Chalice didn't flinch. "If you've been spying on us, you already know the answer."
Deeva grinned. "Then let's hurry up with this mission." Effortlessly, she darted ahead of Sark and Chalice. "We have to break out the guy who almost destroyed the Interplanetary Alliance single-handedly, right?"
She disappeared into thin air before Sark could answer.
*****
Chapter 3
Earth Year 2270
Fantasy World
Harvey Murk's cloud-swaddled feet never touched the street, which was paved with gold. As he led the Infinitude landing party into the gleaming city of Murktopia, he floated head-and-shoulders above everyone in the group.
Horn had the urge to drag him down to eye level by force, but he didn't try it. If one thing was clear, it was that Murk was in control of at least this region of Fantasy World.
Horn knew, because he'd been wishing for one horrible fate after another to befall Murk, and none had become reality.
That doesn't mean I'll stop trying, though.
Murk drifted ahead of the group, leading them down a crystalline corridor that pulsed with white light. Holographic images of his beaming, altered visage--complete with long, blond hair and bulging muscles--flickered through the walls.
"This will make a splendid chapter in the Book of Murk," said Murk. "The return of the prodigal children."
"He's not referring to us, is he?" said McKee.
Murk smiled benevolently. "Of course I am. All of you are my prodigal children. Except her." He waved at Zahara. "But all are welcome in the Church of Murk."
"That's comforting," said Horn. "Does that include the Caretaker of this world?"
For the first time since his grand entrance, Murk stammered evasively. "Yes, yes, yes. Certainly he's welcome." Murk shook his head solemnly. "Sadly, however, I've never met the man."
"Now, Harvey...," said Horn.
Murk interrupted. "Horn, please! You may call me 'Divine Murk,' 'Almighty,' or 'Lord.' Not 'Harvey.' 'Harvey' is reserved for my inner circle of priests."
"Priests?" said Sanu.
"'Divine Murk'?" said Nabokov.
"'Delusional' is more like it," said McKee.
Just then, the group emerged from the crystal corridor into a vast chamber.
Overhead, white-winged angels playing harps circled inside a lofty, golden dome. Far below the dome, a massive altar sprawled, its huge, pearly slab trimmed with elaborate gold filigree and flanked by braided mahogany pillars the size of star cruiser gravity drive engine pods.
The rose marble floor gleamed with polished brilliance and was inlaid with the initials "H.M." in flamboyant golden script. In the middle of the floor, pews of alternating emerald, ruby, sapphire, and amethyst stood in long, glittering ranks.
Multicolored stained glass walls depicted scenes from Murk's life...scenes complete with movement. The stained glass itself was alive, its rainbow segments flexing and shifting.
"Behold." Murk's voice echoed in the chamber. "The Cathedral of Murkness." Murk floated higher, turning slowly with hands on his white-jump-suited hips. "Visions of my past...and glorious future."
Nabokov squinted at one of the stained glass images. "Is that us?"
Horn followed his gaze. The image showed Murk, in his former potbellied, balding condition, surrounded by kneeling human figures. The figures all wore black pants and different-colored tunics--gold, blue, and red.
"Not unless you remember bowing down to 'Divine Murk,'" said Horn.
"I don't, Keptin," said Nabokov.
"Gentlemen, gentlemen," said Murk. "Please, not so literal. Think of these more as metaphoric representations."
"Captain?" Zahara pointed at another of the stained glass scenes. "Did Mr. Murk break your jaw and Commander Sark's arm with one punch? A metaphoric punch, I mean?"
Murk dropped down from above. "That represents dueling idealogies, my dear."
McKee snorted. "You wouldn't know an idealogy if it bit you in the dual gluteals."
Suddenly, Murk swung around with a nasty glint in his eye. "Remember, children, I could do anything I want, now that I have the power of a god." His voice boomed and echoed on the word "god."
"If your definition of 'god' is getting what you wish for," said Sanu, "then we're all gods on this planet."
Murk leered and leaned closer to Sanu. "Things have changed around here, sonny boy."
Just then, a crowd of chanting humanoids in red robes shuffled into the cathedral from a side passage. As soon as they spotted Murk, they all fell to their knees.
Murk grinned puckishly. "My flock." He winked at Horn. "Always with the worship and adoration. You know how it is." Murk touched the tip of an index finger to his lips and winced. "Or do you?"
Yet again, Horn concentrated on dreaming up a way to silence Murk. This time, it had to do with a straightjacket, an escape-proof, soundproof sphere, and two elephants.
Still, nothing. The wish-fulfilling planet did not seem to be taking his calls.
Time to push some buttons.
"What's your angle, Harvey?" said Horn. "What's the con?"
Murk locked eyes with him for a moment, then floated over to the kneeling flock. "My beloved Murkites!" He raised his hands. "What does it say in the Book of Murk, Chapter 1, Verse 1?"
The flock spoke as one. "This is a legit operation. Anyone who says otherwise is a no-good, lying so-and-so."
Murk nodded with overblown sincerity. "Truer words were never spoken."
"Come on, Harvey. What's the game?" Horn gestured at the flock on the floor. "The 'Church of Murk.' Why not call it 'The Church of Bilking Suckers Out of Their Life Savings?'"
"You've got it wrong, Horn." Murk shook his head. "We're strictly non-profit."
"Ri-i-ight." McKee winked broadly. "'Non-profit.'"
"I've seen the light." Murk folded his arms over his muscular, jumpsuited chest. "I'm a changed man."
"On the outside, maybe," said Horn.
"Might want to rethink the blond hair, though," said McKee.
"But we all know you're the same old Harvey underneath." Horn chuckled. "No surprises."
Murk's face curled into a scowl that was almost a snarl. "You want surprises?"
Murk snapped his fingers.
Suddenly, the sweet perfume in the air changed to a sulfurous stench.
The air shimmered as a wave of change flowed through the cathedral, sweeping away the gold and marble and stained glass...replacing it with smoke and flame.
The landing party was left clinging to a jagged crag, scrambling for handholds and footholds on the hot, slick rock. A pool of orange lava bubbled and swirled all around them, lapping at their boots.
Murk himself transformed, too, becoming a crimson-skinned devil at least fifty meters tall. He bent down and sneered at the landing party on its crag.
Two enormous red horns tipped in flame curled from Murk's glistening scarlet forehead. "Surprised yet?"
Horn winced at Murk's foul breath. "Parlor tricks, Harvey! We know how this planet works."
"Do you? Then why won't it grant your wishes?"
Murk's enormous mustache burst into flame. "I'll tell you why, Horn! It's because I and I alone am in control of this planet!" Murk roared with thunderous laughter, the sheer force of it shaking loose the landing party and flinging them toward the lava below.
*****
Twenty-Four Years Later...
Earth Year: 2294
Prison Planet Choya
Another wave of shrieking beasts crashed through the jungle, approaching Sark's team at the edge of the shield bubble.
On the other side of the invisible shield, safety beckoned. The grounds of the prison within the bubble were free of the carnivorous creatures that infested the rest of planet Choya.
Now if Sark could just open the shield and get his people inside before the local lifeforms devoured them.
Sark worked his scanalyzer, fighting to unscramble the cycling cypher of the shield's cont
rol computer. It was taking longer than he had expected to break the encryption with the waves of viral code that he was transmitting.
Meanwhile, waves of ravenous wildlife kept hurtling out of the jungle, one after another. Sark's companions had repelled the attacks so far...but he knew they could not hold out forever.
"Are you all right, Deeva?" Dr. Meredith Chalice's voice sounded dangerously strained.
Deeva--self-declared great-granddaughter of Matt Horn--sounded worse. "Stop asking...me that." Even with her hyperfast metabolism and youthful energy, Deeva was exhausted.
"You need more rest." Chalice had an emanator pistol in each hand, and she aimed them into the jungle. "I'll hold them off."
"Sark," said Deeva. "How much longer?"
Sark raised an eyebrow. For a second, the cadence of Deeva's voice had reminded him of Matt Horn's.
Or was that wishful thinking?
"I cannot say." Sark adjusted the scanalyzer.
Deeva turned back toward the jungle and raised her Quintaran energy weapon. The weapon looked like a translucent blue tube coiled around her right hand and forearm, crackling with traceries of yellow energy. Unlike an emanator, the Quintaran weapon could function at high speed in the hands of a hyperaccelerated user.
"I'll make another run," said Deeva.
Then, she was gone.
The shrieking and thrashing of the beasts in the jungle reached a deafening crescendo...then stopped. Deeva, moving so fast the hurtling lifeforms must have looked like statues from her point of view, had disintegrated the creatures.
At that instant, Sark's scanalyzer beeped, signalling that it had cracked the encryption. Immediately, Sark entered a command and coordinates into the shield control computer.
Open.
Without a sound, a hole opened in the shield in front of him.
"Meredith." Sark waved her over. "The shield is breached."
Just then, Deeva reappeared at the jungle's edge, looking as if she were ready to pass out.
Chalice rushed over, holstering her emanators on the way. "She's burning herself out," she said.
Sark gestured toward the shield doorway, which was invisible to the naked eye. "She can rest inside the shield," he said. "Hurry."
Sark's haste was for a good reason. His sensitive hearing had alerted him to a cause for alarm.
Off in the distance, a stampede of savage Choyan wildlife approached like a hurricane. The horde was more massive than all the creatures that had attacked Sark's group all day put together.
We cannot survive such an onslaught.
Chalice and Deeva reached the doorway. Sark guided them through, all but pushing them inside.
*****
The creatures threw themselves against the shield so hard, those in front splattered under the weight of those leaping in behind them. The shield bubble itself, usually invisible, was now defined by a gruesome arc of flesh and fur and feather and bone suspended in mid-air.
Sark watched just long enough to verify that he had sealed the door and the shield would hold. Then, he returned to his work--scanning the prison while Chalice and Deeva rested.
"This is it?" Deeva sat on a rock and gestured at the prison. She had only been resting for a few minutes, and she already sounded much better.
It is logical that her hyper-fast metabolism enables her to recuperate rapidly.
"Yes." Sark slowly walked around the structure in the center of the shield bubble, trying to probe it with the scanalyzer's sensors.
And failing. The composition of the prison's exterior deflected all scans.
"But it doesn't look much like a prison, does it?" said Deeva.
Sark stepped back and surveyed the hulk in front of him. To the untrained eye, he supposed it might resemble an enormous, maroon boulder, oblong in shape, its lower half sunk in the ground. Its top half reached about twenty meters above ground at its highest point, and it ran about forty meters in length. Its lumpy surface looked alternately rough, highly polished...and wrinkled.
Deeva got to her feet and joined Sark. "So what now?" she said. "You have a trick up your sleeve?"
"In my med-kit, to be exact." Chalice marched past Deeva and plunged a hypospray against the prison's maroon exterior. When Chalice pressed a stud on the hypospray, the device injected something with a soft hiss.
"What was that?" said Deeva.
Suddenly, a large flap of the prison's surface leaped upward in front of Deeva, Sark, and Chalice. Deeva jumped and yelped in surprise.
A monstrous eye, taller than Sark--with a fire-red, diamond-shaped iris set against a glittering yellow yolk--stared back at her. At all of them.
Then, a voice like an earthquake boomed from the prison, so loud that Deeva clapped her hands over her ears.
"I AM BURR," said the prison. "AND YOU ARE DEAD."
*****
Chapter 4
Earth Year 2270
Fantasy World
Horn felt himself die, and it was terrible.
As he tumbled from the slippery crag and plunged into the pool of molten lava, he screamed in agony. Excruciating pain, the worst he'd ever experienced, roared through him as the super-heated lava boiled away his body.
At least it didn't last long. The lava consumed him in seconds.
There was an instant of relief, though, before his mind winked out. An instant of clarity.
And in that instant, Horn's strongest feeling was disbelief.
After all the danger I've faced, all the times I've cheated death, this is how I die?
Harvey Murk kills me?
This just isn't fair!
Then, Horn's mind ceased to be. He saw or imagined a flickering light in the distance, a crackling, writhing ribbon of energy...and then he fell away into nothingness, simply too stunned to feel sad or curious or afraid or excited at the prospect of what might come next.
This was a good thing, because what came next was not so great.
An instant after Horn slid into oblivion, he woke up. His mind was fully restored, and so was his body.
He opened his eyes, which had melted away just moments ago. The first thing he saw was a set of familiar lips moving toward him.
Harvey Murk's lips.
Before Horn could duck, the lips met his forehead and planted a quick kiss there. Murk pulled away with a smile on his face...his human face, the square-jawed, blond-haired version--no longer the face of a fifty-meter-tall crimson-skinned devil.
"The kiss of life," said Murk. "Arise, Lazarus."
Horn felt too shell-shocked to roll with his first impulse and take a swing at Murk. Instead, as Murk drifted away, Horn looked for the rest of the landing party.
They had all tumbled into the lava with him, and now they sat around him on the rose marble floor of the Cathedral of Murkness. Like Horn, all of them had been restored, and they all looked shell-shocked to some degree.
"I was dead, Matt." McKee gingerly touched his face, as if he could not quite believe it was all there. "Am I still...?"
Horn reached over and gave McKee's shoulder a shake. "You're fine, Doc."
Even as Horn said it, he had his doubts. After all, Harvey Murk had just killed all of them without breaking a sweat...and brought them back to life. As long as Murk remained in control of the planet, he could do the same or worse again and again.
Is every bumbling con man an insane god at heart?
"So much for my perfect vedding," said Nabokov.
Murk whirled and nearly pounced on him. "Did you say 'wedding'?"
"Da." Nabokov looked downcast. "It's why we came here in the first place."
"Well, congratulations!" Murk slapped Nabokov and Sanu on the back. "It's about time you two made it legal!"
Sanu pointed at Zahara. "The bride's over there."
"Well of course she is!" Murk didn't miss a beat. "Mazel tov, dear!" He bowed in Zahara's direction. "Lucky for you I'm a religious figure!"
"If you're a religious figure, I'm a full-blooded Hephaestan
," said McKee.
"How many people can say an actual god performed their wedding ceremony?" Murk beamed and spread his arms wide. "Not to mention designed it?"
Murk closed his eyes, and the grand cathedral changed. The stained glass walls became tapestries depicting snowy scenes and onion-domed castles. Rich, burgundy carpets flowed over the rose marble floors. Murk's flock of worshippers, clad in tall fur hats, smocks, and boots, danced in a circle around the landing party, shouting and kicking like Russian Cossacks with arms folded over their chests.
Murk's eyes shot open, and a huge fur hat appeared on his head. "Vhy not an authentic Russian vedding, Comrade Nabokov?"
Nabokov's smile looked forced. "The borscht smells a little off."
"Something smells funny, all right," said McKee.
Horn got to his feet. "Where's the Caretaker, Harvey? We need to talk to him."
Murk smirked. "Why bother? He can't take away my power, Horn."
"Says you." Horn turned to Sanu. "Scan for the Caretaker's energy signature again."
"No." Murk swooped down on Sanu in a heartbeat and snatched the scanalyzer from his hands. "Scan me instead."
Sanu tensed. "Captain?" Translation: May I hit him, sir? Right now, sir? Please?
"Go ahead." Horn left his answer up to interpretation for just a moment before adding, "Scan him."
Murk handed the scanalyzer back to Sanu.
"This will be a life-changing experience for you, my son," said Murk.
"What do you expect me to find?" said Sanu.
"Ask rather what do I expect you to lose," said Murk. "The answer is something that won't show up on your device."
"A cloaked power source?" said Sanu.
Murk shook his head. "Doubt."
Then, he swept an arm through the air. All at once, the pseudo-Russian trappings rippled and disappeared from the cathedral. The flock stopped dancing like Cossacks and regained their red robes.
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