to draw the man's name from her prodigious mental index file.

  "Seng Kao," she announced, not lowering her weapon. "Where is your mistress, the Dragon Mama?"

  Seng Kao's eyes darted back and forth, like those of a wild animal. Although his expression was impassive, he exuded an aura of near panic. He had visited Cerberus nearly a year before and guns had been aimed at him then, too. But in that instance he was in the company of Erica van Sloan.

  Lakesh spoke again, his tone impatient. "Na baio Tui Chui Jian er?"

  Still keeping his subgun trained on Seng Kao, Grant turned his head slightly toward Lakesh. "What'd you ask him?"

  Lakesh stepped into the ready room. "I asked him where Erica—the Dragon Mother—was."

  Seng Kao stared, not responding to the question or reacting to the three bloodred dots shining on the chest of his uniform.

  "The last time he was here," Kane remarked, "he spoke English. Now he doesn't even seem like he understands his own language."

  Brigid studied him over the autotargeter and said, "I think he's in shock."

  "What's that in his hand?" Grant asked.

  Lakesh called to him in Chinese, but again Seng Kao did not reply.

  Grant took an ominous, threatening step forward. "Maybe one of my boots on his scrawny ass will make him more inclined to talk."

  Seng Kao's head swiveled toward him sharply and he inhaled deeply. Desperately, he blurted, "I will talk!"

  He thrust out his clenched right hand and Kane said warningly, "Talk but don't move."

  Eyes glinting with confusion, Seng Kao stammered, "My lady bade me show you this. If I do not, my talk will make no sense."

  "Like that would be a change," Grant observed sarcastically. "All right, show us what you have. If we don't like the looks of it, you're a dead man."

  Seng Kao swallowed hard, then slowly opened his hand. The overhead lights glinted on the round metal object nestled in the man's palm. Kane eyed it suspiciously and demanded, "What the hell is it? A baby's bracelet?"

  Seng Kao shook his head. "A ring. Tui Chui Jian bade me to tell you she has the other seven and that Wei Qiang wears the ninth."

  Kane felt a surge of surprise mixed with disbelief and glimpsed the same reaction on the faces of Brigid and Grant. "Wei Qiang?" he echoed incredulously. "What the hell does that old bastard have to do with—?"

  Lakesh strode forward swiftly, marching up to Seng Kao, foolishly inserting himself between the Asian and three gun barrels. He peered at the ring in the man's hand as if transfixed.

  "Get out of our way, Lakesh," Grant growled impatiently. "What are you, an idiot?"

  Lakesh ignored him. Carefully, he plucked the ring from Seng Kao's palm, holding it between thumb and forefinger, studying it with wide, entranced eyes. Neither Kane, Brigid nor Grant saw anything particularly unique about the band of corroded metal except that it was ugly.

  In a tight, breathless voice barely above a whisper, Seng Kao said, "My lady's fortress was overrun by the forces of Wei Qiang. She has fled Xian and seeks your help."

  "Since when does Wei Qiang have any forces but his raggedy-ass tong soldiers on Autarkic?" Kane asked, casting a questioning glance over at Brigid.

  She shook her head. "That's the last intel we have, and it's old."

  Addressing Seng Kao, she demanded curtly, "Are you sure of the name? Wei Qiang?"

  Seng Kao stammered, "There is no mistake. But it is believed that Wei Qiang is an incarnation of Huang-ti, the Yellow Emperor."

  "Interesting," Lakesh said absently, turning the ring this way and that so the rubies would catch the light. "Lower your weapons. This man means us no harm."

  "How do you know that?" Grant growled.

  Smiling slyly, Lakesh turned toward him, holding the ring up to his right eye and peering through it. "Erica would have never sent him to us with one of the Hydra's rings, friend Grant."

  "Looks like junk to me," Kane snapped. "Is it valuable or what?"

  Lakesh's smile widened. "Only if you consider the Cauldron of Dagda, the Golden Fleece and the Apples of Indunn valuable."

  Without waiting for a response, Lakesh turned toward Seng Kao, saying sympathetically, "Come along. We'll get you something to eat and you can tell us your story."

  Seng Kao nodded gratefully. "Thank you. I am very hungry and have endured many hardships."

  Grant, Brigid and Kane stood aside, mystified as Lakesh led Seng Kao, flanked by Farrell and Banks, out of the ready room into the op center. Brigid looked after them, pensively nibbling her lower lip.

  Kane asked, "Did any of that gibberish make sense to you, Baptiste?"

  She smiled wanly, flicking on the safety switch of her subgun. "He mixed and matched references to immortality in various myths----the apples of Indunn from Scandinavian mythology, the golden fleece from the Greek and the magic cauldron or grailstone of Celtic tradition."

  Grant frowned. "What do they have to do with each other?"

  Brigid inhaled a deep breath before replying: "All of those magical items insured immortality in one fashion or another...and each one was guarded by a multi-headed dragon—a Hydra."

  Chapter 8

  The alert level was downgraded to yellow and the security shields raised. Lakesh, Farrell and Banks escorted Seng Kao to the infirmary, where he underwent a strip search cloaked as a medical examination performed by the redoubt's de facto physician, Reba DeFore. She pronounced the man both healthy and unarmed, and Lakesh took him to the galley so he could assuage his hunger.

  Brigid, Grant and Kane remained in the op center with Philboyd and Bry. The two technical experts focused on downloading and interpolating the latest transmissions from the Vela while Brigid took a seat at a computer station networked to the main database.

  Domi returned from the plateau, aware of the red alert and expecting an explanation. She joined Kane, Brigid and Grant at the computer terminal. The pair of men stood on either side of the sunset-haired former archivist as text and pictures flashed across the screen.

  "Somebody want to tell me what's happening?" the girl demanded impatiently.

  "An incursion," Grant replied casually.

  "From where?" "From China," Kane said.

  Domi's crimson eyes widened and then narrowed to angry slits. Her hand made a reflexive grab for the Combat Master holstered at her hip. "Erica van Slut is here?"

  Brigid chuckled appreciatively. "No, she sent an emissary—a man named Seng Kao. He accompanied her when she came to warn us about the overlords, remember?"

  Domi nodded. "Did Enlil move back into her pyramid or what?"

  "No," Grant answered. "According to her lapdog, Wei Qiang showed up at her doorstep at the head of an army."

  Domi's porcelain features registered bewilderment, then disbelief. "That old pirate Chinaman from Autarkic?"

  "Apparently he's not so old," Brigid said quietly; distractedly, her attention fixed on the screen. Words and images scrolled across it with a dizzying rapidity.

  "I thought he was in his eighties," Domi continued.

  "So did everybody else," Grant said. "He sure looked that old—older—when me and Kane faced him down in Autarkic a couple of years ago."

  Domi ran her fingers through her bone-white hair in a frustrated scrubbing motion. "Don't get it."

  "Neither do we," Brigid stated. "That's why we're..."

  The computer beeped, signaling it had completed the search through the files in the database. On the screen flashed a dense block of copy and a very formal watercolour portrait of a mustached, aristocratic Asian man. He wore an elaborate robe and pearl-studded skull cap. The color yellow dominated his garb. His long, be-ringed fingers were steepled contemplatively beneath his chin.

  Grant leaned closer. "Huang-ti," he intoned, stumbling a bit over the pronunciation. "The Yellow Emperor."

  "That's the guy Seng Kao claimed Wei Qiang was the incarnation of?" Kane inquired.

  "Yes," Brigid said dryly. "A very interesting person to reincarnate within the body of a tong crime lord...if that's what is really going on."

  "Don't understand this," Domi complained. "Who cares if Wei Qiang attacks Erica?"

  "We don't care particularly," Brigid said. "If it really is Wei Qiang who is doing the attacking."

  Grant, Kane and Domi all eyed Brigid in confusion. "What do you mean by that?" Grant wanted to know.

  Brigid manipulated the mouse, enlarging the image on the screen. "Look at his hands."

  Although the artist's rendering was highly stylized, the nine rings encircling the fingers of Huang-ti all resembled coiled, multiheaded serpents.

  "Hydra's rings," Brigid said unnecessarily.

  "That's very interesting," Kane commented inanely. "What is?" Domi asked.

  "Coincidence," Grant grunted.

  Brigid shook her head. "You know better than that." "Better than what?" Domi demanded petulantly.

  "What are Hydra's rings? Who is Huang-ti?"

  "He is," Brigid said, tapping the screen. "Huang-ti is the first emperor of China, one of the three Sons of Heaven mentioned in ancient Chinese records that arrived on Earth nearly five thousand years ago in a metal egg."

  Domi scowled. "An egg?"

  Brigid read aloud from the text on the screen: "An egg, created by magical forces of gods San and Bel, exited under the action of its own weight from the divine bosom of empty sky. The shell became a defensive armor. The casing defended like armor, and that became a source of strength for heroes. The inner casing became a stronghold for those who had dwelt in it...from the very center of the egg sprang a dragon's body, and from that came a human being, a possessor of magic force."

  Casting a glance over her shoulder at Kane, she asked, "Should I assume that has a familiar ring to it?"

  "A ship," he answered curtly. "An Annunaki -scout ship made of smart metal...maybe even the body armor the overlords and the Nephilim wear."

  Kane referred to the foot soldiers of the overlords. When the barons reached their final stage of evolution as the overlords, so too had the rank-and-file servant class of hybrids been transformed. According to ancient legend, the hybrid offspring of the cursed fornications between fallen angels and human women were called the Nephilim. They were believed to be soldiers in the armies of darkness.

  Like soldiers, they wore armor but it was composed of smart metal, a liquid alloy that responded to a sequence of commands programmed into an extruder. A miniature cohesive binding field metallicized it from liquid to solid. Over the past year, the Cerberus warriors had learned that smart metal was a fundamental building block of Annunaki technology.

  "And of course the reference to a dragon is another tip-off," Grant said thoughtfully.

  "Not to mention," Brigid said, "that the Chinese gods San and Bel are probably derivations of the Sumerian Sin and Baal, two minor members of the Annunaki pantheon:'

  "Figures," Domi said tartly. "Goddamned snake faces are everywhere."

  Hundreds of years ago, when humanity dreamed of roaming the stars, speculation about the extraterrestrial life-forms they might encounter inevitably followed. The issue of interaction, of communication with aliens, had consumed a number of government think tanks for many decades.

  As Lakesh and his colleagues discovered in the waning years of the twentieth century, all of the hypothesizing was nothing but a diversion, a smoke screen to hide the truth. Humankind's interaction with a non-human species had begun at the dawn of Earth's history. That relationship and communication had continued unbroken for thousands of years, cloaked by ritual, religion and mystical traditions.

  According to information gathered by the Cerberus personnel over the past few years, most myths regarding gods and aliens derived from a race known in ancient Sumerian texts as the Annunaki but also known in legend as the Dragon Kings and the Serpent Lords.

  A species of bipedal reptile that appeared on Earth at the dawn of humanity's development, the Annunaki arrived from the extra solar planet of Nibiru. With their advanced technology and great organizational skills, they conquered most of Europe and the African continent. They reared great cities, built cities and space-ports and influenced the evolution of Homo sapiens. They were also consumed by abounding pride, arrogance, and more than a few maintained an insatiable appetite for conquest and control. The Annunaki faction led by Enlil had developed and imposed complex, oppressive caste and gender systems on early human cultures to impose that control.

  Philboyd sauntered over from the satellite-imaging station. "You're making a pretty big jump in logic, Brigid—from old Wei Qiang on Autarkic to the Annunaki overlords slithering around in China."

  "I haven't reached a conclusion yet, Brewster," Brigid replied icily. "But we already know the Annunaki were involved in Asia. Ancient Chinese mythology gives us the tale of the dragon husband, where the dragon took the youngest daughter from a farmer. Here the girl witnessed the dragon-king dancing with delight, curling like a ribbon or a DNA helix and transforming into a human being. The Annunaki, particularly Enlil, enjoyed sexual dalliances with human females."

  Snidely, Philboyd said, "I love that story. Too bad it's not pertinent to the point I'm making."

  "Which is what again?" Kane asked.

  Patronizingly, Philboyd stated, "It's part of scientific training to recognize that information obtained from only one source is never completely accurate. Even if we concede all the facts, we're still getting only one interpretation of them."

  "We really appreciate the exercise in pedantry," Bry said with cold sarcasm, rising from the console. "You ought to know by now that we do a lot more here than sit on our laurels—and asses—and evaluate data from a safe remove."

  Philboyd eyed Bry superciliously. "Some of us do, anyway. When was the last time you went out in the field—oh, wait...I know the answer to that. Never."

  "I don't go out into the field because I know my limitations," Bry snapped waspishly. "Besides, I have an aversion to being cold-cocked, captured and then waiting around like a little girl to be rescued...unlike a myopic but arrogant astrophysicist I could name."

  The back of Philboyd's neck flushed red at the reference to past incidents where he had suffered misfortunes when he accompanied Brigid, Kane and Grant on away missions.

  Although Domi grinned at the exchange, Brigid interposed impatiently, "We don't have the time for this.

  Donald, what's up with the satellite imagery from China?"

  Bry jerked a thumb over a shoulder toward the main ops console and the VGA monitor which dominated it, a flat LCD screen nearly four feet square. "Downloaded and printing out. I'll have hard copy in a few minutes."

  Kane glanced at the screen. Across the right side scrolled a constant stream of figures, symbols and numbers. The screen was dark, yet it swarmed with little points of brightness, like flickering dust motes. Near the bottom left corner was a curving sweep of blue-green, mottled with wisps of white. Beneath the swirling clouds he saw Earth, her continents a hazy outline.

  A few years before he had been given his first satellite view of Earth. Now as then, he was filled with awe and a sense of despair. The world still seemed shadowy, dim, with a lost look to it as though the universe had forgotten about it long ago. He saw large areas of the planet lying under an impenetrable belt of dust and debris. In some places, the belt looked like a dense blanket of boiling, red-tinged fog. The clouds were the last vestige of skydark, the generation-long nuclear winter.

  "What do you expect sat pix to show?" Grant asked.

  "An army leaves tracks," Brigid replied matter-of-factly. "If nothing else, we can find out where they came from and the kind of ordnance they're using. If it's recognizable, then we can formulate a theory, even if it's only provisional."

  No one questioned her statement. A trained historian, Brigid had spent more than half of her thirty years as an archivist in the Cobaltville's Historical Division, but there was more to her storehouse of knowledge than simple training.

  Almost everyone who worked in the ville divisions kept secrets, whether they were infractions of the law, unrealized ambitions or deviant sexual predilections. Brigid Baptiste's secret was more arcane than the commission of petty crimes or manipulating the baronial system of government for personal aggrandizement.

  Her secret was the ability to produce eidetic images.

  Centuries ago, it had been called a photographic memory. She could, after viewing an object or scanning a document, retain exceptionally vivid and detailed visual memories. When she was growing up, she feared she was a mutant, but she later learned that the ability was relatively common among children, and usually disappeared by adolescence. It was supposedly very rare among adults, but Brigid was one of the exceptions.

  Since her forced exile, she had taken full advantage of the Cerberus redoubt's vast database, and as an intellectual omnivore she grazed in all fields. Coupled with her eidetic memory, her profound knowledge of an extensive and eclectic number of topics made her something of an ambulatory encyclopedia. This trait often irritated Kane, but just as often it had tipped the scales between life and death, so he couldn't in good conscience become too annoyed with her.

  "Where are you going with your theory?" Grant demanded. "Are you saying there's a connection between Wei Qiang and Huang-ti?"

  Brigid shrugged. "I'm putting the possibility out there. As it is, out of all the sons of heaven in Asian legend, it was Huang-ti who left the deepest footprint in Chinese mythology. The Xian pyramid was built as a tomb for one of Huang-ti's descendants, so a definite connection is there. Huang-ti himself was reputed to have a guardian dragon by the name of Changhuan."

  "That's nothing special. All of the old Chinese royalty claimed to have dragons as guardian spirits," Philboyd said diffidently.