I turned the small slate over and saw the button.
“Press the button and it will induce pain to Calidore’s persona,” the shining one said. “That will prod him to answer or speak as you suggest.”
“This is your ironic tool?” I asked.
“Do you not find it so?”
I thought about it and nodded.
“Excellent,” she said. “Therefore, it is time to begin.”
“Wait,” I said. “Let us bargain, you and I.”
“No,” she said, snapping her ethereal fingers.
The force I’d felt before pressed around me again. It picked me off the floor and whisked me through many corridors. Finally, the force set me on a round disc, with another just like it above me. I sensed complex machinery pulsating and eager to activate.
Dreamily, I noticed a slug creature at a control panel, first watching me and then its panel.
“What happens now?” I asked.
Tentacles appeared, and the creature manipulated its controls.
I heard a strange sound and reality began to fade away. I saw sparkling and then I felt oddly disembodied. At that point, all I can remember was a terrible feeling of motion, incredible motion and distance. It was the last thing I would recall from the Arch Ship.
-18-
I awoke under a pink sky and found that incredibly disorienting. There were white clouds as I’d seen in Nevada. The clouds were wispy and drifting slowly although visibly to my eye.
I swallowed uneasily as I saw two faint moons outlined in what I assumed was the daylight sky. Two moons. I had never seen two moons from Terra. The enormity of that washed over me in a sickening rush. I was not on Terra, but I was definitely on a planet. That meant—
I remembered the Arch Ship, the ethereal shining angel or whatever she was , giant slug aliens with tentacles and eyestalks. I recalled Hector Trask lying dead in an ancient corridor with his helmet visor open. Lee McHenry, also dead, in a spacesuit. Four voyagers—Calidore, I remembered Doctor Calidore!
I sat up, and I expected a moment of dizziness. That did not happen. As I sat up, a thing fell off me and onto the red rock around me. I frowned at the thing. It had a carrying strap and a large screen, given its VCR cassette size. I stared at a small red button on its back…the pain inducer.
I scrambled off the red rock, not wanting to deal with a digitized Dr. Calidore just yet. I scanned around me, noting the heat that radiated from a small intense ball in the sky. That must be a star, a different type of star than Terra’s Sun.
I looked around as I turned in a slow circle. In one direction were mountains of red rock with green tufts of growth, I suspected, dotted on their cliffs. There was nothing inviting about the mountains. Left of the mountains was a forest of giant ferns like in the Age of the Dinosaurs. That must indicate moisture—water, I imagined—over there. That could also mean dangerous wild animals or poisonous plants. Directly opposite the Red Mountains—
I inhaled sharply. I saw boxlike structures piled one on top of another in the distance. Was it a box city perhaps, constructed by madmen without a sense of rhyme or reason? The city hadn’t caused my surprise, however.
Quite a ways from the city, and in front of it in relation to me, was a large thing resting on four giant struts on a field of sand. I spied a ramp coming down from the—I realized then that I had already assumed it was a space vehicle that had landed on this planet. If that was a space vehicle, and if the intelligence in the Arch Ship had sent me here to hurt the mentalists, it seemed reasonable to conclude that I was looking at a mentalist spaceship.
I shielded my eyes from the intense sunlight, scanning the relatively flat and sandy area around the ship. I did not see any ground vehicles, any riding animals or even people or aliens moving about. I looked around in the sky, but did not see birds, air-cars or anything moving there, either.
Finally, I shut my eyes, rubbed them, and opened them. The Red Mountains, the box city, the spaceship all remained as before. Why then did they seem unreal to me? There was something…dreamy, ethereal or ghostly about them. They did not shimmer or fade, but the process by which a person knew reality when he saw it was lacking with those objects.
I pinched myself until I squirmed under the pain. I deemed myself awake. I did not feel as if I was dreaming. My breathing had increased its rate, and so had my heart. Deliberately, I forced myself to calm down as I breathed slowly.
The ancient ship in far orbit around Terra had used a method of transportation that could apparently cross light years. Had the Arch Ship beamed me as a form of light? That would necessitate that I’d been traveling at the speed of light. Time dilation—
Expelling pent-up air, I reached down and picked up my sentient computer slate. I turned it over, but it seemed powerless.
I shook the slate. “Dr. Calidore,” I said, feeling silly and self-conscious saying that. “Can you hear me?”
Nothing happened. The slate remained off.
I turned it around and around in my hands, searching for an on/off switch. I tapped the screen. I shook it harder. Finally, using my left-hand thumb, I pressed the red button on back.
The computer slate lit up immediately and, in the voice of Dr. Calidore, it screamed as if in agony. I remembered that horrible sound from the clear cylinder in the Arch Ship.
I removed my thumb from the pain button.
“Don’t do that again,” the slate said in Calidore’s voice.
I did not consider myself superstitious, but this was too much. I dropped the slate as if I’d just realized it was something poisonous.
“Hey,” it said from the ground. “Why did you drop me on the rock?”
I stared at the slate, taking two steps back.
“Oh” it said. “This is interesting. I have a metered power source, and—whoa, look at this. I can scan my surroundings.”
The slate made a bip sound.
“Humanoid of Terran origin,” the slate said. “Wait a minute. I know you. You’re Jason Bain, a Wolf Clan warrior from the Nevada Territory.”
The slate abruptly quit talking.
I licked dry lips, horrified by the sentient computer slate that spoke in Dr. Calidore’s voice.
“What happened to me?” the slate said. “I remember…being in a cylinder. I’d reached the… Why can’t I say what I reached?”
“You’ve been digitized,” I said.
There were more bip, bip, bip sounds from the slate. “Where’s my body? Are you saying it’s gone?” Before I could answer, the slate said, “Here we go. I wonder why I didn’t notice this before. I’m going to access this file…”
Seconds later, the slate cursed profoundly and profusely. “I’m a computer,” it finished. “I’m files of unbelievably compressed programs. According to this, the files hold my personality, my being and soul. This is…this is… I must ponder this. I can’t understand why I’m not raving. Maybe since I no longer inhabit an emotional and adrenaline-fueled wet-body form, I can reason clearly. And I have just decided that the injustice of my position is intolerable. I have absolutely no motive ability. I am shutting down. Do not wake me again, or I shall engineer your destruction.”
The lights in the sentient computer slate powered down, leaving it inert.
I debated leaving the computer slate on the rock, but picked it up nonetheless and slung the strap over my left shoulder.
Should I head for the spaceship, the city—?
I heard a faint cry and jerked my head up. My jaw dropped and I stood opened-mouthed. Two slender projectiles shot down from one of the thicker drifting clouds. I watched them in astonishment, as they grew larger and became discernable. And for some reason, they struck me as more real than the box city or the spaceship.
They were sleds or planks of sorts. A man lay prone on each, his hands gripping handlebars and seemingly steering the thing. Yes, I noticed an exhaust nozzle at the end of each flyer. The sleds had stubby little wings on each side and a tiny curved windshield in f
ront. I noticed the tanks on the bottom attached to the nozzle.
It was then I heard machine-gun chatter. Seconds later, bullets ricocheted off the rocks around me. The sleds—the two men—were firing at me.
Without thinking it through, I broke into a sprint, racing for an outcropping of nearby boulders. As I ran, I heard another stitch of machine-gun fire. This time, bullets smashed into my body from behind, hurling me to the ground. I bounced, tried to get up and run away, and shuddered as grim lethargy took hold.
The flyers had shot me. I don’t know how many bullets had hit. I shuddered again as my eyesight dimmed. A terrible lance of pain struck, and I opened my eyes wide. But that was my final act as everything vanished, sights, sounds, smells, all sensations abruptly—
-19-
Horrible, gut-wrenching, lightning-bolt-like pain woke me from my stupor. I groaned on hot sand and felt the sun beating down on me.
For a moment, I didn’t know where I was or what had happened to me. Then everything slammed home with brutal clarity. I was far from Terra, far from the Solar System. I’d reached a planet with a pink sky—and sky-men had riddled my body with bullets.
I should be dead; maybe I was mortally wounded.
I opened my eyes, my eyelashes flicking sand—SAND? I’d fallen onto red rock like the mountains. How could I be laying on sand?
I stared at the sand up close, realizing someone or something must have dragged me onto sand. Had the sky-men dropped down to drag my body after looting it?
I groaned as I tried to move, for at precisely that instant, the lightning-like bolts of agony ripped through my body once again. I shuddered, wanting to scream at the pain. Luckily, I remembered my former resolve to act stoically.
I bit my lips, bringing blood as the ripping agony tore through me again and again. I could not stand this. Were the sky-men torturing me?
I struggled to understand, found myself panting and sweating, and I promptly fainted as the ripping agony lessened to some degree.
***
When I opened my eyes again, it was dark. I could feel the sand particles brushing my eyelashes. So, I knew my eyes were open. I waited for the agony, but that did not happen. Despite everything, I actually felt good, whole. I breathed deeply. Yes. For a man riddled with bullets, I felt remarkably spry.
That made no sense whatsoever. I should be near death, but perhaps the tormenting sky-men had mended my wounds for reasons of their own.
I brought my hands around and put my palms on the cool sand. With a grunt, I pushed up, using my torso and legs to swing around to a sitting position. I blinked. I was sitting on a sea of sand, particles drifting in the moonlight.
I craned my neck, looking up. There were two moons, pockmarked objects high in the night sky. Stars blazed in profusion, and they seemed wrong. I frowned. Likely, the constellations I was used to seeing were gone. Foreign star patterns filled the alien sky.
Using the light of the two moons, I observed the sea of sand. There was no box city in the distance, no spaceship on four struts—I twisted around. My head swayed in surprise. There were the mountains I remembered. They looked suspiciously like the same formations I’d seen earlier.
As a warrior, a hunter, I’d honed an innate ability to see a thing, and remember it when I saw it again.
I’d seen that same mountain formation the first time I’d looked around. Yet—I turned in the opposite direction. I had seen a box city that first time, but now there was nothing.
It struck me then that I’d thought the city, the forest of ferns to the side and the spaceship as ghostly-looking or unreal in some manner. Yet, I’d also thought the mountains had an unreal quality.
What was going on? Was I perhaps still on the Arch Ship, experiencing memories the Avanti inserted into my mind?
I inhaled. The air felt supremely real. I slapped the sand. It was there. But the bullets in me—
I examined my garments, finding them whole, and then remembered the bullets had hit my back. I slipped off my shirt—and froze in horror as I spied bullet holes in back. And those were definitely bullet holes.
I scrambled to my feet, reaching back, feeling for holes or scars. I couldn’t quite reach that far. I tore off my boots and pants, and saw three bullet holes in the back of my left pant leg. I twisted around and examined the back of that leg. It was smooth, without wounds of any sort. But the holes in my pants—
I noticed something glittery on the sand. Bending down I counted seven metal lumps, expended bullets, clearly.
Sweat slicked my brow. I had bullet holes in my garments. There were expended lumps of metal on the sand, but I did not have any injuries or scars on my person.
With a thump, I sat down on the cool sand. Then, like a man in a dream, I put on my clothes. I had to use my reason. I had to think this through.
The angel in the Arch Ship had told me that she’d changed me. That had happened in the sarcophagus. The spikes had injected me with substances. She said that she’d strengthened me—my body, and my mind, too.
I recalled the agony earlier. It had felt like nothing I’d experienced before. Could my body heal better? Could I repair damaged tissues better than before?
I felt inordinately hungry. Only these astonishing revelations had kept me from realizing that sooner. If I could heal from bullet wounds, could my body work out foreign objects like lumps of lead?
Back on Terra, I’d gotten slivers in my fingers before. After a day or two, the area around the sliver became inflamed as my body rejected the tiny shard of wood. If I pressed the edges of the pus-filled wound, I could often force the sliver of wood from my finger. Perhaps the Avanti had changed my body like that.
I swallowed uneasily.
Back on Terra, scabs could become incredibly itchy. That usually meant they were healing. Maybe the Avanti had changed my body so it could heal from otherwise mortal wounds, but the cost was incredible agony. I would bet the body would use up fuel—water and food—at a greater rate as it did these things.
Under the moonlight, I lifted up my shirt and examined my torso. My ribs showed starkly. My muscles were not as full as I recalled they should be. Yes. My body must have been devouring fat, tissues and muscle to repair the tissue damage the bullets had caused.
I needed to eat. I needed to eat and drink a lot!
Under the light of two moons, I nodded. I’d figured out why I’d survived and the reason for the terrible pain earlier. How, then, could I explain the lack of both box city and spaceship? What had happened to the rock around me? Where had all this sand come from?
I had no quick and easy answer for that. The reality of the sand did substantiate the idea or feeling I’d had earlier that much of what I’d seen hadn’t been real.
I had not felt that way about the sky-men, though.
It was time to ask my sentient computer. I looked around, but I couldn’t spy the slate.
“Calidore,” I called. “Where are you?”
The computer entity, the digitized Calidore, did not respond.
I looked around and began to dig. There was no sign of the computer, no sign anyone had been here. Hmmm…with the shifting sand, such evidence would soon disappear.
Had the sky-men alighted and picked up the computer? The bullet lumps on the sand proved the existence of the sky-men, their airborne sleds and particularly their machine guns.
What should I do? I was alone in a desert, an emaciated wreck. I checked, and found that my knife was missing. I still wore the sheath, though.
That confirmed that the sky-men had alighted. They’d no doubt taken Calidore and stolen my knife. Likely, they had left me for dead, a reasonable conclusion given the evidence of their eyes.
I peered around at the sand, slowly turning in a circle. I saw something in the far distance, a flicker—a fire? I almost broke into a trot to reach the fire. Instead, I steadied myself, nodded, and began trekking toward what I hoped was a group of people willing to help a stranger in a strange land.
&
nbsp; -20-
I was even more exhausted than I’d realized and was soon reeling across the sand. It occurred to me that I’d made an assumption I would find men at the fire, humans at the very least. Then, I told myself of course I expected people. There were two reasons for that. One, Dr. Calidore had come from out here, and he’d been human enough. I’d also seen two men, humanoids at the least, on their sky-sleds.
I thus continued on my lonely, reeling trek. Far too long a time later, I approached the fire. It had become blurry by this time, and I began to doubt my senses.
Hooded and robed individuals sat around a fire. I could hear logs pop and saw a cascade of sparks shoot up. One of the robed fellows got up and tossed another log on the fire.
Behind him, them—behind the fire—was an ancient sailing ship such as I’d seen in National Geographic books. It had planks like a ship Christopher Columbus might have used crossing the Atlantic Ocean. It had three upright poles for sails, and yardarms where the sails were presently tied.
I halted, taking stock, frightened suddenly that this was a hallucination. Had the desert once been the bottom of a great sea? Was I seeing images of things that had been? No. If it had been a seabed, I should be seeing weeds or fish swimming about. Maybe I wasn’t thinking clearly.
Yet, I saw the sailing ship clearly enough. It wasn’t exactly like Columbus’s ship the Santa Maria. It wasn’t as big and didn’t have the high poop or stern castles as those ships had possessed. This was more like a pre-nuclear-war-era yacht that a billionaire might have owned.
I licked my lips. There was one other critical difference. This sailing ship had gigantic tires, maybe six or seven feet high. They looked like big air-filled tires, what I knew as balloon tires. I counted three of them on this side and suspected there were three others on the opposite side. In other words, the sailing ship seemed designed for crossing a vast desert through wind power.
The Imprisoned Earth Page 8
