“Get out,” I said.
The man half dragged the girl out of the bathroom. I followed, not bothering to dress. I stood dripping wet outside the bathroom door, a foot off the floor. Both Mandisa and Toris were unconscious on the couch, with a man behind them with each hand on their heads.
Tau stood in the middle of the room and said,” He will kill them if you don't stop.”
I froze the man's hands, he screamed and pulled his hands away from the two women. I scanned them and found nothing wrong with either of them.
“You are fortunate that you did not hurt them,” I said.
The man had his hands under his armpits. I had been careful not to give him anything more than minors frostbite. He stared at me and I watched him get an erection! Yes, I was naked, but one would have thought he had other things to think of.
Tau stepped toward me and said,” We had no intention to harm any of you. But, we can not allow you to take the healer. We need her.”
“She has been missing for years. What good has she done for you?” I said.
“There have been rumors,” Tau said.
“You did not mention any rumors?” I said.
Tau turned, went over to a wicker chair and sat down. I scanned outside the house and saw a crowd had gathered. None of them were armed. Their vitals seemed to indicate that they were more anxious than scared.
I floated over to the couch and gently shook Mandisa. She coughed and blinked her eyes. I shook Toris and she opened her eyes.
“What happened? I could not breath. I could not call out,” Mandisa said.
“You are both alright, no thanks to Mr. Tau,” I said..
Toris opened her eyes and eyed me up and down. She smiled and I could smell her arousal. Damn the woman needed a cold shower.
“I am going into the bathroom to put on my uniform,” I said as I left the room.
I heard Mandisa say,” Remember, she can still see and hear you.”
I quickly put on my uniform. I hesitated with the mask. It would help shield me from mental attack, but it might confirm their fears of me. I put the mask in back pouch. I walked out of the bathroom. The girl had left. Tau and the other man were still there. Mandisa and Toris had gone into the house's bedroom to put on their uniforms.
“Now, what rumors?' I said.
Tau put his hands on his folded hands. He looked up at me and said,” Vala Grein was known for her caring. Even after what happened with The Destroyer, many who knew her could not believe that she could resist helping others. Despite rumors of her whereabouts, the Hegemony was never able to find any evidence of her location. We came to fear she was dead.”
I wondered if he said that to stop us from looking for her. If she was dead, our mission was a failure from the very beginning. If we went back to Alaska without her, Toris made clear that they would not create a transit portal.
“We will follow the only lead we have. I promise you, if Vala Grein declines to come back with us to the other Earth, I will not force her,” I said.
“You will let your world face The Destroyer without its most powerful heroes,” Toris said.
“We will find a way,” I said.
Despite my great desire to leave, we waited until dawn rose in the Himalayas. We walked through the village to the beach. Before Mandisa and Toris got into the craft, Tau handed me two ear buds and a small cube.
“The white one will translate our languages for you. The black will allow someone to understand your language. Give it to the the Warrior. The cube will display an image of Vala Gein,” he said.
I took it from his hand and said,” Thank you, why?”
“Battles between Warriors tend to have innocent casualties. Perhaps, if you can directly talk to each other, you can avoid any battle. As for the hologram, where ever she is, she may not have revealed her identity,” Tau said.
I put the white ear bud in my other ear. I put the other ear bud and the cube in my back pouch. The two got into the lifting body, I picked it up and lifted off into the night sky and we went sub-orbital again.
>Warriors vary in their abilities. I have never tried to contract Malko in that way.>
She did so and then I sent,
Chapter 19: Sunday, July 25, just after dawn
The Himalayas looked beautiful in the dawn light. I had never visited the area before, but I had seen it from orbit on a couple of occasions. We had re-entered the atmosphere and were about fifty miles from Malko's location. He had been sleeping and he had just gotten up. He stretched and looked around. Then he looked straight at us.
“He made us. Be ready for me to drop you,” I said.
I felt the twin jet engines fire up and over my comm link Mandisa said,” We will set down about a mile from the village.”
I saw Malko put on some sort of uniform. He walked out of his hut and launched himself straight at us.
“He coming. Be safe,” I said as I left go of the lifting body. I watched as it fell away. I headed to the approaching Malko to make sure he concentrated on me. He had already broken the sound barrier and was still accelerating. I held my position and was ready to move out of his way just before he got to me when I was hit by a wave of heat that threatened to overcome my bio-shield. I cooled myself down and then realized that it was a diversion. I shot downward just before Malko got to me and avoided him taking my head off. He immediately started to slow down and I shot upward to follow him. I matched his speed and kept myself between him and the lifting body.
He accelerated and got around me. He headed straight toward the lifting body. I accelerated after him, but I was sure I could not catch up. I used my clairvoyance to try and send Malko the worlds Mandisa told me. It did not seem to do any good, so just before he reached the lifting body, I concentrated and fired a laser like beam at the Warrior. I was surprised when it hit him that his bio-shield began to weaken and his acceleration slowed. I reached him just before he got to the lifting body. I slammed into him and we headed towards a mountain peak. I sensed his bio-shield fail and I extended my tactile TK around him. We hit the side of mountain and started a avalanche that carried us down the side of the mountain. I was disoriented for a few moments, but kept hold of Malko. Then, I looked around and when I “saw” what direction was up I pulled us out of the avalanche into the sky. I scanned him and his injuries were not serious. I carried him with me to where Toris had landed the lifting body.
The two got out the the craft and stood beside me as Malko stood up on uncertain feet for a few moments.
He spoke and Mandisa translated,” He thanks you for saving his life. He thought you were The Destroyer.”
I handed him the black earbud. Mandisa told him it was a translator and he put it in his ear.
“We are here to see the healer, Vala Grein,” I said.
Malko's face hardened and he said,”She is where no one can reach her, where she is safe.”
“Even from The Destroyer?” I said.
Malko gave a slight nod.
“He must of found a way to get her to the Moon,” Toris said.
More than once I had to search for someone, and although I did not have to “scan” the entire planet and tried to avoid invading privacy, I was always successful, even if it was too late to help a person. If, as I assumed, The Destroyer's clairvoyant abilities were at least a match for mine, in time, she could find the healer, on Earth or on the Moon.
“I was told that The Destroyer did not kill the healer when she had the chance,” I said.
“It was a demonstration of her power to instill fear in Vala, He said.
“That is why she went into hiding?” I said.
“That and she wanted to be free. She tired of being the pawn of the Hegemony. It limited her to healing only warriors. She wanted more than that,” he said.
But, she could not ha
ve that here. If she hid away she could not help people. If she helped people, she would be found. I slapped my forehead. There was only one answer.
“She went to my Earth,” I said.
Malko nodded.
Toris immediately insisted that we go back to Alaska so we could give Forty-Five the news as soon as possible. She was sure they would create a transit portal on the news. Mandisa agreed with me that we needed more information from Malko.
“And when you communicate that the healer is on my world, are you sure that your god will let us back. After all, I will be a possible problem and he really won't need you anymore,” I said.
“Forty-Five would never do that for me. Besides, your people need you to fight The Destroyer,” she said.
“The people at the base may have other ideas,” I said.
We followed Malko to his hut and and sat on goat skin rugs. The hut was lit by a wax lamp. The village contained about thirty people, half were children. The village could have been from a time before modern technology. Toris nervously waited.
“It is a bit primitive here,” I said.
“It is how they want to live. I help them as I can,” Malko said.
I was sure that they could use the help of someone with Malko's abilities.
“What happened to the temple and village up the mountain,” I said.
Malko's face went hard and he clenched his fists. He looked down, shook his head and then said,”It was almost five years ago. I was there with the Warriors Kala and Winn. The Destroyer attacked. Winn and I tried to stop her, but she was too powerful. She threw me against a mountain, as you did, and left me for dead. When I recovered enough, I 'saw' that she had killed Winn and Kala, even though she was with child, and then leveled and melted the temple and village.”
“That is a sad story, but what does it mean to us?” Toris said.
“I need to understand the threat that The Destroyer represents. Malko, where is the transit portal that the healer used to go to my world and does it still exist?” I said.
He shook his head and said,” It was at a research center in a city to the south. It was not in use so not arouse The Destroyer's interest. The healer had many friends and they managed to get those in charge of the center to use the portal to escape to the other world. To my knowledge, they did not repair it.”
“Can you 'look' and see if it is now repaired?” I asked.
Malko became silent and closed his eyes. He opened his eyes and stayed silent.
“Well?” I said.
“It looks like it was repaired, at least to some extent. I once visited the research center, so I knew where to look. It looks abandoned,” Mandisa said.
“Perhaps, someone with expertise with portal technology might be able to get it working,” I said.
“NO! Even if it were possible, and it is not, I would not!” Toris said.
“Perhaps, if that is the only way to reach your god, you might change your mind,” I said.
“There is no way I will help you,” she insisted.
Maybe she would or wouldn't, but that was bridge we would cross later.
“Well, it seems to be the best option we have,” I said.
“We can go back to Alaska,” Toris said.
“If we can't find another way back to my Earth within a day or two, then we will go back to Alaska,” I said.
That seemed to mollify her. Malko left his hut to tell the villagers that he would leave them. I heard him tell them that he would be back. We met him outside the hut.
“Will they be alright without you,” I said to Malko.
“I make sure that they did not become dependent on my help. It was just something extra. As I am sure you heard, I promised I would return, with or without the healer,” he said.
“Can you fly all the way without help?” I asked Malko.
“Yes, and I can carry one of them, if you like?” he said.
I nodded and pointed to Mandisa, who nodded in agreement. I grabbed Toris under one shoulder and lifted off. Malko picked up Mandisa like a baby and followed me. I took Toris because I did not want to take the chance that she might talk Malko out of helping us. It was only his fear that The Destroyer might find and kill the healer after she breached the dimensional barrier into my world that encouraged him to help us. Malko stayed sub-sonic and it took us three hours to get to the research center.
Chapter 20: Sunday, July 25, 11:30 AM India Standard Time
As I flew over the sub-continent, I scanned the major population centers. Most were in the same locations as cities on my world, which made sense. Geography tended to drive where towns and cities were located. Coastal cities were mostly located where there were good harbors or the mouths of major rivers. Internal cites were located along navigable rivers or natural trade routes. All the major cities were in ruins. Rural areas seemed mostly untouched. The population on my world was almost a billion. Here I estimated it was, at most, a quarter of that.
“Did The Destroyer do all the damage?” I said over my comm link.
“She finished it. The battles with and between prior Warriors decimated large areas of the planet, but was more random. After she killed most of the warriors and decimated all major military forces, she targeted large population centers, beginning with the most populous. She only needed a day or two to destroy a city over the past nearly twenty years,” Mandisa said.
“Didn't she take any time to rest?” I said.
“On occasion, but after a few days she would begin again, usually in a distant area. It was thought that it was a way of instilling terror, since she no one knew where she would strike,” Mandisa said.
Lord, I thought. She was a piece of work. Even the vaunted healer, Vala Grein, could not cure her. I wondered if she was psychotic or just a sociopath. It did not really matter.
The research center was located at the edge of the city. From my scans, I thought the city and surrounding area could house at least a hundred thousand people. Half the homes and apartments were vacant. What looked like a major power station was shut down. There were dozens of smaller stations scattered around the city and hundreds of individual stations scattered around, most in the rural farms the surrounded the urban area.
“The main power station in off line. It looks like they switched to a distributed system,” I said.
“The Destroyer attacked power infrastructure first. A distributed system was less likely to attract her attention,” Mandisa said.
The research center was an isolated, large two story, windowless building. It was surrounded by ten foot tall fence that was in intact, but was over grown with vines. The land between the fence and the building was overgrown and the single road had weeds growing in cracks. I scanned the inside of the building and it was empty of people. Everything was covered my dust. Repair work on the portal unit looked half finished with replacement parts left uninstalled.
We landed by the front door.
“It is locked,” Malko said.
“It was abandoned mid-repair,” Mandisa said.
“I told you we should have gone back to Alaska,” Toris said.
She might have been correct. Even with Toris's help, I had doubts that we could repair the portal unit and there was the problem of no power supply. I walked over to the metal door. It was solid steel, an inch thick, and had it was secured with a steel bolt at the top and bottom, which were set into the steel frame. I froze the bolts and pulled on the door's handle when the bolts became brittle enough. They snapped and the door opened.
I stepped through the door and the nullifier around my neck activated and as my bio-shield faded. I thought that this was the second time in less than two days that I had been blind sided. I had not been so surprised since my first months in public as Artemis.
In my mind, I heard,”Sleep” and everything went black.
I woke up laying on my back on firm surface. The nullifier was still active. I opened my eyes and Mandisa looked down at me. I turned my head and saw that I was i
n an examination room.
I sat up and swung my legs off the exam table. A man in a white coat told me to take it easy. My translators still worked. Apparently, a white coat was traditional clothing for doctors on this world too.
I reached up and tugged the nullifier that circled my neck and said,”Turn this thing off!”
“That is beyond my abilities. You must ask Mrs. Agarwal,” I heard the man say though the translator. He had an earbud in his ear, so I assumed it was a translator.
The exam room's door opened and a man motioned us to follow him. As we followed the man, I examined the hallways. The layout matched what I had “seen”, but everything was clean, the lights bright and it was inhabited. I did not know how they fooled my clairvoyance, but I was determined to find out. We ended up in a small dinning area.
Marko and Toris were there, with a middle aged woman and two others, a woman and a man. From her body language, I judged that the middle aged woman was the leader. Her black hair was tied back and she wore a blue sari. She was rather pretty. Given that all people on this world had standard powers, I guessed she must be eighty or ninety years old.
“You must be Agarwal,” I said to the woman.
“Darshika Agarwal, I am the leader of this research center. You, Ms. Tarlock, are the hero known as Artemis, at least you were before you went missing,” she said in heavily accented English..
“It seems you know more about me than I know about you. What did you do to me and turn off the nullifier!” I said.
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