The Zygan Emprise: Renegade Paladins and Abyssal Redemption (15 page)

For a few moments, Gary was taken aback. His
expression then became quite stern, like that of a frustrated high
school principal. He seemed to be seriously considering how best to
respond. Finally, he took a deep breath and whispered. “The key to
Level Three.”

I glanced at Spud victoriously, asking Gary,
“So there really is a Level Three?”

Gary nodded. “Yes. I’ve been there.”

Now it was our turn to be shocked.

“And you lived to tell the tale,” I said,
awestruck.

“Or not,” Spud said, raising an eyebrow.

Gary chuckled. “I’m not dead—I mean,
‘transitioned’.” He made the quote marks with his fingers.

“Why not?” Spud returned without
hesitation.

“If you don’t mind his asking,” I added,
aiming for politeness.

“I don’t know,” Gary said quietly. He looked
down at his hands, then back up at us with a hint of a smirk. “It’s
a question I hope to get answered someday—among others.” He
snorted. “It’s our blessing and our curse, you know.”

“What … is?” I asked, puzzled.

“Being aware,” Gary’s tone was rueful, “that
we’re all under a death sentence.”

“I’m not,” I joked. No one laughed, and I
backtracked quickly. “Okay, duh.”

“Humans, and all sentient beings,
really—except you, Rush,” Gary added with a smile, “know it, and
because of that we are desperate for a reprieve.”

“With you so far.” Cellular regeneration
centers were packed throughout Zygfed by citizens seeking eternal
youth. Still, living for thousands of years isn’t a bad deal in and
of itself, even without regeneration.

“In a sense, we’re overqualified for our
existence,” Gary continued.

“Now you lost me,” I admitted.

“We know too much about our future … and too
little. We know that we’re going to die, and yet we don’t even know
why we live.”

“There’s a country song in there somewhere,
Gary,” I joked. “What’s this got to do with Level Three?”

Gary stared at his hands for a few moments,
hesitating, before he asked, “Did you know Theodore Benedict and I
went to Mingferplatoi together?”

I was blown away. “Benedict was a catascope?!
They didn’t tell us that.”

Gary mimicked me. “No, duh.”

“So how did you and Benedict get to Level
Three?” Spud interrupted.

Gary looked at Spud through narrowed eyes for
a moment, then his brow unfurrowed, and he sat back in his chair
and began. “Ah, thereby hangs a tale …”

* * *

“Thirty years seems like a long time, but, in
Zygan terms, it’s only an instant. Zygfed thirty years ago wasn’t
much different than it is today, give or take a few planets.

“Catascopes in those days had a very tough
job. There have always been Benedicts in the Universe. Individuals
with too much ambition and too little empathy. They helped drag us
out of the caves thousands of years ago, and may, through
devastating wars, return us there on a path to extinction, sooner
rather than later.”

For a moment, Gary’s tone became wistful. “I
don’t pretend to be a psychologist, but most of them drag us out of
our comfortable caves to help them in their quest for something.
Something they’ll never be able to find. ‘Tilting at
windmills’
^xix
becomes their purpose in
life.”

He sighed and took a deep breath. “Benedict
and I were thrown together from the very first day at
Mingferplatoi. I guess they thought we had a lot in common, seeing
as we were both from Earth. We didn’t, except that we both wanted
to make it as catascopes. I grew up in New England, prep schools.
Benedict, in a small town in Missouri. My dad was a banker of his
own inherited fortune. My mother was a docent for the Peabody.
Benedict’s father left before he was born, so his mother worked
three jobs as a home-care nurse to raise him.

“But, we were both smart and ambitious and
talented. Benedict, frankly, well, he was almost a genius. He could
rattle off physics theories like Einstein. He even liked to do
mathematical proofs by himself instead of uploading them like the
rest of us. But, he wasn’t exactly the friendly type or a team
player. When it came time to assign partners, I was the only one
willing to work with him. He kind of reminded me of my Poppy.

“He was, however, one of the best catascopes
I’ve seen, before or since. Undefeated at Mingferplatoi—and
beyond.”

Gary leaned forward and intoned, “Theodore
Benedict saved my life.”

I gasped.
Our Chief nodded. “We were only on our third training mission. We
were ambushed by a Lestrigon ship that had wormholed into our
quadrant.”

“So you mega’ed,” I interjected. Lestrigons
were a giant carnivorous species
much
larger than
humans.

“We tried,” Gary admitted. “Only the
Lestrigons had disabled all our megators, so we were unable to
change our size. We were about to be bite-size snack food for the
hungry bastards.”

“Ouch,” I winced.

“And yet, you’re here …,” prodded Spud.

Gary sighed, “We lost our two companion ships
right away—swallowed up in the blink of an eye by the Lestrigon
vessel. Five excellent Mingferplatoi trainees—gone. There was
nothing we could do. And we were next.”

I continued to wince.

“Terrible,” Gary agreed with a note of
sadness. “Even worse, Benedict had been monitoring the Lestrigon
ship’s course and calculated that they were on their way to 51
Pegasus.”

Spud whistled, “Three hundred million souls
in that solar system …”

“Yes indeed,” Gary agreed. “If the Lestrigons
were to make it to Pegasus…” He took another deep breath.
“Tragically, we knew our comrades were being digested inside the
Lestrigon ship. The leftovers were being dumped back into space
through a massive exhaust cylinder that was spewing out particulate
matter and polluting the entire sector. We didn’t dare comm to
Central, lest we become the next immediate target. Without our
megator, we were so tiny and defenseless. Even if we fired ten of
our fusion torpedoes put together we couldn’t dent their ship.

“But, we had to do something. Frustrated by
our helplessness, we stayed back and followed at a discreet
distance as the Lestrigons headed for Pegasus. I suggested we try
to run for it and go warn Central about the imminent attack on
Pegasus when Benedict shouted at me to ‘put a cork in it.’ Before I
could even respond, he leapt over and grabbed the weapons controls,
played them with his rapidly moving fingers, and launched a fusion
torpedo aimed directly at the exhaust pipe of the Lestrigon
ship.

“‘You do realize that our torpedos are too
small to destroy their ship,’ I told him, for want of a better
suggestion.

“He nodded. ‘Don’t expect them to.’ We
watched on scan holos as the torpedo entered the foul exhaust
conduit of the Lestrigon vessel.

“Benedict quickly shot us back out of the
line of fire and then held up a hand. I waited, dubious, for the
miniscule spark that would signal the tiny torpedo’s useless
explosion. And waited. And waited. And—

“The enormous Lestrigon battlecruiser
exploded in a burst of metal, flesh, blood, and other small bits of
detritus that I wasn’t eager to analyze.

“I was totally awestruck. A microscopic
torpedo blew up that giant vessel? ‘How--?’ I turned to my partner
and asked.

“Benedict put our nav on autopilot for Zyga
and leaned back in his jump seat. ‘Easy,’ he said, grinning at me.
‘I anamorphed the ions in the core of the torpedo into silicon.
Then, when the torpedo exploded, it shot out a layer of liquid
silicon that cooled off and blocked their ship’s exhaust conduit,
preventing them from discharging their engine wastes.’ He burst out
laughing. ‘Basically, they got blown up by their own gas. And our
torpedo was the … cork.’”

Gary rubbed his eyes for a moment. “Saving
the Pegasus planets was a real coup for a couple of catascope
trainees,” he continued. “I probably should’ve given all the credit
to Benedict, but he was willing to share, so, I regret, I too
accepted a hero’s welcome. In truth, I had done nothing more than
my poor colleagues who had died … and whom I missed greatly…” Gary
cleared his throat.

“That was one of the first of Benedict’s
stellar successes. He had many more, both as a Mingferplatoi
Academy trainee, and later as a full catascope. He seemed to thrive
on the excitement of chasing and capturing Zygfed’s enemies and
returning to the applause of his peers and superiors. With a
universe full of predators, there was always a battle to win, and
Benedict was always out front, leading the charge to victory.

“I, on the other hand, did better at …
administration. With time, our paths diverged and we grew apart. I
came back down to Earth, graduated Harvard like Poppy and Gramps,
and became a catascope for Earth Core. Benedict, as a star, was
sent to the stars. So I was truly surprised one day when he
M-fanned into Earth Core and invited me for a drink at his mother’s
home on the Florida Coast.

“We Ergaled to a small bungalow overlooking
the Gulf and sat on the porch, cooled by a soft breeze and a hard
drink. Benedict had come to pick up his mother and take her to
Nejinsen for neural regeneration treatments. She had, though still
only in her sixties, begun to show signs of what he said was
Alzheimer’s Disease.

“I did wonder how the Omega Archon would
react. Escorting non-citizens like his mother to Zyga was not in
the Zygfed playbook. But Benedict didn’t care. He figured he had
built enough capital with His Highness that he could punt on this
one. I wished them well and told him I’d stop by and pay them a
visit next week when I’d be in Zyga for the annual Satellite Chiefs
meeting.

“Unfortunately, Benedict’s mother died two
days after she got to Nejinsen. No one would tell him what really
happened. Of course, he immediately applied for her anastasis, but
those all have to go through the Omega Archon, and His Highness was
not pleased that Benedict had so cavalierly violated Zygan
regulations and brought a non-subject to Zyga for medical
treatment.”

“I can imagine,” I noted, thinking of my own
“difficult” encounters with our ruler.

“Benedict got two years in Hell.”

I gasped. “Two years!” Two minutes was agony,
two years would be … I shook my head.

Gary nodded. “Exactly. He’d just gotten
out—with the time loop, of course—when I arrived the next day for
my promised visit. But the time he’d served had visibly changed
him. He was no longer the arrogant hero, the poster boy of
Zygfed.

“I found him pale and stone-faced in his
Zygan flat, wrapping up his mother’s belongings and micro-ing them
into a small container. His years of passion for and loyalty to
Zygfed had, in a relative instant, turned into bitter anger and the
seeds of hatred.”

Spud looked sober. “The Omega Archon never
approved her anastasis?”

Gary shook his head. “No. And, Benedict was
offered a desk job at Zygint Central—the better to keep an eye on
you, my dear—for a few years, with an empty promise that someday he
might regain a post on the front lines. In truth, his days as a
revered Zygfed hero were over. Along with any chances he’d be
initiated into the Sentinel Corps.”

I looked up at Gary and began slowly. “Um, as
somebody who’s felt the Omega Archon’s wrath myself, wasn’t his
sentence a little steep?”

“His Highness,” Gary said pointedly, “is not
known for mercy.”

“No. But …” Two years? For someone who was so
valuable to Zygint?

Gary sighed. “I believe His Highness believes
that discipline keeps the ship running tightly. And it is, after
all, his ship.”

“You have still not told us about Level
Three,” reminded Spud.

Gary paused again. He nodded, his eyes
narrowing. “It was the next day… I had been through all the exhibit
suites at the conference and was completely holo-ed out, so I
stopped by Benedict’s flat to see how he was holding up.
Unquestionably, it was clear he wasn’t himself. In fact, I could
see right through him—literally.

“‘What the hell?’ I’d said to him,
stunned.

“’Far from it,’ he returned with a wan
smile.

“I reached out a hand which slid right
through his transparent body. ‘Where are you?’

“‘Off-level,’ was his cryptic answer. ‘Come
join me.’

“‘What are you talking about?’ I was totally
confused.

“‘Pea-brain!’ he answered with a hint of a
laugh.

“‘Now look, if you’re going to insult me
…’

“He did laugh. ‘P-b-r-a-n-e. Proof that the
Miletic Theory is correct.’

“Something from my Mingfeplatoi uploads was
triggered in my memory. An obscure reference from our course in
exocosmology. As I was trying to remember, Benedict M-fanned and
stood before me in the palpable flesh. ‘Gary, Gary, Gary. You
always were weak in physics. Here, I’ll show you, take my hand.
Let’s take a ride to Level Three.’

“‘Level Three? You’re completely out of your
mind!’ I backed away, but he grabbed my hand firmly. I felt a
chill, and couldn’t escape his grip. He took out his Ergal and,
with his free thumb, made a few quick adjustments that I hadn’t
seen anyone do before and was unable to follow. Activated it,
and—

“It felt like an explosion, as if every part
of my body flew into a million microscopic pieces in all
directions. I tried to scream, but to no avail. My mouth, my
tongue, my vocal cords had long left me, lost in space and time,
and …”

Gary paused once more, his moist eyes gazing
off into the distance, focused on a vision that Spud and I couldn’t
view. I noted that he’d started seeming unusually pale … and tired.
After a few seconds, Gary cleared his throat and continued in a
soft voice.

“The vibrations were not unpleasant. I had a
sense that Benedict was there, somewhere, his hand still clasped in
mine. I also became aware of another entity close to us for barely
a second. We resonated for a moment and then I was pulled away,
crushed by an infinite weight, a googol of G’s. I landed, gasping,
on my back in the middle of Benedict’s flat. Alone.