by Jack Conner
Knowing he only had a few seconds, he knelt by Ani. “Ani, you must do something.”
She looked nearly as pale as Layanna. “M-me? What can I do?”
“Think at them! Like you did before.”
“I c-can’t! I’m too scared!”
He gripped her shoulders tight. “Ani, you can do this. I know you can. You—”
Something cracked across his face. He flew through the air, struck the floor and went sliding. The pistol sprang loose from his hand. The invisible shape picked it up and aimed it at him. Why waste time strangling him when it could just shoot him?
Layanna staggered toward the gun floating in air, perhaps meaning to wrest it away from its wielder, but something invisible jerked her aside and began assaulting her. Avery saw the flesh around her throat began to constrict.
Somewhere Segrul was laughing, a great big booming laugh. Avery supposed it would be the last thing he ever heard.
The muzzle sighted on Avery. He stared into the darkness of the barrel and knew he was facing his end. The trigger began to depress—
The gun fell to the floor. The assassin rippled into visibility, staggering backward. It was a man, and his eyes were goggling out of his head. The man reeled backward, his face going red.
Avery glanced around, searching for the cause of his good fortune, but it was a moment before he realized what it was.
Ani.
Wearing the most furious expression of concentration he’d ever seen on a child, she waved a hand, just slightly. The attacker slumped to his knees, his face purpling. Ani appeared to be giving him some sort of aneurysm.
Avery clutched up the fallen pistol and struck the man over the head with its butt. The man listed to the floor, dead or unconscious.
Ani retrained her attention. A scream sounded from an unseen attacker, one of those assaulting Layanna, and the man became visible. As soon as he did, Avery shot him and he flew backward.
Ani waved her arm again, and the one attacking Sheridan became visible, too. More than that, the attacker, a woman, gasped and gripped her head, also having some sort of aneurysm.
Sheridan gasped and clutched her neck where a tentacle had been throttling her. Her face was dark. With her free hand she grabbed up a fallen pistol and shot the formerly invisible woman through the face.
One by one, Ani caused the mystery party to turn off their invisibility, which proved immediately lethal when Janx, Avery and Sheridan started shooting them. When the members of the mystery party were all dead, Avery stared at his daughter, then the ruins of the Sleeper’s body. What did your people make her into?
“Kill them!” Segrul roared, sounding apoplectic. “Kill them all!”
The few remaining pirates raised their weapons to obey, but Ani waved her hand at them, and they dropped their guns and clutched their temples, obviously pained. Either Ani’s abilities were exhausted or they diminished with distance, because the pirates weren’t quite as stricken as the members of the mystery party had been. Still, they staggered back toward Segrul weaponless and unable to fight.
“Damn you!” Segrul said, and actually struck one across the face.
Janx, Sheridan and Avery fired at the pirates. Segrul turned about and hobbled from the room, his men shielding him with their own bodies. Two pitched to the floor, dead, but the rest made it to the door and escaped, bearing their admiral with them. Then the pirates were gone, leaving Avery’s group alone.
Without another thought, he picked Ani up in his arms and held her tight.
“You did it again,” he said. “You saved us.”
Tears leaked from her eyes, and she seemed to be having difficulty maintaining composure.
“I ... I killed them, Papa.”
“No,” Avery said. “We did. You saved us.”
The others prodded the bodies of the mystery party, making sure they were dead. They were. Shocked, they gathered round.
“Did you do that?” Janx said to Ani.
Crying, she nodded. “I didn’t mean to. I just … reached into their heads.” She sounded as if she were on the verge of hysterics. What she had done had obviously unnerved her as much as any of the others, maybe more.
With reassuring calmness, Layanna cupped her cheek. “It’s all right, Anissa May. You did what had to be done, and we’re grateful for it. These creatures were bred to fight beings like me, but you ...” She smiled. “Against you they had no defense.”
At her words, hope welled in Ani’s eyes. “Really?”
“Really.”
“We must leave,” Sheridan said. “We’ve got to get to them before they can set sail, if that’s what they mean to do.”
Avery nodded. “We can’t let them get away with the Sleeper—or what’s left of it, anyway.”
On the floor, Uthua made a trembling fist. To Layanna, he said, “The Muugists cannot be allowed access to the Monastery. They will kill us or enslave us. Twist us into the service of their masters.”
Janx grunted. “I doubt it matters much to us humans either way.” By the look on his face, he didn’t seem to care. His eyes went once more to Hildra.
To Uthua, Layanna said, “If we take you with us, do you agree not to harm the doctor?”
Uthua spat. “The Sleeper said he must die.”
“No. It said for the R’loth to prevail he must die.”
Uthua started. “Isn’t that what you want—why you’re helping me?”
“I haven’t decided. Now. Do I have your word?”
Uthua studied her, then let out a breath. “I suppose I have no choice.”
Janx knelt over Hildra. With trembling fingers, he stroked her blood-spattered hair. Avery moved to him and squeezed his shoulder.
“I’m so sorry.”
For a long moment, Janx said nothing. Then: “Can we take her with us?”
“I ... it will take both of us to help Uthua, and Sheridan must keep guard. Layanna can barely walk ...”
Slowly, Janx nodded. He bent forward and kissed Hildra on the mouth, and Avery was not shocked to see tears coursing down his cheeks. They dripped to Hildra’s too-still lips and quivered there. He whispered something to her, and Avery had to strain to catch the words: “It was you, girl. It was always you.”
With a moan, the big man staggered to his feet. “Come,” he said. Then, significantly: “We have a pirate to kill.”
He and Avery helped Uthua to his feet. With them supporting him, Sheridan taking point with her gun raised and Ani propping Layanna up, they retraced their steps through the labyrinth of the Necropolis, taking different routes when necessary, but always going down, and with surety. Now that Ani had learned to use her powers somewhat, she guided them, telling them when a turn was correct or would lead to a dead-end. There was no sign of Segrul and Avery supposed he must be well ahead of them.
“I must feed,” Uthua said. “I must grow strong again.” He eyed Avery hungrily; as the only infected person here, Avery was the only one he could eat properly.
“We’ll find you someone else to eat when the time is right,” Layanna said.
“I will decide when the time is right, not you,” he growled. “I am not some dog to be fed!”
He heaved himself clear of Janx and Avery and dropped from a ridge they’d been walking along onto the path below. When Layanna moved to stop him, Janx laid a hand on her shoulder.
“Not necessary, darlin’.”
“What do you mean?”
Below, Uthua disappeared down a passage.
“We know where he’s going,” Avery said.
“I don’t understand.”
“He’s going to greet a ghost,” Janx said. Pain showed in his eyes. “I wonder ... if I went with him ... I could see her again, one last time ...”
“Don’t do that to yourself,” Avery said.
Near the entrance to the Necropolis, they found Uthua staggering back to them, looking shaken. He seemed surprised to see them for a moment, then swore.
“I hate this pl
ace,” he said. His strength gave out, and he fell again.
“Where’s the knife?” Avery asked, seeing that it had vanished from the Collossum’s back.
Uthua smiled. “I threw it down an abyss. You will not be poking me with that again.”
Reluctantly, Janx and Avery shoved their shoulders under Uthua and got him on his feet once more. At last, they reached the entrance and stepped outside. Avery felt a tremor pass through him as he left the confines of the Necropolis, as if energies that had been inundating him were suddenly removed, and for a moment his sense of equilibrium vanished. He found himself clutching Sheridan for support, and, seeming equally dizzy, she clutched back. When the feeling passed, he straightened, just as Layanna turned toward him. Chilled, he separated himself from the admiral and renewed holding up Uthua. Did she see?
Rain drizzled down on them, and as one they pulled their hoods back up.
“Looks like the battle’s over,” Janx said.
Indeed, time had played one more trick on them. Though Avery didn’t think he’d been in the Necropolis for more than a couple of hours, much more time seemed to have passed in the outside world. Dawn was breaking over the buildings of Salanth, and the pirate army was no longer in sight, except for the scattered bodies of men, decapods and tanks they had left in their wake. As for the flying fish, it was as if they’d never been, save for the occasional scaly heap on the ground.
An Ysstral military procession appeared down one of the largest avenues, traveling with considerable power and purpose toward the Necropolis, airships overhead. Too late, Avery thought. The Ysstrals had taken too long to organize against the threat. They—
“Damn,” he said.
“What is it?” Sheridan asked.
Avery pointed. Floating through the air behind the front ranks of the incoming army was a giant aerial jellyfish, but not just any jellyfish. It was the living throne of Duke Leshillibn. Peering closer, Avery saw some sort of clear bubble, perhaps thick glass or bullet-proof plastic, maybe even flesh, surrounding the bloated, triumphant form on the seat of power. Drops of rain drizzled down it, obscuring the bloated shape inside.
“Duke Leshillibn,” Avery said. “He really did it. He’s seized control of the government.”
Janx grunted. “King Leech.”
“What about Empress Issia and Jered?” Ani said.
“Dead or in custody,” Layanna said, not one to couch the truth. “I’m sorry. We can only hope they're alive.”
“The Duke’s no friend of ours,” Janx said. “If he’s in control now, there’s no sanctuary for us at the Palace.” With a grimace, he added, “We have to run.”
“But ...” A wave of despair came over Avery. “We must reach Segrul! We must get to the pirates before they leave. There may still be time to get back the head.”
“Sorry, Doc, but the docks’re that way, and that’s where the Duke’s comin’ from. We best go that way.” Janx indicated the opposite direction. “Besides, there’s nothin’ we could do against Segrul and the Muugists anyway—for the moment.” His eyes glittered, and Avery knew there was nothing more he would like than for that to be otherwise.
“We need to regroup,” Sheridan agreed.
There was nothing for it, Avery saw. It was either run or be caught. Meanwhile their enemies absconded with the Sleeper’s head.
“We’ll get them,” Janx said, and there was cold fury in his voice. “See if we don’t.”
“You’d better,” Uthua said. “If they get to the Monastery first, all is lost. Not just for my people, but yours as well. My people will activate our failsafe as soon as the Monastery is breached by the enemy.”
They set out, away from the approaching might of the Ysstral army and toward the cover of an alley. As rats scampered around them and poisonous rain flung down on them, they fled into the shadows.
THE END
OF VOLUME ELEVEN
OF
THE ATOMIC SEA
FROM THE AUTHOR
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