Timeline - Michael Crichton [129]
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This silent, black world was entirely alien to him, yet he quickly adjusted to it. Danger lay in the tiniest movements, in sounds that were almost inaudible. Chris moved in a crouch, tense, testing each footstep before applying full weight, his head constantly turning left and right, left and right.
He felt like an animal, and he thought of the way Marek had bared his teeth before the attack in the room, like some kind of ape. He looked over at Kate and saw that she, too, was crouched and tense as she moved forward.
For some reason, he found himself thinking of the seminar room on the second floor of the Peabody, back at Yale, with the cream-colored walls and the polished dark-wood trim, and of the arguments among the graduate students sitting around the long table: whether processual archaeology was primarily historical or primarily archaeological, whether formalist criteria outweighed objectivist criteria, whether derivationist doctrine concealed normative commitment.
It was no wonder they argued. The issues were pure abstractions, consisting of nothing but thin air—and hot air. Their empty debates could never be resolved; the questions could never be answered. Yet there had been so much intensity, so much passion in those debates. Where had it come from? Who cared? He couldn’t quite remember now why it had been so important.
The academic world seemed to be receding into the distance, vague and gray in memory, as he made his way down the dark hillside toward the river. Yet however frightened he was on this night, however tense and at risk of his life, it was entirely real in some way that was reassuring, even exhilarating, and—
He heard a twig snap, and he froze.
Marek and Kate froze, too.
They heard soft rustling in the brush to the left, and a low snort. They stayed motionless. Marek gripped his sword.
And the small dark shape of a wild pig snuffled past them.
“Should have killed it,” Marek whispered. “I’m hungry.”
They started to continue forward, but then Chris realized that they were not the ones who had frightened the pig. Because now they heard, unmistakably, the sound of many running feet. Rustling, crashing in the underbrush. Coming toward them.
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Marek frowned.
He could see enough in the darkness to catch glimpses of metal armor now and again. There must be seven or eight soldiers, moving hastily east, then dropping down, hiding in the brush again, becoming silent.
What the hell was going on?
These soldiers had been back at the dirt path, waiting for them. Now the soldiers had moved east, and were waiting for them again.
How?
He looked at Kate, crouched beside him, but she just looked frightened.
Chris, also crouching, tapped Marek on the shoulder. Chris shook his head, then pointed deliberately to his own ear.
Marek nodded, listened. At first he heard nothing but the wind. Puzzled, he looked back at Chris, who made a distinct tapping motion against the side of his head, by his ear.
He was saying, Turn on your earpiece.
Marek tapped his ear.
After a brief crackle as the sound came on, he heard nothing. He shrugged at Chris, who held up his flat palms: Wait. Marek waited. Only after a few moments of quiet listening did he become aware of the soft, regular sound of a person breathing.
He looked at Kate and held his finger to his lips. She nodded. He looked at Chris. He nodded, too. They both understood. Make no noise at all.
Again, Marek listened intently. He still heard the sound of quiet breathing in his earpiece.
But it wasn’t coming from any of them.
Someone else.
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Chris whispered, “André. This is too dangerous. Let’s not cross the river tonight.”
“Right,” Marek whispered. “We’ll go back to Castelgard and hide out for the night outside the walls.”
“Okay. Good.”
“Let’s go.”
In the