We set course for Orion Alpha, Ulenem’s home planet, this time with Matshi’s vessel in the lead. Matshi was well-known among the residents of Madai, Ulenem’s town near the equator, and he was expecting a warm welcome.
The best laid plans…
Two patrol ships fired on Matshi’s warship as soon as he ID’d himself. Matshi was an expert pilot and easily avoided their fire. And, fortunately, Eikhus and I had hung back out of their range. But that hostile reception certainly wasn’t part of our plan. Shaken, we all retreated to Rigel IV to decide our next moves.
* * *
Rigel IV, Orion—present day
Rigellian halaropools are known for their healing properties. I for one was glad for the break and a chance to soothe my singed skin in the spa. To avoid looking creepy, Spud and I had Ergaled our surface burns and injuries away. But Spud, wincing every time he was touched, was obviously still feeling the pain of his now invisible head wound, as well as his underlying toasted skin.
We got ourselves some R and R, and then, refreshed, met up with our cohorts in the Elgebar, a popular watering hole, to feast on some universe-renowned fusion cuisine and Aldebaran brandy.
We opted to gather in one of the Elgebar’s private suites, large chartreuse egg-shaped chambers that resemble giant cocoons. Our cocoon was spacious and we levved into comfortable positions as we enjoyed our food and drink. Only Matshi’s appetite seemed dulled.
“You don’t think the Madais know how Ulenem really died?” I asked the Chidurian as he sat, morose, on the floor of the cocoon.
“I’ve told only you all,” he said listlessly, his eyes roving from one to another of us.
“Maybe Ulenem spilled the beans himself,” I wondered, taking another sip of the tasty liquid.
Matshi grabbed me with three arms and pulled me to the floor. “What does that mean?”
I brushed him off and crouched defensively out of his reach. “If he could M-fan to us and start talking,” I gestured towards Spud, “he could appear to his relatives, too. And blame you for his death.”
Matshi grabbed my mug of brandy, still floating by his head, drank it almost empty, and threw the cup across the chamber. The mug bounced off the edge of the cocoon and landed on Eikhus with a splash.
“Hey!” The Kharybdian looked at us, annoyed.
“Chidurian Ale is better,” Matshi complained. “He did try to kill me,” he added, referring to Ulenem.
“Well, maybe he left that part of the story out, you know,” I said.
Eikhus levved towards us. “Orion Alpha is only one planet. We can go back and take a closer look at the phenomena in the Betelgeuse and Bellatrix systems.”
“No,” Spud said forcefully. “Ulenem told us to ‘save Orion’. I think he meant Orion Alpha.”
“Or Orion, the star,” I added.
“Or Orion, the constellation,” Sarion jumped in. “Sorry,” he added as he caught our frowns.
“This isn’t helping,” Matshi said bleakly. After a long pause, he sighed. “Much as I hate to admit it, I’m inclined to agree with Escott.” His tone became more assertive. “Orion Alpha is where we have to go.”
* * *
Reluctantly, Matshi consented to park his ship on Rigel and have his team join me and Spud on the Sportstar. Spud was right. Ulenem had likely been recruited by Benedict on his home planet—which meant that Benedict had probably been nosing around Orion Alpha and its largest city Madai.
It was clear that Matshi had somehow been put on Orion Alpha’s “no-fly list.” If we wanted to follow Benedict’s trail on Orion Alpha, we had to try another approach.
“Spud and I can Ergal down to—”
“But I know Orion Alpha like the back of my hands,” Matshi interrupted me. “Besides, who’s to say your comrade Gary hasn’t ID’d you two as traitors to anybody who’s still clean at Zygint?”
He did have a point. Had Gary put us on Zygint’s Most Wanted List? Just to be on the safe side, I commed Everett at Core.
“Not surprised to hear from you,” his holo image said between open-mouthed bites of a shedding submarine sandwich. “Gary raced out of here chewing nails this morning. Wouldn’t even talk to me.”
“Smart man …,” muttered Spud, in a low voice that I prayed Ev couldn’t hear. My kick landed unfortunately on Sarion’s shin, and the Megaran cried out with an alarming “Yaaiii!”
Everett, oblivious as always, asked, “Is he around?” Tomato juice ran down his chin and dripped onto his shirt. “Got a message from His Highness.”
“Not exactly …,” Spud whispered with a not very benign grin. “Ow!” I aimed better this time.
“If I see him, I’ll let him know. Thanks, Ev,” I signed off with a glare at my partner. At least we had some good news. If Ev was clean—figuratively anyway—we were still in like Flynn at Earth Core. And the rest of Zygint.
* * *
As much as Matshi was eager to lead our team to Orion Alpha, we all finally convinced him it would be more productive for less unwelcome visitors to be part of the first landing party. Spud and I, as Zygint catascopes, would probably have no trouble sailing through customs, and, as Sarion put it, we could “catascope out” the territory and help Matshi sneak through after us if needed. Lykkos had a distant cousin in Mitanni, one of Madai’s suburbs, and would also have no trouble getting in. Setsei and Suthsi, to my surprise, volunteered to join us. I was all for it; you can always use a Geryon or two, even if it’s in the shaky hands of a terrified Ytran.
Eikhus and Nephil Stratum followed us in the Nautilus and offered to monitor critical communications from orbit. Sarion finally ended the discussion with his remark, “The Madai is cast.” We all groaned politely. The pun was even worse in Zygan.
We left Matshi and the other Megarans “on call” at the helm of the Sportstar, and Ergaled down to the starport on Agri Dagi. Orion customs officials do have a reputation for being terribly obnoxious bureaucrats, but we did manage to get through planet entry in a remarkably short three hours.
Lykkos insisted that we had to try out the sidirodrome, a picturesque elevated train down the mountain to Madai, which would give us glimpses of the Orestians, the renowned Orion giants in the Spire City of Tegea. The hundred-foot tall Orestians were pretty impressive, but Suthsi was more awed by the pink and verdigris leaves of the Adrakne trees in the lush forests that lined our path.
We arrived in Madai by moonslight [sic] and made our way to a comfortable inn to reserve rooms. Unfortunately, we’d probably have to spend at least one night in the city. Orion Alpha was one of the few Zygfed planets that had had E-shields around it for years, requiring all travelers to go through Customs to exit and enter planet territory. It was very annoying not to be able to freely Ergal back up to our ship whenever we wished. But, considering that the planet had spawned both fearsome giants and assassins, maybe the tight border controls were all for the best.
Chapter 17
Madai
Orion Alpha, Orion—present day
As soon as we were settled in our rooms, Lykkos and Spud left to explore the town. The sun had already set, and the streets of the city were almost deserted. Izmalis liked to hibernate when darkness fell. Based on my experience with my older siblings, I figured the local university might be a place where we could find some activity going on during the dark hours, as well as some information about unusual experiments with radioactive materials.
My brother John had been a graduate student in astrophysics before he’d left us on his … last mission. He’d often spend night after night doing research at the University of Maryland on the campus synchrotron, the sub-atomic particle accelerator at the College Park campus.
I remembered one night George had gone to pick John up and I’d tagged along. By two in the morning in the middle of the week, it was even quiet on Fraternity Row. If you were at the synchrotron building, however, you’d think it was Grand Central Station; filled with people making lots of noise, watching video screen
s under bright fluorescent lights.
I was only eleven, so I didn’t really understand what they were doing. (As if I do now, physics uploads notwithstanding.) I guess I must’ve gotten bored and fallen asleep. I just remember waking up to complete silence. For a moment, all the people in the control room had stopped making all that noise. Their eyes were frozen on the TV monitors. Then, the chatter started up again even louder and I slipped back to dreamland. John seemed so excited on the ride home. Obviously, something important must have happened, but it never occurred to me to ask for an explanation. Maybe I was just mad that after that night, he started to spend more and more time on his research, and less and less time with us. Six years later, I still don’t know what John was hoping to discover.
“Daralfanoo,” Setsei interjected.
“What?” I looked at him, confused.
“The University,” he looked at his Ergal screen again. “I think that’s how you pronounce it. Daralfanoo.”
“Noon,” said Suthsi, looking over Setsei’s shoulder. “There’s a ‘noo’ on the end.”
“That’s what I said,” whined Setsei.
“Great, great,” I added quickly. “Daralfa-whatever. Metrics and let’s go.” If those two started fussing again, we’d never get anything done.
* * *
Daralfanoon University was an imposing structure of over three hundred storeys in Base 12. And, since each storey had to not only have room for two-foot Madaians, but two-hundred-foot Oresteians, the tip of the spire was well in the chartreuse clouds. Nephil Stratum would feel right at home on the top floors, I surmised.
I was right about the university; unlike the desolate streets outside, Daralfanoon at that hour was filled with beings, many of whom, I was somewhat surprised to see, were not native to Orion.
“I had an opportunity to study here, you know,” Suthsi whispered. “They have an outstanding training program in temporal manipulation.”
“You’re too good at that already,” Setsei accused.
“Shh,” I whispered. “Will you two stop it?! We’re here on business.” And they call me immature.
We waited over thirty minutes for our authorization to enter the building. Rifling through a holodisplay to pass the time, I was surprised to find out that Daralfanoon had a synchrotron, a particle accelerator, too. The synchrotron building at Maryland had taken up a half-acre on the green campus, but, based on the display information, this university apparently had one the size of a breadbox on its fifty-sixth floor. I don’t know how big a breadbox really is either, but it looked in the holo to be about size of a discount twelve-pack of frozen mini-pizzas.
We took a high speed elevator up to the synchrotron location. The doors opened to reveal an enormous domed chamber, brightly lit, and totally empty. We stepped out and the lift doors closed behind us.
“Welcome to the Synchrodome,” a deep voice boomed. We turned to see a pink pentapod, a five-legged insectoid that looked like a giant grasshopper with a limp, holding a box of not-mini-pizzas in three of his limbs.
My jaw dropped. The box looked eerily similar to the one Gary had clutched so tightly before he died, although a bit larger.
“I am your guide, Pylos of Nestor. I understand you wished to see the Synchrotron,” the pentapod continued.
We nodded. “Could we see it in action?” I asked, excited.
The Nestorian shrugged. “It is.” Experiments with the synchrotron had produced enough power to supply half the planet, the pentapod explained proudly as he held up the machine. The energy released with the acceleration of only one particle had fed the power grid for all of Madai for the past year.
“That’s a lot of juice,” whistled Setsei. “We have not been so successful onYtra.”
Nor on Earth, I thought. John and his colleagues had spent over a day on just one relatively weak synchrotron run at Maryland to produce one neutrino. Benedict could probably go quite far into the branes with this technology in his tank. With this technology, no wonder Orion Alpha was so attractive.
I tried to sound casual. “Can … anybody … use this … synchrotron?”
The Nestorian laughed. “No. There is paperwork.”
“That goes without saying.” This is Orion Alpha.
“But,” the pentapod continued, “unless you’re on the ‘no-try’ list, you’ll probably eventually get cleared.”
I nodded soberly, trying to stifle a giggle. Was the pentapod related to Sarion? “Benedict’s probably on the ‘no-try’ list, I’d bet,” I returned lightly.
I expected either laughter or discomfort. I didn’t expect the pentapod and the synchrotron to disappear in a flash. The three of us stood alone in an empty chamber looking at each other in astonishment.
“I think we should get out of here,” Suthsi said quietly.
I nodded and we headed for the lifts. But, before we reached the doors, they, too, had disappeared, to be replaced by smooth, impenetrable walls. The entire room now had no visible means of exit at all.
“Ergal,” I said, “and damn the bureaucracy.” We clicked our Ergals to no avail. The chamber obviously had an E-shield. We were still trapped inside the dome.
I looked at the Ytrans helplessly and silently mouthed the word, “Geryon.”
Setsei nodded and mega’ed his Geryon, scraping its sharp point against the wall in the general direction of the elevators.
To our relief, the original wall and the elevator doors reappeared. We summoned the lift and, nonchalantly entered it when it arrived. I didn’t breathe until the doors had closed and we were on our way down. Or not. No, the lift was not going down. It jerked to one side and then shot up so rapidly that we were tossed roughly onto the turquoise carpet lining its floor. In barely a second, we had arrived at the pinnacle of the spire above the clouds.
Stun guns Ergaled, drawn, and ready, we waited for someone to open the door.
Chapter 18
From Bad to Ursa
There were many things I expected might greet us on the other side of the lift door, but Agriarctos the Ursan was not one of them. And yet, there he was, towering over us with his paws open to welcome us to the spire’s penthouse. Susthi cowered behind me and Setsei shakily held his stun gun in one of his right hands and his Geryon in the other.
I had one chance. I leapt for the lift controls, hoping I could close the door and return our elevator to the building entrance. Who wants to bet that it worked?
“Really, all that isn’t necessary,” the Ursan growled at us, not very convincingly. “Plionarctos, please lighten their burdens.”
The second Ursan stunned us with his gun, and one by one, relieved each of us of our Ergal and our weapons. He then grumbled something in Ursan to Agriarctos, who shook his head and advised him to unstun us and lead us into the penthouse suite.
The night sky was a spectacular panorama of stars that twinkled through the transparent windows of the spire. I felt as if I was in a glider surfing over the fluffy clouds, and I paused for a few moments to admire the breathtaking view.
Plionarctos shoved me forward roughly, and I stumbled for a second. It took all my willpower to keep from spinning around and assaulting him in the—well, that and my memory of what had happened with Agriarctos on the Ursan ship a few days before.
We practically floated down a hallway decked with a lush indigo carpet that I’m convinced had anti-grav properties, and finally entered a small room with a comfortable chair in its center. In the chair sat a trim man—human, I believe—with red hair and a warm smile.
“Burr,” said Agriarctos, pointing at the human.
“Okay,” I responded non-committally.
“They don’t know who I am,” the human said gently. “I prefer to keep a low profile.”
“Benedict’s #2,” Plionarctos barked.
The Ytrans froze. I simply said, “Ah. I thought Gary was.”
Burr chuckled. “Gary wasn’t even in the top five.” He Ergaled us chairs and invited
us to sit and relax. “Agriarctos has told me all about you.”
The Ytrans continued to stand, clutching each other for support. I sat down opposite Burr, who looked at me with narrowed eyes. “So. Why did you ask the Nestorian if Benedict had used the Synchrotron?”
I shrugged. “No particular reason. Just an off-hand question.”
Burr nodded, and Plionarctos aimed one of our stun guns at the Ytrans. The redhead continued, “Sorry. I didn’t hear your answer.”
I squinted at the gun. Yup, it was set to kill. Setsei remained frozen, and Suthsi’s shivering intensified. I took a deep breath. Maybe I should try the truth … “Gary clued us in to what you all were planning. He offered us a stake, Burr. I was just doing a little back-up research to see if he was on the level.” Or not.
Burr frowned for a moment. He eyed me warily. “Gary never said anything to me about that …”
“He didn’t have time,” I admitted, my eyes welling up with crocodile tears. “The Omega Archon’s catascopes fried him.” A sprinkle of truth there…
Burr sat up, shaken. “Gary’s dead?”
I nodded, looking down as a tear rolled down my cheek. That move had gotten me my first part as an actor. For a moment, Burr looked truly disturbed.
Then the angry tone quickly returned. “Why haven’t they come after you?”
My eyes met Burr’s. “I figured I could be more useful if I didn’t blow my cover. So they don’t know about me yet. They think it ended with Gary,” I added for emphasis.
Clearing my throat, I leaned back in my chair. “You know my agenda. A piece of your action. Now what’s yours?”