Torchwood: Exodus Code

airstrip and the boys playing football. Isela narrowed her focus on the scene. The boys stopped playing, and watched the man walk towards them.
    He said a few words. They replied. From the hand gestures and the body language, Isela knew that they were negotiating. It was a skill everyone in the hacienda had perfected. The man passed money to Enrico, who Isela knew was her age and the oldest of the group. Enrico handed the ball to the man who tossed it in the air in front of his feet, booting it across the airstrip and over the flat roof of the hangar.
    Why would he buy a football from them only to kick it into the trees? The boys sprinted after it, disappearing into the jungle behind the concrete hangar.
    A piercing whistle broke Isela from her reverie. Peeking over the belfry wall at the piazza, she saw Antonio signalling to her to begin her countdown.
    Isela nodded. Finally, she was going to get out of here. Get away from the madness and the sway this mountain had on her.
    Setting her rifle in a tiny trench she’d dug out of a stone on the ledge, she sighted on the canyon road and waited her chance to be free of the mountain.

Gaia

12
    Southern Peru, 1930
    THE SUN WAS a blazing orange ball dipping into the sea as Gaia led the elders down from the mountain. They were carrying the man between them.
    A young girl had met the procession midway with water for Gaia and the elders. Now she darted out ahead of them to alert the High Priestess. As soon as she knew of the procession’s proximity, the Priestess accepted a bouquet of condor feathers from another elder. Soaking the feathers in a clay bowl filled with goat’s blood and with another elder pacing behind her holding the pot, the Priestess marked the walls of the temple. It was a necessary part of the ritual so that when the underworld discovered the man from the heavens was missing, the temple would be protected from the wrath of the gods.
    Every three steps, the Priestess stopped, prayed, and then brushed the Cuari symbol of the three interlocking circles on the stone blocks of the temple. While she marked, her chants called on the gods of the three worlds – the underworld, Uku Pacha, the overworld, Hanan Pacha, and the world of man, Hurin Pacha – to join as one as they once had been. The three must be united when the prophecy was fulfilled.
    Gaia halted at the end of the canyon, letting the Priestess finish her ritual. When she had walked the perimeter of the temple, the Priestess placed the feathers into the bowl and then waved for Gaia to proceed. The twilight made it possible for Gaia to drop her hood as she crossed the dusty clearing, her shining eyes absorbing as much as she could withstand before hiding herself away to prepare herself and the
cóndor
for their journey. As soon as Gaia walked out of the canyon, the villagers dropped to their knees, prostrating themselves on the ground, pulling their small children beneath their bodies, terrified of seeing the man who had fallen from the heavens.
    With Gaia still leading the way, the four elders carried the sling through the channel created by the villagers and set it down inside the circle the Priestess had made. Only the Priestess and Gaia were permitted to cross the circle.
    Leaving the man wrapped in the sling, the Priestess and Gaia each gripped a wooden pole and awkwardly dragged his inert body into the temple. They stopped next to the reed mat Gaia had rolled out earlier.
    ‘I am sorry,’ said the Priestess, breathless from the task. Gaia waited until the old woman had caught her breath and mopped her forehead dry. Gaia tasted potatoes from the old woman’s sweat.
    Lifting a roll of black cotton gauze from a basket next to the door, Gaia wrapped the thin fabric round her head, covering her mouth and nose. She looked like a
bandito
.
    ‘We must follow the prophesy as precisely as we can,’ said the Priestess.
    Gaia nodded, swallowing the high sharp chords shooting across her skull and the aching in her joints from the odours of blood and sweat emanating from the man. She had become skilled at carrying her suffering because she knew it was a gift from the gods. This day would fulfil her destiny. Soon she ’d be dancing on the stars.
    Placing a bowl intricately patterned with bands of red and black next to the man’s head, the Priestess knelt and untied the leather straps binding the sling. She glanced up at Gaia, who nodded, and then with a graceful flourish the Priestess threw open the