After the maniacal tirade, seconds passed that stretched into minutes as Carnis said nothing more and appeared to have calmed. Leumas wondered if perhaps he had even gone to sleep or suffered some type of seizure from his outburst.
Leumas wanted to leave and he wanted to take this madman with him. But someone with this much power wouldn't work alone, so it might prove a lot harder getting out of this place than it had been getting in. Leumas couldn't tell if Carnis had any weapons, although the massiveness of Carnis' body was more then enough of a defense. Either way, if his plan failed, he'd probably wind up dead. He prepared to put his last-resort plan into action as he began to arrange the thoughts in his mind and to push them into the mind of Carnis.
::I am going to leave now and you will come along with me. I am going to leave now and you will come along with me.::
"No, you're not." Carnis's apparent stupor was over and he was angry. "You're not going anywhere and neither am I!" He shouted with such animal rage that the voice-disguising device stopped working. The sudden change in voice smashed into Leumas with such force his ears throbbed with pain while an icy chill clamped his stomach.
Shocked at the outright defiance of this alien, Leumas began to push harder. He felt resistance and pushed as hard as he could, a level that would have killed the average person by causing a massive cerebral hemorrhage.
::I am going to leave now and you will come along with me. I am going to leave now and you will come along with me.::
"Stop it," Carnis screamed and threw the energy back into Leumas’ mind.
The overload slammed into Leumas’ brain; he blacked out and fell back onto the bed.
Carnis sat in his chair smiling.
* * * *
Leumas groaned as he woke, grabbing his head to ease the throbbing that pounded in his temples. As he opened his eyes, his vision was slightly blurred from the assault his mind had taken. All his senses must have been overloaded by the power behind the tremendous influence that had poured into his brain; a cerebral rape.
What was that? More importantly, who was it? He sat up and tried to focus his eyes in the darkness. Night had come to Aruba. How am I going to get out of here? Not even my ability to influence will… Wait—that voice. I know that voice. It sounded like—
The sound of a glass being placed abruptly on the table caused him to jump. He groped for the lamp on the bedside table. Clicking it on, he winced from the light. Shading his eyes, he looked toward the sound. As his vision cleared, he saw that his captor was still with him, sitting in the exact same spot he had been before. In that moment of recognition, Leumas found it impossible to breathe.
I was right about the voice. My God.
"Have a nice nap?" his captor asked as he picked up the glass and filled it from a bottle of yellow liquid. He downed the contents in a large gulp. Rivulets of the liquid dripped from the corners of his mouth and down his chin. He made no move to wipe it away.
Leumas gasped as he recognized the face of the man who had so easily overpowered him. He took in the impressive figure whose physical appearance was usually enough by itself to ward off any thought of confrontation. That large frame, close to seven feet tall and massively muscular, seemed to dwarf even the large chair he sat in. His face, with its complexion of a stone-like texture, was twisted into an evil smile.
I'm not getting out of here alive.
"My God," Leumas exclaimed, his voice weak and disbelieving. "It can't be!" The miserable son of a bitch was dead. I saw it happen!
"Don't trust your own eyes, old friend?" Copolla grinned broadly at him, his large teeth yellow and stained.
‘Old friend' was something this creature had called Leumas on several occasions, most notably when he had banished Leumas from the Council on Zire. The phrase burned in Leumas’s mind, rekindling levels of hatred and anger he thought he would never feel again.
"Copolla," Leumas said, though it was hard for him to speak that name, let alone to even imagine he was still alive. "You're dead. You have to be dead! This is some kind of sick trick. You can't be here! Who are you? What did you do? Surgery? DNA alteration?"
"It's me, Leumas. I am not dead as you hoped."
"You were at the Council when you…blew it all up. I was talking to you."
"That is partially correct. You were talking to me, but I was not at Council headquarters. I was elsewhere and just had my calls relayed." He said it smugly, as if it should have been obvious. "You dealt me a serious setback and I needed time to regroup. If you were convinced I had died, you would feel that all was resolved and I would be able to do what I needed to do quietly."
"You killed all those people on Zire. For what?" Leumas demanded. "Millions of innocents died from that sick act. The only redeeming thing to come out of it was your death."
"Sometimes sacrifices have to be made." Copolla yawned as if he felt no concern for Leumas’ obvious hatred. "I needed time to reorganize and regroup," he went on. "You and your merry band caused me quite a bit of trouble. Upset my plans for the future. Not to mention that traitorous fool, Journo. Tell me, Leumas, did he die a painful death? I surely hope so."
"He died a meaningful death by giving me the information I needed to remove you from the Council," Leumas snapped.
Journo had sacrificed his life by delivering to Earth the computer core that held the information needed to force Copolla from leadership of the Council. He might have been just another henchman of Copolla's for years, but his final act of redemption had saved his soul.
"Oh, well." Copolla sighed, as if he were becoming bored with the conversation.
"When did you get the power to influence?" Leumas asked guardedly. He knew he was no match for his old enemy and hoped he would experience no further examples of his power.
"Always had it. I just didn't let anyone know."
"But it's different, isn't it?" Leumas pursued, wanting to know the source of such tremendous power.
"You could say that. It carries a fairly large bite, doesn't it?" Copolla smiled like a child proud of his accomplishment. "I had the ability artificially implanted with specific instructions of how I wanted it to work. Do you like it?"
"It fits your personality. Evil and twisted," Leumas growled.
Leumas knew those who attempted the implanted technique usually wound up quite insane. At that thought, the puzzle pieces began to fit together.
"So, you were the one who killed the agents on Beta-747 and tried to kill me with the delayed mind push."
"Those three were pathetic," he screamed abruptly, unsettling Leumas even further. "They needed to be killed. Besides, it helped start the ball rolling. As for you, I just wanted to give you something to think about. My power will come in handy when I resume my position on the Council."
"You can't be serious. If the UCDW learns of your existence, they'll bring you to trial for what you've done." You know he's serious and you know he will destroy the Council again if he has to.
"Oh, yes, I'm quite serious. The Council is just a group of sniveling fools! I have plans, great plans, for the future of this galaxy. I am a dreamer. Haven't you realized that, Leumas?" He raised his arms above his head and gazed upward. "I am a visionary who knows no boundary of space or time. I am the weaver of plans within plans. I am destined for a level of greatness never seen before."
Leumas watched this display quietly. With each word and sentence, he became more sure that his old enemy was, indeed, quite insane. And more dangerous then ever before. If he still maintained his contacts and his following, the trouble could be worse then any of them imagined.
Copolla slowly lowered his arms and his eyes settled on Leumas. He rose from his chair and moved to within inches of where Leumas sat on the bed. He raised his large hand with the index finger extended as if it were some type of weapon. He pressed it against Leumas’ chest, pushing firmly until Leumas was backed up against the bed's headboard. Copolla continued to push and now twisted his finger, jabbing his sharp fingernail into Leuma
s’ flesh. Leumas could smell his fetid breath as he spoke and felt a warm trickle of blood down his chest.
"I can assure you, those not part of my vision are in the way. And if they are in the way, they shall be removed. Removed forever."
Leumas stared into the eyes of a madman, eyes wild and uncaring. Copolla's last statement about removing those in his way was more then just an idle threat; in fact, he felt fairly sure Copolla hoped for a conflict and the bloodier the better.
Copolla removed his finger from Leumas’ chest and sat back down again. Leumas took a breath now the stench of Copolla's madness was away from his nostrils. His chest hurt where Copolla had pressed his finger into it and his heart was beating wildly in his chest. His shirt was sticking to his chest where he had bled.
What was he to do? Obviously, Copolla outgunned him in the mental abilities department by an enormous amount, and physically, he could do nothing without some kind of weapon which he no longer possessed. The best he could do was learn as much as possible in the event the opportunity to escape did arise. He only hoped that opportunity came very soon. There was no telling when Copolla might go off the deep end and kill him for the pure delight of it.
"What's to become of me now?" he asked, his voice shaky.
"For now, you may relax in the comfort of this suite. Enjoy the peace and solitude, order anything you wish from the bar," Copolla said with a sweeping motion of his arm as if he was the proprietor of a resort.
"And later?"
"We will have to see about that." Copolla scrutinized the fingernail he had pushed into Leumas’ chest. There was a red spot on it—blood. He ignored it, then continued. "Once your friends get here, when they try to rescue you—"
"Greg and Sarah," Leumas said weakly.
"Yes, Greg and Sarah. I haven't heard those names in a while. I have grown accustomed to using the term ‘them.' It sounds so unemotional and detached, does it not?" He went on without waiting for an answer. "The female doesn't really matter; it's the male hybrid I want."
"Why?" Leumas asked. "To kill him and flaunt his body to all the other worlds to prove how senseless your violence is? That is how you maintain your leadership, isn't it? By fear of reprisal?"
"Oh, no, certainly not. I don't want to kill him," Copolla protested with a sour emotion in his voice somewhere between sarcasm and half-hearted concern. "Obviously, you have not deciphered the true meaning of my little notes, have you?"
"Riddles to hide behind, that's all they are. You tried to kill him before, when I brought him to Zire. What's changed your mind?"
"That was then and this is now. Let's just say everything in the past was a proving ground, of sorts. Certain things, or certain influences, had to be applied to the young human to make him…become. The damn fool Journo fouled everything all up. Progress had gone so smoothly up to that point." He shook his head, making a tsk-tsk-tsk sound.
Leumas detected a strange moment of rationality and logic amid the man's ravings. He made a mental note to come back to what Copolla had said about "becoming.” “You can't tell me all of that, all that happened during the indoctrination, was a plan you had devised. There were too many variables."
"Oh, but I did," Copolla said with an air of arrogance. "As I said, it all worked with the one exception. If Journo had never gotten that computer core to you, things would be quite different today. Yes, quite different. It has been a small setback, but nothing I cannot overcome."
Leumas wanted a way out of this conversation. The more they talked about it, the more plausible it became and the more scared he became as well. Could Copolla have lured the power out of Greg and Sarah by arranging for the indoctrination, knowing what the outcome would be? But why? All he did was come up with more questions and he didn't like it.
"No, I wouldn't kill him," Copolla repeated to no one in particular. "That would be like killing my own child. I feel as if I have raised him, brought him along in life and pointed him in the right direction to follow." He turned his gaze toward Leumas, his eyes focused. "You know, I knew the boy's father quite well. He was a good friend…right down to the end."
"He ran to Earth to escape you," Leumas said mockingly, but he was surprised at this assertion. "He saw an opportunity to escape your tight leash and start a new life for himself."
"That was what I let him believe," Copolla stated. "I applied gentle influence so he and his compatriot would never tell the real truth because he would never know the real truth, the real reason, why he and the other were sent to Earth. But that is all in the past. They accomplished their mission perfectly—two children, one a control and the other the true test."
"I don't understand," Leumas said. "Tests and controls? You make it sound like some kind of damned experiment or something."
"That's okay. Greg can explain the whole thing to you. He knows it all," Copolla said as if it was a simple statement of fact.
"Become what?" Leumas asked, returning to that curious statement earlier in their conversation. "You said to ‘make him become.' What will Greg become?"
Copolla smiled and sat back in his chair. His eyes appeared glazed, as if he were deep in some narcotic trance. He didn't answer, only mumbled the words over and over: "to become…to become…to become…"
Chapter Twenty-three
“With beauty there can also be an ugly truth.”
Greg Carlson
Greg opened his eyes. The rings are so beautiful, he thought with awe as he gazed upon the magnificent rings that spun around the planet. Glittering in the sunlight, the particles that comprised the rings looked like diamonds and jewels.
::Saturn has always been one of my favorites; its appearance so tranquil. Now I can come any time I want, to think or just to see it for the sheer beauty of it.::
::Concentrate on what you are doing,:: Vague commanded sternly. ::A wrong thought could cause your immediate death. You cannot allow yourself to be distracted. You do not completely comprehend what is happening. Do you understand?::
::Yes…yes, I do,:: Greg replied. Why is he so adamant about my concentration? Unless the danger factor is extremely high and without resolution, or is it something else?
::Now, pick another planet to visit,:: Vague ordered, then added, ::Concentrate on it.::
All right, I want to go to Mars now.
Greg visualized the red planet, the white polar caps on its ends, and the cratered surface with its patterns of canals that had always intrigued the best scientists. The image of Saturn blurred momentarily, then elongated as if being sucked through a tunnel by tremendous force. At the other end of the tunnel a circular red dot slowly appeared. At first, it was small and unfocussed. As it increased in size, the image became sharper. He felt no sense of time passing as this happened. The transformation might have taken a second or hours. He couldn't tell. The process both amazed and amused Greg as he looked down upon Mars from space.
I want to go closer.
As he thought the words, he proceeded toward the planet at a frightening speed.
Slower!
His speed decreased to a more comfortable level as he approached the surface.
Hold it right here.
He'd reached a level he wanted: approximately a hundred feet above the surface. He took in the view of its surface; several craters marked the red landscape. His gaze stopped at an oddly-shaped and very deep crater.
I want to go there.
He moved toward the crater, its depth and vastness increasing with every foot as he approached it. He left the bright sunlight behind as he entered the darkness of the vast crevice, going deeper and deeper. He studied the walls, the jagged rocks and wondered about the massiveness of the meteor that caused the formation of such a crater.
He returned to the surface and looked out over a plain of red soil. He thought this would be a good site for a colony. He envisioned structures built, solar greenhouses with earth plants growing inside, water plants and pipelines to move melted water from the icecaps to support the life that w
ould come here.
The northern icecap. I want to go there.
Again he moved, and within seconds, found himself over the massive ice fields over the northern pole. They stretched as far as he could see in all directions. He wanted to see more.
::Enough for now,:: Vague called.
::But–::
::You are not used to this traveling yet. You will tire quickly and it will become dangerous.::
Greg returned to his earlier position above the planet's surface. ::Vague, how does it all work?::
::The mind travels and the body remains behind,:: his instructor explained. ::There is a vital link maintained with your physical body so you may return and your mind can travel without harm. However, you must go only to one place at a time. You must remember that. It is very important. Otherwise, you could be separated from your body and not find your way back, ever.::
::I understand. But is it possible a mind could go to more than one place at a time? How does it work?::
::Certain minds possess the proper orientation to travel this way. They have… It is hard to explain, but it is a conduit that is open only to them::. Vague ignored the other half of the question and fell silent.
::That doesn't help very much,:: Greg pointed out.
::The majority of the minds in the universe are very similar in their neurological abilities. Few are different in shape, construction or genetic makeup, but the ability to rationalize what is happening is a necessity for this activity. Most would go mad traveling in this manner.::
::I won't say I understand what you said, but maybe that's better for now anyway,:: Greg thought, then remembered what Vague had said earlier. ::About what you said about teaching me to see, is this what you–::
::No more questions for now. You must rest. I will come for you when it is time to continue::.
Greg envisioned his quarters in his mind, and when he opened his eyes he was there and face-to-face with Reveb.
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