The Zygan Emprise: Renegade Paladins and Abyssal Redemption (33 page)

“Sorry about that,” Agriarctos shrugged. “I
had to cut it close so Benedict would think he actually blew up
your ship. I couldn’t be sure that otherwise he wouldn’t try
again.”

“Thanks,” I added, puzzled. “Mind if I ask
why
were you trying to save us?”

“That’s classified,” the Ursan repeated with
a grin.

“I believe I know why,” Spud put up his hand.
“Setsei, Geryon the holo, please.”

Setsei strode over and ran his Geryon over
the image from head to toe.

I stood with my mouth agape. As Setsei ran
his weapon over the Ursan’s holo image, the long snout of
Agriarctos morphed for a brief moment into a very familiar face.
Ward Burton! Wart!

Wart must have been coming us from far away,
as Setsei’s Geryon couldn’t maintain the change, and the holo image
soon reverted back to its furry Ursan form. No wonder Agriarctos
had been able to act as Spud so perfectly when we’d partnered on
Benedict’s quest. He’d spent a great deal of time with us over the
past year at Earth Core and gotten to know us well.

“Very clever, Spud,” the Ursan nodded. “Let’s
keep it our little secret, okay? The walls at Central have ears,
and they’re not all on His Highness’ head.”

I walked over and faced Agriarctos/Wart. “Are
you coming back with us?”

He shook his head. “Not right now. Not right
away. But you kids don’t need me anymore either. Earth’ll do fine
in your hands.”

I sighed and nodded, my voice cracking.
“Well, I sure needed you, and thank you, again.”

Wart as Agriarctos saluted with a bulky hand
and waved as his holo started to dissolve. I’m not sure if it was
an artifact of the communication, but, for a moment, I thought I
saw the flash of a gold ring on the pseudo-Ursan’s finger.

I felt my right hand rise up and return the
wave until Agriarctos’s image had completely disappeared.

Chapter 24

Apantisis

Mikkin, Zyga—present day

Debriefs at Zygint Central had taken hours. I
think we had all sat with three quarters of the senior admin by the
time we were done. Thank heavens for time loops, or I would’ve
finished an old lady of, say, twenty-five.

Just as I was finally ready to leave for my
much awaited return home, Juan came up to me and asked me to follow
him. My heart stopped when I saw he was leading me down the hall
once again to the Omega Archon’s suite.

Juan paused outside of His Highness’ door and
gestured for me to go in. I gave him an insincere smile and
stolidly entered the room, taking my usual seat on the edge of the
uncomfortable contemporary sofa.

A door on the other side of the room whisked
open and the Omega Archon entered, this time dressed in a polo
shirt and khaki pants. I stood up and resisted the urge to ask him
if I was interrupting his golf game. He took a chair opposite my
seat and waved for me to sit back down. Then, smiling, he observed
me for a few moments. In complete silence. I was getting more
nervous by the minute. Say something, will you?

“Do you believe that the end justifies the
means?” he finally asked.

Was that a trick question? “Uh …,” I
stammered.

“It’s not a trick question. Just answer.”

“Sometimes,” I said hesitantly.

His eyes narrowed for a moment, then he
smiled once again. “So do I—sometimes.”

My eyes widened. That was an admission I
didn’t expect. “Is that why you didn’t go after Benedict?”

“That was your job,” the Omega Archon pointed
out.

“Well, he’s out of your way,” I stammered.
“And he might be dead.”

“That was not the outcome I’d hoped for,” he
responded ambiguously. After a short pause, he folded his hands
together and gazed intently at me. “But that is not why you are
here. Your list of violations is extensive. First, unauthorized
entry into the RAM—”

“Wait a minute!” I protested. “I never went
into the RAM!
She
did. And she”—I choked—“died.”

I felt myself being scanned once again. His
Highness bestowed me with a trace of a smile. “I will accept your
point. And your means. But, remember, Rush, as a principle, legal
and ethical are not always the same.

“Look,” I countered, “’the end’ in this
situation was saving the lives of my friends. For me, that
was
an ethical choice.”

His smile broadened, only to disappear when I
asked my next question. “
She
yelled something to me just
before she died. ‘Find out about Stacy!’ Who’s Stacy?”

The Omega Archon studied me with a sad
expression and said gently, “There are many branes, some accessible
to you, and some not. Her brane is not accessible.” Or did he mean
‘brain’?

“You’re not going to give me an answer?”

“I have.” He remained impassive.

I sighed. “Well then, I guess we’re done
here.”

“Not quite.” My stomach turned. “Even without
RAM entry, you still have quite the long list of violations,” he
continued as he started enumerating the sequence of policy numbers
I’d run afoul of to my numbed ears.

It was clear I wasn’t going to get out of
here scot-free. I flashed for a moment, with a pang of regret, on
Nephil Stratum. Despite her subsequent treachery, I would always be
grateful that she had sent me to T’fal for training. Ka’vyr had
helped me survive Gary’s torture. Perhaps it would also keep me
from suffering through the Omega Archon’s flames.

“So,” he finally concluded, “your sentence is
one year.”

One year?! One year in Hell! I gasped, “This
is the thanks-”

The Omega Archon rose up and I instantly
regretted my outburst—until I observed he was smiling, his eyes
actually twinkling as he headed for his door.

“You will pretend that justice is served. And
I will pretend that you do not know ka’vyr.”

* * *

The Ifestian technique
was
extremely
effective. Rather than the overwhelming agony I had experienced
during my previous penalties, I was able, using my ka’vyr skills,
to emotionally pull myself out of the flames of Hell and the time
loop, and see myself actually sitting comfortably on the sofa,
watching the minutes ticking by on the suite’s clock.

Though I was relieved on the one hand that I
had learned how to escape Hell, I was also frustrated that His
Highness had clearly avoided answering my questions. There was
still much I didn’t know—and didn’t know how to learn. For a few
moments, I actually felt like my brother John, who had always raged
when his questions went unanswered. If my dream in Benedict’s cell
held a grain of truth, maybe John had chosen to travel to another
dimension because he’d been desperate for answers, too, and our
dimension, our brane, seemed to have few or none. Because “nothing”
wasn’t an acceptable answer. Not for him, and not for me.

My time-out finished quickly. The hour passed
before I knew it and the door of my suite opened to release me to
the hallway with a soft chime. I looked at the door from which the
Omega Archon had entered on the opposite side of the room, and
promised myself that one day I would walk out of this room through
that other door. The door to the answers. To what was beyond.

Energized, I made my way over to Zygint
Central Comm, where I found Spud fixated on a holo montage.

“It worked,” I said happily. “The
ka’vyr.”

When he didn’t respond, I started massaging
his stiff shoulders, whispering, “Okay. Something’s on your
mind.”

He didn’t look at me. “Brilliant
deduction.”

“What up?”

“I have gone over and over it. I cannot find
any ripple in the timeline. Earth history remains unchanged.” He
ran his fingers over the holo, and the scene before us changed to
reveal a somewhat older, fully-bearded Yeshua preaching to a large
crowd along a mountainside.

“That’s good.” I paused. “Isn’t it …?”

“Perhaps. But, knowing what we now know, I
don’t understand how, or why …” Spud paused, turned around, and
faced me. “Feel like a ride?”

“If it’s looking for answers, always. Let’s
go,” I smiled.

* * *

Phoenicia—two thousand years ago

I wasn’t surprised to see us M-fan outside
Sidon. Spud had chosen our contact metrics from data on one of the
holos he’d been scanning. Our calendar read 3779. It was in fact
only a few relative months after our last visit, Phoenician
time.

We landed invisibly in the desert, Ergaled
into our familiar costumes as Akbar and Danel, and micro’ed our
ship into the folds of our robes, before setting out for the hike
to the Phoenician burg. Look out, Sidon, the boys are back in
town.

Autumn in Phoenicia was definitely more
pleasant than summer. The temperature was a comfortable eighty-two
degrees, though I know Spud still would’ve preferred a climate in
the high fifties. Nevertheless, we found our steps were a lot more
energetic, and we even jogged for a few stretches on the path
towards the city.

Lost in the rhythm of my pace, I had run
ahead of Spud without noticing. I stopped and saw him far behind
me, standing outside the temple where we had met the old Keeper on
our first trip. What was it called? Es-man … Esh-Eshmoun. Spud
waited for me to trot back and then led me through the gate to the
entrance.

Right after Spud knocked, the Keeper opened
the door and greeted us with a smile. “Welcome, Akbar and Danel,”
he said in Phoenician. “How come you to cross our path again?”

“Inductive reasoning,” responded Spud. In the
Queen’s English, to my shock.

The Keeper’s eyes twinkled and he let out a
warm chuckle. I looked at Spud, flabbergasted.

“Well done … Akbar,” the Keeper replied,
echoing Spud’s Eton-bred accent. He opened the door more widely and
waved us into a cool stone foyer inside the temple. “Please,
enter.”

“He is here,” Spud said, his tone having the
hint of a question.

The Keeper nodded. “Yeshua,” he called out in
Aramaic, “would you come to greet our guests for a moment,
please.”

The young Yeshua we remembered, looking
healthy and fit, appeared from a room beyond, holding a scroll in
his hands. My jaw dropped. Over the young man’s shoulders was
draped what looked like a ram’s pelt whose fluffy down shone with
shimmering streaks of gold.

“The greeting in their language,” the Keeper
said to the youth, “is ‘hello’.”

Yeshua nodded, and, with some effort,
repeated the word ‘hello’ to us both.

“Thank you, Yeshua,” the Keeper continued in
Aramaic, “you may return to your studies.” As the youth
disappeared, the old man turned to us and added, again in English,
“He will be safe here until it is time.”

“Who are you?” I blurted out in my natural
voice.

“Simply a Keeper, Shiloh. I watch over my
world and repair that which is broken.”

I stumbled, mesmerized, “W-well, you
certainly were ours.”

Spud nodded. “Our
deus ex
machina
.”
^xxxiii

The old man smiled again.
“Et machina est universa.”
^xxxiv

Spud grinned.
“Veritas.”

I was a little slow on the uptake. Especially
in Latin. A God out of … the Universe? “Y-you’re a god?”

“No, Shiloh, there are no gods. I am simply …
a friend.”

The Keeper then extended a hand in the
Phoenician gesture of friendship. His gold ring flashed in the sun
again, and this time I was able to see the pattern on its face. A
sunflower in full bloom.

We responded in kind, and then, waving, we
walked off up the path once again, where, less than a month ago, we
had trod with trepidation. Once out of sight, I turned to Spud,
shaking my head.

“Who—or what—is he?”

Spud shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe,” he
paused, and then added with a smile, “maybe he’s … a temporal
vector shield.”

I jabbed him in the arm, and, laughing, he
ran off sprinting towards our landing site. I gave good chase, and,
as always, we arrived in a tie. Well, almost. He was a second or
two ahead of me, as always. Except, when, as always, I was a second
or two ahead of him. It gave us something other than opera to argue
about during the trip home.

Chapter 25

Home

Hollywood—present day

The surfers had come back to my beach again,
and the waves were really sick. I think that means good in surfer
slang. I’d M-fanned back to Malibu for a few hours to check my
messages, pack a few things, and close up the house until the end
of hiatus. We got the word this morning: we’d been renewed and
season two shooting was due to begin in late August. Our producer
had left me a message that the Singularity Channel had ordered
another thirteen episodes of
Bulwark
for next fall. If the
ratings stayed up, there was even a chance they’d go with a full
twenty-two for the season. Tara Guard and Larry Sioux would have
another chance to defeat the dastardly villain Mordmort after
all.

My agent had also called to let me know
they’d finally cast the movie about the girl with
disabilities—unfortunately, without me. Meryl Streep’s daughter got
the job. Gosh, you’d think playing Tara Guard would have made me a
shoo-in, IMHO. Seriously, my agent did offer me a Disney film
instead, and said I’d only have to be the shaggy dog for the middle
of the picture. I told him to send the script to Kris. I’m not
turning into an animal. On the other hand, I do have a friend named
Matshi who doesn’t mind doing that once in a while…

Matshi’s promised he’ll comm me when he
returns from M81. He, Sarion, and Sarion’s mates decided to go for
a joyride through non-Zygfed space for a few months. I figure it’ll
be a while before they run out of new places to explore and things
to do—and maybe they’ll tell me about some of their adventures when
they come back.