The Fiend (Wine of the Gods Book 13)

by Pam Uphoff

  Ajha gave him a dubious look, but left quickly. He'd need every single day of a single week to recuperate from this one.

  About the Author

  I was born and raised in California, and have lived more than half my life, now, in Texas.

  Wonderful place. I caught almost the first bachelor I met here, and we’re coming up on our thirty-fifth anniversary.

  My degree's in Geology. After working for an oil company for almost ten years as a geophysicist, I “retired” to raise children. As they grew, I added oil painting, sculpting and throwing clay, breeding horses, volunteering in libraries and for the Boy Scouts, and treasurer for a friend’s political campaign. Sometime in those busy years, I turned a love of science fiction into a part time job reading slush (Mom? Someone is paying you to read??!!)

  I've always written, published a few short stories. But now that the kids have flown the nest, I'm calling writing a full time job.

  Empire is my twelfth novel. I've also issued three collections of novellas and short stories, and published separately three other short stories.

  I'm planning to bring out at least four more books this year. Two of them are manuscripts that I've pulled out the batch making the rounds of publishers, so they should go up quickly. I've got two new books in the Wine of the Gods Universe under way. And then a third "Zoey Ivers" book in the Doors series. So I may manage to squeak in a fifth book before the end of the year.

  I need to find the time to get more books out in print, out to Kobo, Sony, B&N . . . I need to find the time to invent a time machine . . .

  Other Books by Pam Uphoff

  Wine of the Gods Series:

  Outcasts and Gods

  Exiles and Gods (Three Novellas)

  The Black Goats

  Explorers

  Spy Wars

  One Alone

  Comet Fall

  A Taste of Wine (Seven Tales)

  Dark Lady

  Growing Up Magic (Four Novellas)

  Young Warriors

  God of Assassins

  Heirs of Crown and Spear

  Empire of the One

  Dancer

  Warriors of the One

  Earth Gate (2014)

  The Lawyers of Mars

  Fancy Free

  Writing as Zoey Ivers

  YA Adventures:

  The Barton Street Gym

  Chicago

  Atlantis (2014)

  Demi God

  Excerpt from an Upcoming Release

  Earth Gate

  Pam Uphoff

  Chapter One

  1 June 3492 ce

  Nowhereistan, Earth

  "After the last three days, it's hard to believe the tow truck didn't break down."

  Jaime ignored Andy's grumbling, peering out the dust covered windows as the disabled bus wallowed through the entrance to Fort De Gualle. The Earth's Trans-dimensional Gate Complex was a small city in the middle of nowhere—halfway between the Caspian and the salt pan that used to be the Aral Sea. The military base was outside the complex proper. Flat, baking hot, and dusty.

  "I'm just glad we didn't have to march the last fifty miles." George Hardcastle was sitting right behind him, with Craig Hagood beside him. The other fifty or so soldiers on the bus were old hands.

  Craig snorted. "The tow driver didn't look any too happy to have to leave us aboard."

  Jaime sat back. "Well, we're here. Now we just have to find third platoon."

  The soldier in front of him turned to eye them. "I'm third platoon." He pointed. "See the gyps assembling? As soon as were off of this thing, we need to run for it."

  "Run?" Craig eyed his watch. "We've got three hours."

  "To load up and get to the gate. Take my advice and run."

  The tow truck stopped. The bus rocked, then dropped. Half the soldiers scrambled for the doors. The four new hands joined them, unloading the luggage in haste. All camouflage, but with enough personalization allowed to avoid having to read the tags.

  Jaime eyed the bustling soldiers and wished that he truly was just a green private straight out of basic. Wished that the United Earth Central Intelligence Agency hadn't . . . no. He was glad he'd been recruited. This was his only chance to gain citizenship, the right to call Earth his home.

  So whatever these "Comet Fall" people have, I'm going to find out all about it. Somehow.

  Jaime spotted his backpack and barrel bag and staggered off with them, following the group hustling for the gyps. The gyps were painted in desert camouflage, but otherwise the usual all terrain, multiple fuel, electric motor backup, workhorse. The ultra reliable vehicles were used by both military and civilian organizations across.

  Across. A loaded word. The technique to cross between dimensions to parallel Earths had been invented three hundred years ago . . . or possibly earlier and then lost in a nuclear war. Because extensive exploration—tens of thousands of worlds—had turned up a few inhabited by people descended from their Earth. People who's myths included exiles or colonies that had been suddenly marooned. People who spoke English, or something close.

  Like Purple. One of the few worlds that had a good trading relationship with Earth, not the more usual subjugated and exploited relationship. His parents were from there, and everyone said it was his home, even though he'd never set foot on it. So named because the ruling elite had a weird gene that tinted their skin and hair.

  Not that Jaime was a purp. His parents were just low level administrative staff at the embassy. So Jaime had been born and raised on Earth. But the people on Purple had some odd mutations, or possibly deliberate genetic engineering. And possibly psychic abilities. As did the natives of another world the Earth was very interested in. And suddenly Jaime Felis and a few of his buddies were hot property instead of second class non-citizens.

  Jamie had been plucked from school, recruited by the UECIA . Trained for this. But I still wish I was just a raw green soldier, not a raw green agent. But if I finish my hitch. Satisfy the UECIA . . . I'll be able to get into a good college, have a career. A life, not this hovering threat of being sent back to Purple, to be a second class citizen in a middle-industrial age economy that is entirely foreign to me.

  "Recruits! Form up!"

  Jamie lined up and stood at attention. Just the four of us. Teamed up in Basic and sent here as a team. Sorry guys, I think the UECIA pulled some strings and you got sent along to make me slightly less conspicuous.

  "I am Sergeant Johnson. This is Corporal Harbin. Welcome to the first squad of Platoon three. You two into the first gyp, you two into the second. We leave in five minutes. There is no slack, no catching up later. You miss the gate, you are AWOL.

  "The world we are going to is called Comet Fall, because a comet hit it a thousand years ago. Another one is due in seven months or so. The brigade been providing security for the Gate Camp and various scientists studying the world, for thirty-two years. Now some diplomats are talking to the natives. Please note that the diplomats will do all the talking. You will not. You will stay in camp. In six months we will begin evacuation of all personnel, so as you cycle back here for R&R or training, store your stuff here, not there."

  "Now, the main reason we're so interested in Comet Fall is because the Empire of the One is also there."

  The other three newbies twitched.

  "We're there to study the Oners. And the Natives, who seem to have some genetic engineering similar to the Oner's"

  Jaime knew all of this from the UECIA briefings. And more. The Natives' genetic engineering was very similar to Purple's, and like Purple's, enabled telepathy. His main coach, Mr. Hubble, had told him that there was an outside chance he could intercept their mental communications.

  They've been studying that world for thirty-two years? I can't possibly be the first Purp to get tossed this direction, can I? Or maybe it's just that I'm one of the oldest born on Earth, that didn't actually have purple hair. The first one the UECIA trusts.

  I wonder . . . if I can tap
the Native telepathy, can I also tap the Oners'? Now that could be really interesting.

  It was all guesses, and only one way to find out. So here he was, Private Felis hopping on a gyp to ride into this whirling tornado of light. He shot a glance at the rest of the squad. They were relaxed, not even looking at the maelstrom they were about to drive into. Jaime swapped glances with Andy Menke who was trying to subdue a grin. Jaime tried to pretend indifference and stare the floor of the Gyp. The sergeant snorted. "You pukes aren't convincing us at all, just gawp and get it out of your system. You'll be plenty bored by the time you leave."

  The line of vehicles started moving. The tanker of fuel, the trucks loaded with ammo and chow—mostly chow, there apparently hadn't been a shot fired since the disastrous encounter his intel instructors had tried to euphemize into something other than the complete defeat the Army orientation had bluntly called it. The vids had been . . . interesting.

  His gyp reached the edge of the whirlpool and drove in as if the driver was blind. He was twisted and wrung and spit out the far side, screaming.

  He shut his mouth abruptly as the rest of the squad looked at him.

  "Felis, this is not a thrill ride, and you are supposed to be old enough to not scream even on a rollercoaster."

  "Yes, Sergeant." Great start. Impress the squad.

  Comet Fall Camp was pretty straightforward. Fuel tank, water tank, motor pool and mechanics to the left, three rows of the common expandable box buildings to the right. Housing and offices, no doubt.

  The outgoing troops whipped by them and were eaten by the whirlpool.

  They all fell to, offloading their gear in front of their assigned box.

  Two of the three platoons of the company were always on this side of the gate. Two weeks out of six, they'd be rotated back across the gate for leave and training. Corporal Harbin assigned cubicles. The four newcomers got the cubicles nearest the latrine. No doubt he would get to clean it really soon. At least he hoped so. It smelled much too bad to sleep next to. The departing troops had left them a few presents.

  His wish was instantly granted, and with a bit of work to get the disassembled toilets operational and application of elbow grease, and, the box was fit for habitation.

  He racked his gear quickly and exactly as he'd been drilled in boot camp, and turned out promptly for his first duty station inspection.

  Captain Orobona obviously had full confidence in his troops, and it was more of a parade of officers so the new troops would recognize them without rank markings. Jaime took note of them all, especially the HQ type officers, creatures often rumored to be touchy about their rank. Not that there were many. The company was a bit thin, the duty station not requiring, not allowing, much movement, so they were light on vehicles and the associated maintenance people, and got by with a minimum of paper pushers on this side of the gate.

  Cycling people out as they did, Jaime figured they must have right about a hundred men on the ground. And women, although not many. He eyed them sidelong. After he'd been tapped by the Intel types, they'd transferred him to an "exclusive prep school." He'd attended, boarded there, since he turned fifteen, and they had segregated the male and female students.

  The whole school had been run by the government for various purposes. Most of the staff had been male, and all of them had been interested in finding out what odd capabilities he and his fellow students had. It had quickly become obvious that the school had been set up for, and actively recruited kids with genetic engineering. Apparently an effort to understand the potential of the engineered genes.

  About half the students had been from Purple, a few from other worlds including a few half breed bastards from here, in the younger cohort. And apparently the project didn't want any more halfbreeds; they hadn't been allowed to stray into the girl's part of the school. So boot camp had been his first experience with women about his own age and cluelessness. He'd actually managed to talk to several of them.

  Sergeant Johnson, with four raw recruits to his tally, marched them out and around the perimeter of the camp, and had them all stop and get an eyeful of the Natives' building.

  Jaime blinked in consternation at the absurd thing. Carved marble columns and curlicues all over the lintels, "Bank of the West" was engraved over the entrance. It sat in splendid isolation, a green manicured lawn around it, and a few low shrubberies. A stepping stone path down to where they stood, but no other paths, let alone roads, in sight. There was nothing else there. Period.

  "Do they come and go from the other side, Sergeant?" Sean Hardcastle looked eager. "Is there a village . . . " He frowned at the building. "Town, I suppose . . . "

  "No, they have their own sort of gates. And some of them can just . . . disappear whenever they wish. The bank there, the whole building, just appeared out of nowhere, one day." He swept a beady eye over their ranks. "You'd best be prepared to get really bored keeping an eye on these Natives. Except when they scare the shit out of you. And you aren't going to get close to their women, either."

  A giggle drew all their eyes up to the building. Three very attractive women walked out the front door and down the path.

  "Sergeant Johnson, welcome back. I see you have some new people, aren't you going to introduce us?" The blonde in the lead grinned at the sergeant. "Come back later and tell us how your vacation went!"

  The younger blonde waved her fingers and the redhead took a deep, chest-expanding breath.

  Jaime got his mouth shut and swallowed drool.

  The Sergeant turned his back on the women, and glared at the recruits. "Those are witches. There are also people who call themselves mages, wizards and gods. You will stay away from them all. Fortunately they rotate through too, so there aren't very many at once, and these particular damned women will be gone soon." He chivvied them off to walk the perimeter of the camp. Ignoring the giggles behind them.

  On the theory that they should familiarize themselves with the area, they had afternoon duty the first week. The older hands assured him that he'd soon be grateful for the opportunity to get out of camp, even if their orders were to lay in the long grass beyond the lawn and pretend to be invisible to the women who stepped out to wave at them occasionally.

  The second week, on night duty, Jaime found himself with the additional handicap of trying to not fall asleep, sliding into flashes of familiar dreams. Naked. Or drowning in a fish aquarium, with bubbles all around him. Final exams for a class he'd forgotten he'd registered for. The government teachers had always made them write down their dreams. And never told them what the meant or indicated. Probably that he needed more sleep . . .

  The first time he nearly nodded off, the sergeant kicked him. The second time a witch kissed him. Hard to tell which approach worked best. The third night he managed fine, on the fourth the witch was back. He retreated and she giggled her way back inside.

  A growl from the sergeant. "You're new meat, Felis. They'll enjoy playing with you, but if I understand their rotations, they'll be leaving in two more days."

  Jaime nodded gratefully, and settled down in a new position as the sergeant walked on.

  "When you're off duty, just walk south out of camp." Her soft voice was alluring. "I'll find you."