by Jean Kilczer
I glanced from one solemn face to the other.
Joe sat back with a sigh. “They're tracking you,” he told me.
“Who's…Rowdinth?” I glanced around. “How?”
Joe stared at me, his lips pressed, and seemed older.
“I'll tell him, Joe,” Chancey said. “They're tracking you with a device that was implanted under your scalp while you were anesthetized in the parking lot.”
“What?” I asked numbly.
“I said – “Chancey started.
“I heard what you said. All this time?” I looked around the table. “And none of you had the balls to tell me?”
“It's not that simple, Jules,” Shelley said. “It's more than just a tracking device. It's….” She glanced at Joe.
The miserable coffee, the stale sandwich, played tag in my stomach. I wasn't certain I wanted to hear the rest. I touched the scab behind my ear. “What more?”
“It's a nuclear device,” Joe said.
Suddenly I felt nauseated. I couldn't find the breath to form words. “How…how will it…I mean, when will it go off?”
Huff sobbed and wiped his eyes. “When Rowdinth pushes the red button.”
I gripped the table edge and felt too weak to stand up and smash Huff across his face. “Why didn't one of you tell me? Is this another calculated move in your chess game, Joe? I had a right to know.” I stood up unsteadily.
“Where are you going?” Joe asked and nodded at Chancey.
Chancey kicked back his chair and stood up.
“The medical center,” I said. “They'll cut it out for me.” I put a hand to my throat and swayed. I can't remember ever feeling so vulnerable. “Why didn't you tell me?” I asked them again, feeling more betrayed than angry. I turned to leave.
Chancey came around the table and gripped my arm. “Sit down, Jules. The surgeons can't help you.” He pushed me into the chair.
I stared up at him.
“I'm sorry,” Joe said. “If they try to remove it….” He rubbed his lips, as though he didn't want to say the words. “It will detonate.”
I stared at nothing and attempted to slow my breathing, but I couldn't stop trembling. “You helped them do this to me, didn't you, Huff?”
“I,” he whined. “I. Yes!”
“I'll kill you!” I leaped at him, but Chancey got between us and held me back.
“Leave the tag alone,” Chancey said. “He didn't know what they were up to.”
I slumped back into the chair.
“Listen to me, Jules,” I heard Joe say. But it was as though they were all in another room, and I were alone.
A lunatic held my life in his hands.
“Jules!” Joe demanded. “Stay with me and listen.”
“What am I going to do?” I whispered. “Joe? Get me on a starship to Alpha. Rowdinth can't reach me from Alpha.”
“You can't do that.” Shelley leaned forward. “You see, if you had boarded that starship you planned to take, the device would have detected the change in air pressure and, it would have detonated.”
I tried to lick my lips but they were too dry. “Joe? C'mon, Joe, you always have the answers.”
He shook his head. “Not this time, kid.”
His words echoed down the halls of my mind. Not this time.
Chapter Twelve
I felt exhausted, but I couldn't sleep. When had I last slept? Oh, yeah. The nap on the sofa in my rented hotel room. What sweet innocence. To sleep. Somewhere beneath the tumult in my stomach, I was hungry. But I'd never be able to hold down food.
I looked at my four companions, asleep in Joe's rented hovair camper, with all the amenities of a home except peace and security.
With dawn I would take my companions to the tunnel entrance. Of course I might not make it there myself, so I had drawn them a map from the mental one I'd made in the tunnels. In fact, Joe decided that it would be better if I didn't enter the tunnel system at all, in case Rowdinth was awaiting just such a move so he could push the button and bring the whole warren, including the cavern of the little people, down on our heads. I sighed and thought of Rowdinth saying, “Checkmate, Terrans.”
I stared at the galaxy-rise through the camper window. Ah, Willa. Which star, my love?
I've never prayed. I always felt that Great Mind might be a pretty busy tag without listening to my personal whims and cares. I rubbed my eyes. “If it's not too much trouble,” I began, “and if you care about such things, and if you have a little extra time between creating star systems from nebulae, do you think that when I am gone from this mortal coil and my kwaii is seeking a new coil to give me angst, you might reunite me with my lost love, my Willa, no matter the body form? Just a small thought in your Great Mind. By the way, it's Jules Rammis, Terran, of planet Earth.”
Morning dawned drizzly. The sand below the small single-person hovair that Joe had rented for me was dappled with rain. “The lead ship,” he called it. The pariah, I knew myself to be. Not safe for anyone to come near.
The sea, that mirror of the weather's moods, reflected a fish-belly gray sky after last night's storm. We stayed in ground mode in case Rowdinth's Guards were still patrolling the skies in an attempt to find me. I led Joe and the team through the forest to the great-boled tree that was the entrance to the tunnels and the dead-end to the lab.
I don't have the best sense of direction in the worlds, but where the hell was the tree? I circled the area and Joe held back in the camper and waited. I could picture him saying “He's lost again.”
“Oh no!”
I stopped near the broken fragments of a massive trunk that lay half buried in sand. Sharp roots jutted from the ground. Blackened branches lay strewn around the exposed roots. Where the hatch to the tunnels had been, a ragged hole in the earth. And something else. What were those forms in the sand?
“Christ and Buddha,” I whispered.
I drove toward the forms and Joe followed.
“Oh, no!”
Eight small bodies lay half covered by sand. By their dark beards, I knew they were all young males. Defenders of the people. Here we fell, obedient to their law, I thought.
I got out of the vehicle and walked back to the shattered tree. Joe and the others met me there.
The ground was collapsed in deep, narrow ravines that followed the paths of the tunnels. I wondered about the cavern-home itself.
I felt overwhelmed with sorrow and didn't speak.
“I suspect that Rowdinth discovered the tunnel to the lab,” Joe said softly. “How large was the…is the community in the cavern?”
“About a hundred dwarfs and maybe twenty five or so average-sized children and adults. I wonder if the rest of them are trapped in there?”
Shannon? I reached out for a tel link, but encountered emptiness. I scanned and felt the cold silence of a home that had once encompassed the joys and tragedies of life, but now lay sterile.
“We'll investigate further,” Joe said. “I want you to leave the area, just in case Rowdinth is tracking you. I'm in touch with W-CIA. They're conferencing right now to decide the best course to resolve this threat, now that we know here the lab is located.”
“I'm pretty certain the dwarfs are gone, Joe. I couldn't get a tel link. Unless….”
“Unless they're all dead,” he answered.
With the knowledge of the lab's location, he no longer needed me as a sacrificial lamb. “You can't protect me from him, Joe. We both know that. If you follow the collapsed tunnels, you should find the lab with your copy of the map.”
“That's what we intend to do,” he said. The fact that you're still…that Rowdinth hasn't pushed the button, tells me he still intends to use your tel powers against us. We can't allow that to happen, Jules.”
“For Christ's sake, Joe, is that a threat?”
“Rowdinth doesn't know about the agents on Fartherland. I intend to keep it that way. I contacted Will Kaiser, head of engineering. He said your best bet is to hide out deep inside a gold
mine. It's just possible that the detonator's signal would be blocked. That's an order. And for once in your life, will you follow it!”
“Sure.”
“My Terran Jules,” Huff said, “may I come with where you are going?”
“No, Huff,” I said. “You wouldn't like it under the roof of a mine. Stay with the team.”
The dismal day seeped into my soul as I returned to my small hovair and drove along the maze of fallen tunnels. It came to the dead end and the smooth ground that must be over the roof of the lab.
I left the craft parked beneath a grove of trees, hoping that Joe and the team wouldn't see it there. Let him think I was heading for the mines.
My ankle was improving, I realized, as I walked to the sandy ravine and slid down near the dead end. Let Rowdinth blow me to hell now. The lab would at least be damaged, hopefully beyond repair. The closer I got to the slimesucker's home base, the less likely he'd push the button.
“Protect your king, you motherless bag of garbage,” I muttered. “I'm coming for a checkmate!”
Chapter Thirteen
General Rowdinth studied the pair of Great White Sharks that circled within the glass tank. He turned to the two scientists who stood trembling before him. “I've decided not to wait for the United States Independence Day.”
The scientists glanced at each other. George, the tall one and the father, with an unusually high forehead, thick, black hair, and eyes that almost glowed with intensity, took a breath. “General Ki Rowdinth,” he said softly, his head lowered, “allow us to complete our work, and we will present you with a weapon that will make all our names renowned, down through the annals of history.”
When Rowdinth didn't answer, he continued. “We need to test the device before we can be certain that – “
“I gave you my decision!” Rowdinth suddenly shouted, and pounded a fist on the tank. The two sharks swam to the other side and crashed into the glass. “My Vermakt race has waited long enough for their day of glory and it is in my hands. Do you understand that? I alone have the weight of this responsibility.” He pounded a fist into his open palm. “When you defy me, you defy Providence!” His eyes drained to white and he couldn't see. “Nobody follows my orders,” he screeched into the pale void that enveloped him and pressed his hands to the glass to steady himself. “I could have you both killed, you know.” Anger was a hot iron that burned his words. “I could have you roasted alive on a spit.”
“Yes, General.” George's voice shook and he kept his head lowered. “We understand.”
Lennie, wide-mouthed, still rash with youth, with ears that protruded like antennas, shook his head. He glanced at his father and threw Rowdinth an angry look.
“Then live with that knowledge,” Rowdinth told George. “I want the weapon within one week!” He held up his hand, claws spread, and his eyesight slowly returned.” One week.”
“General,” Lennie said, “we're doing our very best, sire. My father is weary from lack of sleep. But there's more data that, as scientists, we really must evaluate.”
Rowdinth clenched his fists and dug his claws into his palms. “Then evaluate it and stop wasting my time and your lives.”
“But you called us – “Lennie started.
“Be quiet!” George whispered. “Yes, General Rowdinth, we'll get right back to work now and you'll have your weapon within the week.”
Lennie frowned at his father.
General Rowdinth turned his attention back to the sharks as the two scientists strode quickly out of the great room with George pulling Lennie by the sleeve of his lab coat.
“Geek and Nerd!” Rowdinth said.
The sharks avoided his shadow as they circled the tank.
The general clasped his hands behind his back and narrowed his eyes. His anger turned to sexual desire, as it always did. What would it be like to have sex with the Terran telepath before he blew him to pink chunks of meat for the sharks? Or hung him in his museum to delight his people? He pictured himself assuming the female's masochistic role and allowing the Terran to perform the male's sadistic part. The image added to his desire. But an orgasm would only come when he blew the Terran's body to spatterings against the walls. With that explosion the climax would course through his body like electricity.
He shook his head to dismiss the pleasant daydreams and retired to his central chair in the great room. In reality, he needed the Terran alive to garner information from Alpha's government officials. He relaxed with a leg hooked over the armrest, and the chair accommodated his position. But afterwards….
He turned on the holo screen and smiled as he watched the vid of a dark-bearded dwarf being burned, upside down, at a stake. Look at the faces he makes, he thought and giggled. Upside down, the agonized man's mouth appeared to be grinning.
The chair's armrest compartment slid open with a warning beep as a glass of ruby wine in a golden goblet emerged.
He sipped it. The Terran was at the wall of the lab, according to the tracking device. He could send his Elite Guards to bring him in. He chewed a dewclaw. He could also lose a few Guards in a firefight with the Terran. Or lose the Terran himself.
How much more interesting if a dwarf were used to lure him in? No, not a dwarf, but one of the normal-sized females from the cavern. The red-topped one was considered pretty by human standards. A threat to kill the rest of her people should be enough to force her to bring him in. He spat out the broken tip of the claw. What was it the vicious Terrans called them? Judas goats.
Chapter Fourteen
“That tag's a March hare, Dad!” the son said in Terran. “He's out there like a zenorgism on oil!”
“That's the reason we have to be very careful with what we say to him,” the father responded. “Can you please try to remember that, Lennie?”
I received the verbalized thoughts from the two scientists as I tel probed inside the ravine.
“It's like talking to a rabid rat on steroids!” Lennie replied.
“You weren't so judgmental,” I read the father, “when I told you what we'd be paid to develop the project.”
“I'm beginning to wonder if he'll let us leave here alive after we hand it to him.”
“Don't you think I've considered that?” the father said. “He gets the key to activate the weapon when we're paid and gone from here.”
“How long more, do you really think, before it's ready?”
“Three, perhaps four more Earth days, the most, if we work through the nights. He'll be in a better mood once he has the weapon.”
But I touched the father's fear and anxiety and a subliminal reflex to flee for his life.
“You should've considered that, crotefucker,” I muttered to myself, “before you decided to hand over a weapon to destroy Earth!” I felt a response. Uh oh. Mastermind Daddy was a sensitive! I sat back against the wall of the ravine. Well, that complicated things. All I wanted from them was an image of the surface entrance, with some surrounding scenery, so I could locate it.
“What if Rowdinth says we don't leave until we hand him the key?” Lennie asked. “Then what, Dad?”
“Wait! Be quiet,” his father said.
“What's wrong?”
I silenced my thoughts and held the link open, waiting.
“There's a telepath linking with us. I suspect it's that damned Jules Rammis. He's close! Help me shut down the systems.”
“How close?” Lennie asked.
“Don't talk. Don't think!” the father told him. “He's probing for information. Block out everything but shutting down the lab!”
“Dammit,” I thought, and said it too, before I could stop myself.
“If he's close, General Rowdinth knows it, Dad. And he'll send his Guards to bring him in or blow him to stew meat.”
“Not this close to the lab, he won't detonate the device. Use your brain, Lennie.”
“Well, why don't we just activate the lab's defense systems?” Lennie asked.
“Shut up!” the father
ordered. “Jesus and Mary, but you're a doofus! Why did I ever bring you along on this project?”
“Maybe because as your son, I do all the grunge work.”
“Just stay away from the goddamn defense system controls. Do you understand that, my son?”
“Of course I understand. OK. It's only to be activated if we're under attack, right? I'm not stupid, Dad.”
“Then stop acting as though you are. Do you have any intuitive awareness of how dangerous our situation could become? If we can't bring the weapon in on the psycho's schedule, or he decides to tighten the screws even more just for the fun of it… Lennie, if that should occur, try to escape and get to the spaceport. We have tickets to Altair waiting there for us.”
“What about you, Dad?”
“In the event that I am no longer with you. Rowdinth holds me alone responsible for the weapon.”
“And so you are,” I whispered, then stemmed my thought flow.
I still carried the two charged stinglers, and a transmitter Joe had given me. I covered myself with sand until only my face showed. It was a race between receiving an image of the entrance and Rowdinth's Guards showing up.
I closed my eyes and imaged the red coil of my tel power, growing, spinning, gaining strength at the expense of a headache. I would influence the weaker one, Lennie, with his mind jumping from thought to thought, still clueless of the real danger he already faced, to evoke an image of the entrance. I might not have time for them to actually go to it.
I heard Joe's hovair whine as the team approached. Hell's twisted spokes! Not now, Joe.
“Jules? Are ye there, lad? It's Shannon.”
Shannon? Was she one of the last survivors of her people, wandering? Lost? Or…. It was the or that frightened me even more. Her people had obviously lost the battle against Rowdinth's overwhelming forces, or they would have buried their dead defenders. The lunatic would never let any of them go free. He'd execute them all first. Was she sent to draw me into his citadel?
Could be.
Oh, God, Shannon, I thought. She wouldn't lure me in on her own. There had to be ramifications, like the execution of one of her people every so often if she didn't comply.
