“We’d like Room 8, please.”
The Concierge seemed overly concerned.
“Are you sure that’s the room you want, Hu-man? Not Room 9? People are always getting those two confused.”
“You dare question me?”
“No, no, of course not...” stammered the Concierge, looking apologetic.
He rang a bell and Bbri, a small Nocturnal wearing dark glasses to protect his eyes, holding a book in his hand, came out from the back.
“Forgive me, Hu-Man. Bbri will show you the way.”
But Bbri showed no sign of moving.
“Bbri, take these two Hu-mans to Room 8,” ordered the Concierge.
“Can’t I finish my chapter first?” whined Bbri.
“Bbri!” shouted the Concierge.
“All right, all right, no need to shout.”
Bbri grudgingly set off, followed by Gisèle and the Nyctalope. They trudged through dingy corridors.
“They exploit us mercilessly,” he grumbled. “We get nothing but the dirty jobs, my good masters... An intellectual like myself, forced to carry heavy bags...”
“Um... We don’t have any bags,” said Gisèle. “We’re just passing through.”
“Yes, we’re merely strangers here,” added Leo.
“Strangers, strangers... Everyone is a stranger here. There’s no justice, Hu-man, none at all... But the King will soon change all that!”
They almost passed by the door to Room No.8, but the Nyctalope stopped.
“Er, I believe this is it,” he said, clearing his throat.
He then handed Bbri a tip.
“I hope you know what you’re doing, entering this room,” said the small Nocturnal. “The Hu-Man who lives here is crazy.”
The Nocturnal then scurried away while the Nyctalope knocked on the door.
“Henri! Professor d’Olbans! It’s I, Leo Saint-Clair. Please let us in.”
An older man with a kind face, dressed in a blue laboratory overcoat, opened the door. He smiled at the sight of the Nyctalope and they exchanged a warm embrace.
He then welcomed Gisèle.
They settled into comfortable armchairs.
“I have heard a lot about you, Henri,” said Leo. “How have you been faring?”
“I was expecting you, Great Nyctalope. I think I have finally achieved our aim—to enter Rhea’s Core and take control of the Builders’ engines. It wasn’t without difficulties, of course. Has Mayor Mitang told you about what happened to your granddaughter Xavière?”
“Briefly. She died in one of your attempts to access the Core, didn’t she?”
“Exactly. But I think that was due to our choosing the wrong location. The stress of the Great Transformation was too much…”
“The Great Transformation?” inquired Leo.
“Yes. In order to access the Core, you must undergo a process not unsimilar to that which the Builders themselves went through. It adds an ethereal component to your body; it supercharges it. I call this state becoming an ‘overman.’”
“Something like that is bound to send ripples throughout the continuum. Our presence here will be detected. It’s a dangerous gamble, Henri.”
“Indeed it is, Great Nyctalope. But if you don’t do it, Rhea may well be doomed.”
“How do you mean?”
“Since I have been here, I’ve had time to probe the secrets of the Builders. I found I wasn’t the only one trying to access Rhea’s Core. Someone else, far more devious and with perhaps greater scientific knowledge and resources, was doing the same…”
“I bet he’s the entity behind King Kkal’s recent actions. I’ve already seen examples of perverted uses of Builders’ technology during our journey here. Mitang’s suspicions were correct. Do we know who this entity is?”
“Yes, Great Nyctalope.”
“Then speak up, man. Who is our secret enemy?”
“The man whom you once knew on Earth long ago as Baron Glô von Warteck. a.k.a.…”
“…Lucifer!” completed the Nyctalope.
Chapter XIII
The Eve of Armageddon
Meanwhile, the Envoy, still followed by Claude Marécourt, had just emerged from their underground journey into Upper Qotwaa.
They stood on the edge of a vast esplanade, which served as the terminus for loading and unloading the caravans from and to other Rhean cities.
Suddenly, the Envoy raised her head, her face searching the sky for something she could not see.
“What’s wrong?” inquired Marécourt.
“I felt... something,” replied the Envoy.
Inside King Kkal’s buried sanctum, the Nocturnal tyrant paced furiously across the room.
“We’ve got to find the Nyctalope,” he raged. “This is all your fault, Ddôl!”
“Yes, Your Majesty. I’m sorry, Your Majesty!” responded the Chamberlain, sheepishly.
Suddenly, an alarm rang as a new image captured by one of the King’s many spybirds flying over the city was broadcast into the column of light.
It was the image of a tank-like vehicle which had just entered Upper Qotwaa—Koynos’ battletruck!
“Your Majesty! One of our spybirds has just spotted a Hu-man vehicle entering Qotwaa,” said Ddôl, scrutinizing the image. “Wait! It’s not from Olbansville. It looks like one of the New Fifteen’s!”
“What’s it doing in Qotwaa?” said Kkal, concerned. “I don’t like it. Is the Blot ready?”
Spookily, the voice of its pilot, Uunan, was suddenly heard throughout the room:
“Destruction imminent.”
It was followed by a burst of merciless laughter.
In Room 8, at the hotel in Upper Qotwaa, Professor Henri d’Olbans had taken the Nyctalope and Gisèle to an adjacent laboratory, in the center of which was a complicated chair that resembled a dentist’s, but also had a transparent helmet and cables connected to the ceiling and side generators.
“Please, sit in the Aura Polyactivator,” invited Henri d’Olbans.
The Nyctalope sat down in silence. Henri started busying himself with the machine’s settings, while Gisèle stood by Leo’s side.
“Gisèle…” he said.
“Yes, chéri?”
“I must prevent the secrets of Rhea from falling into Lucifer’s evil hands. There’s too much at stake... Things down here may get a bit ticklish, so I want you to get back to Olbansville. Professor d’Olbans will be able to arrange it.”
“But I don’t want to leave you!”
“I know. I don’t want to leave you either. Without you, I would never have made it this far. But you can’t follow me further.”
“Why not?”
“Where I’m going, I must travel alone. It’s my destiny.”
Henri lowered a projector from the ceiling.
“Is there anything I can do?” said Gisèle, resignedly.
“There may be. Akira Mitang knows my back-up plan. He’ll brief you.”
The Nyctalope reached out for Gisèle’s hand and squeezed it tenderly.
“Trust me, ma chérie. I love you.”
“I love you too.”
She kissed him lightly, then stepped back as Henri finished plugging the projector to the glass helmet placed over the Nyctalope’s head.
“I’m ready when you are, Professor.”
“Yes, Great Nyctalope.”
Immediately, a torrent of sparks leapt out of the connecting point, while an aura of blinding light surrounded Leo’s body.
“Good luck, Great Nyctalope! I suspect the Builders will now be after you like a pack of wolves.”
“What’s happening to him?” asked Gisèle.
The Nyctalope’s body had begun to be consumed by the light.
“Don’t worry,” said Henri, watching the dials. “It looks like he’ll be fine. In fact, I’d say he’ll be finer than the rest of us! Ha! Ha!”
Henri then invited Gisèle to follow him.
“Follow me, Mademoiselle.”
&n
bsp; She did so, after one last look towards the Nyctalope’s body, which now seemed to be completely made of light.
Henri opened a door at the far end of the room, and invited Gisèle to enter. On one side was a large spherical machine with a circular central opening, connected by a thick but somewhat corroded cable to a low, round control console.
“What’s that?” asked Gisèle, astounded.
“Before the Builders ascended to their present state, they used a limited form of matter teletransportation. This is one of the oldest working units on the planet, which I found in a cavern near the North Pole. I managed to repair it. With it, I can send you back to Olbansville instantly.”
Gisèle stepped inside the machine.
“With an emphasis on ‘working,’ I hope?” she said, smiling.
Henri stood at the console and prepared to pull a switch.
“Watch out for the sparks, I’m ready to activate.”
He pulled the switch and Gisèle disappeared in a circle of blinding blue light.
The Professor then walked back into the other room. Where once the Nyctalope sat was now a glowing ball of light. Henri checked the dials again, nodded in satisfaction, and went to sit in an armchair, waiting for the process to be complete.
Outside, people in the street stopped and raised their heads as they saw light pouring out of the hotel.
Inside the King’s sanctum, Ddôl suddenly shouted:
“Your Majesty! Come quickly! I think I’ve found the Nyctalope!”
Lucifer reappeared, his ghostly form hovering around the column of light showing the image of the hotel in Upper Qotwaa with light pouring out of its first-floor windows.
“I sense the Nyctalope mutating,” he said. “I feel his energies. He is powerless in this state. You must strike now!”
“Tell the Blot to bomb the target!” roared King Kkal. “No survivors!”
“Understood. Ha! Ha! Ha!” replied the eerie voice of Uunan.
High in the sky, the Blot began its fatal dive towards Upper Qotwaa, passing over its esplanade.
Just below, the Envoy and Claude Marécourt were standing on a platform, when, suddenly, they head the Blot’s loud hum filling the sky.
The Envoy looked up again and, this time, saw the Blot.
“The Blot,” she said.
“What’s that? It looks like a flying egg!”
“That object is an aberration. It was made with technology stolen from the Sarvants. It is evil.”
The Envoy pulled out what looked like an old western six-shooter except that it radiated a faint blue light. Without taking aim, she shot a single bullet towards the Blot. The bullet flew through the air and soon turned into a pellet of blue light.
Inside the Blot, Uunan noticed the bullet.
“The Envoy! What is she doing here?” he growled.
The Blot veered sharply to the left, but the bullet turned to pursue it. No matter how many twists and turns Uunan took to avoid the blue bullet, like a heat-seeking missile, it swung and continued its merciless pursuit, until it finally closed in on the Blot, which was starting to fray, dripping a trail of black globules behind it.
The bullet struck the Blot, creating a tremendous explosion.
“What did you do?” asked Claude Marécourt.
“I shot down the evil thing, sending it back to the primal chaos from which it was pulled,” answered the Envoy.
However, almost immediately, radiating beams of black nothingness, through which one could glimpse the glimmer of stars, started spreading from the very center of the explosion, splitting and crisscrossing the sky of Rhea.
“One of the Core Engines must have been somehow damaged by the explosion, Your Majesty,” said Ddôl, his voice quaking with fear. “The continuum field which protect our planet is breaking apart...”
Kkal pointed an accusatory finger at Lucifer.
“I never should have listened to you, Hu-Man! This is your fault. We’re all doomed now!”
Outside Qotwaa, chaos erupted as the energy bolts began to strike the ground in the Upper City. The populace ran in panic—not knowing where to run. Even the Underground City and its Royal Palace were severely shaken.
Kkal almost lost his balance during one of the shockwaves, but Lucifer remained imperturbable.
Inside Rhea’s Core, the golden control sphere vibrated uncontrolably, then exploded into a million tiny shards. Darkness fell.
Immediately, a warp opened in the Pattern on the floor of King Kkal’s sanctum, releasing another bolt of lightning.
“Look! The hatch is opening!” screamed Lucifer triumphantly. “At last we have succeeded! We can now access Rhea’s Core! Plunder the secrets of the Sarvants! Destroy the Nyctalope! Become like unto the gods themselves!”
“At last!” breathed Kkal with a sigh of relief.
The King noticed that his guards were increasingly terrified by what they were seeing, and were making feeble attempts to run away.
“STOP! All of you!” he shouted. “Come back! We’ve won!”
Shy and fearful at first, but more enthusiastic as they understood the meaning of their King’s words, the guards regrouped and gathered.
“We’ll begin the Invasion of the Core at once,” said Kkal. “I want order and discipline. Ppy, you’ll come with me. Ddôl, I’m leaving you in charge. Capture the Nyctalope and bring him to me in chains.”
“With pleasure, Your Majesty!” answered the Chamberlain.
Kkal then ordered his men to jump into the glowing hatch.
“Go! Go!”
Finally, unable to wait, he too jumped, shouting:
“Rhea is mine at last! All mine! Ha! Ha! Ha!”
Chapter XIV
Old Enemies Meet at Last
Following the disintegration of the Blot, cracks in the Rhean field had appeared in the skies above Qotwaa.
At the very moment that chaos was spreading amongst the city’s inhabitants, the armored vehicle driven by Koynos entered the outskirts of the Upper City.
“No.1 to No.2. Koynos here,” said the driver, speaking into a microphone. “Do you hear me, Frédéric? This may well be our last conversation for some time. Events have taken a most unexpected and disturbing turn…” Koynos’s hand stopped the engines. “My instructions are for you and all of our men to return to Earth on the Oxus,” the leader of the New Fifteen continued. Our mission here is finished. Koynos over and out.”
A hatch slowly opened on the outside of the vehicle and Koynos stepped out, strikingly handsome, wearing a black leather jacket and pants.
He spent a few minutes surveying the disaster all around him.
“Qotwaa is crumbling under its own fear,” he muttered. “How appropriate.”
Chaos reigned everywhere as the cracks turned into bolts of “nothingness” that struck randomly. The crowd, comprised mostly of Diurnals, was in a state of utter panic.
“The destruction of the Blot must have short-circuited one of the generators...” mused Koynos.
He then took off, flying towards the devastated city like an angel.
“The time has come for me to face the Nyctalope.”
Meanwhile, not far from there, Claude Marécourt was expressing his concern to the Envoy:
“This is terrible. If this spreads, Rhea risks being destroyed. Is there anything you can do? Surely, your masters, the Sarvants, won’t allow…”
“Hush! I’m receiving new instructions,” said the Envoy, appearing to be listening to an inaudible voice. Then, she said: “The matter is being taken care of. I have a new mission. Follow me.”
“Where?”
“Up there!”
The Envoy used her gun to shoot what appeared to be a beam of blue light towards an unseen point high in the sky. Then grabbing Marécourt by the waist, the mysterious woman pulled both of them up into the air.
“Oh, my goodness!” exclaimed the young physicist, more than a little scared.
“Are you losing faith in me?” said the Envoy,
smiling. “Hang on; we’re almost there.”
A small bubble-shaped ship, almost identical to the Blot, but surrounded by blue light, had just appeared above their heads. The Envoy pulled herself and Marécourt onto the ship’s strangely solid hull.
“Hold on!” said the Envoy.
At that moment, a bolt of nothingness hit the bubble-ship, slamming Marécourt’s body into the hull, rendering the physicist semi-conscious.
Then, another bolt slammed into the ship, its momentum propelling the Envoy towards Marécourt. Their mouths met. They exchanged glances, then kissed passionately.
Without saying anything, they climbed into the bubble-ship, which was being shaken by a giant whirlpool made of space, and then eventually swallowed up by it.
“You’ve never told me your name,” said Claude Marécourt.
“Hold on tight,” said the Envoy.
The bubble-ship emerged from the Rhean field in outer space like a bullet being shot out of a gun. They saw the planetoid being wracked by black, cosmic bolts. Space itself seemed to shimmer around Rhea.
“I’m Xavière Saint-Clair,” finally said the Envoy.
“Xavière…?”
“Yes. I’m the Nyctalope’s grand-daughter.”
“But they said you died at the North Pole a long time ago, trying to reach Rhea’s Core.”
“I told you—the Sarvants rebuilt me—just as they did Koynos. I’ll explain later. We’re getting out of here,” said the Envoy. “I’m engaging hyperdrive.”
“Where are we going?”
“Earth.”
The bubble-ship vanished.
In the control room at Olbansville, Mayor Akira Mitang and Marc de Ciserat had seen the blip that was the bubble-ship blink out of existence on their viewscreens.
They weren’t alone: Gisèle d’Holbach, who had rematerialized safely in the city hours earlier, had joined them.
“What was that?” asked the young woman.
“I don’t know,” said Mitang. “It looked like a spaceship of some kind, but it couldn’t be...”
“We can’t tell what’s going on in the northern hemisphere,” said Ciserat. “Since that strange explosion, most of our monitoring stations have gone down. None of the reports we’re receiving are making sense.”
The Return of the Nyctalope Page 27
