The Zygan Emprise: Renegade Paladins and Abyssal Redemption (37 page)

“What the hell?” I shouted as I keyboarded
instructions to turn on auxiliary power.

Spud’s face was lit only by the light from
the nebula surrounding us. Irritation? Anger?

Our vessel’s systems refused to respond. No
holos, no nav, no juice. Spud’s expression? Definitely anger.

We sped along by inertia, or was it a tractor
beam? We actually seemed to be accelerating—I felt the weight of
the Gs heavy on my chest now that our ship’s grav monitors couldn’t
counteract the increasing forces. If we didn’t slow down soon, it’d
be very hard for us to breathe.

I started to hear Spud wheezing in the jump
seat next to mine. I’d warned him about those darn cigarettes. But,
I wasn’t doing much better myself—each breath required all my
muscle strength to move my ribs and diaphragm. Yet we continued to
go faster and faster.

Just when the lightheadedness had enveloped
my consciousness and I had reached what I feared was my last gasp,
our ship tumbled to a rapid stop. Spud and I both sat up in our
seats, enjoying a few moments of luxurious oxygen exchange before
either of us could speak.

“What a ride!” I croaked, as I, back on
alert, scanned the windscreens to see if I could make out any
structures among the colorful clouds.

Spud’s tone was all business. “Keep your stun
gun handy. I expect a welcoming party that may be less than
welcoming.”

He had barely finished his sentence when our
ship’s lights came on, and we saw we were surrounded by our wispy
hosts
inside our vessel
. I didn’t bother with my stun gun.
Actually, I couldn’t. Somehow, we’d been stunned immobile by the
Synephs and couldn’t move any of our limbs. Their fog thickened
around each of us, and I could no longer see Spud who should be
only a few feet away from me. I hoped.

In a few minutes, the fog started to
disperse. Yay. Spud
was
sitting at my side. In a chair. A
wooden, polished, fancy, plush chair.

“Louis Quatorze,” Spud said inexplicably as
we gazed around a room that resembled a Victorian salon. The
fireplace nearby crackled and sparked as the flames warmed our
chilly feet. Misty, damp, and cold. Spud, you should feel right at
home.

On the divan opposite our couch sat a small,
pale, bespectacled man, whose white hairline had receded back to
his occiput. He smiled at us with full, thick lips.

I returned the smile as I tried to move my
legs and shift in my seat. Good, I was un-stunned, unfrozen. Now to
get to my Ergal.

“Welcome, travelers,” said the small man.
Unusual accent. Couldn’t quite place it, but it almost sounded like
it came from Earth.

“I am Mel,” the man continued. Definitely
Earth. “Your liaison. I will arrange for your schema.”

Huh? I looked at Spud, whose brow had its
“puzzled” furrow. Good. I hate being the only one confused.

“Hey, Mel,” I dived in, stalling, allowing my
fingers to creep towards my pocket—where was my Ergal? “Thanks for
the offer. What kind of a Syneph is a Schema?” Damn, they took our
Ergals.

The little man seemed perplexed. “I don’t
understand. A schema is not a Syneph. It is a Gestalt.” He
pronounced the archaic word with a “sh” in the middle. German?

“It will be your world. I will arrange it,”
he insisted. “You will find everything you seek.” Mel waved an arm
and the lights came on in the formal dining room beyond where we
sat.

My jaw dropped. Twenty feet from me, sitting
at a long, lavishly appointed table, vividly real, were my brothers
and sisters. George, the law clerk, Connie, a student teacher, her
engagement ring sparkling from a sunbeam, Andi, with her long
flowing auburn locks, sketching the scene. Bobby and Billy,
toggling handheld holos in a video game match. Kris, eyeing her
reflection in the casserole dish. Blair, facing me, deep in
conversation with a massive man, whose gray-haired locks were bound
in a—my God—it’s Grandpa Alexander! Alive!

Seven years since I’d last seen his generous
smile. Seven long years since his bulky arms had comforted me with
sturdy hugs. When he’d passed away, the task of keeping us safe had
fallen to John; and John’s wings, despite his best intentions, were
much more fragile than Grandpa Alexander’s.

My eyes narrowed. Who was that woman with the
red hair sitting next to Grandpa? She looked somehow familiar. I’d
seen her before, but-- Oh, my God! There, at the farthest end of
the table was John! John! Looking healthy and strong, laughing and
glowing as he always did when relating his latest adventures. John.
Here!

I jumped onto my feet, once again unable to
breathe. Could this be where John was imprisoned? In the Plegma?
“John!” I cried as I launched forward.

And couldn’t move. The dining room plunged
into darkness, and, instantly, my family was gone. I stood frozen,
blinking back tears, until I heard the whispered “Maman” and turned
to see Spud standing next to me, pale, jaw clenched, locking in a
moan.

Mel chimed in brightly. “There now. You see.
All is as it was--and as it could be. You will be king of a world
entirely built of your paramount hopes and dreams. Shall I prepare
your rooms?”

“You mean our Bastille,” Spud snorted, his
voice hoarse. “You have shown us nothing but a fantasy. And fantasy
sans reality is but a prison.”

“No, not a prison, Escott. Paradise.”

Spud shook his head. “Then your paradise is a
prison. A cocoon that swaddles those without the courage to fly
beyond its fetters. You may keep your luxuriant indentured
servitude, Mel. I, for one, should rather ‘rule in Hell,’” he
averred, grabbing my arm and pulling me towards the door behind
us.

Mel stood up slowly, his voice weary. “And I
should not be so sure that you are not doing so already.”

Before I could ask Spud what Mel’s remarks
meant, Spud had run to the door and, after a moment’s hesitation,
leapt off the doorjamb onto a fluffy cloud which hovered
conveniently below the floating suite. He gestured for me to
follow. I took a quick look around. Aside from the room itself,
where Mel was now standing, observing us with a curious mien, I
could see nothing but the resplendent Plegma around us, bordered by
scattered pink streaks below. Feeling naked without my Ergal, I
decided to follow Spud’s lead, and jumped.

The soft cloud, with us both riding bareback,
sped away from the suite as soon as I’d landed. “I’m almost afraid
to ask this question,” I whispered to Spud, “but how are we
breathing? Outside of that room up there?” I nodded at the receding
box from which we’d fled.

“Oxygen-nitrogen environmental capsules
surround you. They should be quite effective.” The voice answering
me wasn’t Spud’s.

“Who?” We both looked around.

“Me. Down here. Alto Stratum.” The cloud we
were riding on spoke again. “I’ve gotten an urgent message to get
you two out of here. I’m taking you back to your ship. We have to
hurry.”

“Wait,” I said. “From who?”

“Whom,” Spud had to interject.

“I know why you’re here,” Alto Stratum
continued. “But none of us can help you. I mean with the transport
to another brane thing.”

“Cirra Stratum told you?”

“Not exactly. If she finds out where you are,
well let’s just say that all three of us will be molecularly
dispersed into M81 space. Bad enough her protégé escaped her
clutches.”

“Protégé?” Spud interrupted again. “Nephil
Stratum?”

“Here you go.” Alto Stratum pointed a tuft at
our Zoom Cruiser that had just appeared in the mist. “Climb inside
and you’ll find your Ergals. I’ll swallow up the ship and tow you
to the Plegma’s border. After that, get out of Dodge. Fast.”

“Wait,” I repeated as we stepped off the
cloud and into our vessel. “You didn’t answer Spud’s question.”

Alto Stratum’s wisps felt warm as he reached
over to close our gull-wing doors. I heard “He knows the answer” as
the doors clicked shut.

* * *

I hadn’t expected the return trip to the
Plegma’s rim to be as heart-stopping as our tractored entry. I’m an
experienced Zygan pilot, but being a passive passenger while my
dimly-lit ship, its nav holo dead in the water, was being steered
by the cloud that fogged up all my windscreens was enough to set my
nerves on edge. Well, at least the lack of scenery “outside” gave
me time to think about Alto Stratum’s clues.

My mind started racing faster than our ship.
Who else might be in Alto Stratum’s helpful “us”? Were he and
Nephil Stratum part of some underground movement working
against…against…who? Whom. Cirra Stratum? The Omega Archon? And,
could Nephil Stratum actually have the ability to communicate from
another brane with Synephs in the Plegma? Maybe. Wart, as
Agriarctos, had sent us that comm module from Benedict’s planet
ship in the brane beyond, hadn’t he? Nephil Stratum’s
communications skills far, far exceeded Wart’s. If Nephil Stratum
was contacting friends and allies to help us out, then perhaps she
was playing Wart’s game, undercover agent, rather than Benedict’s,
Zygfed traitor.

That thought gave me a warm burst of joy,
quickly snuffed out by the aggressive worry that Cirra Stratum or
that creepy Mel were behind all this theatre and had arranged to
dispose of us in the depths of the Plegma. Whoever had put Alto
Stratum up to “rescuing” us may instead be expecting us to be led
blindly to our slaughter.

Spud must have been thinking the same
thoughts, because we both reached for our Ergals at the same time.
Sitting on the dashboard of the Zoom Cruiser, my Ergal was still in
the form of a smart phone. I tapped on the black screen, and waited
for access to the Zygan data banks. Nothing happened. My Ergal too
was dead.

“Navigation.” Spud said as he shook his
stopwatch-shaped Ergal. I heard him snort in disgust. Our Ergals
didn’t even shine us a flicker of light. Were we trapped in an
E-shield that drained all our power? Locked inside our drifting
ship without any nav controls we were literally powerless to
protect ourselves from attack or termination. Riding towards an
unknown destination on the fumes of faith.

Then, darkness.

We must have both blacked out from the G
forces as Alto Stratum ejected us from the Plegma. By the time I
regained consciousness, the Zoom Cruiser’s control panels showed
that power had been up for 4.37 minutes. And the border of the
Milky Way was only 2.41 minutes ahead.

I put nav on auto-pilot right after we
cleared the Gliesers and sat back in my jump seat with a loud sigh.
Once more, empty-handed. I muttered, “Curses, foiled again.”

“We are alive and free. That is a cause for
gratitude.” Spud grunted as he stretched his long arms and
legs.

“Not if you buy all that prison stuff that
weird guy Mel and you were talking about. You’re the one studying
literature and philosophy in that Gothic mausoleum of a high
school. You think he meant to imply we’re really living in
Hell?”

Spud didn’t answer immediately. “Many have
likened our lives as analogous to Purgatory,” he finally began.
“Others have written that heaven and hell exist on Earth. I prefer
to ponder the wisdom in the Chinese proverb, that the only man
unhappier than the man who has not been able to satisfy all his
wants is the man who has.”

Huh. Not bad. I needed to ponder that one a
bit myself.

Chapter 3

The Greatest Story Never Told

Zygan Federation Space—present day

I decided not to try Zygint Central again.
Juan had already done all he could for us, and appealing higher up
to the Omega Archon would be futile. Travel to another dimension
wasn’t legal in the Zygfed rulebook. Except for Level 3, of course,
to which Zygans usually transitioned after a lifespan of thousands
of years (unless one was killed sooner in the line of duty as a
Zygint catascope or Sentinel Corpsman). As suicide would bar one
from Level 3 forever, I, just eighteen, had a long way to go before
I’d be getting an invitation to heaven. Knock wood.

But we were still back at square one. The
clock was ticking and we were no closer to rescuing John. If I
couldn’t get a Syneph to act as a Somalderis and help us into
another dimension, I had to find another Golden Fleece to do it. I
wished myself luck. I’d drop off Spud at Eton and head to Earth
Core and bury myself in the historical holo files in the Terran
archives. Starting at A for Argonauts.

“You would do better to let me assist you in
the search,” Spud said as I leaned over to instruct nav to take us
back to Victorian England. “Else you waste precious time seeking
the mythical Jason.”

“Bollocks.” I tried not to admit he read me
again. “Based on Wart’s comment that he’d seen it in Colchis, John
apparently had Jason’s Golden Fleece, anyway. The one John took
over to the other brane.” And never brought back…

Spud leaned back in his jump seat and lit up
a cigarette. “Which leads me to wonder from whence Yeshua got
his
Somalderis. Perhaps there is only one Golden Fleece,” he
added, blowing rings at the Zoom Cruiser’s roof with the smoke.

My frustration got the better of me. “Must
you? Really?”

“It helps me think. Would you prefer I Ergal
myself some nicotine gum?”

I rolled my eyes. “I can live with the death
sticks. I’m talking about your theory. Its implications. With the
Synephs out of the picture, if there’s only one Golden Fleece, it
means my only option to rescue John is to find Yeshua and get his
Fleece.” Through gritted teeth. “Which he or the old Keeper would
then have to have stolen from my brother.”

“Not an illogical supposition, Rush. Which
presents more questions than it answers.” Spud tamped out the
cigarette on the Zoom Cruiser’s titanium door and X-fanned the stub
with his Ergal. “The only way then to prove that there is more than
one Fleece is to find a second.”