"Just thought I'd see how the party's going." Zahara's voice had a smoky, throaty quality that exuded sensuality.
Nabokov nodded nervously. "Vell. It's going vell."
"There's just one thing, lass." MacDuff ambled forward, clutching a bottle of scotch. "With all due respect, would ye mind movin' along?"
Zahara frowned. "I don't understand, Mr. MacDuff."
"It's like this," said MacDuff. "Accordin' to tradition, bachelor parties are for men only. Y'see?"
Zahara smiled. "I do see, Mr. MacDuff."
With that, she closed her eyes. Brow furrowed in concentration, she tipped her head back.
And she began to change.
Her chest receded, and her shoulders broadened. Her hips compressed, and her abdomen shortened. Even as her womanly curves flattened, the muscles of her arms and legs and back swelled.
Zahara's face changed, too, thickening from narrow and angular to blocky and square-jawed. Her lips thinned, and her hair and lashes shortened by half.
When she tipped her head forward again and opened her eyes, Zahara most definitely looked like a man instead of a woman.
"Now can I stay?" Zahara's smoky, sexy voice had deepened, becoming unmistakably male.
Nabokov sighed. "Fine," he said, and handed Zahara a drink.
Back at the bar, McKee grinned. "Ah, the Prismari. Nothing like having the ability to manifest multiple genders at will to keep you guessing."
Horn watched as Nabokov threw an arm around Zahara's shoulders.
McKee raised his glass. "Here's to changing times."
Horn raised his Byzanthion ale and clinked the glass against McKee's. "May we always stay a step ahead of them."
*****
Twenty-Four Years Later...
Earth Year: 2294
As black and red carnivorous vines snapped at his heels, Sark charged through the clearing. Up ahead, a spiny, mirror-plated beast galloped away from him toward the treeline, dragging Dr. Meredith Chalice behind it in a gelatinous sac.
It was just another day on the planet Choya.
Choya was not exactly known for its friendly wildlife. That was one reason it made such a perfect prison world. The odds of getting in or getting out were slim.
But Sark, deep in his heart, did not believe in the odds. That was something he had learned over the years from his friend, Matt Horn.
Matt Horn, who was the reason Sark had come to Choya that day. Horn, the man who was supposed to be dead.
As the mirrored beast continued to gallop toward the trees, Sark dug deep and found the strength to run faster. With every step, he gained on the beast, sprinting closer to Chalice.
Chalice, who was writhing and gasping for breath in the clear-skinned sac.
Forty-five seconds of air. That was what Chalice had left before she asphyxiated. Sark had figured it out.
As with all his calculations, there was no allowance for a margin of error. Sark had made mistakes in his lifetime, but never when it came to simple mathematics.
Just before the beast could make the treeline, Sark leaped onto its back. Prying up one of the overlapping mirrored plates that armored its body, he jammed the barrel of his emanator into the gap and fired. The mirrored armor had deflected his emanator fire before, but Sark hoped that a close-range shot underneath that armor would wound the beast.
As expected, the shot had an impact under the mirrored plates. With an ear-splitting shriek, the creature reared up suddenly, tossing Sark from its back.
Sark hit the ground hard and looked up as the beast reared again, four of its eight jagged hooves dancing above him.
This is an example of a mistake. That was what he thought as the hooves plunged toward him, faster than he could scramble away from them. This and not attending the maiden voyage of the Infinitude-B. When Matt Horn died.
I could have saved him.
Then, without warning, the scene changed.
One second, Sark was lying on the ground as the creature's hooves plunged toward him. The next second, he was sitting atop a boulder fifty feet away.
The change in location was disorienting. Sark had to catch himself to keep from falling backward.
Otherwise, the sudden shift was welcome. As Sark watched from his new perspective, he saw the mirrored creature's hooves strike the now-bare ground where he had lain just seconds ago. The momentum carried the beast down hard, sending up a cloud of dust as it crashed. A heartbeat later, Choya's native monstrosities swarmed all over it, stripping the flesh from its bones.
Meredith.
Sark looked to the left and saw nothing, but when he looked right, Chalice was there. She lay beside him on the boulder, free of the creature's smothering sac.
How?
"Hello, Mr. Sark."
A woman's voice, not Chalice's. Higher-pitched, younger, with an accent. Uplift at the end of the sentence, like a question. The "S" like a soft "Sh."
But where was she?
Sark looked all around but saw no one.
"I've heard so much about you, Mister Sark."
Again, Sark could not find the source.
He got up on his hands and knees and crawled to the edge of the boulder. As he looked down, he heard the voice again, from behind him.
"My name is Deeva."
This time, when Sark looked in the direction of the voice, he saw a young woman. At least she was young if she was human, and she certainly looked human.
Her big, green eyes were set into a thin, oval face. Her lustrous blond hair was wound around her head in a spiral braid, with a long fall flowing between her shoulder blades.
She wore a jumpsuit of a luminous, satiny material patterned with orbs and stars of pale blue and yellow. Her right arm was bare; a billowy sleeve swirled around her left arm, cinched at the wrist.
And there was something else. Something that Sark could not quite pinpoint.
"Deeva." Sark raised an eyebrow. "Have we met?"
"You knew my great-grandfather." Deeva grinned. "His name was Matthew Horn."
*****
Chapter 2
Earth Year: 2270
Ship's Journal: As we beam down to Fantasy World to prepare for Lieutenant Nabokov's wedding, the landing party has strict orders: since our thoughts can become reality on this world, we must be careful what we think about at all times.
*****
"Just the place for the perfect wedding." Zahara, in her female form, smiled and took hold of Nabokov's hand. "We can't thank you enough, Captain."
"Thank Astrofleet for the layover." Horn walked through the knee-high grass of the sunny field where the teleporter had deposited them. He took a deep breath of the sweet, summery air and gazed into a distant treeline. "And thank the planet's Caretaker, if we ever find him."
Sanu turned slowly in a circle, watching the readouts on his scanalyzer. "Still nothing, Captain. No mechanical activity or energy fluctuations above or below the surface."
"No white rabbit activity, either," said McKee. "Or black knights or pink elephants or whatever."
"Closed for business?" Horn frowned.
Nabokov shrugged. "Maybe it's waiting for a wish. We could run a test..."
"Why not?" Horn closed his eyes, and an image came to mind. He didn't choose it consciously; in fact, it was something that would cause him pain if brought to life.
But it was something that was never far from his thoughts. It was his heart's desire.
When he opened his eyes a moment later, he expected to see the image appear before him in solid, three-dimensional form.
But no.
Horn felt a shot of relief and grief at the same time. "Nothing."
"What did you think of, Keptin?" said Nabokov.
"Rabbit," said Horn. "A black one." But that wasn't true. He'd been thinking of a woman, a love lost forever in the distant past.
Edith Keeler.
"So what now?" said McKee. "It'll be an awfully boring wedding if the planet's not working."
; Sanu closed his eyes. "I'm wishing that it starts working again," he said. "And now I'm thinking about my childhood pet."
"Not a Bengal tiger, I hope," said McKee.
"Different kind of feline." Sanu furrowed his brow, then opened his eyes. "Still nothing."
Zahara smiled and brushed a lock of hair from Nabokov's eyes. "It's all right, Anton. This is still a beautiful place to get married."
"Let's not give up just yet," said Horn. "We might still find whatever monkey wrench is mucking up the works around here."
"It must be a big monkey wrench to muck up the entire planet," said McKee.
Just then, the ground began to shake.
What started as a slight tremor built quickly in intensity.
"I'm reading mechanical activity and energy fluctuations, Captain." Sanu held his scanalyzer steady with both hands. "High levels, increasing rapidly."
Horn drew his emanator and shouted over the rumbling. "Caretaker! Talk to us!"
All around the landing party, trees suddenly fell away...not toppling, as if cut with an axe, but plunging straight down into the ground. The grass underfoot did the same, sucking into the soil...and then the soil glazed over with a shimmering, golden finish.
The tremors intensified to the point that no one on the team could stay standing. As they fell, huge structures shuddered free of the ground and spiraled skyward all around them.
Within seconds, the pastoral green scenery had been completely replaced by a glittering city. Minarets and arches and domes rose and reached, sculpted from gold and silver and studded with multicolored gemstones that cast rainbows of light in all directions.
With one final surge, the buildings stopped growing, and the ground stopped shaking. As the rumbling died away, the music of harps and bells flowed from the newborn city, accompanied by a choir of angelic voices. Rich perfume rushed through the air, sweet and strange and soothing.
With a rustle of wings, flocks of white doves flurried from the gleaming parapets and swirled overhead. Great flower gardens exploded from the ridges and alcoves of the buildings, blazing with a riot of red and yellow and pink and blue.
"I can't believe it," said Nabokov. "I wasn't thinking about Moscow, but here it is!"
"You know that's not Moscow, Anton," said Sanu. "It's somebody else's idea of paradise."
"The question is, whose idea is it then?" said McKee.
Suddenly, two enormous, fiery letters flared to life atop the highest tower, crackling with orange light.
"H.M.?" Horn frowned as he got to his feet. He was starting to get a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach.
At that moment, a burst of white light like a second sun surged in the sky overhead. Everyone looked up at once, shielding their eyes from the blinding glare.
An object emerged from the heart of the burst and gracefully swooped groundward. As the object descended, Horn saw that it was nearly as radiant as the orb of light around it.
Finally, the object drew close enough that Horn could see what it was. "A chariot," he said. "Pulled by two winged horses."
"Welcome wagon or paddy wagon?" said McKee.
The dazzling chariot glided lower. Red flower petals fluttered down from it, showering the landing party below.
H.M. The more Horn thought about the initials from the tower, the closer their meaning seemed to come.
And the closer their meaning came, the stronger the bad feeling in the pit of his stomach.
The chariot landed ten yards away, and Horn finally got a look at its occupants: seven beautiful women clad in flowing white gowns and glittering gold jewelry.
Horn stepped forward. One of the winged white horses swung to block his way. "I'm Captain Matthew Horn of the Star cruiser Infinitude."
The women in the chariot raised their arms and began to undulate and sing. Slowly, they backed away to either side, opening a gap in their ranks.
That was when Horn saw someone else in the chariot--a man with head bowed, draped in a hooded white robe with gold trim.
When the women's singing hit a high point, they swept the robe from the man and cast it aside. As soon as the man raised his head, he locked eyes with Horn.
And everything clicked.
H.M. Of course.
"Somebody better tell me this is an android," said McKee.
The man in the chariot looked much different from the last time Horn had seen him. Gone were the pot belly, flab, and thinning hair. Instead, the man had a lean, athletic body; perfectly sculpted muscles rippled in his arms, chest, and shoulders under the white satin of his V-necked jumpsuit. A thick mane of long, blond hair cascaded down his back.
But even with the changes, Horn knew him in an instant. For all the alterations, the walrus mustache and jowly leer were unmistakable.
Same with the larcenous twinkle in the eyes.
Nabokov shook his head. "And I thought seeing the bride before the wedding was bad luck."
"Who is he?" said Zahara.
"Trust me," said Sanu. "You don't want to know."
"Hullo, Matty me boy," said the man in the chariot.
The sound of that voice was enough to raise Horn's blood pressure by double digits. Horn resisted the impulse to stun him with his emanator on the spot.
Beaming, Harvey Murk stepped out of the chariot and spread his arms wide. "Welcome to Murktopia!" he said grandly. "Soon-to-be capital of the galaxy-spanning Church of the Divine Murk."
*****
Twenty-Four Years Later...
Earth Year: 2294
Just as Sark disintegrated the ruby-red winged serpent gliding toward him, something with purple fur and giant fangs leaped out of the tangled underbrush. Even as Sark swept his emanator rifle toward it, he knew he couldn't shoot it in time.
So it was a good thing Dr. Meredith Chalice was all better now. A few drugs from the hypospray in her med kit, and she had recovered from her time in the mirror-beast's digestive sac.
Chalice fired her emanator pistol, and the purple-furred creature flared with light and disappeared. Chalice's eyes met Sark's in silent acknowledgement, and then they both continued their race through the jungle.
Standing still for more than a few seconds was not an option on Choya, the prison planet. Only the shielded prison structure itself, in the heart of the teeming jungle, provided shelter from the endless storm of carnivorous life on this slaughterhouse world.
Nevertheless, Sark had every confidence that he would succeed in his self-imposed mission. He had prepared thoroughly, accounting for every contingency. Further, he had enlisted Chalice, whose skills were superb and commitment to success unswerving.
Then there was the new secret weapon.
She appeared up ahead, as if materialized by a teleporter device. In truth, she had slowed her hyperfast metabolism, becoming visible by synchronizing with the vibrational frequency of Sark and Chalice's molecules.
Deeva. She claimed to be James Horn's great-granddaughter, latest in a line begun when the Quintarans took over the Infinitude.
Observation seemed to support her claim. Her purported great-grandmother, Deela, and the other Quintarans had also moved faster than the human or Hephaestan eye could see.
Unlike full-blooded Quintarans, however, Deeva was able to control the vibrational rate of her body, speeding up and slowing down at will. This suggested the presence of non-Quintaran genetic material in her genome...perhaps human...perhaps James Horn's.
Sark resolved to investigate further later. For now, she was simply invaluable.
The Earth saying about not looking a gift horse in the mouth applies here.
As Sark and Chalice sprinted toward Deeva, she waved, then pointed straight ahead. By now, Sark knew exactly what she meant.
Go that way.
With a wink, Deeva disappeared. In the direction in which she had pointed, the jungle writhed with a screeching, toothsome menagerie...animal and plant alike lunging and snapping as the scent of human and human/Hephaestan prey reached them.
A heartbeat later, the way ahead lay clear. The creatures were gone, and the jungle floor was lined with fur and scales and feathers and leaves.
Deeva and a borrowed emanator had opened a path through the screaming chaos. The action had happened too fast for Sark to see, but the results were clear.
"Thank you," he said, continuing to run forward.
Deeva phased into view alongside him. "Anything to save my great-grandfather," she said.
Sark raised an eyebrow. "Why is that your expectation if I have not yet told you the ultimate purpose of my mission?"
As soon as he said it, he answered his own question. Of course she knew the purpose of the mission...and a lot more besides.
Lurking invisibly with a hyperfast vibrational frequency vastly simplifies eavesdropping.
"I've been watching you for a while," said Deeva. "And listening."
"I understand," said Sark.
"You're not the only ones I've spied on," said Deeva, "but you're the only ones who believe Matt Horn's not dead."
A stray creature, pasty white like a deep-earth mole but studded with fangs and spines, popped out of a hole in Sark's path. Without breaking stride, he incinerated it with a blast from the emanator rifle.
"It is not a matter of belief," said Sark.
"Everyone else says he was killed by the energy ribbon when it struck the Infinitude-B," said Deeva.
"They are wrong," said Sark.
"I've seen video recordings of what happened," said Deeva.
"The recordings do not tell the whole story." Sark slowed as he reached the end of the area Deeva had cleared. "I assure you, Matt Horn is alive."
Deeva looked at Chalice. "And you agree...but not just because of how you feel about him, right?" Deeva gestured at Sark.
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