“I guess you’re right,” I said, wondering how I could have looked at it any other way.
Sergei moved a little closer, lowering his voice. “I do believe I am free of his control.” With his chin, he indicated Hap.
“Does that feel good?” I panted.
“Very,” Sergei said. “In fact, if he reneges on his pact with you, I will relish killing him. I’ve thought about doing it with my bare hands.”
I wondered if Sergei was strong enough. Hap was small, but he might have that crazy monkey strength. There was another factor to consider.
“You don’t think he had a button to…you know?” I asked delicately.
Sergei shook his head as an evil grin spread across his face. At that moment, I wouldn’t have wanted to be Hap.
“I am also finished with the Mafia,” Sergei added.
“The Ukrainian Mafia?” I asked.
“Any version of the Mafia,” he said. “In truth, I would like to join the Counter Alien Unit, providing we return to Earth and providing they would take me.”
“Do you hear that, Jenna?” I asked.
She didn’t, as she had a glazed look and staggered as if she was about to collapse.
I put one of her arms over my shoulders, helping her along. I wanted to set her down, but she had a point. There were natives here, and they might well toss her into a cannibals’ pot, for all I knew.
We progressed along the sands, trudged a little farther—
“I see it,” Sergei whispered.
I halted. My shirt was soaked with sweat and my mouth had turned bone-dry. I might have been reeling. I no longer felt the slightest bit vigorous.
Jenna collapsed onto her butt. She swayed and then toppled onto her side. I grabbed her arms and dragged her up the beach to some shade.
Finally, I returned to Sergei. “What do you see?”
He pointed. I squinted in the general direction.
“Between those two trees,” he said.
I saw it then. Part of the upper Guard ship. It had obviously landed. That would seem to indicate the portal was over there.
“What now?” I asked Rax.
“I thought you were the tactical specialist,” the crystal said.
“Yeah,” I said. “That’s right.”
I studied what I could see of the Guard ship between the trees.
“We go inland from here,” I said. “Rax, is there any water anywhere?”
“The sea,” he said.
“I mean fresh water we can drink,” I said.
“The sea is fresh water.”
I stared at the aquamarine waters. “Is it safe for us to drink?”
“Let me analyze,” Rax said. “Yes.”
I didn’t need to hear another word. I staggered to the sea and threw myself in. I drank, rose sputtering, breathed and drank some more. This was the best tasting water of my life.
Afterward, I helped Jenna to the water. She drank, threw it up, and drank less but again. Finally, with the both of us soaking wet and grateful for it, I helped her back to the shade.
I should have known it was fresh water. I’d swum through it. I’d just assumed the water was too salty. Assumptions could be deadly. Without Rax, I might never have quenched my thirst.
“Do you feel refreshed?” Rax asked.
“Yeah,” I said, hearing the increased vigor in my voice.
“Is the portal nearby?” Sergei asked.
“It is near the Guard ship,” Rax said.
I looked around. “Hey, have any of you seen Hap lately?”
Jenna sat up. Her eyes were puffy and her features swollen. “I forgot,” she whispered. “I saw him slip into the jungle. I think he’s heading for the others.”
“The bastard,” I said. “Hap is going to sell us out.”
-59-
I almost took off running to catch the monkey-alien if I could. Sergei started after Hap, but I shouted in a low and insistent way. Reluctantly, the Ukrainian clone came back to us.
“He is a fiend,” Sergei said hotly.
“He is a criminal,” Rax said, “with a criminal’s mind and reflexes. We should have watched him more closely.”
I took that personally, figuring that someone should have been me.
“I thought he wanted a pardon,” I said.
“I suspect he does,” Rax said. “But knowing Hap’s kind, he believes he can receive a better deal from the Eshom.”
“If the Eshom and his kind don’t destroy him first,” I said.
“Hap will believe himself persuasive,” Rax explained. “It is a common Ulaacon failing.”
I shook my head. “None of that matters. What are we going to do about his desertion?”
“Are you asking for my tactical advice?” Rax asked.
I scowled at the jungle foliage, at the glittering white sand—
“Jenna, you have to stay here,” I said.
“I won’t,” she told me.
“Fine,” I said. “Then you have to continue along the beach until you run into the Eshom. I doubt you want to do that.”
She shrugged. “I don’t care. That’s what I’m going to do. Either that, or I’ll go with you.”
I couldn’t decide on the right course of action. We had to move fast, and Jenna most likely had a concussion. If I let her go along the beach alone, I risked having the Eshom enter her. I did not want Jenna to kill herself. This was for all the marbles, though. If the Eshom opened a portal to its Hell World…
I grabbed one of Jenna’s arms.
“Sergei, you grab the other arm,” I said. “We’re moving. We’re going to hit their camp as fast as we can.”
“We’ve lost the element of surprise due to Hap’s treachery,” Rax said.
“It’s too late,” Sergei said. “Look.”
I looked up and saw the Guard ship rising into the air. At that point, I made an instant decision.
“Sergei, take Jenna,” I said, “and take this.” I pitched the Ukrainian my beam weapon and had him pitch me his ordinary gun.
“What are you—?” Sergei said.
“Go!” I shouted. “Slip into the jungle. Work your way to the portal. Destroy it if you can or kill the Eshom before it can open the way.”
“What about you?” Sergei asked.
“I’m the only one the Eshom can’t enter. With Rax, he won’t be able to mentally dominate me, either.”
“Come hide with us,” Sergei said.
“I’ve got a gut feeling about this,” I told him. “Do it. Go!” I looked up at the Guard ship sliding just above the trees, coming toward me. “There’s no more time, Sergei. Run!”
Sergei dragged a weakly protesting Jenna. They faded into the interior jungle.
As they did, I strode along the beach. A few moments later, I broke into a sprint, kicking up sand.
“Do you have a plan?” Rax asked.
“I do,” I admitted.
“Are you going to let me know what it is?”
“You might not think it’s much of a plan.”
“I do not like it so far,” Rax said.
“We have to get near the portal,” I said. “I’m betting I know things about the portal from what the Polarion machine put into my mind. That they’re coming for me suggests the Eshom hasn’t opened the way yet.”
“That part is logically reasoned. The rest seems highly suspect.”
“You’ve never worked with a Polarion before.”
“Logan, Logan,” Rax chided me. “You have a childlike hope in the Polarions. That is misplaced, I assure you. Ah. It is too late. I do believe the Guard ship pilot has spotted us.”
The shadow of the Guard ship passed overhead. The ship came around a second time and hovered over us. A loudspeaker clicked on.
Philemon’s voice boomed out: “Welcome, Logan. We’ve been waiting for you.”
I tensed, expecting bullets or rays to beam me apart. Instead, the Galactic Guard ship began to come down. In moments, it thudded onto the sa
nd thirty feet from me.
A side beam emitter pointed at me.
“Throw down your weapons,” Philemon said over a loudspeaker.
I tossed Sergei’s gun onto the sand.
“Now throw down Rax,” the loudspeaker said.
I did that, too, watching the metal-jacketed crystal thud beside the gun.
A hatch opened and a sour-faced Kazz walked out. He had a beam pistol aimed at me. Instead of the suit and tie he’d worn the last time I’d seen him, the five foot five, hulking Neanderthal wore gray overalls. His hair was just as black as before, his face just as wide and his nose just as splayed out. He marched across the sand toward me.
I wanted to lunge at and hit him, but I restrained.
“Rax,” I whispered.
I knew the crystal heard me, but did not respond.
“Give me a beep if you can short-circuit the beam weapons.
Rax beeped once. I took that to mean he could short the hand-held weapon, but not the Guard ship personnel weapon.
Kazz stepped between the ship’s personnel weapon and me. The Neanderthal produced handcuffs, stopped and tossed the cuffs to me.
I caught them.
“Put them on,” he said.
Instead of doing that, I charged him.
That caught Kazz by surprise. Yet, for all his bulk, he was fast. The Neanderthal raised the beam pistol—I hurled the handcuffs underhanded at his face. He flinched, dodging just enough so they failed to hit him. He pressed the trigger, and a hot ray flashed past me and burned a leaf on a jungle tree.
That almost paralyzed me. Instead, I closed the distance and hit Kazz with a haymaker. That actually staggered the Neanderthal.
“Don’t kill him,” Philemon shouted over the ship loudspeaker. “We need him, remember?”
I imagine he meant that Kazz shouldn’t kill me. They needed me. That was news. I still couldn’t believe Rax hadn’t shorted the beamer like he’d beeped.
Kazz tried to scramble off the sand.
I kicked the bastard as hard as I could in the face. He had a short and heavy neck. So his head hardly lifted. It did lift some, though. He grunted. His eyelids fluttered, and the big lug of a Neanderthal crashed unconscious onto the sand.
The Guard ship rose immediately, taking itself out of my reach.
I grabbed the fallen beamer, scooped up Rax and sprinted for the jungle growth. I expected the Guard ship to cut me down at any second, but it didn’t. That was food for careful thought.
-60-
I raced through heavy undergrowth with leaves slapping my face and shoulders.
“I do not detect immediate pursuit by the Guard ship,” Rax said.
“Oh, you don’t, do you?” I said, looking up. I could see the Guard ship tracking us from above. It was up there to my left, slowly pacing us. “What’s wrong with you, Rax? That beamer fired at me. If it had hit, I’d be dead or incapacitated.”
“Impossible,” the crystal declared.
“Is it this out of phase place?” I asked. “Is that interfering with you?”
“I will run a self-diagnostic. I am perfectly…” He trailed off.
“Rax,” I said, shaking him.
“Danger, Logan,” Rax said. “There is grave danger. I sense the portal opening…seeking…its released energies are playing havoc with me.”
“I thought Philemon said they needed me. What would they need me to do?”
“I am finding it difficult to maintain coherent thoughts,” Rax said. “I cannot tell you what this means. I do believe it means something dreadful. You must stop whoever is opening the portal. That is…”
Rax faded out again.
I couldn’t understand this. Why would the bad guys need me? What could I provide that the others might want? I was betting on one ingredient. I’d worn the circuit to the Polarion teaching machine. It’s possible I knew things they needed. Yet…how could they know they’d need that. There was a missing ingredient here, something I wasn’t seeing.
I pocketed Rax. The crystal had freaked out and lost his masterful control. I’d almost been beamed to death by Kazz because of that. Only the sheer audacity of my attack had saved me.
Hitting and kicking Kazz had felt awesome, though. I could knock out the Neanderthal. I’d been feeling low about him beating me and stealing my Guard ship. Had Philemon left Kazz lying on the beach? I couldn’t see how the Homo habilis had had time to get the Neanderthal if he was following me this closely.
I looked over my shoulder. The Guard ship was right there, pacing me. Did Philemon know I was down here? Despite the covering foliage, it seemed clear he did. Did the little proto-man think he was herding me to the portal?
As soon as I thought that, I realized it was right. This was all about the portal. The Eshom wanted to bring reinforcements from home. The electrical being had a huge grudge to settle. According to Rax, Philemon wanted off the Earth so he could recruit others to come back here and plunder. Hap likely wanted something similar. Each of them believed that the portal was their best bet.
I wondered what the Starcore had implanted in Philemon and Kazz’s brains. I recalled the hateful Rax Prime crystal entity. I wouldn’t doubt it had placed commands in its servants’ brains to wreak vengeance on whatever had slain the Starcore. That could mean Polarions, but more likely humans. It could also mean me specifically.
I slowed my rate of advance. The Guard ship slowed, too. That was great. Philemon knew exactly where I was. That shouldn’t have been hard for him to figure with the Guard ship’s advanced tracking devices.
I heard squealing ahead of me. Then, I heard shouting and the peculiar sound of a beam-weapon firing.
I ran, brushing past leaves and trees, and burst onto an incredible scene.
There was a great rock formation. It was roughly circular and stood several stories tall and just as wide. The ends disappeared into the white sands. The sides of the rock glowed with an unearthly color, pulsating back and forth. There was a small stand near the circular rock.
The donut-hole area within the circular rock was as black as sin. I could not see past that or anything inside. Clearly, the giant rock formation was the portal. It must have activated, which caused the awful blackness.
I finally saw people near the stone stand. Could the stand be the portal’s controls? I knew it in my gut to be so. In that moment, I felt as if I could control the portal.
The squealing sounded again. It was coming from Hap. The monkey-alien had a smoking burn hole in his left shoulder. Sergei Gromyko had his hands around Hap’s throat, choking the life out of him.
I saw no sign of Jenna.
Sergei grinned maniacally, his eyes burning and wild. I saw intense hatred in his dark eyes.
Hap used his feet to claw at Sergei’s chest. The man’s shirt was in ribbons and blood flowed from the wounds. The feet-clawing efforts had lessened considerably. By the signs, Hap had lost almost all his strength.
“Die, you miserable creature,” Sergei shouted. “Die, die, die!”
It was an impressive display of hatred. As Sergei Gromyko bore Hap to the sand, kneeling as he continued to choke the alien, a flickering energy creature oozed out of Hap.
That stunned me. If the Eshom had been in Hap, how come the Eshom hadn’t been able to mind control Sergei off the monkey-alien?
Maybe the clone’s hatred had been too strong for the Eshom.
Sergei ignored the Eshom as his thumbs dug into Hap’s windpipe. The Eshom flickered above the duo, and finally surged down into Sergei Gromyko.
Sergei bared his teeth in an animal snarl, shaking Hap now, growling in a savage and triumphant manner. The clone’s hair stood on end. His body twisted with spasms. Still, Sergei clung to Hap, refusing to relinquish his death grip. Sickeningly, Sergei foamed at the mouth and his eyes began to roll. Still, he clung to Hap.
The Eshom oozed out of Sergei Gromyko.
The Ukrainian clone gave a wickedly triumphant bellow. He shook Hap a final time, released
his hold, gathered Hap as if he were a child and staggered toward the great portal.
The Eshom continued to watch.
With a bellow of rage, Sergei hurled Hap’s limp form into the darkness. The monkey-alien entered, disappeared with a flash—
At that instant, the blackness seemed to jell into a solid substance. It reached out like a cartoon arm, striking Sergei, sending him flying onto the white sands, out cold.
The entire darkness flashed and disappeared. Now, I could see through the donut-hole to the other side of the ancient stone circle. The unearthly glow along the circular edge stopped on the instant.
At that point, the circular stone just seemed like an odd monument.
Sergei was unconscious or maybe dead. The Eshom had vanished after that display, and Hap had disappeared to who knew where. Most likely, the troublesome monkey-alien was dead wherever he’d appeared.
What did it all mean, though?
“Logan,” Rax said. “The Guard ship is landing.”
The Guard ship no longer hovered over me. It had moved beyond, landing on the sand. It did not land between the stone monument and me, but to the side of both of us.
I wondered what Philemon was up to now.
-61-
The Guard ship landed with a thud. A hatch opened, and Debby walked out. She had long brunette hair, a pretty face and a nice figure. She was wearing a white blouse, jeans and Keds.
“Debby,” I called. “Are you okay?”
She turned her head slowly. A sad smile curved onto her face. Had she missed me? I realized I’d missed her. Maybe we could still work things out between us.
She looked back into the ship. The hatch closed as she did that. Her shoulders deflated some. She moved away from the ship.
Moments later, the Guard ship rose, with the nose turning toward me. The twin lasers on the wings aimed at me. I realized I was in Philemon’s sights.
I looked up at the nearby ship canopy. Philemon waved and gave me a big Homo habilis smile. It reminded me of Hap’s chimp smile.
If I could have drilled him with my beamer, I would have done it. I might have even done it if that would destroy the Guard ship.
Invaders: The Chronowarp Page 22