“What do you mean?” Fey asked.
“For example, the hunta bird arrived in Xanderoo in mid-air. It had to begin flying immediately. Do all portals open this way? If they do, we must provide a soar-sail for the traveler’s use, so he or she will not die in a fall. We must also find out if there is a way back. Xanderoo is one thing, but what if another wormhole opens to a place really far away, say outside the Solar System? We can’t send someone into the wormhole, only to have them get trapped without a means of return.”
“Oh, I hadn’t thought of those things,” Dawann said.
“There are other considerations as well,” Eshlish went on. “What if one of the wormholes opened to a world with unbreathable air? In that case, the traveler would need a breathing mask, or perhaps a pressure suit.” She paused. “Shall I show you the virtual reality transmission from Xanderoo?”
“Yes,” Dawann said, waiting as Mem retrieved headsets from another part of the room.
When the devices were over everyone’s eyes, Eshlish began a simultaneous broadcast. Dawann watched as the gateway door of the wormhole closed, and the hunta bird stood in absolute darkness. Then suddenly, a blinding light pierced the dark and the sky opened wide.
The bird caught the air and soared. Far below, hills covered with blue flowers rolled to the horizon. A small stream cut across the land, a ribbon of silver meandering toward the distant sea. Because of virtual reality, Dawann experienced exactly what the hunta bird did; the force of the wind on her face, the bracing scent of fresh air.
Squawking, the bird dipped its wings toward land. Dawann gave an involuntary trill. Down, down, she went, reveling in the freedom of flight, savoring the ride on the cooling breeze.
Texas, she thought wistfully. An azure sky and royal-blue meadow blended seamlessly together. Dawann swallowed hard, feeling a sudden, deep connection with Gus, a bond reaching across time, from one universe to the other.
The hunta bird tempered its descent and headed straight for the only trees in the vicinity, a swath of old cottonwoods hugging the serpentine stream. The bird alighted on a branch, and Dawann looked around. All was calm, and she felt only the softest hint of a breeze. The Sun was warm on her face, and the sky so clear! She closed her eyes and breathed.
Suddenly, Eshlish called out, “I will stop the transmission here.”
“Why?” Dawann asked in surprise. She removed her headset, waiting along with the others for an explanation.
“Lovely place, isn’t it?” Eshlish asked, directing her comments to no one in particular. “But what comes next has nothing to do with the wormhole. It is too graphic for civilized folk.”
“Really?” asked Fey alertly.
“Yes,” Eshlish said as she turned to Dawann. “I would suggest you forgo seeing the rest, Your Highness.”
“Why? It can’t be that bad, can it?”
“It is,” Eshlish said, matter-of-factly. “Vulcool terror birds not only inhabit the continent of Sagamish, but populations have migrated to the north and now live in southern Mera, from Xanderoo all the way to the eastern Folosh peninsula. If we continue, you’ll see one and the outcome is not very pleasant.”
“Despite your warning, I wish to see it,” Dawann said.
Eshlish pondered this for a moment and then grunted in acquiescence.
Replacing her headset, Dawann’s eyes strained against the eyepieces. True to her saurian nature, she was fascinated by tales of ancient species of dinosaurs, especially the extinct, Shurrrian predators, yet she was also repelled by their violent ways. The Vulcool birds were echoes of the distant past, a wild and vicious time when the ancestors of the saurians slashed and gnawed at hapless prey. And the terror birds had evolved only recently, around twenty-five million Shurrr years ago, forty million years after most of the dinosaurs perished in the last, great mass extinction.
Dawann held her nictating membranes wide open, drawn to the scene, yet wishing she could look away. She knew something ghastly was about to happen.
Meanwhile, the hunta bird had swooped down. It was now pecking at the ground.
Dawann’s gaze flew toward a stirring in the blue flowers. She spotted a crouched figure. Oh, Goddess, no! she thought as the huge thing leapt from its hiding place.
Dawann gasped. The Vulcool terror bird stood twice as tall as an average saurian female, with a great, razor-sharp beak.
The hunta bird immediately took flight, but the Vulcool’s beak opened wide and snatched the hunta straight from the air.
There was a sickening crunch, and Dawann cried out. The remote feed flickered once, then went dark, the sound gone, the ending as final as death.
Dawann-dracon removed her headset, closed her eyes, and sat there, thinking of the dangers on Shurrr, almost afraid to dream of what the future might bring.
***
Shaken to her core by the violent death of the hunta bird, Dawann-dracon walked through the halls of the palace and purposely chose to ignore the stares of the Keeper’s courtiers. She knew she was feeling paranoid; normal looks felt like accusations. But there were whispers in the royal court, whiffs of a conspiracy on one of the moons orbiting Moozrab. Dawann realized she had to be careful, not because of any personal knowledge about off-world terrorist plots, but because of her own plans concerning the Lex clone.
Despite the terrible dangers on Shurrr, Dawann was now more determined than ever to go there, to the rainforest. To find Lex was of the utmost importance to her, for he was the one link to her previous existence.
And so, with a false air of abiding devotion, she addressed the Keeper that evening.
“My lord?” she asked softly.
He sat on a bench in his garden, enjoying the music of a rims-harp quartet. Light, bell-like tones filled the air. The atmosphere beneath the plastine roof was balmy, yet there was a slight, pleasant breeze, courtesy of the life-zone engineers.
Dawann stared at the Keeper, at his taut, muscled body, at his regal profile. His eyes were closed, but she knew from the clench in his jaw he felt tense.
“My lord?” she repeated. “May I sit with you?”
He patted the seat beside him, but kept his eyes shut.
She sat down, her face and shoulders dusted with powdered gold, her body shimmering in the fading daylight. The air was thick with her floral perfume. She glanced over at the quartet and caught their admiring stares. Her confidence surged, and she knew she was still the most beautiful saurian in the Solar System.
“I missed you today,” the Keeper said.
She started. Was there a note of challenge in his tone?
His fists clenched. “What took you so long at the lab?”
Dawann’s heart raced. “My lord,” she said, carefully choosing her words. “Mem invited me to lunch with his progenitors. I met his mother and father.”
His eyes opened. “I know them,” he said, the edge in his voice now unmistakable.
Dawann held her breath, hoping her perfume would hide any of the uncontrollable pheromones escaping from her skin.
He sniffed the air, then sighed. Gazing at her gold-flecked skin, he said, “You look lovely tonight.”
“Thank you.” Steady, she told herself. Steady.
“I wish to be alone with you.” He studied her face. “Do you wish the same of me?”
“Yes, of course, my lord.” She thought about the lab, then opened her mouth to speak again, hoping to distract him with a request for his favorite song.
His muscles rippled beneath his skin as the claws on his fingers jumped from their sheaths. “I leave tomorrow for Vervox,” he said gruffly. “Slaven will accompany me, and we’ll be gone for several days. There’s been an explosion at the lunar mines. The rebels are behind it. My security forces have captured one of the perpetrators. I will personally conduct the prisoner’s interrogation.”
The music stopped. Dawann turned her face away. She felt ill as she saw in her mind’s eye the stark moon of Vervox. What horrors would the rebel prisoner suffer at
the hands of the Keeper and Slaven-varool? Recalling the past, she wondered if the rebel would also be eaten alive. Thoughts of the prisoner’s fate were too much to bear. The Keeper would be off-world for days, providing more than enough time to test the wormhole. But at what price?
“I should have sent Slaven after you today,” the Keeper went on. “I’m leaving, yet you wile away your time at the lab.”
“But, my lord, I did not know––”
“Silence! I do not want your excuses!” The Keeper’s eyes flashed as he turned toward the musicians. With a growl, he leapt to his feet and flicked his powerful tail in their direction. That sent them scurrying.
“Tell Slaven to post guards at the gates!” he yelled after them. “No one is to enter the garden. No one is to disturb us!”
The Keeper grabbed Dawann’s shoulders and pulled her up. She felt terrible stinging as his claws raked against her flesh, golden powder mingling with traces of her blood. With a grunt, he put his mouth on the smooth, unmarred skin of her neck. She felt pressure, then a stab of pain, and she gasped with the realization he’d actually bitten her.
Dawann screamed. “My throat is at your mercy!”
The Keeper withdrew his head and watched the blood trickle down her neck.
Feeling the wet warmth on her skin, Dawann silently pleaded to the Goddess for help. The Keeper had never actually drawn blood from her before. “I submit, my lord,” she cried out, desperately trying to pull away. “My throat is at your mercy!”
“That’s true, isn’t it, my pet?” The Keeper held her fast, looking deadly as a pit viper ready to strike.
Dawann’s eyes flicked right, then left. What was the Keeper going to do to her? Would he call Slaven?
She trembled, her legs wobbly. Am I going to die?
Gasping, she feared she had but one more chance to turn this around, only one more. “Why are you doing this, my lord? I’ve done nothing wrong! I go to the lab to await the birth of your son. I want to be his mother!”
The Keeper drew back and gaped at her, and Dawann caught a look of regret in his eyes. Then he said, “Please, calm yourself.” He gently lowered her to the bench and his hands slid away from her body.
There was silence. The air about them grew quite still.
As she stared at him, she noticed a new look held by his eyes – deep, heartfelt agony.
And his gaze made her certain he did not know about her plans for escape. She took a breath, intent on regaining her composure, fighting for strength.
He sat next to her. His shoulders slumped as he touched her throat and shoulders, wiping away the blood. His face, timeworn and pale, was drawn with sadness. With a groan, he lowered his gaze, would not look her in the eyes.
“I need your love, Dawann, to soothe me, to keep me civilized,” he whispered, his voice catching. “I did not mean to hurt you, and I am sorry, so very sorry.”
Sorry? Dawann had never heard him utter that word before.
“Forgive me.” The Keeper’s face filled with earnest suffering as he gazed at the bite marks on her throat and the scratches on her arms.
Fears fading in the twilight of this, her hour of reckoning, Dawann rose to her feet and bowed to him. With a sense of surprise, she found the courage to turn on her heel and walk away without looking back.
He did not follow.
***
I’ve always intended to make you my queen, Dawann. I waited because you were so young, but now I feel it’s time. I love you, my dearest pet. When I get back from Vervox, we shall have the bonding ceremony.
Dawann reread the note delivered to her that morning, the Keeper’s heady words echoing in her mind. How simple to give in, to dismiss her visions of life as a human female. She was a saurian, after all, despite the implanting of Human Dawn’s spirit, and she still possessed many attributes of her species, the ancient instincts and traits of the saurian race. The evolution of her reptilian ancestors’ brains had fostered a profound submission to authority. How easy to thrust aside her plans and become the Keeper’s queen!
But the human side of her nature protested. After a long moment of contemplation, she recalled something about her heritage in that other, maddening existence. As an American woman of Russian descent, Dawn Stroganoff had friends and family members who stood with a patriot named Sakharov, during the downfall of a nation – whose name Dawann tried to recollect, to no avail. Yet she did remember something else in the muddle of strange memories; Human Dawn valued dignity and freedom above all else. She would never support a tyrant.
And neither shall I. Through the window of her bed-nest chamber, He Who Watches stood distant, yet imposing. She studied the massive mountain, determined she would go there today, to see what Eshlish had found.
Dawann reached for the button to summon Tima. It was time to leave the red planet, time to escape from the Keeper’s evil grasp, and then strike out on her own.
At last, she realized, she would fling aside the silken cords binding her to this life, to gather her courage and meet her fate headlong.
She had to be free, to find her own destiny.
Dawann nodded with deliberation. Yes, free.
Chapter 9
“There’s no use trying,” Alice said: “one can’t believe impossible things.”
“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
~Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass
With the Keeper off-world, Dawann prepared to leave the palace. Without an official entourage, and, with only Tima by her side, she would join Eshlish and Fey for a clandestine look at the subterranean reaches of He Who Watches.
After a round of tedious morning duties, Dawann at last made her excuses and left the royal court. She hastened to her bed-nest chamber and pulled on her pressure suit, which provided a kind of blessed anonymity. No one, not even the guards, gave her a second glance as she walked through the corridors and then slipped out of the palace.
As planned, Tima had a taxi cruiser waiting by a service entrance. Dawann took a seat in the taxi, quietly listening as Tima gave instructions to the driver.
Dawann gazed from the window. The wind stirred the atmosphere, and rusty dust now obscured the midday Sun. The taxi sped through the streets of Missloo City, then out to the vast plain bordering the outskirts of town.
As empty land swept past the cruiser, Dawann felt a mingling of feelings; a deep sadness at the path her life had taken, mixed with a renewed sense of hope at the thought of the Lex clone. She kept her eyes focused on a dust devil, pirouetting like a drunken demon on the horizon, and her thoughts teetered between apprehension and expectation.
Soon, from afar, He Who Watches broke through the haze, a giant volcanic summit of burnt-red stone. The taxi sped on as Dawann scanned the clearing sky. High above, wispy trails of blue ice clouds filled the heavens.
She leaned toward the window. He Who Watches grew larger, coming into sharper focus, the slant of light showing the effects of wind erosion on its ancient surface.
The whir of the taxi’s engine cut off. They had arrived. While Tima paid the driver, Dawann continued to stare through the window. Two saurians, whom she assumed were Eshlish and Fey, stood in pressure suits at the bustling site, surrounded by several dozen worker drones and scattered pieces of heavy equipment.
Dawann stepped out of the cruiser and walked forward. Tima followed on her heels with slow, heavy steps. Fey and Eshlish turned in unison, exchanged greetings with them, and then, in silence, the group watched as the taxi sped away.
Despite her pressure suit, Dawann felt as exposed and vulnerable as if she were standing naked in the deadly Moozrabian atmosphere. What was going to happen now? Through Eshlish’s efforts, would she finally travel to Shurrr? How soon before she found the Lex clone? How soon before she looked him in the eyes, or spoke to him?
“
Your Royal Highness, shall we go inside?” Eshlish’s voice burst through the microphone in Dawann’s helmet.
“Yes, I’m ready.”
“Then please follow me.”
Dawann took her place behind Eshlish and Fey, with Tima bringing up the rear. They negotiated around a curtain of scaffolding to reach a door cut into the rock face.
Cautiously, Dawann studied the immediate area. To her relief, only a few worker drones labored nearby.
Eshlish retrieved a chemlight from one of the outer pockets of her pressure suit, then opened the door. Shining the strong, steady, golden beam on the rubble-strewn floor, she told Dawann, “Rest assured, no one will ever learn you’ve been here.”
With Eshlish in the lead, the group inched through a long, dust-filled hallway. For their safety, small, blue-white temp lights had been placed along the sides of the corridor. A hiss suddenly filled her headphones, and Dawann asked, “What is that awful sound?”
Eshlish turned. “My engineers have not found the cause. Perhaps it’s interference from the workings within He Who Watches. We don’t have a definitive answer yet.”
“But, is it possible that eavesdropping devices have been planted here?” Dawann asked in alarm.
“No. My engineers have checked and double-checked. This place is clean. Have no fear.”
Grunting in affirmation, Dawann stumbled slightly and then caught herself. She looked down the corridor and tried to get her bearings. Was it her imagination, or were they gradually moving downhill, deeper and deeper into He Who Watches?
The foursome walked for a time, negotiating around rocks and cracked paving stones.
Finally, Eshlish halted. “It’s not much farther,” she said, slightly out of breath.
Dawann looked about, not seeing anything unusual. She saw Fey and Tima’s wrinkled brows through their visors. They seemed as puzzled as she.
“Ah, here we are.” Eshlish shone her chemlight at the wall, revealing a telltale mark.
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