The Zygan Emprise: Renegade Paladins and Abyssal Redemption (50 page)

We didn’t argue. Sleep would be a blessing—I
prayed the Sandman wouldn’t betray me this time and shrink in
horror from my guilt-stained door.

Chapter 15

Less is More

Nea Athina—alternate present day

I did manage to fall asleep sometime before
midnight. Mr. Sandman toyed with me, after all, as my
dreams—nightmares--were of my missing family and our
no-longer-existent Maryland home. Waking up at dawn was a relief. I
could consciously choose to think of something else, if only for a
moment.

After eating a quick breakfast of steamed
vegetables wrapped in a corn tortilla, we set off for the train
that would lead us to the environs of the mysterious Mr. Moore.

Our stop was in an unassuming section of
town, where the crumbling one-storey structures were built of brick
rather than precious stones. I somehow expected to see trash on the
streets and graffiti on the walls, but the neighborhood did have an
air of neatness in its privation.

We walked for about thirty minutes as we had
been directed. Spud studied his disc periodically, reassuring us
that we were on course, before stopping and signaling us to follow
him down a deserted alley between two three-storey ramshackle
apartment buildings and down a short flight of stairs to a rotting
wood door. The Intercourse lady was right—this sure wasn’t the
‘high rent district’.

The doorbell didn’t seem to function, so Spud
knocked several times. No answer. There were no windows near the
door or on the ground level, so we had no choice but to wait and
knock again.

An old woman stuck her head out of a
neighboring window, looked us up and down with an expression of
distaste, then ducked back into her house, slamming the glass shut
on the sill. Friendly folk, here.

We were almost ready to give up when we heard
a creak. Then another. Then another. The door had opened just
enough so that, standing sideways, we could slide inside. We
did.

The hall we entered was dim and narrow. A
faint scent of urine wafted from the walls, as a rat (definitely
not of Chidurian ethnicity) scurried across our path. Awesome. We
didn’t see any humans. We kept walking.

Another door at the end of the hall opened as
we arrived. We entered a smaller room, the size of a closet, and
jumped as the door slammed shut behind us.

“If we end up in Earth Core…” I half-joked,
seconds before the elevator closet began to move. Only this lift
didn’t drop down at stomach sickening speeds. It moved slowly up
about a hundred feet, enough so that we should have been hovering
over the neighborhood in thin air.

A side wall dissolved to reveal another
hallway, and the smell of barbecued meat reached our nostrils. We
followed the corridor, though I did worry about what type of meat
was being roasted in this vegetarian society, and hoped it wasn’t
human.

This hallway was brightly lit and curved. As
we rounded the non-corner, we saw before us a sunlit patio framed
in colorful flowers. A landscaped pool, fed by a small fountain,
trickled clear water next to, yes, an actual barbecue, complete
with sizzling burgers and spiraling smoke. Flipping the burgers,
his back to us, was a medium-sized, middle-aged, slightly chubby
man with dark and grey curly hair covering the striped collar under
his patched-sleeve olive sweater.

“Welcome, Visitors,” he said in English.
American English. “Lunch’ll be ready in a few minutes. There’s beer
and wine in the fridge at the bar, for those that enjoy those
beverages.” There was a strong hint of New York in his accent, and
of academician in his mien.

John grinned as broadly as I’d seen him since
his rescue and dove into the refrigerator for a cold beer. He
offered a bottle to Spud who declined with a sour expression. Spud
shook his head at the Riesling John pulled out, too. “I prefer my
wine red, at room temperature, and French,” was his only
comment.

“I’ll take a beer,” I offered, and caught the
bottle John tossed me. At eighteen, I was well above the Zygan
drinking age, and possibly the local one, too. Hadn’t seen any
alcohol anywhere in this USA, so it was a good bet the party laws
here were either draconian or spirits—the liquid kind—were
non-existent.

Our host transferred the well-done hamburgers
onto a platter of buns with his spatula and turned to face us,
holding out the tray. From the front, his receding curly hairline
was framed by more salt and pepper hair, and his twinkling,
intelligent eyes peeked out from behind his black tortoise-shell
glasses. His broad grin was bookended by the weirdest sideburns I’d
ever seen; bushy, they extended all the way to his jawline and made
him look like a cross between a professor and an 18
^th
century sea captain.

“Muttonchops,” Spud informed me, catching me
staring. To our host: Lester Samuel Moore, I presume.”

“Half right. Yes, call me Les, and no,
they’re genuinely beefy,” our host said, winking at me and Spud.
Was he joking about the sideburns or the meat? He set the platter
on a wooden table behind us that offered ketchup and mustard,
plates, cups, and bowls of potato salad and cole slaw; and waved
for us to join him. “Buns on the table, buns on the bench!”

We sat. I wished I hadn’t seen the musical
Sweeney Todd, Demon Barber of Fleet Street the last time I was in
London, in which a vengeful stylist murders his clients and
provides his landlady with their ground meat as the “essence” of
her tasty meat pies. I still couldn’t get rid of the fear that we’d
be Mr. Moore’s next course.

John didn’t bother with polite reticence. “I
don’t care if it’s beef or mutton. I am so hungry,” he enthused,
building a triple burger and taking a bite. “Even my dreams are
carnivorous.”

My own appetite, however, was dampened by my
waves of sadness. Since I’d learned about the effects of my
Somalderis ‘loan’ on my world and my family, my own dreams had
dined voraciously on my conscience and my heart. My momentary hope
that the effects wouldn’t be so dire had been dashed after our
excursion yesterday. I could only pray that we could find a way to
return things back to the way they were—even if it meant a long
sentence in Omega Archon stir.

“So where’s the beef…from?” John swallowed
the bite he’d stuffed into his mouth. “Didn’t see any cows along
the way here.”

“Of course not,” Moore said as he helped
himself to potato salad. “Do you know how much methane dairy farms
spew into the atmosphere?” Before Spud could answer, he leaned
towards me with eyes twinkling and patted my hand, “Don’t worry,
dear, I don’t bite without permission.” To Spud: “I see no reason
not to use a synthesizer.”

Spud’s eyebrows betrayed his surprise. “You
have a synthesizer? Didn’t see anything about synthesizers in the
historical records of this USA.”

Moore chuckled. “The Utopians weren’t driven
to develop one. They found a different solution. Planetary
symbiosis. A balanced, self-sustaining system. Works for them. A
little too restrictive for me.” He patted his pot belly.

John whistled. “Whoa. Lot of stuff you just
threw at us there.” He wiped some coleslaw off his chin with a
napkin. “So, you’re an alien.”

“Alien
ist
, actually,” Moore returned.
“I research a breadth of civilizations and their evolution. Or
regression. The universe is an infinite laboratory for us
scientists of life, as my buddy Mel used to say, as long as we can
maintain our grant funding.”

“Mel!” I gagged. “You don’t mean Plegma Mel?”
I looked at Spud, who was equally astonished.

“The Plegma? So
that’s
where he went
off to,” said Moore, finishing his burger. “Personally, I find the
Synephs too stuffy for my taste. No sense of humor.”

Nephil Stratum had a sense—

“Okay,” John raised a hand, “you’re telling
us you’re from,” he hesitated, “somewhere more than Earth. Like the
Zygan Federation. And if it’s the Zygan Federation, and you’re
using their technology,” he waved a hand around the patio, “how
come our Ergals don’t work?”

“No, not the Zygan Federation, exactly.”
Moore responded cryptically. He shrugged, “If I had to guess why
they’re not working, I’d say interference. Each Zygan Ergal is
tuned to its owner. Your Ergal,” Moore pointed first to John, then
to me, “became her Ergal when you hopped over to Limbo Land for
your buddy Benedict. Now with you both here, the two tunes could be
canceling each other out.”

“Then why wouldn’t his be working?” John
nodded at Spud.

“How do you know so much about us?” Spud
interjected, his voice louder than usual.

“The answer to both questions is actually the
same. I’m assuming you don’t want the technical details to disrupt
your lunch. How about I show you the big picture after dessert.”
Moore opened a small refrigerator by his feet and pulled out an ice
bucket. “Ice cream, anyone?”

* * *

Lester Samuel Moore’s home—alternate present
day

His gait verging on a waddle, Moore led his
satiated guests into his small cottage beyond the patio where we’d
enjoyed our hearty lunch. Once inside, the cottage had somehow
transformed itself into an enormous hall, filled with monitoring
equipment. “Um, why didn’t we see all this from the outside?” I
asked, scanning the vast array of holo screens before us. The
room’s size almost made Zygint Central Communications Center look
like a closet, and extended far beyond, and above, the boundaries
of the dumpy three-storey building we had entered. “Shouldn’t we be
hovering somewhere all the way over by the train station by
now?”

Moore put his chubby arm over my shoulders
and flashed me a voracious smile. “Time and space are not
constants, my dear, as we know from our uploads.”

I managed to extricate myself and sidle over
towards John.

“You are a catascope,” Spud deduced, his
voice untypically tentative.

Moore laughed, “Hardly. Come, I’ll
demonstrate.”

We walked through, literally through, a maze
of holoscreens and stopped next to a small screen that was
displaying—us. Yesterday. In Maryland, in shock.

“You needed to see your reality for
yourself,” Moore whispered as we saw a 3D holo replay of our visit
to what used to be my family’s farm. “I gave you a day to do
so.”

“You’re a Helianthos!” boomed John.
“Damn!”

More laughter. “Interesting juxtaposition
there if I were, Rush, but no.” He raised up both ringless hands
and wagged them. “Look, Ma, no sunflowers.”

Sunflowers? The penny dropped. Hard. Of
course, the sunflower people! Like the soldiers that’d told us John
was missing, like the old Keeper of the Temple of Eshmoun, like
Wart. The masters of meta, always popping in to guide our way. Our
guardian angels. All of them had sported sunflowers. And the
Hellenic word for sunflowers was Helianthi. Damn.

Chapter 16

Roundabout

John was bursting with questions for Lester
Samuel Moore. Spud for once opted to withdraw and study Moore and
his holos through narrowed eyes. As for me, I didn’t much care who
Moore was, or how he got his “powers”. All I wanted to know was,
could he help us get our family back?

“Cigar?” Moore extended a colorful box. Its
torn seal was stamped with Greek lettering reading TAINO.

John reached in and pulled out a stogie. Spud
didn’t resist for long either, mumbling something about “nicotine
withdrawal”.

I took Spud’s place off in the corner of the
room as the three men smoked. Never could stand the smell of
tobacco, and cigars were the absolute worst.

Moore puffed and pontificated like a
proverbial professor with a rapt audience of students. Pondering
Spud’s query, he suggested that Spud’s non-functioning Ergal could
be due to the absence of Zygan Federation activity in this sector
of the galaxy; there was no reason to sync up Ergals around a
non-Zygan planet like Earth. “They sail through here once in a
while, but this planet of pacifists really has nothing to offer the
Empire—I mean Federation—until they develop hyperdrive.”

“Then why are you here?” John returned.

“I am not only a scientist, but a man of
means. One might even say I’m a philosopher,” Moore said after
considering the question. “This stream presents some interesting
currents for exploration.”

“Stream as in string?” asked Spud.

“String theory and multiple branes,”
elaborated John unnecessarily.

“Imaginative, but inaccurate,” Moore
chuckled. “Personally, I prefer Ptolemy’s idea that the Earth is
the center of the universe and the stars are holes in the sky
letting through the lights of heaven.”

I could see John getting irritated. “Look,
we’re just trying to find some solutions to our problems here. If
you’ve got them, don’t yank our chains.”

Moore raised a bushy eyebrow. “Over my years
of study, I have come up with some answers, but my years of wisdom
have taught me to hope I never ever have them all.” He gazed
directly at my brother and smiled. “Something for you to
consider.”

John looked ready to erupt, so I interrupted,
“Mr. Moore?”

“Les.”

“Les. You know my family’s g-gone.” I took a
deep breath. “Is there anything I can do to bring them back?”

His expression softened; I saw a hint of
tenderness. “The time-space continuum is a misnomer,” he began.
“It’s really a time-space
circumference
.”

Waving the hand holding his smoking cigar, he
drew our attention to another holo screen on his left. On display
was a children’s playground, with swing, slides, and a simple
merry-go-round inhabited by running, jumping, and giggling kids.
The children’s laughter was contagious; even Spud allowed himself a
smile. “Wish I could ride them at my age,” Moore sighed, patting
his prominent belly again. “Not as fit as I used to be.”