‘Well, we had best figure out his means quickly.’ Telmo was looking very dark about the oversight. ‘Before he kills someone else!’
‘No one wanders off alone from now on.’ Hudan stood, wiping her brother’s blood off her hands and onto her clothes. ‘We should fetch Wu Geng from the healing temple for his own safety. We need to stick together until we solve this.’
‘No,’ Rhun shook his head in protest. ‘You should all return to your own universe, while the going is good.’
‘And leave you here to cope with Dragonface alone?’ Huxin chimed in. ‘Not likely.’
‘The Orion was never meant to be your problem,’ Rhun pointed out. ‘And although I appreciate your aid, your crossing into this universe does not alter the fact that the Chosen would have been forced to deal with Dragonface eventually. And we shall … once you are all safely gone.’
The captain shook his head to disagree.
‘Don’t make me banish you,’ Rhun threatened, and then lightened his tone. ‘Dragonface is no longer your problem.’
Despite all the resentment that he felt towards the timekeepers at present, it was a nightmare to see them being turned on one another. How had this happened? They had lost their healer, and their pilot was next on the hit list. Had they not suggested that Dorje Pema surrender the Dropa vessel, none of this would have eventuated.
Wu Geng woke abruptly, and was startled by the sight of the beautiful alien staring down at him. ‘Who are you?’ He noted she had hold of his hand.
‘My name is Aysel,’ she said, as he withdrew from her touch.
‘Where are the timekeepers?’ He sat upright and then stilled himself, as his head was set spinning. ‘We have lost the healer,’ he mumbled his woes. ‘And Song is next!’
‘Yes,’ she stated, as if she understood completely. ‘Do you know where to find this being?’
‘Why?’ Wu Geng became more wary. ‘Where am I?’ He took in the lovely temple-like room and then looked back to his company. ‘What do you want with Song?’
‘If you can locate your friend,’ she explained, sounding in a desperate hurry, ‘we can stop Vugar’s vendetta against your people.’
‘Who is Vugar?’ Wu Geng slid off the bed and stumbled away from the tall, slender alien woman — humanlike, although taller and too elongated to be completely human. Her skin had a greenish tinge, and she was completely hairless. Deep green scales shimmered over her skull where a human’s hair might have been, and on her eyebrows. Aysel’s eyes were golden in colour, and she was dressed like a femme fatale — all in black.
Aysel rolled her eyes, obviously pressed for time. ‘In your vision you saw someone attack your friend —’
‘Song is not my friend,’ Wu Geng protested.
‘But you saw his assailant,’ she grew impatient. ‘That is Vugar!’
‘Dragonface?’ Wu Geng concluded. Aysel seemed unamused by the nickname, but nodded.
‘How imaginative your kind are.’
‘You’re one of them!’ Wu Geng was horrified to realise. ‘I’ve never seen a female reptilian before!’
‘I am Draconian, if you don’t mind. And I have never seen a male ape-man before either,’ she retorted.
‘The term is human —’ Wu Geng took offence to her inference.
‘But I …’ she spoke up over his protest, ‘am not wasting time talking, while our enemy escapes!’
‘But if you are one of his kind, why is Drag— ah, Vugar your enemy?’
Aysel clenched her fists, frustrated, but calmed herself. ‘I will explain everything later —’
‘Hold on,’ Wu Geng frowned. ‘How do you know what I saw in my nightmare?’
‘It was a vision!’ she corrected, losing patience. ‘And I know what you saw because I passed that vision on to you. My dragon guide told me that you would know how to find Vugar’s next target. So, do you, or not?’
‘Why should I believe you?’ Wu Geng wasn’t being bamboozled into anything.
‘Because any second now your not-my-friend is going to die if you don’t!’
Wu Geng didn’t know what he’d be in more trouble for: allowing Song to die and Dragonface to get away, or leading a possible enemy straight to his crew mates. Upon reflection, the latter sounded not so bad, and far more likely.
‘I can find Song with a thought,’ Wu Geng ventured, ‘but I don’t think I have the energy right now to —’
Aysel grabbed hold of Wu Geng’s arm. ‘You locate your team mate, and I shall teleport.’
Again he was confused. ‘Well, if you can teleport and you know what Song looks like, why did you not go straight to him?’
‘In my vision, you are the only one I saw clearly. And all you humans look alike to me,’ she shrugged. ‘Just get us to the target, will you?’
‘You know how to kill Drag— ah —’
‘No, but I know how to disempower him,’ she assured him.
Wu Geng looked into her huge wide eyes — his Shifu had always claimed that eyes were the window to the soul, and his gut instinct was that Aysel was telling him the truth.
A winding kick to the ribs woke Song, and in his disoriented state it was difficult to spring to his own defence — he couldn’t even focus straight. Who the hell would be beating him up? And why was he unconscious in the first place? The answer seemed elementary. ‘Telmo, you son-of-a-bitch —’ he mumbled, attempting to drag his drowsy body up from the ground.
‘Guess again.’
Song’s eyes were open now. Even though he’d yet to find his focus and spot his tormentor, Song had a strong hunch who the assailant was. Song had never actually met the reptilian in ancient Zhou, but Zeven had been shot by him before, during his first visit to Kila.
An attempt to teleport himself downstairs to gain an advantage, was thwarted by a debilitating blast that knocked Song back to the ground.
‘Fuck! Not again.’ He thumped a fist on the ground in protest, and the impact really hurt. ‘Argh!’ This was the second time his soul-mind had been hit by such a force, and he knew the ache that beset his entire body, weighting it even more, was his additional DNA unbraiding. This was the third time that his psychic power had been stolen from him — and Dragonface was twice responsible. ‘Son-of-a-bitch must pay!’ He rolled over to find the huge reptilian gloating over him.
‘You are rather tiny to be the warrior of the group,’ he commented, ‘but then your father was a little man, too.’
‘Didn’t stop Ji Fa whipping your arse,’ Song remarked snidely, as he scampered beneath a table to avoid the creature’s swinging claw.
But Song wasn’t fast enough; Dragonface clamped a hand around his ankle and drew him back out into the open, raising him into the air.
‘I’m going to gut you, lizard!’ he vowed as he dangled by the foot from the reptilian’s grip.
‘No,’ the creature assured him. ‘You are going to die.’
A growling sound made Song’s blood run cold. He knew the sound of a tiger well enough, but his shock was twofold when he saw the rare albino female of the species. ‘Ling Hu?’
She served him a most unfavourable snarl, and his fear deepened when he saw the bloodstains around her jaws and coating her chest. ‘Perhaps not?’
‘Oh, it is Ling Hu,’ Dragonface assured. ‘Come to pay her last respects to one of the timekeepers who voted to sacrifice her to save his own skin.’
‘That’s not what happened,’ Song protested, as the tigress growled again and leapt towards him.
Song closed his eyes and moments later was dropped to the floor. He looked up to find Wu Geng hanging off Dragonface’s back, one arm tightly locked around its throat as he grabbed for the weapon that had been causing them so much grief.
On the other side of the room an alien-looking female had crash-tackled Ling Hu, whereby the tigress disappeared. ‘Watch out, human!’ She motioned behind Song, where the tigress rematerialised and snarled in warning.
‘Yikes!’ Song scampered back towards th
e friendlier face of the complete stranger.
Once Wu Geng had the DNA-destroying weapon, he withdrew from Dragonface and aimed it at him.
‘Wrong choice, my little Prince. Shoot me with that, and I shall only become more powerful.’ Dragonface and Wu Geng had been acquainted during the demise of the Shang dynasty. ‘Had you chosen this one,’ he whipped a smaller device from the weapons belt that hung around his waist, ‘you might have fared better.’ He took aim at Wu Geng, who immediately envisioned the gadget in his possession, sending it flying into his grasp.
‘Thanks for the heads-up.’ He fired on Dragonface, who dropped unconscious to the ground.
‘Bang on!’ Song was impressed.
The beautiful alien woman reached for the buckle on her weapons belt that resembled a large closed eye, and noting this Ling Hu sprang towards Dragonface to protect him. The woman pressed a trigger on the buckle, and the metal eye opened to expose a stone beaming brilliant light. Song was blinded but not pained by the light — to the contrary the overpowering illumination felt empowering. When the eye on the buckle closed, the brilliant light retracted, and both Ling Hu and Dragonface had vanished into thin air.
‘Damn that bloody cat woman,’ the beautiful alien cursed under her breath. ‘I wasn’t fast enough.’
‘What did you do?’ Song protested, now unsure of whose side the new arrival was on. ‘We had him!’
‘Are you all right?’ Wu Geng approached Song and held out a hand to assist him to get to his feet.
‘Hardly,’ Song ignored the gesture and got himself up. ‘Dragonface just slipped through our clutches, and I’ve lost my powers … again!’
‘Hey!’ The beautiful alien took issue with Song’s attitude.
‘Song, this is Aysel.’ Wu Geng did the honours, hoping to lessen the tension.
‘We …’ Aysel ticked her head towards Wu Geng to include him in the equation, ‘just saved your life … have a bit of gratitude.’
Song opened his mouth to dispute this, but was not given a chance to speak.
‘And,’ she continued in an authoritative tone, ‘your stolen powers will have been restored … thanks to the blast of life force you just received from the Dragon Eye.’
‘That’s how you plan to disempower Vugar,’ Wu Geng recalled her earlier claim, and Aysel nodded.
‘The Dragon Eye?’ Song was curious about the belt and its origins as he neared the intruder to take a closer look.
‘It is one of the most sacred relics of my people as for thousands of years it has been our means to detect treachery in our midst. Only the pure of heart can withstand its presence,’ she advised as Song reached out to touch the metal eye. ‘It is also lethal to the touch of anyone besides its chosen keeper.’
Song immediately aborted his intention and took a step back. ‘Am I supposed to take your word for that?’
‘Am I supposed to care if you don’t?’ she retorted.
‘If you don’t care, then why did you just save my life?’ Song called her bluff.
‘I was here to trap Vugar and drag him back to Fiameadi to answer for his crimes against our people,’ she outlined. ‘You were my means to locate him.’ She appeared most annoyed by the admission. ‘But as he has vanished again, I shall have to wait until I receive another glimpse of his intention. Only now he knows I am on his trail and will be twice as cautious when plotting his revenge.’
‘You’re a reptilian?’ Song took a few steps away, not in fear but admiration. ‘May I say, the females of your ilk are a hell of a lot better looking than the men.’
‘If you wish to die.’ Aysel was clearly not flattered.
‘Someone has some explaining to do.’
The three of them turned to find the Governor of Kila, En Noah and most of their crew, all with grave expressions upon their faces.
‘That would be me.’ Wu Geng held up a finger to volunteer some answers.
4
EMBRYOS OF PARALLEL TIME
Whilst questioning the Draconian tracker Aysel — charged by the high council of her home planet to hunt Vugar down — it became clear that the timekeepers had not only placed the future of Kila in peril with their handling of the unholy reptilian menace on Earth, but the future of the reptilian’s mother planet of Fiameadi as well.
How had Dragonface executed the feat of returning to ancient Earth to launch his vendetta upon the timekeepers? Only part of that mystery was clear. It seemed that Dragonface had died in the explosion that had destroyed the Dropa craft, and the entity had shifted to the next living link of his hive-mind, three hundred light years away in the Thuban star system of the Draco constellation.
‘I thought the reptilian races came from the Orion constellation?’ Rhun wondered why the ancients of Earth had referred to reptilians as Orions?
‘We have planets there, too,’ Aysel advised.
‘Have planets?’ The governor queried her wording, wondering if these had been discovered and developed by her kind, or taken by force?
‘My people have castes all over the galaxy,’ she defended, ‘as do human beings if I am not mistaken.’
Rhun conceded that this was true, having five planets currently under his governance, however indirectly. He did not mention this fact to Aysel, but perhaps she was already aware of the other human races within their alliance. She had sounded slightly offended by his query, which made him wonder just how developed the psychic powers of the Draconians were. Was Aysel reading his thoughts, or just picking up on subtle nuances in his speech and body language? His knowledge of cosmic law told him that the reptilians of Fiameadi must have been far more spiritually developed than their caste on Earth, or they could not be so psychically advanced. The development of psychism went hand-in-hand with enlightenment.
Rhun decided leave that line of questioning for another time, as Aysel continued to explain how the entity they knew as Dragonface had snatched the body of Vugar, the High Chancellor of the Fiameadi council, who had also been Aysel’s consort.
‘I was the first to notice the change in Vugar,’ the Draconian relayed her memory of events openly.
‘When was this?’ Telmo was curious. ‘How long ago?’
‘I do not know your measure of time, we would say it was about three epochs ago.’ Aysel explained, ‘an epoch being one thousand turns of our planet around our Sun, Thuban.’
‘Three thousand years,’ Rhun nodded, ‘that seems to time out right.’
‘Good grief!’ Song was stunned. ‘You’ve been alive for three thousand years?’
‘Actually, closer to thirteen thousand,’ Aysel replied and made everyone’s jaw drop.
‘How do you do manage to achieve such longevity?’ Song was curious.
‘We are getting off-track here.’ The governor was more interested in Dragonface’s movements. ‘Vugar began to change, you said?’
‘Yes,’ Aysel confirmed. ‘He suddenly had a renewed interest in space exploration and began venturing off-planet with a small crew for hundreds of years at a time. The first time he returned, he brought back the shapeshifting tigress and she became his constant companion, travelling space with him. But each time Vugar returned to Fiameadi, he became more and more closed off and secretive about his adventures.’
‘But I thought your people operated from a hive-mind mentality?’ Huxin, having been exposed to that hive-mind, could not understand how any secret could be held.
‘That is completely correct,’ she confirmed. ‘Vugar, the most intelligent soul among us, was the principal centre of our collective consciousness, and thus has the means to close off certain thoughts from the rest of the hive. Even in a hive-mind, you only have access to information that you have the ability to fathom and the principal decides what level of access you have.’ Aysel could obviously tell her company were having trouble understanding this. ‘For example, it would be of no benefit to instil scientific knowledge into a member of our working class, as that individual would simply go mad trying to make sense of t
he information. If those of us, like myself, who are part of the governmental and scientific class, only received the information reserved for the working class, we would be driven insane from the boredom of not challenging our intellect.’
‘But does Vugar not control what you think?’ Hudan was perplexed and worried. ‘Can he not tune into what you are thinking now?’
‘Not any more,’ Aysel advised. ‘Two reasons. Firstly,’ she placed a hand on her unusual belt, ‘this holy relic shields my thoughts from him, whilst allowing me to infiltrate his intentions, but only when he is not protected by the unnatural shadow he can draw to himself.’
‘Do you know anything about how he achieves that sub-etheric shield?’ Rhun probed. ‘If we could somehow hinder that shield he would be far easier to overpower.’
The Draconian shook her head. ‘All I know is that the Dragon Eye will send the shadow into retreat, but as for destroying it altogether … I don’t know if that is possible.’
‘Oh yes,’ Telmo assured her. ‘It is possible, all right. We just need to find out the name of the entity protecting him, or take from him whatever amulet he uses to summon it. What is the second reason your telepathic link to your principal has been hindered?’
‘The more Vugar shields his thoughts from the hive, the less access and control he has over the hive, and the more scope the individuals within the hive have to operate on their own recognisance,’ she explained.
‘That would cause a bit of chaos, I imagine.’ Rhun raised his brow in question.
‘A selfish, as opposed to a selfless, leader, is always going to cast his governance into chaos,’ Aysel conceded and Rhun was a little humbled by the statement, wondering if that was why Kila was now in peril. ‘Still, that is the very least of my consort’s offences against our people.’ She appeared humiliated to admit it.
‘It is not your consort who has committed these offences, but the unearthly entity that has stolen his body,’ Telmo assured her.
‘Then we must find a way to drive the entity out!’ she insisted.
‘The entity in question can only assume the form of a being it has killed.’ Telmo delivered the sad fact of the matter. ‘I am sorry to say it, but your partner is already dead.’