The Zygan Emprise: Renegade Paladins and Abyssal Redemption (20 page)

The flash woke me up with a start. For a
split second, I was blinded, and then the dark sky returned as it
had been. Several hundred yards ahead of us, a glowing mass
streaked to the ground, bursting into flames when it hit. Spud and
I leaped up and started to run towards the burning site. Suddenly,
Spud shot out an arm and knocked me back, pulling me behind another
tree. My irritation turned to curiosity when Spud put a finger on
his lips and pointed in the direction of the fire. A shadowy figure
had arrived at the site and with—a Zygan-type stun gun?!—in hand,
was extinguishing the flames.

We crept through the rim of oak trees around
the clearing where the thing had crashed. We could now see remnants
of what looked like some kind of a spaceship scattered over several
feet of charred grass. Spud Ergaled us some binoculars and we
scanned the site from our hiding place among the trees.

The ship seemed to be shattered into a number
of pieces. At its center was a pod, which, though blackened from
the heat, looked intact. I increased my binoculars’ lens
magnification. It was clear that the pod was shaped like a
humanoid, with a trunk, limbs, and a large head. Armor of some
kind?

The shadow man was struggling with the pod to
no avail, and finally—lasered!—it open with his stun gun. I looked
at Spud. I was certain that Terrans didn’t have laser guns in the
1940s—or even lasers for that matter. Off-worlders? Or, worse,
rogue Zygans?

We continued to watch as, grunting, Shadow
Man pulled out what looked disgustingly like a burned body from
inside the pod, and laid it on a patch of green grass.

The body lay still, unmoving. Shadow Man
knelt next to it, crouching over it, his back to us, shaking with
spasms.

“Is he crying?” I whispered to Spud.

Spud shrugged and motioned for me to be
quiet.

“Hey!”

“What is it?”

The voices came from the other side of a
small hill across from our hiding spot. We crept back deeper into
the woods a bit, circling around to get a better view. Shadow Man
had jumped up at the sounds, and grabbed the burnt body in his
arms.

As he looked around the horizon, his hand
reached in his pocket and he pulled out an—Ergal?!. And, only a
split-second before two hollering ranchers came running over the
ridge, Shadow Man and the body disappeared.

I was as white as a ghost and Spud was even
paler. As he had been scanning the area, we had both caught a
glimpse of Shadow Man’s face. We didn’t have to speak the name. We
both instantly knew who Shadow Man was. Gary.

Chapter 13

Double Trouble

Sol System Space

We Ergaled straight to the Zoom cruiser,
still staying in 1947. We didn’t dare show up on Earth in the
modern era. If Gary had decided to run a trace of our recent
tracks, he’d be waiting for us when we returned. And somehow, we
didn’t really expect we’d get a very warm reception. We held off
until we were well past Ceres before we M-fanned into the
present.

Spud told nav to go into hyperdrive and then
leaned back in his seat, eyes closed.

“Gary looked so young …,” I observed to no
one in particular as the stars flew by on our windscreens.

“I’d say he was in his mid-twenties then,”
Spud said, still “sleeping.” “He left that part of the story out
yesterday.”

“No kidding. Who do you think the guy who
died was?”

“I’m not sure,” Spud said, opening his eyes
and sitting up. “In fact, I’m not sure anyone did…” A momentary
pause. “What if,” he continued, “the body was Benedict?”

I sat forward, facing Spud. “Whoa! No
way!”

Spud held up a hand. “No, wait. Let us review
what we have learned. Gary has a desk job for Earth Core. After
Mingferplatoi, after Harvard. Working his way up the ladder to
mediocrity.”

I nodded. “That’s our Gary.”

“Then Benedict appears and takes him on that
joyride to another dimension he related to us.”

“Okay, I’m with you.”

“Only instead of Benedict remaining in Level
Three, as Gary had said, they
both
came back. Now their goal
becomes to return to this Level Three—or, as we really should label
it, Brane 5—and stay there. They run through the similar
calculations and speculations to ours, and decide to try a nuclear
bomb to provide the energy to push them all the way through the
portal.”

“Okay … but why go back in time thirty years
to the 1940s?”

Spud chewed on his lip. “I think because
there was a lot of above-ground nuclear testing in that area then.
Perhaps they figured that it would be less suspicious if anything
went wrong.”

“Which it did.”

“Apparently.” Spud scratched his chin. “So
let us suppose Benedict is the risk-taker, so he assumes the role
of the test pilot. He dons some kind of protective suit, and
detonates the nuke just as he crosses the portal. Boom. Backdraft.
He’s blown back to--”

“Is there a portal in near where we were in
New Mexico?”

Spud shrugged. “I didn’t get anything on my
Ergal close by, but, the portal they used could be anywhere within
hundreds of miles. Arizona, Nevada, Colorado … The blowback could
have thrown him all the way to where we were waiting in
Roswell.”

“Roswell! Of course. The ‘alien invasion’.” I
quoted with my fingers.

“Gary’s admitted he blew a mission at
Roswell. What if that ‘mission’ wasn’t an invasion from outer
space, but from another brane …?”

I took in a sharp breath. “So Benedict gets
burned to a crisp and lands at Roswell. Gary goes and finds him,
pulls him out of his not-so-protective suit and then Ergals out,
leaving the remnants of the suit …”

“And the bomb. Which could resemble the
broken pieces of a ship. The suit looks like …?”

“An alien …”

Spud nodded. “Exactly.”

We stared at the stars for a few moments in
silence. I hesitated. “Then Benedict’s dead?”

Spud didn’t answer right away. “Perhaps.
Perhaps not. He may have died and been anastasized. Or if he lived,
regenerated his injured parts. Or … Benedict could simply be a
political tool, and not really exist any more at all …”

“A tool? Whose? Gary’s?”

Spud said quietly. “Perhaps. Perhaps
not.”

* * *

Back to Zyga—present day

As our Zoom cruiser whizzed through the last
leg of our journey to Zyga, we both sat quietly, trying to digest
the events of the last few hours. No offense to the Kharybdians,
but the muddy waters had gotten much deeper. If Gary had been a
friend of Benedict’s, was his allegiance to the Omega Archon, or to
the outlaw? Was Gary himself still working for Benedict, a double
agent like Wart? Did he send us after Sutherland hoping we’d fail,
to help Benedict succeed? And, if Gary had gone to the other side,
who else at Core—or beyond—had he taken with him?

I could only hope that Ev wasn’t one of them,
and that my favorite dork had kept his mouth shut—literally—about
our temporal research on radiation belts. If Gary found out, he
could probably guess that we were on to him. In that case, we were
dead meat. Gary could use his cred and authority with Zygint to
convince Central that
we
were the traitors. We’d be arriving
at Zyga soon. Would we be greeted as citizens or enemies of Zygfed
…?

“Spud?”

He raised an eyebrow.

“The Somalderis …”

He smiled wanly. “Ah yes. The
Somalderis.”

“Agriarctos told me he’d seen the Somalderis
years ago. In the past. Why didn’t Gary and Benedict go back and
steal it to use?”

“Maybe they did. And battered the gates of
heaven with the ram …” Spud said in a soft voice, adding
mysteriously. “A man who has never been to heaven is driven by
hope. A man who has lost heaven is driven by desperation.”

Spud pulled out his Ergal and smiled.
“Perhaps we should revisit our Milton.”

I nodded, not wanting to reveal that I didn’t
have a clue what he was talking about.
^xxii

* * *

The Kharybdian Enclave, Zyga—present day

We didn’t dare touch down in Mikkin until we
were sure that Zygint hadn’t discovered our detective work.
Instead, I followed Spud back into the mud of the Kharybdian
enclave. We’d come to Zyga in stealth mode again, and my stomach
was still churning from the rough entry. I was grateful that I
hadn’t eaten since I don’t know when.

Eikhus greeted us with a soothing warm shower
and led us in to his thal. We were surprised to find Matshi and
Nephil Stratum waiting for us in the sala.

Matshi looked good. His limbs had grown back
fully, and he was smiling. I was glad to see him less
depressed.

Nerea welcomed us with dewy hugs, and invited
us to munch on some thikia. “Eikhus has a new recipe. They’re
delicious.”

And they were. I didn’t realize quite how
hungry I’d been. Even Spud seemed to eat with some vigor, and
without the grumbling that usually accompanied his encounters with
things Kharybdian.

After a hearty meal during which Spud filled
in our friends about our adventures, we relaxed with mugs of
Chidurian Ale, courtesy of Matshi. Despite the drink’s relaxing
benefits, I noticed a hint of tension had crept into the
Chidurian’s features. When I could catch him alone, I would try to
find out why, I decided.

“Ergal records show nothing, but my contacts
did find some references to a Somalderis,” Nephil Stratum relayed
to us. “Kolhis—”

“Where we were,” I interjected, grimacing at
my memory of the Georgian thug.

“Also, Sparti, Uruk, Judea,” she continued.
“Nothing much after that.”

“Anything in the US?” Spud asked.
“Nevada?”

“No. Nothing. The last report was thousands
of years ago in any case.”

“Any connection with Orion?” asked
Matshi.

“No. Sorry,” Nephil Stratum said softly.

Ah. Ulenem’s outburst to save Orion was
clearly on the Chidurian’s mind.

Spud leaned forward in his seat. “Matshi,
does Orion Alpha have Van Allen Belts?”

Matshi shrugged his shoulders. “Never
checked. My ship has always been radiation shielded, just in
case.”

Eikhus shot a waterspout to his holo. “No Van
Allen Belts,” he told us, as he scanned the display.

Spud looked disappointed.

“But,” Eikhus continued, “There
are
Trapezalnitaks.” He turned back to face us. “Radiation belts.”

“Capital.” Spud’s excitement trumped his
annoyance. “How do they compare with the Van Allen Belts?”

Eikhus re-checked his computer. “Stronger.
Much stronger. Especially the inner belt. They seem to be products
of fusion reactions.”

Matshi nodded. “It makes sense for them to
have tried a stronger bomb.”

“And Benedict has seemed to have an affinity
for fusion weaponry in his guerilla attacks,” Spud agreed.

Benedict.
That’s
where I’d heard it.
It seemed like weeks ago when we’d all been sitting around the
table in Matshi’s kalyvi watching Benedict’s holo as he was doing,
we figured, some calculations. What had he been muttering? M-c
squared, E = mc squared, Einstein’s equation for conversion of
matter to energy … Alpha … trapezalnitaks. Radiation belts on Orion
Alpha! Summeldare … ram. The Somalderis!

“Can you temporal track on that thing?”
Excited, I asked the Kharybdian about his holo unit. “When were the
trapezalnitaks formed?”

“I can’t temporal track with this,” Eikhus
sighed, then brightened. “But, I can measure decay parabolas and
estimate a date.”

Eikhus’s fingers splattered through the holo
display for a few minutes, while I shared my memory of Benedict’s
mumbled words with the group. The Kharybdian seemed puzzled,
frowning as he worked.

“What is it?” I asked.

“I keep doing it and doing it, and it still
comes out the same.” Eikhus sounded extremely frustrated. “My
calculations show that these belts have only been around Orion
Alpha for three months.”

“Months?!” Matshi cried. We all looked at
each other in alarm.

“Let me see what some other planets in the
area show,” Eikhus suggested. The results were not reassuring.
Populated planets around Betelgeuse and Bellatrix also showed
evidence of recent radiation belt development. Had Benedict’s
Andarts used fusion bombs to try to cross to another dimension,
creating radiation belts? Were those attempts the so-called
terrorist attacks Zygint had warned us about?

If Ulenem was right, and Orion’s solar
systems were the latest testing grounds for Benedict’s attempts to
travel to another brane, millions of beings could be in danger from
radiation poisoning. And, if Benedict and his lieutenants
eventually tried a crossing with the Somalderis and it wasn’t
strong enough to power the transition, could blowback destroy one
of the most densely populated star systems in the universe?

“I cannot answer that question,” Spud said
gravely. “But, I must refer us back to our brief glimpse of
Benedict and the last word we heard him utter. If my memory serves,
I believe it was ‘catastrophe’.”

Chapter 14

Orion

En route to Orion Alpha, Orion—present
day

The constellation of Orion is also known as
the Hunter. It’s fitting, as some of Zygfed’s best hunters hail
from its many solar systems. Ulenem was one of a long line of
Assassins from Orion Alpha, many who had honorably served Zygfed in
heralded battles. Ironically, Zygfed had brought relative peace to
the constellation’s quadrant, by drafting Orion warriors into
Zygint and the Sentinel Corps and effectively halting their bloody
incursions into neighboring star groups such as Sirius.
Long-victimized Scyllians and Ursans became grateful supporters of
the Zygans for ending the rains [sic] of terror.