A Despair of Demons (Travelers, Book 1)

by Cassy Campbell

  Jordan shrugged. “They were certainly humanoid, but it’s impossible to say if they were human. We’d need their cooperation to run DNA testing, and I don’t think we’re going to get that anytime soon.”

  “Maybe there will be DNA in their saliva,” Liv said.

  “Why did they attack in the first place?” Trent asked.

  “Impossible to say,” Jordan answered. “They could have been protecting their territory. They could have been responding to a perceived threat. Hell, they could have been protecting the tree Liv sampled.”

  “Speaking of which,” Liv said. She pulled out the scanners and read the results.

  “Anything?” Connor asked.

  “It’s an organic life form. No known toxins, no known medicinal chemicals. I’ll give it to R & D when we get back, see what they think.”

  Connor nodded and looked around at the barren sand plain. “I think we’re safe, kids. Doesn’t look like they’re going to follow. We’ll wait an hour, go back with sample test gear—we’ve got the gear we need?”

  Liv nodded.

  Connor continued, “And we’ll look for samples before we call this a complete disaster.”

  The team made themselves as comfortable as possible on the rock plain.

  “How about a riddle, Jordan?” Gin asked with an innocent smile.

  Jordan’s original education had been as a historian, and his area of expertise was the Middle Ages when riddling was considered a serious competition. He collected riddles and often told them to pass the time.

  He thought for a moment. “What cheese is made backwards?”

  Liv happily turned her brain from DNA to riddles.

  After what seemed only minutes, Connor glanced at his watch. “Time for a return trip.”

  Liv stood and stretched the stiffness out of her back.

  “You just don’t want me to beat you.” Gin scowled at Connor as she rose to her feet. “I’m only two behind.”

  “I wasn’t counting.”

  “I was.”

  “I know.” Connor gave her a rare grin. “On my mark. One, two, three, mark.”

  They materialized to find the scene of their attack as empty as when they’d first arrived. To Liv, that didn’t necessarily bode well.

  “All right, fan out,” Connor said. “See if you can find any spit to test.”

  The team complied, taking slow deliberate steps, watching the ground in front of them.

  After a minute, Gin called, “Over here.” As they got nearer, she continued, “I’m betting this is where we were attacked. It’s like heaps of rubber cement all over the ground.”

  “Don’t touch it,” Liv warned as she crouched to look.

  “Don’t worry,” Gin said. “I’ve never wanted anything on my hands less.”

  Connor, Ben, and Gin took up defensive positions as Liv took a sample stick from a container in her pocket. She peeled some of the gluey greenish-white material off of the ground. “I’m going to have to melt this so it won’t gum up the scanner.”

  She swiped the glue off the stick into a sample tube of solution for the protein scanner, then tipped the mixture into the test well. Trent and Jordan watched with interest as the screen displayed a countdown to test results.

  Liv prepared samples for the other scanners to test for pH, DNA, and molecular analysis, along with the mass spec. When the results appeared on the protein scanner, Jordan and Liv looked at them in puzzlement.

  “It’s…reptilian,” Liv said.

  “They weren’t even mammals,” Jordan said with equal surprise.

  Gin said in a stage whisper, “Um, guys? We’ve got company.”

  Liv glanced at her and followed her line of sight. She had expected something unusual, but she hadn’t expected this.

  Walking through the weird purple trees was a dinosaur.

  It was some sort of raptor, if Liv had paid close enough attention to Jurassic Park. It stood about fourteen feet high as it walked upright on its hind legs, with large forearms tucked close to its chest and wicked claws on its fingers. Its head was just taller than the purple branches, and it glanced casually from side to side as it walked. It didn’t appear to have spotted them yet, but if its eyesight was as good as most predators’, she knew it wouldn’t take long.

  Connor whispered, “Everybody quiet, we’re going to Travel right from here. Done with that test, Liv?”

  “Yeah, results all saved,” she whispered back.

  “I saw this movie,” Ben breathed. “Let’s go now.”

  The raptor’s head whipped toward them as Liv put the last scanner in her pocket. Its nostrils dilated and its snort sounded loud in the still air. Then it rushed them, and the ground trembled with each footstep. Either this was some super-dinosaur or Jurassic Park had grievously underestimated their speed, because this one was flying their way. And she’d thought the pygmies were fast.

  Connor rapped out, “Safe-World-one-two-three-mark,” and Liv gratefully swirled into nothing.

  Chapter 9

  “Frigging dinosaurs?” Ben said as soon as they reappeared on the deserted plain. “Are you kidding me?”

  Connor swirled into solidity, looking a bit pale.

  “You okay?” Gin asked as she caught sight of Connor’s face.

  Connor just nodded.

  Liv sent Connor a questioning look, but he ignored her. “Actually,” she said in response to Ben’s comment, “it makes sense. Those people were not people; they’re reptilian.”

  “What does that have to do with dinosaurs?” Ben asked.

  Jordan said, “That world evolved the way it did because the dinosaurs didn’t die out. Mammals never gained ascendency and reptiles continued on a parallel evolutionary path, becoming advanced bipeds with opposable thumbs and tool-using brains. The waxy consistency of the plants probably evolved to fend off the people’s fire-breath, although I don’t have any idea how that could have developed.”

  “How would dinosaurs turn into people who spit fireballs?” Trent asked. “What could have had such a radical impact?”

  “I don’t know,” Jordan said. “In Home World, three billion years ago, a single organism appeared that began producing a toxic chemical that killed off almost all other life on the planet. It was the most catastrophic die-off to date, and it shaped everything that came after.”

  “What was the chemical?” Ben asked.

  “Oxygen.”

  “What, seriously?” Gin said.

  Liv interjected, “Yeah, but this isn’t like that. Everything we saw there evolved to fend off fire.”

  Jordan said, “And everything on Home World evolved to use oxygen.”

  Trent argued, “But it couldn’t have all evolved just because of the people, or whatever they are. If they followed Home World’s human development, they’ve only been around for a few hundred thousand years.”

  Connor cleared his throat, and said, “About that. Before I left, that dinosaur—” He laughed. “Sorry, it’s hard to say that with a straight face. It opened its mouth as it was running at me. I expected it to roar, but it spit a huge glob of fire at me instead. I barely Traveled out from underneath it.”

  “Aww, come on!” Ben said. “We have to explore there for at least two weeks. We could have drawn Fluffy Bunny World, but no, we got stuck with Hostile Fire-breathing Dinoman World!”

  Connor raised an eyebrow. “Are you done?”

  Ben blew out an irritated breath. “Yeah.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Jordan said in response to Connor’s revelation. “Everything in that world evolved to fend off fire. Like Trent said, that didn’t happen recently.”

  Connor nodded. “We’ll get back to base and let them know what we found. Let R & D figure out the how. Next trip, we’ll go far from the US pygmies and see what the other citizens in ‘Hostile Fire-breathing Dinoman World’ think of us.”

  “That’s not going to help us against the dinosaurs,” Ben muttered. Connor leveled a stare at him. Ben hiked a
false smile onto his face. “Hoo-yah, mastuh chief!”

  Liv smiled as Connor shook his head. “Damn straight, Flyboy. Home World on mark.”

  * * *

  They were cleared for further exploration of Fluffy Bunny World, as Trent started calling it to mock Ben, but they found nothing new in the whole corresponding US.

  Friday, they flew to Europe to Travel from France. The landscape there was markedly different from the corresponding US. Rocky hillsides clustered around volcanic-looking peaks, and while the ever-present orange lichens also grew here, there were ornamental-looking shrubs in a variety of yellows as well as blood red. There were also some variations on the waxy purple octopus trees, and a type of yellow-skinned flowering plant with purple growths like boils on its surface.

  As they watched smoke rising from one of the volcanoes, Gin asked, “Why would dinosaurs being alive make volcanoes erupt in France?”

  Jordan answered, “The dinosaurs wouldn’t cause them, but whatever allowed them to survive also caused the volcanoes to form. It’s been at least sixty-five million years since this world split off, although I would guess it’s actually been much, much longer. Plenty of time for more than one drastic difference in the timeline. What we have to wonder is why didn’t the dinosaurs die? Which of the five mass extinctions didn’t happen? And why? Maybe the whole solar system or even galaxy is different here.”

  Liv’s mind reeled at the thought of a whole different universe. She’d never given much thought to parallel solar systems. Leave it to Jordan to force her brain to bend into new and interesting shapes.

  Just then, a small orange-furred animal scampered across their path. It was nearly invisible against the burnt-orange lichens coating the ground. Jordan stopped and watched it for a moment.

  Liv said, “I’d been wondering if any mammals survived. Looks like they have.”

  “So I stopped into R & D this morning,” Gin said casually. Liv bet she’d been waiting all day to tell them this news. “They’re mondo excited about the flaming pitch ball analysis. They’re still breaking down the compound’s chemical structure from the gas chromatography and acid-reactor results, but they think they’ll be able to synthesize it. Something small that we can take with us, and throw at enemies to envelop them in instant wildfyre.”

  “Cool,” Connor said.

  “Not cool,” Trent argued.

  “Why not?” Gin asked.

  Trent frowned. “It’s not controllable. What if it backfires—pun definitely intended—and spreads to us?”

  “Well, I’m sure they’d make it safe before they sent us out with it.” Connor smiled. “Besides, where’s your sense of adventure?”

  “I don’t call it adventure when our own weapons attack us.” Trent scowled. “Remember the Widget?”

  Liv definitely remembered the Widget. It had been a highly classified remote spy plane, with sampling machinery to test atmospheric conditions, compartments to transport supplies, and defense capabilities to respond to an attack or cover an escape. It performed flawlessly in tests, but the first world they brought it to for field-testing had an unfortunate mix of atmospheric conditions which were read by the plane as an attack. It dropped its payload on their test camp and they barely escaped annihilation. R & D engineers swore they could correct the problem, but so far, they hadn’t had any luck.

  “Yeah, well,” Connor said. “We made it out, right?”

  “Right.” Trent said darkly.

  As they walked, Liv analyzed samples and tried to scan small wildlife, although everything she saw was both shy and fast-moving, so the scans were only partials. They saw several dinosaurs, but they were apparently vegetarian and non-fire-breathing. At least they didn’t attack. There was no evidence of dino-people. The DEPOT hoped T36 could find some people who were uncorrupted by Home World scientists and form liaisons.

  They reported back at the end of the day, and Gin said brightly, “So, it’s Friday night! You guys are all coming over. I’ve got the best new game.”

  “I hope it’s about blowing up your family,” Liv said, drawing a snicker from Ben that he quickly turned into a cough.

  “What?” Gin said. “Oh, that’s right, your family reunion is this weekend!”

  “Yeah, and I’ve already had calls from three of my aunts and two of my sisters about what I should wear and what I should bring, and they’re all asking about my date, and should we have a bedroom. Ugghh!”

  “Are you bringing a date?” Jordan asked.

  Was he just interested because he was her friend, or because of the new weird thing that was going on in her head? Liv tried not to let her heart jump and kept her voice light. “Yeah, Ben. He’s practically part of the family anyways; he should be there to share the misery.”

  Ben put his arm around her shoulder and then grabbed her in a headlock. “It’ll be fun, sis. I can’t wait to hear all about Aunt Darma’s garden.” Instead of giving her a noogie like he used to when they were kids, he just ruffled her hair and released her as she groaned.

  She considered the DEPOT her true family. She’d been isolated from her relations since the age of ten when she’d learned she was a Traveler. Ben had been the only one she could ever tell that secret to, and it had only made her feel more isolated once she learned what being a Traveler actually meant.

  As far as the world’s governments were concerned, Travelers weren’t even considered citizens.

  She had never belonged anywhere until she’d found other Travelers and become part of this group, this society, and began this job which she considered incredibly important. It made it worse to have to go home and be reminded about how she didn’t actually fit into the family she was genetically related to. Plus, there were so many of them. She had over eighty first cousins just on her mother’s side.

  “How come you’re not intimidated by my family, Ben?”

  “Please. My dad had twelve kids in his family and my mom had seven. I have one sister and seven billion cousins.”

  “There aren’t seven billion people in the world,” Trent said.

  “There are very nearly seven billion people in the world, and I am directly related to every single one of them.”

  Liv laughed, then sobered. “Thank God you’ll be there to save me.”

  He was still grinning broadly at her discomfort. “I can’t wait to talk with Aunt Dottie about her cat.”

  Liv groaned again. “She thinks the Men in Black tried to steal it. You’ve heard that story at least a hundred times.”

  “I know.” Ben laughed.

  Chapter 10

  Liv tossed in her sleep, almost but not quite waking up.

  She was ten. She and Ben were playing soldiers and Indians in her backyard. She summoned the courage to tell him about how she could think about going to a different place and actually end up somewhere else. She made it sound like a dream, just in case he thought she was crazy.

  To her surprise, his face split into a huge smile and he said, “Me too!”

  They compared notes and realized they’d been to some of the same places. He said, “Let’s go somewhere right now. I know this great place. Can you follow?”

  “I think so,” she said.

  He grabbed her hand. “Come on.”

  They went to Mai Tai, although they didn’t know what it was called then. He called it Coney Island. She took in the sights and sounds and smells, all so different from Home.

  As they walked down the boardwalk past a carnival on the beach, they saw some older kids who were dressed just like them: jeans and t-shirts. The locals preferred weird woven hippie pants. The older kids told them this place was called Mai Tai, and Liv knew that, for the first time, she’d met other Home World Travelers. The kids told them the rules of Travel: never tell anyone what you are, never get caught. They told them horror stories about experiments done on Travelers in past eras, and how governments wanted to unlock the secrets of Travel and hoard the power for themselves.

  And they told them
about the DEPOT.

  “It’s this group,” said the leader.

  “Like a secret military group,” another said breathlessly.

  The leader threw him a sullen look, but decided to let the interruption slide. “They are the elitest of the elite.”

  “The best of the best,” said the third boy.

  “What do they do?” Liv had asked.

  “They pretty much run the whole Travelers’ world.” The leader tried to look as if he was unimpressed, but he clearly hero-worshipped them. Liv could tell.

  “They make sure the secret is kept,” said the second boy.

  “Yeah,” said the third. “If you step out of line, they make sure you disappear like that!” He snapped his fingers.

  The leader glanced contemptuously at them. “They explore. They search for new things, go places nobody from Home World has ever seen before! They don’t disappear anybody.”

  “They do too!”

  “Who do you know who’s disappeared?”

  “I heard it from Tina. Her friend said she heard it from a cousin.”

  “The cousin got disappeared?”

  “No, but she knew somebody who did.”

  Liv followed this conversation with interest, turning her head from one to the other as if watching a tennis match. Ben, standing next to her, whispered, “What do you think?”

  An air horn went off. None of the kids seemed to notice as they bickered amongst themselves. Liv turned to Ben to ask what he thought it was, but he suddenly disappeared and Mai Tai went dark.

  Liv became aware that the air horn was actually her phone. She rolled over and blearily opened her eyes: 4:43 am. What the hell?

  Maybe it was Ben, reading her mind. She picked up the phone. “Hello?”

  “Liv, you’ll never believe this—or maybe you will, you might have suspected it—I just got the results in and you’ve got to get down here to see them!”

  “Jordan?”

  “Yeah. How soon will you be here?”

  “Where are you?”

  “The base.” He said it as if she’d asked him what color the sky was at his house.

  “Do you know what time it is?”