by Pam Uphoff
Is that the merge effect we heard about? And I'm merging with water?
He turned and jogged through the downpour to the west corridor and repeated his front-to-back double slice. Up a flight of stairs . . .
“Eldon! Eldon! Get us out of here!” Coltrain . . . all of them were there and yelling now.
“Get down the stairs and out the hole in the outer wall!” Eldon yelled back.
They bolted as soon as they were free, brief hesitation as Shane and Coltrain stopped at the head of the stairs.
“Go!”
He got all three corridors on the top floor and followed the last kids down the staircase. And headed for the west corridor on the ground floor. Ran for the front of the building, slicing . . . skidding to a halt at the sight of the soldiers charging at him . . . lashed out with a slice. They dropped and Eldon jarred to a halt as his slice hit something it couldn't cut.
Xen Wolfson. Sword raised, glints in his inner vision of hard held shields . . .
Nothing between them but the people he'd just killed.
He dry swallowed. "I'm trying to get the kids out of here."
Xen flicked a glance behind him. Nodded. Looked down at the soldiers on the ground. A flash of light and heat, steam exploding upward, shielded and contained. A kinetic smashing effect . . . There was nothing left of the soldiers but a fine ash. The rain crashed down and washed it away . . . Eldon danced back as it splashed up at him . . .
"Merging with ash won't hurt you. Dead bodies are a really bad idea." Xen waved his left hand and the cell bars clattered to the ground. Get. Hurry."
Eldon looked at his watch. "Shit. Half an hour. I set a bomb. Everyone needs to be off both worlds in half an hour."
"Right. Get going. I've a couple dozen more kids to still get out of here." He turned and ran.
Eldon cursed, and hustled the kids away. Through his hole in the wall . . . The shadow zone ended a hundred feet away. He ran for it. The grass was acting oddly, swaying toward the kids as they hesitated, the leaders yelling as the tried to strip the grass off their legs.
"Ashes. Right." Eldon pulled power and rolled a cylinder of pure heat out across the ground for another hundred yards . . . and saw bubbles again. He stopped and grabbed one.
Opened it carefully, threw the far end out to that bright spot of his gate. Anchored it jumped in to open the far side and pin it to trees, back through to hold it up and open. "Phil, lead them through the gate. Jerry, hold this open as long as you dare. I'm going back for the last kids."
Chapter Twenty-three
Run for it!
Shadow Zone
7 Safar 1405 yp
:: Twenty minutes! Get everyone off this world in twenty minutes!:: Xen put all the power he could muster into that.
The kids on the gurneys were waking up, struggling, thank god.
Xen sliced restraints, and aimed them to the right of the prison. Running from gurney to gurney as they staggered away, and then Eldon was back hustling the kids around the corner.
Last one. Xen hauled him off, grabbed the wobbler ahead and followed Eldon, similarly assisting two around the jail building and out of the shadow zone. Xen hustled his pair down to the burned path . . .Why is the grass doing that? We came in through this world.
Let them go and bolted back for more . . . They were all going to make it . . . except Eldon glancing at his watch and turning to bolt for a battered metal vehicle.
Xen swept a glance around. On the horizon, the Oner transports were heading for the gate. Gates, plural. Someone must have opened more to get everyone out quickly.
He closed his eyes . . . the dim animal-like glows of the Helaos. No Oners, no Earthers. The last of the students heading through Eldon's gate.
At the far eastern reach of his range, vehicles heading for a gate. To the west, a brief flash as a gate closed.
Pyrite galloped up, spun as Xen grabbed leather and vaulted aboard.
"Horsey, get us out of here, fast."
Pyrite galloped up slope, took a look and travelled, looked and travelled.
Bolted for the closest gate. A truck drove through, a squad of infantry close behind.
A sitting figure starting to stand . . .
:: Q! ::
:: She's holding the gate for us, you grab her, while I run. ::
A flare of white light from behind them. Xen threw up a shield, squinted . . . Felt the horse's pain.
360° vision!
He leaned and cupped his hands behind Pyrite's eyes.
"Squint, dammit, I have to grab Q . . . if I can see her . . . "
A wobbling blur to the side of the gate, turning toward his voice, reaching . . . Xen grabbed and hauled her across his lap as Pyrite ran through the gate, veered right and stopped.
He felt the gate collapse . . . there were no nearby gates . . . several a mile or so away . . . gone.
He closed his eyes—not that he could see much anyway—and checked the inbetween.
The Helios Miniverse was gone.
The membrane of the Primitive World was wild, the four stars nearest the Sun . . . and the Sun. All five stars were all throwing out huge loops of plasma. The magnetic fields made his head hurt. A slightly offset image . . .
Are they all merging? Or will they pull away, like they did from the Dino World?
And Earth . . . offset, with a burning bubbling . . . sizzling blue floods of bubbles, cones, cylinders, odd torus shapes, squirming . . . things.
As he watched, that hot point of dissolution sank into the Primitive World. Lava exploded, fountained, ejected the burning spot and Helios World went with it . . . separating . . . disappearing behind clouds of bubbles . . .
“It’s . . . turning into bubbles, becoming the inbetween.” Q sounded breathless. “And the bubbles that are hitting the Primitive World are being absorbed. It’s still merging . . . sort of. But what happens when Helios is gone? They’re out of contact now . . . I’m not dead sure gravity is working right, right there.”
Xen swallowed. “If it eats the whole planet . . . I really hope it dies in a vacuum, well, near vacuum, and won’t just tick along sustained by the interplanetary medium.”
“Yeah. Umm, Xen? How are your eyes?”
Twenty-four
Clean up
Surveillance World Two
7 Safar 1405 yp
Xen opened his eyes and blinked at something beyond blurred and going white . . . "Damn, and I didn't even look back. Q? Can you see anything?"
"No. It's all white. I held the gate as long as I could. You two . . . we three . . . were the last ones through."
"Horsey?"
Pyrite shivered. :: White. ::
"Dad?" An anxious voice, sliding teenager tones. "Are you all right?"
"Ruff? What are you doing here?"
"There's a bunch of us running messages and fetching and carrying. What do you need me to do? What wrong with your eyes?"
"Flash burn. All three of us. I need you to lead Pyrite by a very clear path to someplace where I can set up a fast room."
"Right, Py? Can you see through my eyes?"
Pyrite nodded, and stepped out cautiously.
"Xen, this is really undignified." Q sounded out of breath, belly down on the saddle pommel.
Xen snickered, and helped her flip over and sit up.
Engine noises died away, and he caught the chink of horse hooves on rock, and familiar accents.
"Here this'll be good." Ruff's fourteen-year-old's voice squeaked a bit.
"What t'hell?" A very familiar voice.
"Hi, Easterly. We're all going to climb into a fast bubble, partake of that wine and barring further emergency, we'll be out in an hour or so."
"Unless your sister kills you?" Easterly's voice was right at his knee. "I take it you can't see? Q? I'm going to haul you off t'horse and set you on t'ground."
Q slid. "Thank you. Xen, do you have a fast room?"
Xen raised his voice over a babble of female voices. "Well, I hav
e a bubbled apartment stable, that I can shift easily." He slid off Pyrite's back with a lot more caution than usual.
"Good. I'm going to let some witches haul me away."
"See you tomorrow, in an hour."
He split a bottle of wine with Pyrite and managed to stay awake long enough to shower.
Easterly shook him awake way too soon.
"Everybody wants you. Can you see?"
"Well . . . it's back to blurry, from white out. I suppose I can sit somewhere and answer questions so long as I don't have to read anything . . . or recognize faces. How did you get in here?"
"I opened the door for him." Ruff piped up. "They want you to answer questions. You'd think it would take them longer than half an hour just to calm down and start thinking again."
"Ugh. Right. Pyrite? How's your vision?"
:: I can see where the door is. ::
"Right. You stay here and finish healing. I'll go talk to people . . . If I can find some clothes . . ."
The Oners had a ute to take him to wherever. Xen wasn't dead sure why they'd needed a raised platform, but it was now the control center. . . . and was that charismatic glow the Great Grand?
"So, boy, in trouble again?" His great grandfather's voice, humor forced over worry. Yep. General Rufi had found a good excuse to escape from his office.
Xen grinned. "Yep. Back t'normal."
A snort. "Unfortunately true."
The other glows felt like Oners, and a familiar witch.
"Four steps up." Scar was hovering nervously. "Then right turn and there's a chair . . . And drink this. The doctors are giving it to everyone who went into the shadow zone."
Something milky and gritty that filled a craving he'd not realized he had.
"Oh good you found him." Relief in a familiar Oner accent.
"Urfa? You got here fast."
"Yeah, just in time to see all the gates closing in blasts of . . . One only knows what—unless you do."
Xen closed his eyes and looked at the inbetween. Winced away from fireworks, fountains, of bubbles. Is that Helios? What the hell did Eldon do?
"That's . . . I've never seen anything like that before. Eldon told me he'd set a bomb . . . I thought he had set something to destroy a mag center . . . and the merge would snap to completion. That's why I told everyone to get off the world."
"Right, and we're still missing about half the students that were kidnapped. And we have some extras, from somewhere." That sounded like External Relations Director Ajki.
Xen nodded more or less in the direction of his voice. "Eldon had a gate and was getting kids away. They'll be in the Earth Book world where he's been hanging out. Oh, and I've got a dozen kids in a bubble."
"There was a third merge center, a drone spotted a person on a black horse getting people out through either a gate or a corridor. So how do we find those kids?"
Xen looked over, squinted a bit at the familiar witch aura. "Raven? Is that you? Go find Lady Rustle and ask if she went all Dark Lady, and if so, where'd she send the people?"
The blur of red zipped off, replaced by a larger figure in mixed white and blue.
"Hold still. I have eye drops."
"Dr. Heath, this is Director Urfa, and Director Ajki. Oww! That stings!"
Urfa's voice sounded a bit breathless. "Doctor, a pleasure."
She must be in full Goddess mode. I wonder which aspect, or if she's changing as she goes?
She popped him on the head. "Take more of those supplements. Drink, even though you aren't as dehydrated as most of the youngsters."
"Guess I ought to have rained more, on them."
"Good thing you did rain. Very odd effect. Nasty."
Xen grabbed his newest bubble. "Speaking of youngsters . . ."
A tsk as she took the bubble. "We'll be hunting children for months, if not years." The blur disappeared.
Xen closed his eyes. His inner vision worked better than his outer. The thud of hooves, a glowing presence.
"Xen?"
"I'm fine, Lady Gisele just stuck drops in my eyes. Lady Rustle Neverdaut, may I present Presidential Director Urfa and Exterior Director Ajki?"
"Gentlemen, a pleasure. Roughly an hour ago, I sent a couple of thousand teenagers to a world with rather utilitarian facilities and a large lake. It may take Q to find it . . . I wonder why they didn't come here?"
"Err," Urfa sounded cautious. "You don't have control over the process?"
"No, not really."
"Mom, if you can picture that world . . . " Xen suppressed a smile at the pair of surprised flashes. Studied the mental visualization. Expanded squishies and down the hill, a broad lake. "They'll be on one of the Evacuation Worlds. Try 36 or 19 first. They both had huge lakes like that. By any chance, was it raining on your teenagers?"
"Pouring, and very odd effect indeed, when it struck them."
"Thank you, Lady Rustle. We'll find them . . . and take lots of mineral supplements with us." Urfa was sounding a bit closer to normal.
"Good. Xen? Where's Quicksilver? I don't feel her."
"In a fast room." He squinted . . . "That way, I think."
Phantom snorted and moved off.
Urfa cleared his throat. "Your mother seems very nice, so may I assume that means she's extra frightening? And no doubt she's dimensionally able?"
Xen laughed. "Oh Urfa. My mother invented the permanent gates. And she usually answers the prayers of families who need to be removed from hazardous situations, both man-made and natural. Some of your students must have been related to each other, enough to trigger her family oriented . . . fixation."
More hooves. "Xen?" Easterly's country accent. "We pulled some Helios soldiers off t'battlefield. They were acting odd, trying t'not fight us. Garit thinks t'Oner personality may be winning t'fight. We got them out with us, but what t'hell do we do with 'em, long term?"
Xen hesitated. "I gave Ajha an all-purpose reinforcement of personality and genetics spell net. That may be what's kicking in. I'd say give them the grass clippings and send them . . . Ajki? All those Evacuation Worlds? Can we use one of them and is there food and water along with the squishies?"
"Yes and yes. Umm . . . If you have anyone with the energy left to make a gate, let's put them on the same world as Lady Rustle's students. Treat them and . . . study them . . . and see if they can go home."
"Right. Xen?" Easterly sounded expectant.
He looked away, searched for the Evacuation Worlds. Thirty-six is right . . . yeah, there it is. Lake. Squishies. People. I'll put a gate way over there, so the groups don't interact . . . He grabbed a cone . . . "Umm, Easterly? Where do you want this side of the gate?"
A snort from Urfa. "Scar! Drive Xen and Major Easterly wherever they need to go. I'll call for even more medics and some priests to sort the soldiers out."
"Thank you." Easterly grabbed Xen's elbow and steered him to a ute. "Do you need him back?"
"Yes please. Everyone comes to him, very handy."
A few minutes bumping along . . . a mass of confused minds ahead. "Old Gods! How many soldiers did Ajha lay those spells on?"
"Lots. They cycled t'troops through to get a look at Helios. I think a whole company was caught when t'Shadow Zone expanded. Park over there." Easterly steered Xen out of the ute and a few steps away. "Open t'gate here."
Xen grabbed another cone, slowed it, tangled it with his first . . . Swayed and stumbled through.
He squinted around at lots of blurry green and blue. "The students should all be about thirty miles north."
Easterly sighed, grabbed his elbow and steered him back across. "Good thinking. Now go back and be a beacon for people with questions. And heal fast. You need t'see what you're doing."
And back at Urfa's open-air HQ, half of Disco had arrived, plus Garit and a couple of his troopers.
And Rael.
" . . . about half our kids and half from a completely different world. I told them to make themselves comfortable and broke into the survival packs. Th
ey were all slugging that nasty liquid dinner stuff like it tasted good."
Xen nodded. "Demineralized, some weird effect when you go into the shadow zone, then back into your own world. My first guess is, some of the atoms think they need to merge with each other. Maybe because all the water and even the air we breathed over there, that did merge with most of our water and oxygen and whatever."
"Eww. And how are we going to find their home world?" Rael sounded close.
"Probably the one that Eldon was living on. At any rate we'll start there." Xen took a quick peek. Blurry black object, pale oval, red hair on top.
My eyes are healing, the blur is nearly recognizable.
"What did you do to your eyes?"
"Flash blinded. They're better already." A hand on his elbow, steering him, turning him.
"Sit down."
He sat. Turned his head at the soft thumps of multiple hooves.
Q on Pyrite, Mom on Phantom.
"Have you looked at the inbetween?" He asked.
"Yes. Whatever that is, it looks like it’s going to eat most of Helios, but the other Earth may escape." Q sounded a bit faint. "I zoomed in for a good look. A big chunk of Helios is gone, serious volcanism, erupting all along a huge circular zone of . . . dissolution. It’s just flat evaporating into a flood of bubbles and other odd shapes. I don't know where it will stop."
I hope to hell it stops!
:: Shut up big brother, before you give me nightmares.!::
"Eldon told me to get everyone off the world." Xen rubbed his temples. "He said he'd set a bomb, so I thought he was going to blow up a mag center and the merge would go all the way . . . I didn't realize anyone had a dimensionally effective weapon at all, let alone something that could . . . What?"
"Convert matter to . . . whatever the inbetween is made of?" Q sounded appalled.
"So . . . what did Eldon have?" Inso's voice. "Did he make it, or steal it?"
