Return - Book III of the Five Worlds Trilogy

by Al Sarrantonio

  The pirate joined him and contemplated what he saw on the pilot’s Screen: an armada of ships heading for them at a fast speed.

  “They’re coming from the outer planets, and they ain’t Martian, Shatz …” Weens said, furrowing his brow.

  “Then what in hellation—”

  Shatz Abel covered his ears. “I bring you a big hello from me!”

  Weens’s mouth dropped open. “That’s …”

  “It can’t be …” Shatz Abel said. Adjusting the Screen to bounce the transmission channel back, he shouted: “Wrath-Pei?”

  There came a loud cackle of laughter, and Wrath-Pei’s ruined and painted face suddenly appeared on the Screen. “Shatz Abel? Is that you, old sod? Why, it’ll be a double pleasure to plow right through your little junk heap on my way to visit Prime Cornelian!”

  “Wrath-Pei, what in—”

  Shatz Abel was drowned out in a cacophony of wild laughter. “Why, I’m just paying a visit is all! Delivering Cornelian’s genetic girlfriend back to him, and a little extra besides!”

  “You have Tabrel Kris with you?” Shatz Abel exclaimed in disbelief.

  “Of course! Wanna say hi?”

  On the Screen Tabrel Kris, bound within a weak containment field, was pushed into view by two black-clad soldiers; within the field, which was shaped like a soft egg, she kicked and swore, trying to get at her captors.

  “Cute, ain’t she?” Wrath-Pei laughed. From his gyro-chair he reached out the toe of one boot to push at the containment field, which toppled over lazily, like a huge soap bubble, taking Tabrel Kris with it. She struggled to rise but was prevented by the soft field and lay there, panting and furious.

  “Wrath-Pei--” Shatz Abel began.

  “Sorry, Shatz, no time for talk! Got a lot to do! Bye-bye!”

  The Screen went blank, giving them back their readings; almost immediately, Captain Weens announced, “They’re heading straight for the middle of us; they’ve already started firing their port rasers—”

  “Tell everyone to spread out!” Shatz Abel pushed himself out of the cabin, and headed for the weapons storage locker. “You’re sure you didn’t sell that ’roo?”

  “I told ye, Shatz, nobody wanted it! Too dangerous up here …” Weens’s face showed comprehension. “You’re not going to—”

  “Yes, I am,” Shatz Abel said, pulling the ’roo out of its case and looking it over. “Little Visid said it could be done, and I’m going to do it.”

  “Shatz! Ye can’t! You’ll end up jumping yourself right into the middle of vacuum!”

  The pirate was shrugging his bearlike frame into his space suit. “If I do, I won’t die. At least not right away.”

  “But it’s still madness!”

  “Then I’m mad!” the pirate growled. “I’m mad as you can get! I’ve got two scores to settle, one for king Shar and one for myself—and I’m not going to pass this chance up!”

  He zipped the suit up, began to fit on the clear helmet.

  Moaning in apprehension, Weens alternated his gaze between the Screen, the front shield, and the pirate. “They’re blazing away, Shatz!” he reported. “They’ll be through us any second!”

  “Then that’s when I go!” Shatz Abel said, fumbling with the ’roo in his gloves. He lumbered up front, gazing out the front shield in the direction Weens indicated. There was a hole in Shatz Abel’s fleet, into which Wrath-Pei’s armada was about to bore at great speed, lines of green raser fire blazing. Shatz zeroed in on the front ship.

  “That’s Wrath-Pei’s,” he said.

  Weens nodded.

  “Here goes nothing,” said the pirate.

  Weens tried to grab him, but the pirate had already activated the ’roo and was gone like the counterclockwise swirl of a top.

  “Shatz! Be careful, will ye!”

  For an instant Shatz Abel was turned around amid a cloud of particles; then he was turned back again. Disoriented, he waited for the mist to dissipate and when it did he reached out and grasped—nothing!

  There was brightness directly in front of him.

  “Damnation!” he swore, focusing his sight on the snout of Wrath-Pei’s ship bearing down on him as he floated directly in its path in space. Thick beams of raser fire laced to his left and right as he fumbled with the ’roo, punching in settings as Wrath-Pei’s ship grew impossibly fast before him.

  The ’roo slipped out of his grip as he finished calibrating it; swearing loudly, he grasped at it and turned it on as the ship grew wide and fast in front of him—

  “—ahhhhh.”

  He landed hard on something; was thrown instantly back into a hard flat object—

  Shaking his head, regaining his breath, he found himself flat against a bulkhead in a darkened room. Gingerly he inched forward, found the door with his gloves, and manually activated it, opening it slightly.

  Bright light assaulted him from a corridor, but he was elated to see two black-clad soldiers march by.

  Sliding open his helmet’s visor, he slipped out into the corridor and followed them forward.

  A third soldier stepped out into the hallway in front of him, stopped, and turned with a puzzled stare—but by then Shatz Abel’s fist had found the man’s face, disabling him.

  Two more soldiers stepped out, but their heads were knocked together, driving them into unconsciousness before they could take note of the pirate behind them.

  Gaining confidence and rage, Shatz Abel stalked the corridors of the ship, making his way ever closer to the bridge, climbing ladders, charging through galleys, fighting his way through bulkhead doors and bunk rooms, weapon and torpedo rooms.

  By the time he burst through into the bridge, he had left a train of destruction behind him, including bent raser rifles, cracked heads and ribs, ripped black clothing, black eyes, and groaning soldiers of all shapes and sizes. He was a stoked locomotive, unstoppable and spitting fury.

  “Wrath-Pei!”

  On a platform on the high bridge, before the wide and high quartz glass windows of the ship’s front shields, Wrath-Pei’s gyro-chair turned lazily around, guided by the boy Lawrence behind.

  “Did someone call?” the madman inquired lightly.

  Two black-clad guards approached Shatz Abel; he threw them aside like tenpins; two more reached for their raser sidearms and Shatz Abel was on them, growling, breaking their arms and sending them howling to the deck

  Still furious, the pirate closed and locked the door behind him; the two last guards on the bridge reached him then and he drove them together once, twice, then threw their rifles aside.

  “Shatz Abel!” Wrath-Pei laughed, watching the spectacle from above. “Bravo! Want a job?”

  The madman removed a silver vial from the breast of his black leather suit as he spoke, upended it over his mouth for a moment, and then closed it. “Come up and visit!”

  Grunting rage, the pirate began to stalk up the steps to the bridge platform; halfway up, he spotted the struggling figure of Tabrel Kris, fighting her containment field.

  “I promised if I ever saw you again, Wrath-Pei, I’d kill you,” the pirate hissed in a low, menacing voice.

  “That you did!”

  Shatz Abel continued to climb. “Nine years on Pluto, every one of them because of you.”

  Wrath-Pei chuckled. “True, every word of it! And now you’ve got your chance!”

  “Yes, and I’m going to take it.”

  “Of course! But the girl will have to die, of course …”

  Nearly to the top of the steps, Shatz Abel paused, while Wrath-Pei’s laughter built into a cacophony of hoots and wild giggles; Wrath-Pei slapped his knees, making the gyro-chair rock backward and forward.

  The pirate growled and lurched forward—but Wrath-Pei’s laughter stopped as if a switch had been thrown, replaced by shouting, spitting rage.

  “If you touch me, she’ll die!” Wrath-Pei screamed, his eyes bulging in his painted face, a trembling finger thrust out nearly to Shatz Abel’s nose. Spi
ttle flew from the madman’s lipless mouth as he talked. “Do you think I’m completely out of my mind?” He laughed, seeming to fight himself, then shrieked, laughing again. Though his eyes were filled with vehemence, his mouth curled into a smile. Almost in a whisper he said, “Her field is set to implode if you, or anyone else, touch me. Here: try!” Laughing, he moved forward, letting his index finger brush the pirate’s nose; instantly, the containment field around Tabrel Kris contracted alarmingly, make her cry out. Wrath-Pei sat back in his gyro-chair, made a steeple of his fingers, and grinned.

  “Convinced, Shatz?”

  The pirate breathed deeply, letting his anger drain, and took a step back

  “What are your plans, Wrath-Pei? What do you have in mind?”

  “Me?” Wrath-Pei frowned for a moment, then brightened. “Why, nothing, old friend! I have nothing at all in mind!”

  Within her renewed, loose containment field, Tabrel Kris shouted, “He’s going to ram Frolich City head-on, detonating the concussion bombs he has mounted in the front of his ships!”

  The pirate’s eyes widened as he regarded Wrath-Pei. “Do your men know about this?”

  “Of course not! Do you think they’d follow me if they did? And even if they did know, they couldn’t stop me now. I’ve locked all the drives—and they can’t be unlocked!”

  “Are you insane?”

  “Yes! I am insane! You win a prize! And the prize is: you and the girl get to die now, instead of on Venus!”

  Before Wrath-Pei could draw his snips from their holster, Shatz Abel took three quick steps to stand beside Tabrel Kris. “You’d better pray that containment field holds,” he said to Tabrel, sliding his helmet’s visor closed and activating his ’roo.

  He watched Wrath-Pei’s rage as the ’roo’s energy field formed and they left the bridge of Wrath-Pei’s ship, coming to rest alone in space.

  To the pirate’s relief, Tabrel’s field was holding. “Where are we?” she asked, her hands pressed against the bulge of the bubble. She repeated the question as Shatz Abel adjusted his suit’s audio scanner to hear her. Far away was Venus, with the shrinking lights of Wrath-Pei’s armada heading for it.

  “This is where I left my fleet,” Shatz Abel said, frowning. “We should be right in the middle of them …”

  A single ship appeared in the distance, lights blinking. “That wasn’t one of mine,” Shatz Abel said.

  “Whatever it is, it’s all we’ve got,” Tabrel answered. “My field seems to be collapsing.”

  To his horror, Shatz Abel saw that her field was closing in on her, beginning to shimmer and dissipate.

  “Its source on Wrath-Pei’s ship is getting too far away to sustain it,” Shatz Abel said.

  The weak field now conformed to Tabrel Kris’s body; around her head it disappeared momentarily, leaving her gasping for breath.

  Shatz Abel motioned desperately to the approaching ship. “It’s not Martian, at least!”

  “Pl … ease … hur … ry …” Tabrel Kris begged, gagging alternately on air and vacuum.

  The ship slowed, pulled beside them, its huge cargo doors opening.

  “I know this ship …” the pirate said.

  Tabrel’s containment field winked off as the pirate shoved her into the cargo lock and closed it behind him. He yanked off his helmet as air began to fill the lock, and noted with satisfaction that Tabrel was breathing normally.

  The inner lock hissed open.

  “Ri’!” a familiar voice said.

  “Ri’ as rain!” another added.

  “Ralph and ’Enry!” Shatz Abel laughed as the two rogue traders stepped into the lock to help the pirate and the girl.

  “‘Ello, Shatz,” Ralph said with chagrin. “Sorry about this, an’ all …”

  “Yeah, sorry, Shatz,” ’Enry added, looking at the deck instead of the pirate.

  “Sorry! What do you have to be sorry about?” Shatz Abel laughed, stepping into the cargo hold; instantly, his laugh vanished.

  “Like I said, sorry an’ all,” Ralph repeated.

  “Yeah,” added ’Enry, still not looking up. “They sort o’ found us, they did, on our way from Ganymede to Pluto. Neutral, we was, just li’ always. Carrying a bit o’ this an’ that from here to there. Just li’ always, Shatz.”

  “By the way,” Ralph said, “how’s King Shar? Well, I ’ope?”

  “About as good as we are,” Shatz Abel said with resignation, as a squad of Red Police in rust-colored uniforms surrounded them, weapons drawn, and removed the ’roo from his suddenly weary hand.

  Chapter 29

  “This is more than I could have hoped for in my wildest dreams!”

  Prime Cornelian tried to laugh and found the limits of the upgraded oval amplifier that hovered in front of his mouth. Though the girl Visid Sneaden had been able to recalibrate the machine so that it not only strengthened his words but edited out the painful pauses as he spoke, she had not been able, as yet, to return his laugh to him. That would come, in time.

  “The only reason I fixed that amplifier,” Visid spat, glaring at him now, “was so that I could hate everything you say more clearly.”

  “Come, now,” the High Leader said, settling for a weak chuckle, “we both know why you agreed to better this machine. It’s because I would have had your friends disemboweled, one by one, if you hadn’t!”

  Visid turned her gaze from the High Leader to Dalin Shar and Benel Kran, encased in painfully tight containment fields in the center of the room.

  “Let them go and I’ll serve you,” she said to Prime Cornelian.

  Again he chuckled. “I’ll keep them and you’ll serve me—do you think that because my body is useless my brain is useless, too?”

  The fat adjutant Hon-Tet, hookahiess???, entered the room briskly, clicked his heels together, and announced, “High Leader! The newest prisoners have arrived!”

  “Excellent!” Cornelian nearly leaped inside his swaddle of blankets in anticipation; the movement made him wince with pain, which the recalibrated amplifier turned into a howl.

  Seeing Visid’s slight smirk, he snapped, “You won’t leer like that when I cut your tongue and eyes out!”

  Hon-Tet, who had left as briskly as he had entered, now returned, supervising the placement of two new containment fields, which he installed inside the door, opposite the others.

  “Excellent!” Prime Cornelian said. “Welcome, Shatz Abel! And welcome home, Tabrel!”

  Dalin Shar gasped, which hurt within the tightness of the field, but he didn’t notice. There, across the room from him, after a separation of three wars and almost four years, was Tabrel Kris.

  “Ta … brel … !” he gagged.

  Her gaze fell on him then, and he felt a shock go through him.

  “Dalin!”

  Their eyes stayed locked across the room; it was as if the entire universe had gone away, leaving only the two of them. Dalin saw a tear staining her cheek, and felt wetness on his own.

  He tried to move his hand to reach out for her; the field held him as tightly as if he were glued in place. And still his eyes would not leave hers, or that third entity, a mingling of their souls, that met somewhere between and within them.

  His smile met hers.

  “How cute!” Prime Cornelian said. “True love!” His deformed hand deep within his blankets tweaked ever so slightly the control of Dalin’s containment field; instantly the king gasped for breath and he broke eye contact with Tabrel Kris to glare at the High Leader.

  “It might interest you to know, King Shar,” Cornelian said, “that one of Visid’s first projects, after she has built a new carapace for me, will be to assist in the … creation, shall we say, of my offspring.” His elongated, deformed head bowed ever so slightly in the direction of the miniature carapace, squatting like a large insect with its oversized brain pan, recently secured by Visid, open and waiting. “For now, I shall reside in there. But later, that body will hold my child! And we shall rule this one world for
hundreds of years to come!”

  “I’ll never help you,” Visid hissed. “I’ll never help you do those things.”

  The High Leader shouted, “You’ll serve me as I command! This very afternoon, you’ll transfer my brain to the offspring carapace and begin work on my new, full-sized one!” Another howl of pain issued from the amplifier as the High Leader sought to rise on his helixed legs. He settled back down into the blankets, breathing hard, then ordered, “Hon-Tet! We must show her how sincere I am! Execute the king!”

  “Immediately, High Leader!” Hon-let clicked his heels, withdrew from the room, and returned with three Martian Marines, who surrounded Dalin’s containment field. As the High Leader deactivated the field, they caught the king, then forced him to the floor in front of Cornelian, who began to chuckle. “I haven’t had a good execution in nearly a week! I think we’ll … behead him!”

  “As you wish, High Leader!” Hon-Tet shouted, his eyes brightening.

  “You may do it yourself, Hon-let—and use one of the old ceremonial swords!”

  “It will be my pleasure, High Leader!” Rubbing his hands in glee, the fat adjutant withdrew.

  “Don’t!” Visid cried, blocked from approaching Prime Cornelian by one of the Martian Marines. “I’ll do what you say!”

  “Of course you will!” Cornelian replied. “But the king will die nevertheless—you must learn the lesson that I am serious, and this boy has been trouble for far too long!”

  Two more Martian Marines entered with a low, narrow block of wood sided in red velvet spotted with dried blood; Dalin was made to kneel, then his head was placed on this object, his neck exposed. A shallow pan, also bloodstained, was placed in front of the block. Hon-Tet bustled back into the room, bearing a huge gleaming sword, its handle bright crimson, studded with rubies; the wide, curving blade had been polished to a high sheen.

  “Proceed!” Cornelian ordered.

  “Immediately, High Leader!” Hon-Tet answered, positioning himself to one side of the king and raising the blade high over his head.

  Dalin, facing Tabrel Kris and Shatz Abel—who howled with pain and rage within his containment field—nodded once to the pirate and then let his gaze meet that of Tabrel, who was crying.