Beran gave me a sinister smile.
“Before I take the final step, I shall attempt another avenue. You may even act as bait. Yes. That will be the program.”
Beran’s narrow nostrils flared. Then, he straightened, opened a link and gave harsh-sounding orders.
As I lay paralyzed, barely able to breathe, I saw Tosks approach, set me on a stretcher and carry me along the corridors. I could only presume they were taking me to a floater.
As I lay on the stretcher, I attempted to twitch a finger or a toe. I had to break out of this paralysis, and I had to do it sooner rather than later.
-26-
Time passed as I struggled to move. What had Beran done to me? I could only stare up at the corridor ceiling. I could hear Tosks milling nearby, but couldn’t turn my head to see them.
Why did Beran think I knew the whereabouts of the chronowarp? The CAU had confiscated the device after our return from the Bermuda Triangle a year ago. It would seem the Director hadn’t known where the chronowarp was. He would have told Beran if he’d known. Could the clone Director have known the location? Was that another reason the clone had wanted to transfer onto my Guard ship?
If the clone Director had known, he’d taken the secret with him to the grave.
If I was a betting man, and I wasn’t, I’d lay odds that either Jenna or more likely Kazz knew the chronowarp’s whereabouts. Ah! That’s what Beran must have meant about me being bait for a trap. Beran must be planning to capture one or both. That would necessitate a return to Earth.
In time, I heard clicking heels. It might have been Beran. Harsh orders went out. Tosks scurried. Two of them picked up my stretcher and bore me along the corridor.
We passed through a hatch and the new ceiling jumped upward. It was cooler in here. This must be the hangar bay.
Maybe a minute later, my two Tosks went up a ramp into a floater. They set me down and sat on either end of the stretcher.
I did what I now did best, nothing. I tried to force my fingers to twitch. I willed my toes—
I felt a big toe twitch. What could—?
A shadow loomed before me. Beran, as from a great height, stared down at me.
“Why are you sweating?” he asked.
I could not answer.
He crouched so his knees jutted out and prodded my side with his baton. I could feel the contact, but could do absolutely nothing about it.
“I asked you a question, Kraaling. Why are you sweating?”
He peered into my eyes. A moment later, a cruel smile twisted into place. He rose and turned to something else, taking him out of my field of vision.
I wanted to know what Beran was doing. I strove, and by the slowest small degrees, my head moved until I saw him studying a bulkhead screen. He began turning my way.
I realized if he saw me staring at him that he would know that the paralysis had begun to wear off. As fast as I could, which wasn't very, I turned my head back the way it had been. I stared straight up and waited to see if he’d noticed.
Apparently, he had not.
Time passed. I could feel the deck vibrate under me. That, I knew now, was one of the sensations of transfer. I presumed we were back on Earth.
At that point, it occurred to me that maybe the paralysis wasn’t wearing off so quickly, but that my quick-healing nature was kicking in.
Could one of his sensitivities, nullifications or projections sense the healing? It would seem not. Yet, he had noticed me sweating. Perhaps it would be best to wait for further testing on my part. I would only attempt to move once Beran was elsewhere.
Knowing I had the capacity to attempt to move made it more difficult to wait. While I’d been fully paralyzed, I’d had no choice in the matter.
I almost sighed, which would have indicated a greater use of my lungs. I strove to breathe shallowly and slowly. I practiced meditation. I had to deceive Beran. I might not get another opportunity to try.
The dominie chuckled evilly. He issued orders. The floater vibrated, and nothing happened afterward.
I struggled to keep from turning my head to see what Beran was doing now. I kept imagining myself turning my head and seeing him grinning at me. My time would come. I kept telling myself that. It would come. I needed to practice patience, probably the most difficult virtue for any Terran to develop and perfect.
“Yes,” Beran said.
It sounded as if his voice came from directly behind me. Perhaps with a lessening of the paralysis, my hearing had improved.
The Tosks on either end of the stretcher leapt up, grabbed the stretcher and lifted me. A hatch opened. The big werewolf creatures marched my stretcher and me down the ramp.
It was light here. I heard a car in the distance. I must be back on Earth.
Beran stepped before me. He gazed at me for several pregnant seconds. He turned to the Tosks and issued a command.
The two creatures easily lifted me off the stretcher and propped me against a tall boulder. I was stiff like a plank, and might have slid off, but they position me in a crook of stone.
From the upright position, I saw a lonely freeway stretch into the distance. It was in a desert, maybe in Nevada, but maybe in California or Utah. Several fluffy white clouds drifted across the blue sky.
Despite my condition, it felt wonderful to be on my planet again.
Once more, Beran stepped into view. “Kazz is coming. I’m not sure if Jenna is with him. They’ll stop once they see it’s you. Then…”
The dominie chuckled as he placed a small object behind my feet. He clicked something, and the object whirred into life.
“This is almost too easy,” he said, straightening.
Beran didn’t bother looking at me again. Instead, he strode away, perhaps to the floater. The Tosks followed him like obedient dogs.
I heard the floater move, most likely into a depression. I couldn’t see. I wouldn’t try to see until the right moment. I had no doubt Beran watched me on a screen in the floater.
What about the device behind my boots? If I were to guess, it would be something to render Rax inert. Of course, it might be something to keep Rax from transferring the others out of danger.
As I lay upright against the boulder, I moved my toes and wriggled my fingers. It was difficult. I was only beginning to thaw out. I moved my mouth and twisted my tongue. I had to get them limbered up, and thus moved them, despite the possibility that Beran would detect that.
A dark blue van sped along the lonely freeway. I couldn’t see the occupants yet. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was Jenna and Kazz inside.
I moved my mouth, wriggled my toes and slowly made a fist with each hand. I had to break the paralysis enough to shut off the device behind my boots. I had to, or Beran would capture Jenna, Rax and possibly Kazz.
-27-
The seconds ticked by far too quickly as I struggled. I thought about Debby alone in the Saturn Station. If I couldn’t free myself in time, she would remain a prisoner to this monster.
Yes, Beran was a monster on the order of Stalin, Mao or Hitler. All three were the worst sort of scum. It had always amazed me, though, that Communists weren’t equated as equally noxious and loathsome as Nazis. If one figured out the number of people harmed by the wretched dogmas, Communism was the worst scourge ever inflicted on mankind.
As I thought these dark thoughts, I struggled to make fists. Sweat pooled on my face and across my body, beginning to soak my garments. My heart began to hammer, and my breath turned ragged.
The van was closing in. I could see a wide-bodied individual behind the wheel. He had a wide head, dark hair—Kazz! I didn’t see any sign of Jenna. Was this just the Neanderthal then, out for a joyride?
I groaned in agony, as it seemed my heart was going to hammer its way out of my chest. My left leg twitched. Sweat stung my eyes—
At that point, the van’s tires screeched against the freeway. The unwieldy vehicle began to fishtail. Smoke billowed from the wheels as the screeching went on and on
.
Finally, the van came to a stop. A door opened and Kazz raced across the front of the vehicle like a freight train. The Neanderthal could move when he wanted to, even though he had amazingly bowed legs. I could see the worry etched on his face.
I opened my mouth and tried to warn him.
I heard a whine, and the floater appeared beside Kazz’s van.
The Neanderthal whirled around in surprise but not in shock. He yanked the .357 from his shoulder holster, raised the gun, and must have thought better of firing at the armored floater. He turned around toward me and ran harder than ever.
I could see the floater’s ramp coming down.
At that point, the device at my feet began to make louder whirring noises.
“Logan!” Kazz shouted.
I groaned, twitched harder and toppled from the crook in the boulder. I tried to flail, to catch myself. Instead, I fell like an axed tree, hitting the gravelly ground with my face and nose.
A shot rang out. It was loud. Something crunched nearby. My face hurt. My nose throbbed—
Kazz slid to me, crouched by my body and turned me over.
“What’s going on?” he shouted.
I croaked a nonsense word.
“You’re stiff,” he said.
I tried with desperation and managed to whisper, “Trap.”
Kazz turned around toward the floater. He peered for three seconds maybe. He turned back to me, looked at something near my feet—
He reached inside his coat and made something click. In a second, we vanished, to reappear approximately five hundred yards—five football field lengths—on the other side of the floater.
“Kazz,” I whispered. “This is…a trap.”
“I got that,” he growled, lying down beside me.
The Neanderthal propped my head up so I could see the van and the floater. Tosks had descended from the ramp, and now Beran marched from the teleporting vehicle. The Antaran pointed at the boulder where I’d been stood upright. Tosks with beam carbines sprinted there. Beran slapped his baton against a palm as he watched their progress.
I slowly looked at Kazz. “What did…you do?”
“We made a transfer hop,” he said. “I have a device that can do that.”
“Hop?” I whispered.
“It’s not like Rax and the Guard ship,” he said. “But it’s useful for getting out of jams. What’s wrong with you?”
“I’m…paralyzed.”
“Oh, I think I see. There was a transfer nullifier at your feet. I shot it, broke it. I guess you’re bait.”
“Yes. Can you transfer again and get us out of here?”
“Not for a little while,” he said, while chewing on his lower lip. “My hopper has to build up power.”
“We have to hide.”
“What do you think we’re doing lying down?” he asked. “It’s the only cover out here.”
Kazz had a point, but it was clearly only a matter of time before Beran or one of his Tosks spotted us out.
“Logan,” Kazz said. “I have a confession to make.”
I turned to him. The Neanderthal was laid out on the sand like me, watching Beran and his boys.
“I’m waiting,” I said.
Kazz opened his mouth and something he saw made his teeth click together. He aimed the .357, fired a booming shot and scrambled to his feet.
“Sorry, Logan, I have to get out of here.”
“Kazz!”
As he turned to run, a heavy green beam speared through his left thigh. The beam burned through the muscle, making a wretched stink.
Kazz crumpled onto the sand beside me. He didn’t make a sound. I couldn’t believe it as the tough Neanderthal began crawling away.
I struggled to move, to do something. Slowly, I raised my head.
The beam had come from one of the bubble turrets in the floater. Kazz must have shot at Beran. The Antaran flew toward us.
I groaned and struggled but couldn’t get my limbs moving. I saw Kazz crawling away, leaving a smear of blood like a slug trail. Despite the thigh wound, he was making good progress. I was surprised anyone could crawl that fast.
Beran ignored me as he closed. He concentrated on Kazz as worry filled the dominie’s face. I think he feared that Kazz might die before he could interrogate him.
In seconds, Beran flew past me and landed on his feet near the crawling Neanderthal.
“Kazz,” I shouted.
The Neanderthal looked back with a sweaty, pain-drenched face, rolled onto his back, tried to raise the big gun and failed.
Beran crunched across the sand to him. “Well, well, well,” the dominie said. “At last we—”
Kazz blew up. I mean, he simply exploded in a white-hot blast.
I lay on the ground a little lower than where he’d been, so most of the blast blew over me. The percentage that did strike me rolled me over and over across the sand as it burned off my clothes and most of my hair and skin.
The agony was intolerable. I was amazed that I could still see, that the blast hadn’t burned out my eyes. I was certain it had burned off my eyebrows.
I struggled to look, wanting to see Beran lying on the sand, dying, before I also died.
Instead, I saw a blue nimbus surrounding the dominie as Beran climbed to his feet. The nimbus must have been his personal force field. Had it automatically snapped on at the last microsecond, or had he willed it on somehow?
I guess the how didn’t matter, just that Beran had survived the blast.
The dominie glanced at me and then at the spot where Kazz had ignited. The Antaran appeared perplexed more than anything else, going so far as to rub his electric blue-glowing chin.
“I wonder…” I heard him say.
Then, I passed out.
-28-
I won’t recount the tedious details of the return trip, my time in solitude on the moon and the sense of despair that came over me.
Had Kazz been a clone? Had he carried a gut bomb? What had Rax called it before, a double helix cobalt bomb? How had I escaped the killing blast of the bomb?
Beran had cloaked me in a nimbus while on Earth and during the journey to the moon base. A cooling sensation had taken away the pain, and that must have woken me up.
Later, on the moon and after Beran removed the nimbus, I spent time in a strange swirling pool. That seemed to speed up the healing process. Even so, I spent many restless days sitting on a stool drinking endless glasses of a green solution my Tosk guards had left on the table. The solution left me groggy, but it allowed me to withstand the agony of my badly burned but healing skin.
I recovered faster than a regular human would. By the time I could lie in bed again—and slept eighteen hours straight—Beran must have discovered enough that he wanted to see me once more.
A Tosk guard led me from the cell to the meeting room. Beran was already there. Alone, he sat in a chair with his legs crossed in the British lord fashion, and he indicated another chair for me.
I sat down. I could finally wear clothes again. My old clothes had burned up in the flash, as I said. I wore a utilitarian one-piece like the old 70s sci-fi movies depicted people wearing in the future.
Beran studied me as he tapped a long forefinger on a knee.
I’d had time to think about things. I’d decided on a conciliatory approach. I was tired of being a prisoner, and I felt sick for Debby.
It was time to try a new game plan.
“Lord Beran,” I said, “while we have been at odds in the past, I wish to thank you for the treatment you’ve given me that has allowed me to heal so rapidly.”
He nodded as if in appreciation of my thanks.
“I would also like to tell you that I do not consider myself leagued against you in terms of your Polarion adventure.”
“Oh?” he said.
I shook my head. “My primary complaint is that you took my woman. Other than that, I do not object to your having access to the Paradise Portal.”
“What a
bout the Neanderthal?”
“You did not kill him. He killed himself.”
“Do you know why?”
“I would think for two possible reasons,” I said. “One, in order to kill you. Two, to escape interrogation by you.”
“Logical,” Beran said. “And in my opinion, entirely correct. The question becomes, who sent him against me.”
“What?” I asked. I hadn’t thought of that.
“Consider the situation,” Beran said.
I shook my head. I didn’t grok him.
“Kazz deliberately set off the bomb. Yet, I do not think he undertook the mission with the intention to die.”
“I agree with that…” I said, puzzled.
“Firstly,” Beran said, “who put the bomb in his gut?”
I spread my hands outward. I had no idea.
“Secondly,” Beran said, “who put the control device in his brain?”
“What device?” I asked.
“I scoured the detonation area and found evidence of the double helix cobalt bomb, and pieces of the control device in Kazz’s brain.”
“But…” I said.
“Please, continue with your conjecture,” Beran said.
What was going on here? I frowned before regarding Beran again.
“I was led to believe that the Director created the clones.” I said.
“Who said anything about the Neanderthal being a clone?”
“Look, Lord Beran, Jenna Jones of the CAU informed me that the Director created clones after visiting the underwater…”
“Pray continue,” Beran said, softly.
I wasn’t sure that Beran knew about the ancient Polarion structure at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean. I didn’t want to let him know if he didn’t. I concluded in those few seconds that he had to know about it. He’d interrogated the Director. The man must have given that information away.
Thus, I told Beran about the black torpedo that had entered the Arctic Ocean structure. I told him that the Director had also visited it.
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