“How I use my power is my own decision,” he hissed back.
“Or there is not enough power in that brain if it needs torture to find what it is looking for.” His slow movement toward me started to accelerate. I took one then two steps back, getting closer to Armin, and with a fast movement, I cut the belt at his waist. The move was so unexpected that I had time to cut his handcuffs too.
“You will pay for this,” the gray snorted and raised his hand toward me. Next second I was lifted in the air by his force field and I lost my knife. With a sudden movement, he pressed me back to the wall, suspended a foot high. With his hands now free, Armin tried to intervene but he was too weak to overcome the gray’s force-field and fell back. “Now, let’s see what is in your pathetic brain.”
“Why do you think you will be able to read my brain, if you are not able to do the same for the Erins?”
“You are not an Erin.”
“So you acknowledge your inferiority against their minds?”
“None of your business.”
“You were supposed to be the rational entities, bringing peace and development to this planet. You are exactly the opposite. Everywhere you go you leave behind only misery and despair. You should not be allowed to come here again.”
“I sense Erin nonsense in your words; small brains like you cannot understand the danger they represent to our universe. And who can stop us?” It was only a rhetorical question; he was absolutely sure that no one would interfere in their game.
“There are stronger forces than you in the universe.”
“You are talking too much.” The force field compressed my lungs until I was barely able to breathe. “That’s better, I think,” his bland tone was killing me more than his force. I was no more than a fly to them. At the same moment, Altamira hit him with a chair, on the back of his head, but as the field was there, no harm came to him. With a short hand-snap he sent her flying against the wall where she fell to the floor. A small line of blood ran down from her lips.
“Altamira,” I cried, forcing air out of my lungs, as I could not do anything else.
“I am okay,” she whispered. “He is too strong.” I was reading her lips more than hearing her speak, and Sarul’s loud laughter filled the room.
“I am indeed. Now let us see.” A small object appeared in his hand and was set in front of my head. I pressed the small pebble from Houston, waiting for the miracle to happen. And it happened. A belt surrounded my waist and a field emerged from it. His astonished eyes, I still remember them; for the first time I observed a human expression on a gray’s face. Our fields interacted; my back was against the wall, he was thrown to the opposite one, unharmed as his field had protected him, but Sarul was inadvertently caught in his trajectory and crushed between the field and the wall. Instantly dead, his open eyes held a cold, glazed, insane look.
“You just lost your main tool,” I said to the gray.
“You,” he was not getting enough air to breathe, his own fury overwhelming him, “You, how did they send a monkey like you? This is a disgrace, it is beyond any rule; there is a price to pay for this.”
“Mostly by you. I cannot think of anyone else losing so badly.”
“No, you will pay, this is treachery; your Faction and Gate, mostly the Gate, will have to answer for this. We knew about this betrayal, but we were looking for a human being, not for a monkey. It’s time to pay now.” His usually bland voice started to rise in tone. “Giant!” He shouted. “White!” He continued slowly. “Red palm!” His voice was now like thunder; I crumbled, my senses desperately searching for chrono-particles, a frantic reminder of my previous encounter with these fatidic words. A short wave passed, blurring my vision for a second. I was waiting for bad things to happen, he was waiting also. “Giant!” He said again, frustration visible on his face, “White, red palm.” The last words were mere unconvincing fast whispers. Nothing happened, and he disappeared.
“What did he expect from the ‘spell’?” I derisively asked Houston. “Your field and the ‘anti-spell’ tool in my mind would have protected me anyway. Are they really so advanced as you us told before?”
“Then why were you so overwhelmed by fear?” I had no answer for her. “They are advanced in many ways you are not even able to understand. Much of their technology is in no way different from magic for you.” She made a short break to be sure that all her words went past my ears into the brain. “The reaction with or without the ‘anti-spell’ would have disconnected you from my field. You can try a thought experiment about what that unfortunate event would have meant for you.” And she broke the link.
*
We have lost Peldava, the third largest city in the Kingdom. News came like a storm from the last remnants of our garrison there. Aizac and his conditioned companies had taken over the city in just a few hours. An easy task, as nobody had expected this, and Peldava, like all other Baragan cities, had no walls, and the Anogi helped them. They installed a new form of government, a republic, and of course, Aizac was ‘elected’ the new ruler. His first act was to eliminate all remnants of the former administration, the second one, a proclamation ‘liberating’ all the people from the King’s tyranny. The last vice-governor of the region was sitting in front of us in the council chamber. He was the messenger of the bad times to come.
“They’ve killed everybody they could gather from the army and the local council. They used some kind of machinery to execute them.” His voice was barely audible, and he was a tall and strong man. His chin was trembling with each word describing the atrocities. “They put two poles and a large metallic blade together with a rope on top of them. The executioner lifted the blade with the rope and then let the blade fall over the victim’s neck. The head was violently separated from the body and the headsman lifted it in the plain view of the people gathered and kept in the plaza by force.”
“A guillotine!” I exclaimed.
“What is a guillotine?” the King asked in all his sorrow.
“A tool used for mass executions in order to spread terror among innocent people.”
“I never heard of such a heinous thing.”
“It was never used before on your planet. It comes from a savage place far away from here. Just another black-hats’ gift.”
*
“I just received a call to take you out of here.”
“I have not finished my vacation. When I come back, I will retire in full glory if they no longer consider me able to fulfill their mission.”
“There is now much argument here about your ‘vacation’ ruse. Technically, everything is correct, but they are pushing for a motion to argue that you broke a gentlemen’s agreement, to put it in your own language, and send you away from here immediately.”
“Do they have no shame, talking about being gentlemen after what they did there?”
“There is a lot of acrimony between Factions right now, and such things are pushed aside except as a means of crucifying you, so to speak.”
“Is there an arbiter for these games?”
“None at this stage; if we don’t get the case closed, it will be forwarded to the Galactic Council with a right of appeal to the Black Eye himself.”
“Can they force your hand?”
“Force my hand? I don’t have hands; all parties have to obey the laws.”
“These laws are too lax; after all they have done here and most probably on other planets too. They should be put in quarantine.”
“Maybe. Let's say that they are not very happy with the outcome, especially as they can’t appeal to higher courts without revealing what they are really doing here.”
“Why are they so desperate to destroy the Erins?”
“They are afraid.”
“Afraid of their high potential? They can transform too.”
“They cannot. The Erins were studied for centuries to no avail. No one understands what they really are. And another thing; Sarul was an Earth citizen. He came here thirty years ago, a
powerful fund manager wanting to be a king.”
“Another successful colonization process?”
“Unfortunately, Aizac is also part of that process together with other ‘bankers’ and ‘arms dealers’; the Weapons Guild if you prefer the local terminology. A lot of ‘good’ knowledge came with them.”
“His discourse ... is true.”
“You can call it Voluntary Servitude, voluntary obedience to a ruler or a system. People agree to be looted and oppressed by governments no matter their form. Fear and consent are both required for the wealth transfer system to function.”
“We are just willing slaves.”
“This results from a lack of awareness of your real situation. Democracy, when real, is a powerful system. It has one big flaw though: it can be easily subverted by hidden wealthy organizations working behind the scenes. They are not accountable to voters and are able to plot long term ... very successfully. Okay, it was agreed, there is no legal argument for canceling your vacation.”
“Houston, is this affecting you?”
“Certainly these two Factions will never ask me for my services again. I think I am becoming too ‘humanized’ for their taste. Nevertheless there are thousands of other Factions in the galaxy falling out of love with some Gates and entering into new relationships with others.”
“But this is an upgrade,” I smiled at her.
“Of course, humans have a wonderful reputation in the galaxy,” but she was smiling too.
This is not the end
The cliff on the north side of the castle garden is the perfect place to enjoy the summer; it provides shelter from the hot wind of the desert. From the riverbanks, the cliff appears like a gigantic black pipe-organ. On the plateau, the garden spreads over several hectares, finishing abruptly with hundred-feet-high black basalt columns, recalling the time when this small hill was a volcanic cone. Here and there, black fangs, up to twenty feet tall, push up from under the ground, seeking a place in the sun, forcing paths to slalom between them. A gigantic Japanese Zen garden, with grass and Stonehenge-like black stones, made for romantic walks.
Slowly, after long months of picking over and over the gardenia 'mid-autumn dream' my usual hesitancy had given way to certainty. After thirty years of being a bystander in my own life, there was nothing to hold me back – and I am talking of my Earth life, with the Primes adventure being an episode of spiritual awakening I cannot yet fully acknowledge – but this marvelous appearance, the living being slowly walking with me, so close that at times I could physically feel her body.
“Three years already,” I finally broke the silence, “and I have enjoyed almost every second of being here, but what I am dreaming of the most is of an evening when the gardenias were blossoming.”
“A beautiful flower,” Altamira said carefully.
“There is no story behind the gardenia in the Baragan Kingdom?” I asked with a trace of a smile on my lips.
“There are a lot of stories. Which of them could catch the interest of a Traveler running from one world to another?” The tone of her voice was one of studied calm, but she could not conceal the discreet tremor in her left hand, while her eyes were constantly restless.
“A beautiful story about an evening dream in the shade of its perfume.”
“You are different from any other Travelers I have met, but still a Traveler, a superior being coming here for purposes not yet very well known to me. Why would you give up a future made of interesting experiences for a small civilization like ours?”
“As interesting as I find yours or other civilizations, it is not in my mind to search for abstract impersonal things.” I stopped walking, silent now, realizing she was thinking in terms of me staying here and not being able to return. My life here … forty, maybe fifty years, the Primes experience will be just a short vacation. Are you ready for this? I am.
“Would you not dream of leaving if...”
“Altamira, I have only one dream now,” and I gently took her hand as we walked on. “And there is nothing more wonderful than this dream.” Silence came again, soft like silk, that pleasant silence which brings people together.
“When I went home, that evening, I put the flower in my hair, but there was no way to tell you that. I was too much afraid.”
Houston’s ghost broke the silence before I could answer. “Go to Armin, and send Altamira home.”
“What...?”
“Go! I said.”
“Run, Altamira! Go to the castle!”
“Why?”
“Do it!” Next second I was teleported between Batranu and Armin, and my communication belt was replaced with something more sophisticated: two interconnected belts, the second one circling around my head. Angels? I remembered their hologram. More likely Demons, or Travelers. The same thing. Why do they have to spoil everything? A piece of knowledge filled my mind at the same moment. I glanced at Batranu and he was looking the same: the old samurai suddenly transformed into a tactical super-warrior with aggregated skills, able to mentally handle tens of info icons, sensor displays and graphs fed into my brain by the upper belt. The energy field wrapped me like a cocoon while I was struggling to decipher the tactical display info. Wrong alphabet, wrong language, wrong symbols... Shut up and learn, the language is already inside you. Two protuberances grew from the field, enveloping my palms and making contact with the lower belt. I had the feeling of capturing a jellyfish with a little bit more consistency; my fingers were absorbed in the gelatinous mass and able to move through 360 degrees. These were the command controllers for the energy field and arms. Small movements were able to expand the field, to concentrate the energy in one or several points and to fire plasma projectiles, my fingers and the bulgy tactical consoles were in direct contact with my brain and the tactical display freshly grown in my head. Virtual targets moved on the grid, my eyes followed them, and my fingers produced torrents of yellow-orange plasma by moving inside Houston’s ‘jellyfish’. Cool. This is real hunting. I missed all the targets – I was not properly ‘tuned’. “You are too slow.” A shadow sneaked inside my mind, an electric shock whipping my neurons to work faster; Houston took over my poor reactions and saved my skin. The real targets were already there, two black hats shooting plasma projectiles, in my face, the second they arrived. Nooo! I closed my eyes. I felt nothing; the field absorbed them, and fired back, in the next second, with even more plasma density; a flush of neural commands moved back and forth inside my brain, guided by Houston; my mind became a mere interface between her mind and my shield. A second shot went directly to Armin. “Save him,” I screamed. The projectile exploded. He is dead. When I opened my eyes again, Armin’s skin was glowing like an electric medusa, with orange pulses running up and down along his nerves under his skin. What the hell are you? The light concentrated over his head, the strongest part of his quantum field, with energy bands diffusing from yellow to purple and spreading further and further. The black hats’ eyes expanded, and their fire stopped. “Die!” I shouted and pressed my fingers until they went out from the jellyfish. Their fields changed color from my shots and that was all. I let Houston do the job, no more pretending that I was in command – the show was spectacular, with mini aurora borealis emerging from Armin’s head mixing with my own field, spectacular and long. They cannot win … we cannot win. Now what?
A new cocoon appeared in the next moment. Red… Why red? Three … four, I counted, seven, equally distributed in a small circle around us, with plasma jets running around like the spokes of a gigantic wheel. Houston stopped all firing. “What are you doing?” I gasped.
“Trying to keep you alive. Too much incoming energy.” Our cocoons shrank from that energy pressure, until I felt uncomfortably cramped inside. I cannot breath. The air was hot and smelling of ozone. “Move closer to Armin, one each side of him, I am no longer able to control the field.” My shoulder touched the field. It burns! She cannot… An acrid smell filled my nostrils, my stomach twisted and pain ran. I clenched my te
eth and said nothing to Houston. You have the power… Kill them! A belt materialized around Armin’s head, his large cocoon merged with ours, and the pain was gone. “They are so stubborn,” Houston told me later. “He did not want the belt. Poison! That’s what he called it. I am no poison! I threatened him that you will die too, since he took his own death naturally.” The color of the field changed to violet, the result of mixing Gate energy with Erin quantum field. I was able to breathe normally again, and we fired back once again. Is she allowed to fight? Later.
When new jets appeared from behind, our big cocoon shrunk again and trembled. They are too many. This is not fair. We moved closer to Armin until our sides touched his, and there was barely room to swing a cat inside. The trembling moved into waving. What the hell is this? A flow of lava erupted and felt with a splash, over us. I crouched and realized that we were no longer on top of the cliff. The stone is melting! Twenty feet of the basaltic columns had gone, with lava bubbling under our feet in a steady viscous movement, in a spectacular show. What a wonderful death this can be. Wonderful? Think painful.
“Houston, move us from here!”
“If I stop the field to transport you there would be nothing more to transport. You would be a mass of plasma.” The Gate is powerless. Wrong, you are powerless. She is made of energy, flesh burns. The acrid smell rose again inside my mind. “Don't worry; I will find a way to take you out. Soon we will reach the threshold.”
“The threshold of death?” I tried to joke; despite her power, I was no longer convinced. The last thing I remember was a flash of Altamira smiling at me. Why can I see her? Then the lights went out.
*
“Hello stranger,” a singing whisper wakes my mind. Where is the singer? There is no one around. “... The lights are gone.” Coming from far away, and from many points roundabout, no clear direction, no clear voice, the whispers fill the silent darkness. “... my new friend ... new friend … new friend.” Many voices … and different times ... a chorus. “I'm pleased to meet ... to see … to talk … with you. With you… With you…” I am in a dream. A pang of pain erases my thought as swiftly as it came. “...my thoughts were sneaking ... while you were sleeping” Sleeping? I had a fight, another thought comes to life. What fight? I question myself, or my dream, or my thought. Am I still sleeping? Flashes burn my eyes behind my closed eyelids. It hurts, I moan; the pain is growing. Yes, I had a fight. Pleasant warmth fills my body. Good … hot … too hot. New flashes join the heat. Plasma flashes. Is this death? There is no light coming through my eyelids, and I am afraid to open them. My wide shut eyes. “In restless dreams you went alone...” No, I was not alone; there were other people with me – in that fight. I have to open my eyes. Singing guitars join the voices. Simon & Garfunkel. Hah, I remember. What a wonderful song. I remember their voices; the song is not the same. Who changed the song? And why? I feel light through my eyelids and a weak courage mounts inside me. Everything is dark around me, if I do not consider several translucent spheres floating not far from me, in silence; the song is gone. The light I see comes from them – feeble and diffuse. I am floating in a sphere myself, or with the sphere, in a strange position resembling a yoga representation of a man in a circle. My fingers and toes are touching the inward transparent membrane, but I feel no resistance coming from it, only a smooth grip keeping me in a fixed position. I have no weight, or almost no weight. I cannot feel my body except the fingers and toes on the membrane. Where am I? My communication belt has disappeared, Houston too. My sphere is rotating slowly, but I do not feel the movement, I only see other spheres coming or going. My heartbeats are the only thing apart from total silence. The sound of silence! Yes, I remember. Then I am not dead. What do you know about death? “Hey!” The air goes out of my lungs with no sound. Hey… Please… I am afraid to move, as I do not know what will happen with my strange equilibrium. I try to move a finger. Nothing. It is not that my fingers are stuck to the membrane; I simply have no control of them. I try to wrench a hand, and then to move my whole body with the same result. Disquiet and fear extending as far as anguish, is mounting within me. My mouth is opening in a cry and I hear nothing, not even the manifestation of my fear.
Io Deceneus: Journal of a Time Traveler (The Living Universe) Page 43