Trial by Ordeal

by Philip R Benge

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  On Galafrey a landing party of twelve crewmembers walked through the portal, they stripped off their space suits within the tunnel of the moon, deep within the dark nebula. Thankfully for their own peace of mind, they didn`t know their present location, for it went against the teachings of their religion to be inside the dark nebula, for the last time that their people had journeyed through it their people had suffered terribly for their blasphemous behaviour. The starship Vengeance’s first officer, Commander Zion led the party out into the arid countryside, and the first thing that hit him was the dry heat of this part of the domain, after the air conditioned starship it seemed very hot. The next thing his team found were the remains of the four men laying along and around the rough track that wound on into the distance, Hanson`s body having been pulled into the undergrowth near the entrance to the portal. Both he and his men had to keep from retching at this terrible sight of such carnage; it was a fitting introduction to the second of the domains. Lying discarded on the track Zion found one of the dead men`s Phasers still intact, he picked it up and saw that it had been fully drained of power, but as to why this was so he couldn`t even begin to think. This group of men had been in the dark domain for only a short amount of time, and they shouldn`t have needed to use it quite so much. He immediately reported his finds back to his captain, who in turn reported to Ares Fortuna aboard the starship Dark Nebula.

  It didn`t take him too long to realise why, when coupled to the mystery behind the missing team of archaeologists and then the robots. The drained Phasers were proof positive; something within the first portal drained all energy weapons of their power. Fortuna quickly sent a message to the captain of the Vengeance and instructed him to instruct his landing party to test their own weapons, and to keep a constant check upon their power levels, for there was always the chance that his first assumption had been incorrect. Fortuna then sent a message to his daughter with this news, asking her to keep quiet at the moment, until he had returned and had seen how things stood on Helionia, then he could decide how best to use this knowledge.

  The landing party duly tested their weapons, they were very happy to find them still working, and then Commander Zion decided to head for the next portal in the chain, and so inadvertently moved at a different angle to the Orionists. The landing party being made up of twelve armed crewmembers easily beat off the attentions of the many carnivorous creatures of the dark domain but even so, they were a little in awe of such beasts. They arrived at the portal set within a canyon that penetrated between a range of high hills to find that as they didn`t have the necessary magnetic keys, that the portal wouldn`t permit them to go through.

  “Damn I should have realised this earlier, we will have to journey alongside this range of hills until we come to the maintenance portal, sorry men.” Commander Zion said smiling ruefully at them. “Still at least it is good exercise for us.”

  The men were feeling rather hot by now, and were also just a little foot sore, they were not used to this much walking for they spent most of their time aboard the relatively small confines of a starship, but they didn`t complain, they just trudged tiredly along the side of the hills hoping for this mission to end. Zion was determined to reach the maintenance portal before he stopped, this was his first independent command and he didn`t want to fail.

  Tyler and his friends had made good time across the hot arid hills of the highlands of the second domain, being more used to such exercise. It was while they were crossing over a ridge that Appolon noticed something moving way behind them.

  “I think that our enemy has indeed sent a landing party after us Tyler, you can just see them walking along the main track, just this side of Marot`s old prison cell.” Appolon said indicating with his hand in which direction to look.

  Appolon might be able to see them but Tyler needed the binoculars that he had brought along in his backpack. Taking it off Tyler rummaged around until he found them. Using them he was able to see twelve men, fully kitted out for a long haul, and all appeared to be carrying Phasers.

  “Yes they are heading for the main portal in this domain, but without a magnetic key they will be unlucky, that should give us quite a head start on them.” Tyler happily announced.

  They had also encountered some more of the domain`s fearsome creatures along the way, but with the two newly acquired Phasers, the beasts were easily chased away. Tyler had not used the weapons on full power, he would only do so if one of the creatures was persistent, so as not to deplete them of their power too quickly, for you could never tell just how often they would be called on to use them. They soon passed through the next portal that was set in the side of a rugged hillside, and had now appeared in a land dominated by jungle. The entrance to the portal was hidden from without by a mass of shrubs and ferns that had grown into an almost solid wall, preventing them from leaving the darkened tunnel. A large tree grew immediately in front of the opening, and Tryon climbed up it to see what was ahead of them, and saw only more jungle. He did catch sight of what might be an animal track some fifty feet away from them, and which could best be reached by travelling along the strong branches of the tree he was on, and then crossing over to the next tree via some of the branches that interlocked between the two trees in an embrace. From here, Tryon could see that it would take them down on to the track; the only problem was that they would definitely hurt themselves should they fall, for the interlocking branches were some thirty feet above ground. However, to move through the vegetation at ground level without machetes and only two Phasers to cut a way through, seemed an expensive use of their two Phasers, or else doomed to failure without them. Tryon, who was already up the tree said he would investigate, and he moved along the branches much like Tarzan would have done, or so it seemed to Tyler.

  “Yes there is an animal track over here and it seems to be well used.” Tryon called back, and so Tyler and his two friends agreed that this seemed to be the best way to go, and they quickly scaled the tree growing in front of the portal. Appolon and Cimon were soon walking along the upper branches of the first tree and were crossing over to the second of the trees. Tyler in the meantime had made the initial climb easily enough, but once up in the tree top he made much slower going, inching along the first branch with the aid of another higher branch to aid his progress but then he was forced to move even slower where the branches of the two trees interlocked with one another. The problem was that there were no corresponding upper branches to help him keep his balance. Appolon was at the further end of the strong branch and he was fretting at each step taken by his friend, fearing that this step would see Tyler plummet down to the vegetation below. It was while Tyler was in the middle of the second branch that Tyler`s feet slipped from under him, and he fell. For a moment only though, Tyler could see the ground flying up towards him, but before panic could set in his body collided with the branch that he had been walking along knocking most of the air from his lungs. Tyler almost slid off the branch such was his momentum, but he was able to grab the branch tightly and lay there for a moment looking down at the green below while getting his breath back, by sheer luck he had been saved from a painfully fall to the hard ground below. Somehow, Tyler was able to keep a hold of the branch and edge along the branch with his legs wrapped around its wide girth, and this way he was able to get to the safety offered by Appolon`s outstretched hand. One minute more and they were all safely together on the ground, and Tyler looked around at his friends and then to Appolon alone.

  “This is where you take over Appolon, for this is your kind of world. There may even be people in this domain, certainly there will be various nasty venomous things, as I see it we have two options open to us. We can move away from the track and let our pursuers pass us by, and then we can return to the second domain where we know the dangers and simply wait for the Orion Defender to find us. Otherwise, we race on towards the next portal and into the fourth domain, which according to the map has a portal that will take us back to Helionia.
The only problem with that plan is that the portal that will take us back to Helionia must also be hidden, just as the first one was, it may be beneath that large inland sea that was not too far away from the first portal, as a matter of fact it could be anywhere on Helionia.” Tyler declared grimly.

  “Which means that entering that portal might be even more dangerous than it was at the first portal.” Cimon said frowning. “Maybe it would be better to return to the second domain after all.” A thought that had also occurred to the others.

  “It will soon be dark, so it will be better to make camp here than risk unknown dangers travelling through the night.” Appolon said.

  “Even if we decide to stay within this domain it might be better to allow our pursuers by, and let them face the unknown dangers here first, for there are bound to be many.” Tryon said wisely.

  “If we are to wait near to this portal it had better be back along the animal track and around that bend, so if our pursuers possess any infrared detectors they won`t pick up our body heat.” Tyler advised his friends.

  “But first my friend we must ensure that our pursuers know in which direction we walked after exiting the portal.” Appolon said and explained to the others that they should lay a false trail to ensure that their pursuers didn`t accidently stumble on them, as this would mean that a fight to the death would ensue.

  The four Orionists stepped into a couple of muddy patches and left four sets of clear footprints walking further along the trail, before removing their boots and walking carefully back to the point where they had clambered down out of the tree. Once there Tyler led his friends in the opposite direction to the footprints, and away from the next portal. They had only walked one hundred yards when they came to a the bend in the track, around this Appolon saw a large tree that resembled the Banyan tree of Earth, and decided that it would be an ideal place for their campsite. The three native Orionists soon had beds made up within its spacious branches for them all to settle down in. Tyler let out a long breath and was finally able to relax for a moment, at least his family would now be safe, and they only had to wait until the Defender found this moon within the vast expanse of the dark nebula, he smiled resigned to whatever fate had in store for them.

  “I`ll take the first watch and wake whichever of you snores the loudest in three hours from now.” He said smiling at his friends. Tyler moved up higher into the tree so that he could see if the Helionians came through the portal even as the night settled over the land. He was careful though to conceal almost all of his body behind the intervening branches, so that if they should come through they wouldn`t catch sight of him before he ducked further into the green cover offered by the copious canopy.