CHAPTER 44
FORGING THE KEY
He gave her a look you could have poured on a waffle.
-Ring Larder
When Bates woke, innumerable strange sensations assailed him. He tingled and ached all over strangely and was lying butt up, thrown over something massive that was swinging back and forth rhythmically. His ankles were grasped firmly by something, but his arms, head, and torso were hanging and swinging freely with the rhythmic motion. Opening his eyes, he saw rugged terrain passing by, and what could have been thick green legs that moved in rhythm with his own swinging, but all was very blurred, since he wasn't wearing his glasses. At about the same time, he realized that whatever he was thrown over was alive and huge, perhaps a horse or a camel.
"Where the hell am I?" he asked loudly.
"You have the honor extreme to being borne by this member of the Galactic League High Council, human," came the immediate reply, so loud that it seemed to bore directly into his head, while at the same time the swinging walk stopped and he was lifted off the massive shoulder of Krog and sat down gently onto a surprisingly soft stretch of leaf-covered ground.
"Bates! Are you all right?" asked a familiar voice, and Bates was relieved to recognize the blurred face of Mel, along with those of Jane and Oscar, bent over him.
"I feel sore, tired, and I’m hungry as hell, but I'll do," he replied.
"I'll be the judge of that," said Jane, feeling his forehead and pulse. "Pulse is strong and normal. Temperature's about right too. If anything, I'd say he looks better than he did this morning, if I'm any judge of man-flesh."
"And she is!” attested Mel.
Johnny Goth knelt next to Bates and placed a hand on his forehead. "He still appears to be perfectly normal and healthy," he announced, after a few seconds.
"The life force in him is now super strong," added Dooley, "like with Johnny."
"Does anyone have my glasses?" Bates asked.
"Sure buddy," said a relieved Oscar, as he put the thick specs on his friend.
Looking around, Bates saw that the seven of them were alone. "Where is everybody else? And where did you guys come from?"
"I'll bring you up to date," said Mel. "We arrived a few minutes ago in the Bus after Johnny came and got us. He told us that you, Janet, and the kids were unconscious and needed to be cared for."
"Pru and I checked everyone over first, and we could find nothing wrong with any of you," explained Johnny. "We would have done healing, if any healing was necessary. I thought that you'd like to be with your friends, so here we are."
"Are Janet and the kids OK?"
"They appear to be just fine, aside from aches and cramps," said Oscar, bending over his friend. "You seem to have gotten the major dose of whatever the Traveler dished out. You've been out for an hour, but the others woke up in minutes. They're already in the Bus, eating everything in sight. By the way, that includes Milo.”
“They’re eating Milo?” Bates asked in alarm.
“No, wise-ass!" Oscar laughed. "He’s eating away our food supply too! He was standing among your legs when the Traveler blasted all of you; his genes or whatever must have been scrambled too. Not as much as yours though, you were out cold. Jane wanted to call in doctors for you, but according to Johnny if he and Pru couldn't fix it, it couldn't be fixed, or it doesn't need fixed.
“Our unicorn friend's been by regularly, poking with that horn of hers all of you that got scrambled by the Traveler, and she's been reassuring everyone that everything is all right, though she hasn't elaborated. Apparently she doesn't want to disturb whatever was done to you folks, though she’s been damned curious about whatever that Traveler character did."
Bates nodded. "That reminds me, Johnny; I've been meaning to talk to you about Pru. I have some questions."
Johnny sat down cross-legged beside Bates. "What do you want to know?"
"Well, you have apparently known Pru for a long time."
"For as long as I can remember. She is very special to the Goths, the Simples, and the Tribe."
"Tribe?" asked Oscar.
"The Indian Tribe that lives at Goth Mountain. Dooley and I are Tribe members. The Tribe has been associated with Pru for thousands of years."
"Pru is thousands of years old?" Mel asked.
"Pru is millions of years old," Johnny stated.
"Millions?" Bates responded.
"Pru is very special," Dooley added.
"And she has something to do with the Sleeping Great One, apparently," noted Bates. "Has she ever explained exactly what her relationship with the Great One is?"
"No," said Johnny. "I've asked her but she says that it's too dangerous a secret to tell anyone."
"That doesn't sound good," remarked Oscar.
"I have confidence that if and when we need to know she'll tell us," said Johnny.
"You trust her completely then?"
"Absolutely," said Johnny.
Bates shook his head and sighed. Pru having big secrets was par for the course. On paper he was leading the effort to save Earth and should probably know everything about everything, but he was actually a puppet of Jigs, Pru, and now the Traveler. It all came down to trust, he realized; trust in old friends and in people that he just met, even non-human people. Earth was due to be wacked by an alien redirected asteroid but Earth was hopefully about to saved by other aliens. Was it all some sort of balance in karma thing maybe? "Thanks for the input Johnny. Now we need to get going. We have a mission to complete."
Come on, Bates," said Oscar, "the Bus is in a flat glade right on the other side of this next hill. Can you walk?"
"Damned if I know. Let’s find out!”
Oscar and Mel helped their friend to stand up, but Bates was still too weak to walk and he tumbled to the ground promptly. He ached and tingled all over. Krog hoisted him back onto his huge shoulders, and riding while sitting upright this time, Bates was carried back to the Bus with his head more than three meters above the deer path. Aside from being swatted by a few branches, the arrangement worked quite well. "What about the Traveler?" Bates asked from his lofty perch.
"Traveling, so it seems, if moving through multi-dimensions can be termed as such," pathed Krog. "When he finished with you humans, to the Pit he returned and disappeared."
"He hit the road," said Mel. "And so did Hank's Uncle Jake. Apparently he's seen enough of civilization for a while."
"Did the Traveler say anything else before he left?" asked Bates.
"He asked that we tell Jigs that he will meet him as is planned, and then he said good-by," pathed Krog.
"I don't know," said Mel. "I wasn't here yet. Perhaps you should ask that green, big shouldered friend you're sitting on."
"He already told me," said Bates, bewildered.
"Who told you what?" asked Oscar.
"Krog said that the Traveler said to tell Jigs that he'd meet him as planned, and then he just said good-by and disappeared into the Pit," replied Bates.
"When did he tell you that?" asked Mel.
"Just seconds ago!” said Bates. "Didn't you hear him?"
"No. The big green guy's been quiet as a mouse," claimed Mel, “aside from his big, stomping feet.”
"Most of your friends can't telepath, Bates," pathed Krog.
"And I can?" Bates pathed back.
"Yes. And I wish you to be more disciplined in your thoughts.”
"Sorry!” said Bates, out loud.
"About what?" asked Mel. "Hey! What's going on, anyway?"
"I'm strongly telepathic!” said an astounded Bates. "I've just been carrying on a two-way conversation with Krog about it."
"You'll get used to it," pathed Johnny.
"Astonishing!” remarked Mel. "Since many of us still aren't telepathic, the capability must have been induced by the Traveler!”
"Also," pathed Krog, "only when in the proximity of the unicorn, as this fact of unicorn proximity seems to better allow the use of telepathy. Though we see not the unicorn, doubtles
s she is near."
They had reached the Bus, and were warmly greeted by the rest of the Team, except for Janet, the kids, and Milo. "They're all inside stuffing themselves," explained Norma. "They haven't stopped eating since they got here."
"Well I hope that they saved something for me," said Bates. "I'm starving too."
They helped Bates inside the Bus and sat him down next to a huge pile of food that had been prepared in anticipation of his arrival. Bates dug right in. Chile, chicken, Twinkies; it didn't matter to him what it was, he shoveled it down like he hadn't eaten in a week. He hardly noticed when the Bus took off, or when it landed at the Lodge. He did notice when he was bodily removed from his food, but his friends pacified him by promising him that there would be as much food as he wanted inside the Lodge.
In the Lodge, Bates, and to a much lesser degree Janet, Don, Elizabeth and Milo, ate for the next three hours, pausing only occasionally to rush to the rest rooms to make room for more. Finally the fully stuffed apprentice Guardians were too exhausted to continue, and had to be helped to their beds, though it was only eight PM.
When Bates woke up three hours later, he felt perfectly rested. In fact, he felt more fit and full of energy than he could ever remember being. The aches and cramps were gone, and only a slight tingling remained. But it was a good tingling; he felt as if he was a spring coiled to erupt.
He took a quick shower, which turned out to be a very strange experience indeed. The body that he discovered was his body all right, but it was changed somehow. As his hands spread the soap, they encountered much more lean muscle than Bates could ever remember having. There was more hair too, much of it in places where he actually wanted more hair!
Quickly leaving the shower, he courageously examined himself in the full-length mirror that hotels always have, whether they are wanted or not. Normally he avoided such mirrors, for these unforgiving reflective surfaces tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about a person's body, something that Bates had been avoiding most of his life.
Now he was astonished at what he saw. There were no spare tires or other unsightly layers of fat! He struck several 'muscle-man' poses and was rewarded by ripples of muscle everywhere, including many muscles that he thought were only theoretical as far as his particular body was concerned. Thankfully, the muscles weren't grotesquely huge, like those of an over-done body-builder, but were more like those of a dancer, gymnast, or swimmer.
He might have stood admiring himself further, were it not for the sudden sounds of the shower being turned on next door. Janet was taking a shower, and like last night, he was again standing only feet from a door that led right into her adjoining room! The thoughts that then suddenly coursed through his mind activated other body parts that had also been further endowed by the Traveler induced metamorphosis.
Still, like last night, he was scared. Whatever the Traveler had done to him physically, his fundamental lack of self-confidence hadn't been transformed. As he heard the shower stop, his knuckles, though now bigger and stronger, again paused inches from the door. "I love you Janet, and I want you so bad!” he thought.
"So what's keeping you, Narb?" pathed Janet in return. "I want you too. And I'm curious about that new body you've been admiring in the mirror!”
"You can read my thoughts?"
"Sure can! Well, lots of them anyway. So, are you coming over here or am I going over there?"
Bates grasped the door knob and twisted. It resisted, so he twisted harder. With a loud snap, the knob and stem broke off in his hand.
"Damn!” he exclaimed. "I guess we should have unlocked it first!”
Janet unlocked and opened it using the knob on her side, much to their relief. At last the two long lost lovers faced each other, each filled with more passion then they had ever felt, except for perhaps that magic summer so long ago that they spent together as students in Arizona.
Janet was even more beautiful than he remembered, and his own appearance astounded Janet at least as much as it had astounded him. And if appearances astounded, there were no suitable words whatsoever to adequately describe the effects of touch, and smell, and taste, or, even more incredibly, the telepathic thoughts that cascaded back and forth between them, growing and ebbing with their cycles of love making, tearing through to their very souls.
In their brief periods of rest they shared even more: hopes and fears, regrets and guilt, anger and sorrows, embarrassments and proud, happy moments. By morning they were bonded, perhaps as no two human beings had ever been. Had they lived the last twenty years together, they could not have been closer.
Janet insisted that they get two hours of sleep in the morning, which required that they separate and return to their own rooms; otherwise, they would have never gotten any sleep at all. A little afraid that Bates would start their love making all over again when he woke, and gone on with it right through the destruction of the Earth, Janet woke first and quietly went down to the Lodge restaurant alone.
Most of the Team was already there eating breakfast, including Elizabeth and Don, who assured their mother that they were feeling fine that morning. Indeed, the two already fit youngsters also looked more fit than ever. Janet waved at everyone else, and then sat down with Jane and Mel.
"You and the kids look great!" said Jane in greeting. "Janet, you look radiant! Not even any circles under your eyes!”
"You and Mel look lousy!” replied Janet. "Didn't you sleep well?"
Jane and Mel looked each other and laughed. "Our room is right next to yours," Mel explained.
In a moment, Janet's face was beet red. "I'm so sorry!” she exclaimed. "I guess we got a little carried away."
"Don't be sorry, dear," said Jane. "More couples should get carried away like that! It reminded us of our own honeymoon in Vegas.” Now it was Mel's face that turned red.
"I do request that you humans be more desecrate telepathically when you do your coupling," pathed Krog, staring at Janet with his big turtle eyes from across the room. "Learned I have during this previous rest period rather more of human mating than I wished to know! And repeatedly! Most species civilized mate only once and then have the proper grace to die!”
"Sorry!" pathed Janet in reply, as her face reddened again. It was bad enough to be heard by friends in the neighboring room but now she realized that their lovemaking had apparently been telepathically broadcasted to all the telepaths in the Lodge!
"Don't sweat it," pathed Johnny Goth. "My wife and I had the same thing happen to us with our honeymoon. You'll work your way through it."
"Yes, they'll learn better telepathic control and focus in time," pathed Pru.
"I doubt it," pathed Fen. "They reminded me of myself when I was a youngster of eighty. A wild, unstoppable force of nature. Refreshing. Perhaps there is hope for humanity yet."
"Humph!” snorted Krog.
"Do not pay attention to our friend the Kronan," pathed Wink. "He is just jealous. He has always been jealous of species that mate repeatedly and without death as a consequence. Like the goat-man, I found last night's performance quite refreshing and interesting. In the interests of advancing the biological database of the Haspa, I would like to provide suitable medical instrumentation and examine the two participants before, after and during their next encounter."
In the meantime, unaware of the ensuing telepathic discussions and the fact that Janet's face was redder than ever, Jane was fussing with her toast and making small talk with Janet, working her way towards delicate questions. "Purely for the medical viewpoint Janet, I was wondering what you could tell us about Bates' physical condition. You yourself certainly look fit. Still fit, I mean, since you looked pretty fit before, whereas Bates was perhaps not in so perfect shape when the Traveler started this business yesterday. So would you say that his physical condition has improved?"
"Incredibly!” replied Janet.
"In what way? Has his muscle tone improved for example?"
"He's an Adonis," replied
Janet.
"And his stamina?"
"Much improved. He could probably take on several hikes like the ones we had yesterday without even breathing hard."
"But his endurance? I mean, it seemed to us that sustained activity last night was for rather long periods. If it's not too personal a question, I mean, purely from a medical viewpoint of course, how was his endurance sexually?"
Janet's reply, if she had one that she cared to give, was postponed indefinitely by the arrival of Bates himself, who came striding powerfully and confidently into the room to sit at the final remaining place at the table with Janet, Jane, and Mel. A perky Milo followed happily at his heals.
To the awkward dismay of red-faced Janet, most of the Team erupted into cheers and hoots, in a display that erased from Janet's mind any doubt whatsoever that what she and Bates had shared together the previous night was by now fully public knowledge. Dooley displayed an even bigger grin than usual, she noticed.
Bates assumed that all the cheers were because the Team was glad to see him recovered and even improved. And indeed, that he had been physically transformed by the Traveler was rather obvious, as what were loose fitting clothes the day before were now filled out by wider shoulders, deeper chest, and thicker arms and legs. After ordering a huge breakfast from a young waitress who dumbfounded Bates by winking at him and smiling suggestively, Bates rose to address the Team.
"Thank you for that warm welcome, my friends! But let us eat quickly now and be on our way south. There are less than two days left to save Earth! Flood, Norma, is the Bus ready?"
"All fueled, provisioned with food, and ready to go," answered the Commander. "Plus, there's a jet flight in Philly ready to take off and provide cover for us."
"Do we still need that? We haven't seen Ra saucers for days," noted Barns.
"True," replied Flood. "But there is at least one Ra ship still unaccounted for. We destroyed a Mother Ship and two smaller ships, but I'm concerned about that third small ship that escaped at Enterprise City. Perhaps it was within the Mother Ship when it was destroyed, but perhaps it wasn’t. And perhaps there are still other Ra ships that we don't know about. Do we know exactly where we're going next?"
"I believe so," said Bates. "You will recall that the next riddle to solve states that the reason and answer lie locked sleeping in harm's way. In addition, Pru has said that the Sleeping Great One lies to the south. As it just so happens, Janet has calculated the Dannos impact point to be in Northern Guatemala, and that has been confirmed with our Government. Pru has indicated that the Great One is also in Guatemala. Therefore, we may assume that the Sleeping Great One lies sleeping at the impact point, directly in harm's way. Our next move will be to find the Great One, wake it up, and find the answer to our Dannos problem."
"That sounds logical, but can we be sure?" asked Barns. "It all seems like a very flimsy pretense to travel thousands of miles. I would have hoped that by now a more scientific basis for our efforts would be established."
"I that concern also echo," stated Krog. "In the view that is mine it is not conclusively established the identity or motives of the Traveler being, nor ascertained are the effects of his actions on the human Bates and his brood. Also, I deny still that one can the future see as does your Mr. Jigs claim. It follows then by logic that the riddles you follow are nonsense."
"Those riddles saved your big scaly butt," pathed Elizabeth, with strength and clarity that surprised the other telepaths.
"Aptly put! I just love human speech!” exclaimed Fen, as he munched on a piece of jam-covered toast. The smiling little goat-legged man turned to face the huge stern Kronan. "I suppose that you also deny that anyone could do this?” Fen's form wavered for a moment, to be suddenly replaced by that of a huge Kronan that was the mirror image of Krog.
Krog’s features hardened. "Other shape shifters there are in the League, goat man, but none would dare assume the form of a Kronan that is of The First Rank!”
The Kronan and pseudo-Kronan soon stood facing each other angrily, for Fen had unwittingly committed an act so repugnant in the eyes of the scaly alien that his usual argumentative but civilized nature had been stripped completely away. The two huge green Kronans stood snorting beak to beak, strutting about in a circle, with clenching fists, apparently preparing to unleash titanic blows. In a few moments it was quite impossible to tell which one was which.
Bates stepped between the two, and displaying some of his newfound strength, pushed the two behemoths apart. "You two wouldn't hit a man with glasses, would you?" he asked.
"You aren't wearing glasses!” said one of the big reptiles, probably that wise guy Fen.
Bates felt his face. He wasn't wearing glasses! Apparently he didn't need them anymore! He hadn't even noticed that he wasn't wearing them.
Ignoring the diminutive figure of Bates that stood in harms way between them, the two behemoths squared off again for a tussle, but Pru promptly stepped between them. The unicorn glowed brightly, and the two Kronans were invisibly pushed several meters away from each other. One turned instantly back into mischievous little Fen.
"That's enough discussion," announced Bates authoritatively. "We'll be leaving as soon as possible. When would that be, Commander Flood?”
"Fifteen minutes, if I call the Philly Airport immediately."
"Do it! The rest of you will pack, eat, go to the bathroom or whatever you have to do, but be outside and ready to leave in fifteen minutes.”
The next fifteen minutes were a blur of activity, culminating in Bates leading the Team out of the Lodge to the waiting Space Bus.
Bates was not surprised to find Jigs standing next to the door of the Bus, waiting for them. Bates stepped next to the grinning old man and the two of them watched the others file on board.
"Well," asked Bates of the old billionaire, "we are progressing satisfactorily, I trust?"
"Seems like it. Found the key then have you? And figured out where to go next?” Jigs winked at Bates with an amused smile.
Bates countered with his own questions. "I'm probably the key in your rhyme, and the Sleeping Great One is at ground zero of the Dannos impact. Care to confirm that would you, my fellow Guardian?"
Jigs laughed. "What would be the point? No, you're headed in the right direction Bates, and I don't want to screw things up by telling you too much."
"Of course not! But I still don't understand that part of it, sir."
"And perhaps you never will. It took me half a lifetime to learn how to apply my farsight properly, so why should you figure it out in a week's time? No, Dr. Bates, I'm afraid you'll have to continue to play the cards as they are dealt to you."
"You seem to be the dealer.”
"Ha! Not really, Bates! Let's just say that I can occasionally tilt the gaming table just a bit. But it's a delicate and dangerous game. If I tilt the table too much, at the wrong time, I could very well cause all our cards and chips to slip off the table by mistake. In that case, we’d all find ourselves playing a different game so to speak, on a different time-line, and all my farsight visions and advice would be totally useless. It's an art and not a science you see, and the game is far too complex to predict the outcome at this stage. The book is still being written, you might say, and the conclusion to the story is still unknown."
"You mean that we could still fail?"
Jigs laughed again. "Absolutely! Very easily! Did you for one moment forget that there is an iron asteroid with kinetic energy equivalent to perhaps 300 million megatons of TNT due to pulverize the Earth in about forty-two hours? You're Earth's only hope, and you don't know how to fix that little Dannos problem yet, do you?"
"But you can see the future, right? So you know what's going to happen! And haven't you been saying that we're doing OK?”
"Not quite," explained Jigs. "I see bits and pieces of several possible futures, but I don't know which of several possible outcomes is actually going to happen. Or perhaps they will all happen, along with the Universe c
onstantly splitting into parallel universes, according to some philosophical interpretations of quantum physics. I don't know; I can't know because it isn't experimentally confirmable, and frankly I don't really care. But I do know without doubt that if you don't get going soon, this Earth in my universe will get clobbered for sure, according to all the possible courses that reality could be taking. So good luck and get cracking!” He held out his hand to Bates.
"Mr. Jigs, Flood thinks that there's still least one more Ra space ship to worry about. Can you confirm that at least?"
"Nope."
"You knew Oscar was going to get hurt before it happened, didn't you? I saw the way you looked at him in Enterprise City. Will we be OK? What should we look out for?"
"Sorry!” The stubborn old man still held out his hand. "Just stick to your plan and there's a slim chance of success, but much will still be due to dumb luck. That's the way the universe works for us all; no exceptions."
Bates shook the billionaire's hand and then quickly climbed aboard. In seconds the Bus was airborne, and in minutes it was tucked under the protective wing of a Boeing 888 flying South at 20,000 meters altitude at Mach-3. Flood and his copilot Sandra performed their functions effectively and competently.
In the next row a worried Bates sat and fretted. World governments, his own science Team, creatures of legend, people with powers, space aliens, a visitor from other universes, and the scrambling of his genes still hadn't solved the Dannos problem. Could it be that there was no solution? No, he couldn't allow himself the luxury of thinking that. There simply wasn't time.