He took a deep breath and shook it off, and suddenly the hairs on his neck were standing on end.
Calhoun had an almost infallible inner warning sense. He really didn’t know how he had come by it. All he knew was that it had saved his life on any number of occasions, and this might very well be one of them.
He pivoted and Kebron, seeing that his commanding officer had suddenly come to full alert, likewise turned to see what it was that had alarmed Calhoun.
The creature that greeted their eyes was as big, if not bigger, than Zak Kebron. His skin was darkest black, so much like the depths of space that Calhoun might have expected to see stars floating against it. His head looked like that of some great beast.
Calhoun was utterly taken aback, but he did not let the fact that he was startled show. Furthermore, although he had not had an opportunity to discuss Si Cwan’s “adventures” with him in detail, Shelby had been good enough to forward him her logs and accounts of what the Thallonian had told her and he’d read them over quickly before beaming down to Danter. So he had at least some idea of who and what he was facing.
“Anubis, I take it,” Calhoun said evenly.
“Very good, Captain!” Lodec said, looking quite pleased, as if Calhoun was a clever student who had just produced some marvelously timely answer.
“And is your plan to try and treat Lieutenant Kebron and myself with the same distinctive lack of hospitality that you provided Si Cwan and his sister? To try and manhandle us, toss us about?”
“Please. Try,” said Kebron. Calhoun noticed Kebron’s fist tightening, and a slight snapping sound coming from it. Apparently Kebron was cracking his knuckles.
“I already told you, Captain,” Lodec said with a heavy sigh. “Although, in the grand scheme of things, it hasn’t been all that long since Si Cwan’s abrupt departure from our world, much has changed in—”
“Death,” Anubis said abruptly, interrupting Lodec as though what he had to say was of no consequence. He was pointing a taloned finger at Calhoun.
“Are you threatening me?” Calhoun asked calmly.
It was hard to tell if Anubis was smiling, or even capable of doing so, for his thin canine lips were drawn tightly back against his teeth. He lowered his hand and growled in a deep, hoarse manner, “We have much in common, you and I. In a way, we are brothers.”
“Striking family resemblance,” deadpanned Kebron.
Calhoun fired him a look, then turned back to Anubis. “We have nothing in common. You know what I’m seeking. I want a sample of ambrosia, and I want Artemis. Unless you’re willing to provide either of those, we have nothing to talk about.”
“We have much to talk about,” Anubis replied.
He began to stride toward Calhoun, and Kebron promptly interposed himself, providing a looming living barrier between the advancing “god” and the Excalibur captain.
Anubis didn’t appear to give Kebron any more priority than he had Lodec. He seemed to be considering only Calhoun and himself to be the only two individuals in the room. It was flattering in a way. A sick, perverse way, but a way. Nevertheless, he came to a halt a foot or so short of Kebron, although it was difficulty to tell whether he was doing so because he thought Kebron posed a threat.
“We are very much alike,” Anubis said. His pointed teeth clicked together when his long snout moved in speech. “We have made death an art. We embrace it. We guide our opponents to the other side knowing, as we do so, that how we die defines how we live. If we greet death with bravery, we are brave. If we meet it sniveling, we are cowards. The measure of a man is taken in his last breath. We both understand that in a way that others cannot possibly.”
“What I understand is that you’re beginning to annoy the hell out of me,” Calhoun said. He suddenly wished he had his sword with him. He had a phaser on his hip, and Kebron who was as strong as any ten men guarding his back, but nevertheless the blade he’d wielded as a Xenexian warlord would have provided him a greater measure of security. “What I understand is that your kind nearly destroyed my ship and killed members of my crew.”
“These are non-issues,” said Anubis.
“To you, perhaps,” said Calhoun, bristling. “To me they are very real issues indeed.”
“You can learn so much more than you know now,” Anubis told him.
“That’s nice to hear. But I’ve no intention of learning it from you.”
“Perhaps you will, despite yourself.”
Suddenly he made a swift motion toward Calhoun.
Zak Kebron, far speedier than anyone unfamiliar with him would have thought, matched the move and was directly in the path of Anubis. Kebron usually disdained to use weapons of any kind. He considered his own body all the weapon he required, and besides, his gargantuan fingers did not fit easily around the trigger mechanism of a phaser.
Anubis’s hand whipped out and around, and he was holding his short scythe. The curved blade swept right through Kebron’s guard, slicing across his chest. Kebron staggered and the blade was a blur, cutting right and left across Kebron at will. Blood welled up from Kebron’s chest, blood with the same color and consistency of tar.
Another low growl escaped Anubis’ lips. It was a growl that was matched only by the sound coming from Calhoun’s own mouth as he charged forward. Anubis switched his attention from Kebron to Calhoun and brought his scythe whipping around.
Kebron was not accustomed to dodging, and certainly wasn’t built for it. His tough hide was normally all the protection he required. Not this time, however. Calhoun suspected that, had any of the cuts been even an eighth of an inch deeper, Kebron’s organs would be splattering out onto the floor. He wasn’t certain whether it was remarkable luck on Zak’s part or supreme control on the part of Anubis. Nor was he intending to wait to figure it out.
“You will learn respect,” Anubis said quietly. “Even one who is such a purveyor of death that he could be my brother, will still learn respect.”
Calhoun tapped his combadge. “Calhoun to Excalibur. Two to—”
And then Kebron, with a roar, charged Anubis.
Anubis appeared briefly taken aback, and then he swung his scythe once more. Kebron buckled at the knee and took the point of the scythe in his shoulder. It buried itself in there and Anubis tried to yank it out. But it was in too deep.
The Egyptian “god” was clearly startled, and then Kebron thrust one of his massive hands forward, catching Anubis just under the jaw. Anubis lost his grip on his scythe as he was literally lifted off his feet, and he crashed to the ground several yards away.
Kebron grabbed at the scythe and then, with a grunt, pulled it clear. More of his dark blood massed at his shoulder, but he didn’t seem to notice or care. “I’m guessing, without this, you’re helpless,” he rumbled.
That was when Anubis’ eyes began to glow red. He reached behind his back and suddenly there was another scythe in his hand. “You guessed wrong.”
And suddenly Lodec was in between them, his arms spread to either side. “No!” he cried out, and to Calhoun’s surprise, turned to Anubis. “Please, great one,” he implored, “I have promised these individuals safe passage! I have spoken to them of how matters have changed! I would not presume to question your righteous wrath, but this action is most unfortunate in terms of ongoing relationships with Calhoun and his associates! I beg you not to do this thing!”
Calhoun’s hand hovered over the combadge, prepared at a moment’s notice to call for emergency beam-up. It was against his nature to run, but he had a wounded man who required immediate attention. Besides, the way Anubis was staring at Lodec, it seemed as if the god was just as content to annihilate his follower as he was Calhoun and Kebron.
But then the glow subsided from Anubis’ eyes. Although he glowered in Kebron’s direction, he was addressing Lodec when he said, “Very well. Out of deference to you and yours, I shall not pursue this matter further.”
“You won’t pursue?” snapped back Calhoun. “After everything that
you and your fellow Beings have done, what gives you the impression that I won’t pursue it?”
“For one thing,” Anubis said, his teeth still clicking together, “I would like to think that you are not that stupid. But if you are eager to prove me wrong, by all means…please do.” He shifted his gaze back to Lodec and said, “They require manners. It would be most wise for them if they acquired them by the next time we met.” He turned on his bare foot and strode out of the room.
“Drag him back in here, Captain,” Kebron said defiantly.
“Why would I want to do that?”
“So I can collapse on him.” And with that, Kebron fell forward, like an avalanche.
“Kebron!” shouted Calhoun, dropping to Kebron’s side. Lodec was making fluttering apologizing noises that Calhoun ignored as he tapped his combadge once more. “Calhoun to Excalibur. Two for emergency beam-up. Then start rounding up the others and get them the hell off this world.”
“Aye, sir,” came the response from the combadge. He recognized the voice instantly. It was Morgan.
“Captain, this is most unfortunate!” Lodec called out. “I assure you, I—”
“Save your assurances and bank one of mine,” said Calhoun. “If Kebron dies, I’ll tear this place apart with my bare hands.”
Even as his hands ran along Kebron’s thick hide, he was stunned to have a huge piece of it come off in his hands. It was a chunk at least a foot wide, and beneath the skin was roughly the same color, albeit a bit lighter.
And over the continued pleadings for understanding from Lodec, the captain and security chief of the Excalibur were beamed off the surface of Danter.
Excalibur
i.
THE GHOSTLY, intangible image of Mark McHenry and the elderly man who called himself Woden or Aman-Re or possibly Santa Claus stood outside the sickbay and watched dispassionately as Zak Kebron was hauled in on an antigrav gurney that was just barely powerful enough to support his weight. The doctors grunted as they hauled him into the sickbay, and McHenry saw the horrific gaping wound in his shoulder and the scythe protruding.
“What the hell is that thing?” he demanded, pointing at the curved blade that Calhoun was holding as he followed Kebron in.
“A scythe,” said the old man calmly. “It is the symbol of Anubis.”
“Yeah, well you know what I’m starting to think would be my best symbol? A good kick in the ass for whoever gets in my way.” McHenry began to pace. “I’m tired of standing around like Banquo’s ghost while life goes on all around me, and I’m helpless to participate. I…”
“No,” the old father interrupted him. “You don’t understand.”
“Well, that’s possibly because you haven’t explained it. What exactly am I supposed to be understanding?”
The Old Father turned to him, and there was determination glistening in his eye. “The Beings took a considerable setback in their battle with the Excalibur.”
“A setback? They practically annihilated the ship.”
“Nevertheless, they suffered a great weakening as a result. But now they are preparing to fight back again. It means their confidence is beginning to grow once more. That scythe is a channel for Anubis…or Loki, as he is also known. It is not, however, active at the moment. He likely has another.”
“All right,” McHenry said slowly, “if this is the part where you’re explaining things, then I’m not keeping up with you.”
A brief smile played across his immaterial lips. “Let me put it to you this way. The Beings do not have infinite resources, despite how things may appear. They have been monitoring us all this time, ‘concerned’ over what we might do that could interfere with their plans. You may not have been aware of it, but I very much have been. To some degree, I have been shielding you from them. Keep in mind, the predicament in which you presently find yourself resulted from an unguarded moment between yourself and Captain Calhoun, when you conveyed to him your opinion that Artemis and her associates were not to be trusted. Their ability to monitor communications is to be underestimated at great personal risk, even in our current condition. It seems, however, that now their attentions are drawn to other matters. That, and they are starting to become suffused with an air of confidence that could, in the long run, prove very costly to them.”
“Meaning what? What happens now?”
“What happens now,” said the Old Father, “is that we endeavor to communicate with Captain Calhoun. We step out from the shadows and move toward the daylight. Our time is swiftly approaching.”
“Our time. You mean I’m finally going to have a chance to live again?” asked McHenry, his hopes rising.
“You? No. No, chances are you’ll wind up completely obliterated.”
“Oh.” McHenry considered that and said, “Our time stinks.”
ii.
Dr. Selar was never one to let frustration show, but Calhoun thought that this was about as close as she had ever let herself get to it.
“The bleeding is not stopping,” she said, standing several feet away from the examination table where Kebron lay stretched out. It was not actually one table. He was laid out sideways, his upper torso lying upon the table, the rest of him supported by two antigrav gurneys.
“I have managed to slow it,” she continued, “but the epidermis is refusing to regrow despite the applications.”
“Is it because Kebron’s skin is unique on this ship?”
“I have the Brikar specifics in my medical logs,” replied Selar, her arms folded in front of her. “I have set the specifications of the regrow tools correctly. It is not, therefore, comprehensible as to why—”
Suddenly there was a loud rending sound.
Kebron’s eyes had snapped open. He was starting to sit up.
His skin began to rip straight down his chest, and the med techs were running in from every direction, trying to stop him. A spray hypo was pressed against his arm but he batted it away, along with the med tech, who went flying across sickbay to crash into a far wall.
“Kebron!” shouted Calhoun. He wasn’t at all sure that Kebron could hear him, or was even aware of his surroundings, but he couldn’t simply stand there and let a delirious Brikar destroy the sickbay. “Kebron, stand down! That’s an order!”
Kebron had lurched to his feet, and he turned and stared at Calhoun without actually seeming to comprehend who was standing before him. With a low growl, he staggered toward the captain, his arms raised over his head, hands curled into fists, each of which was larger than Calhoun’s head.
Without backing down in the slightest, Calhoun said evenly, “I said that was an order, Lieutenant. Stand the hell down. Now.”
Kebron wavered for a long moment…and then, slowly, lowered his arms.
“I didn’t like you at first, you know,” he said. “Long ago.”
“Nobody likes me at first, Lieutenant. Call it a gift. Are you all right?”
Zak Kebron once again didn’t appear to be paying attention. Instead he was pulling at his skin as if it was a full-body irritant. There were more tearing sounds, and then Kebron pulled at the back of his neck as if he were hauling a sweater over his head. With one final, earsplitting rending noise, he pulled the entirety of his thick hide up and over, yanking it out from under his uniform.
There were startled gasps from even the most hardened of med techs. Selar, of course, simply arched an eyebrow. “Fascinating,” she said.
Kebron held the tattered hide in front of himself, like Peter Pan dangling his shadow. “Yes, it is, isn’t it.” His own skin—the one that was currently covering his body—was glistening and shiny, almost like a newborn’s. It was basically the same color, but a bit lighter. “Is there somewhere,” he said, “that I can dispose of this? Unless of course, Doctor, you’re interested in studying it. Or perhaps, Captain, you’d care to mount it on your wall. Claim you bagged a Brikar.”
Calhoun noticed immediately that there was something completely different about Kebron’s voice. Instead
of the typical gruff surliness, he sounded calm. Almost pleasant. Whereas before every word was given up almost unwillingly, now he seemed almost…chatty.
“I shall attend to it, Lieutenant,” said Selar. She gestured for several of the med techs to take the torn skin from Kebron, which they did with a combination of fascination and mild revulsion. Selar, meantime, was running a medical tricorder over his shoulder. “The bleeding has definitely stopped,” she announced. “I cannot explain it.”
“And yet I have a feeling that Lieutenant Kebron can,” said Calhoun. “Personally, I’d love to hear it.”
“I grew up,” said Kebron.
Calhoun stared at him. “Grew up? What do you mean, grew up? I don’t…”
“He was an adolescent,” Selar said abruptly.
“What?”
“The doctor is correct, Captain,” said Kebron. “We Brikar age and develop far differently than you. I have been what you would term a ‘teenager’ for approximately forty of your years. Since well before I attended the Academy.”
“That would explain his general attitude,” Selar said. “His reticence, his surliness and air of superiority…”
“Well, to be fair, Doctor, in many things I simply am superior,” said Kebron. “It was, however, time for me to move forward in my physiological and emotional development. And now I have.”
“Just like that?” asked Calhoun.
“Yes, Captain. Why? Would you prefer that it be as prolonged as possible?”
“No, not at all. But…”
“This is certainly the preferable way to attend to it, don’t you agree? Now then,” he continued, “that scythe you’re holding. The one that Anubis used against me to such devastating effect. We may want to have it thoroughly analyzed to see if it might present some sort of clue as to how to combat these so-called gods. Don’t you agree, Captain?”