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WARRIORS OF THE CRYSTAL SPHERES

SLLEEP ENHANCED RATHER THAN DIMMED THE sensations that bombarded their minds; unrestrained by will, they fell through space, through time, and through realms where none born of their universe dreamed existed. Their minds, untrained and unable to perceive the levels and layers now open to them directly, translated them into holograms that they could comprehend.

They were flying, soaring over a vast one-dimensional grid of dull, glowing green strands creating squares filled with equally dull glowing yellow; it twisted and became two-dimensional, and they were now between grids, the upper the same sickly green on yellow, the lower a fuzzy yellow on green, and, between them, tiny pinpoints of light in uncounted numbers around which the great pattern twisted and weaved in snake-like manner.

I’m dreaming, they all thought, at one point or another along the long flight And yet—and yet, they did not dream alone.

The first to hear the voices, the many, many voices, were the telepaths, of course, but, after a while, the others began hearing them, too, as they soared, bright moths flitting in and out through an endless series of multicolored and twisting grids.

At one point they all tried twisting and turning, if only to see what each other looked like in this bizarre environment, but, no matter how fast the turn or how they swooped this way and that, the others were always just out of sight, just out of reach, their relative positions sensed rather than directly perceived, except, perhaps, as lights flickering and burning in the darkness.

<Holy Ones, Mothers of Angels, Father to Universes, hear my prayer and protect this humble  . . . >

<Hey! You! Shut Up! Haw dare you pray in my dream ?>

<Who are you who would blaspheme amongst the Holy Spheres?>

<Oh, fuck you! Your Father to Universes was a rapist and your Mothers of Angels were whores!>

<Peace be to all of you!> came a saintly male voice. <Why must we battle even here?>

<Oh, shut up!> both women came back simultaneously, and started in on each other again.

<Grysta! Grysta! Where are you?> Jimmy called.

<Here. Beside you, not on you. Jimmy,> she responded in a gentle, almost awestruck tone she’d never used before. <I’m free, Jimmy! I’m finally free!>

<You’re free! You’re the one that’s been on my back all these years!>

<Trapped there, you mean! A whole life, Jimmy, seen through another’s eyes, felt through another’s nervous system, filtered through somebody else’s experiences, unable to communicate with others except through the one!>

It startled him. He’d never thought of that before, never thought that this obvious truth might in fact be a greater frustration to such a being than its attachment to him might have made him feel.

<But, we’re just dreaming, Grysta! Maybe we are talkin’ to each other, maybe not, but it’s just a dream.>

<Uh-uh. I thought so right off, but I never dreamed before, and not anything like this, anyway. Don’t you get it, Jimmy? Don’t you get it yet? We’re dead! We’re dead and flyin’ through the universe of night lookin’ for the Cosmic Whole, just like the legends said!>

<Nonsense!> came a thought from the Durquist, apparently hearing them both. <We are lying there on the floor of that cave and the resonances from the raw crystals are turning our minds to mush.>

<Sweet Jesus, Durquist!> Jimmy swore. <Can’t you even have a religious experience in my dream?>

<Your dream! You, my dear sir, are in my dream and I’ll thank you to obey the rules my mind insists upon establishing.>

<There’s a whole bunch’a folks here for just a dream,> Molly noted. <Dumb old dream, too. Lots’a folks and no sex.>

<Has anyone except the little parasite considered the idea that perhaps none of us are dreaming in the conventional sense?> Tobrush asked. <It could well be that the crystals in the main chamber have sensitized all of us to the entire Talent band, which opens up the strong possibility that an empath and a who knows what are having an impossible telepathic fight over prayer and god right now.>

<Parasite! I’ll have you know I was a symbiotic organism, you Mycohlian slug!> Grysta came back.

<Tobrush ?> Josef called. <If you ‘re right, then what the hell are we seeing ?>

<That which we cannot sense or see,> the Julki responded. <Look ahead! See how the grids warp and bend. To look between them is to see what cannot and should not ever be seen!>

And Josef looked, and perceived that, within the intricate folds and bends of the energy fabric were pockets of darkness, and within the dark there dwelt horrible things, dangerous things, consciousnesses which lurked and leered and gibbered, and yes, reasoned and cajoled as well.

There were pure evils: evils with every shape, evils with no shape, a purity of evil so absolute that what civilization perceived as the meaning of that word seemed a laughable concept, and beside which even the Quintara paled into bland nothingness.

And yet he knew them. They all knew them, for they had all encountered their broad shadows through the length and breadth of the galaxy, and within themselves, as well, and all whom they had known.

Here indeed were the elder gods and ancient devils of the universe, as ancient at least as that vast field of galaxies and supergalaxies, omnipresent even to the edge of the cosmos, in places that would never be visited by any from the Three Empires. And here, too, was everything ever done by the most, and the least, in their names.

They tore at the newcomers; lashed out with whips of coal-black energy against the cosmic tartan, seeking them, promising all beyond which the demon offers were but nothing.

The lights are stars, Jimmy thought, his fear of the dark things still not dimming his awe and wonder at the rest He swooped down toward the lights to test his theory and discovered to his shock that they were not stars at all.

They were galaxies.

Galaxies moving in circular patterns around a common point of darkness or a blaze of brilliance, and, in turn, these supergalaxies moved in their own circular orbits around still larger and more distant points . . . 

What could hold and pull even mega-galaxies as they also flew apart from one another into the void, still fleeing after all these billions of years from the great explosion that had created them?

There was no time, no space, in this place, for one point was as close or as far as any other to them, and as alien. This was the place into which the great crystals folded and unfolded, linking any spot with any other, as the perfect resonances of the great crystals made them One in this place, which was not of the universe they knew, yet at once was all of it.

That was what the Operators did; those Quintara imprisoned in their near-transparent mausoleums could subtly alter the resonances, reshape the folds, so that any point of exit was the same as another, that any crystal could become any other, for they all joined in this one, bizarre plane.

This, then, had been no random journey; this had been a guided tour.

<Modra! Modra! Swing this way!>

<Durquist? But it can’t be you! You’re dead!>

<No deader than you, although at this point I’m beginning to have my doubts about both of us. Their hypno did it to you! It was a trick!>

The truth broke through the spell that had held her in the other plane, but not here, where all were equal.

<My God! Tris—>

<Long dead. They killed only a corpse that, shorn of its pretty veneer, deserved burial.>

<McCray? And Molly?>

<Here, somewhere. We’re all here. All the teams, all the survivors, somehow, together in this place. Watch it!>

The fabric rippled from below and from a hidden pocket spidery tentacles of perfect blackness outlined in bright electric yellow lashed out for her. She swerved at the Durquist’s warning cry and barely missed being snared.

<That one didn’t even bother to radiate its thoughts,> she noted. <Durquist? Where are we? What is this place? What are those—things—that seek us out?>

<I have no idea, but I believe that this might well be the t-band as a visible place, a place we can normally only touch here and there. It may well be the place through which our space drives travel, circumventing the speed limit of light, which is why so many of the early spacer families were sensitized to it and gained access to at least a tiny part of its power. Our bodies lay sleeping, but bodies are fragile things bound to the four-dimensional universe. Surrounded by the crystals, our minds are sensitized to this plane and freed to roam it, unfettered by any of the physical laws of the universe we know and which bind us.>

He paused a moment, admiring his own poetic leaps, then added, <Of course, that might be all crap, and this something else entirely.>

<It is you!> Modra exclaimed happily. Only the Durquist would find it impossible not to be cynical about even himself.

<Of course it is,> he responded. <I’ve never been anyone else.>

The patterns took a sudden bend and intertwined, creating a near tunnel-like effect, going what seemed to be down, if that word had any real meaning here.

<Where is this taking us?> she cried fearfully, noting that the place of darkness now seemed to fill the great voids in the helix-like energy tartan, making it harder and harder to dodge their grasp. <It grows narrower, too! There is no way to forever dodge those loathsome presences! If nothing else, it ends below where all is darkness!>

<lt is the city!> Kalia cried out to them. <The great city in the center and on the edge of nothingness! It is just as the Master said!>

<Pull up! Go back!> Tobrush warned. <You cannot make the city! The darkness is too close, the presences will take you and eat you alive for eternity if you try for it now!>

It was a beautiful, if strange, alien city that lay before them, just below the narrowest points. Multi-level, in a broad spiral just as the helix itself was a spiral, its great buildings and broad avenues seen in outline via the colors of the tartans, and rising through all the levels a great and perfect pyramid outlined in shining gold.

<I fear nothing!> Kalia exclaimed, but on this plane all were empaths, as all were telepaths and all the other great powers known as Talents and more besides, and they knew that even Kalia feared that darkness.

<Tnat isn’t true!> Josef shot back desperately. <You fear showing your fear to us by turning back with us! You fear showing any weakness! But it is not weakness to hold and turn back! It is no more a weakness to do that than to seek cover in a gun battle! And being swallowed up by those things lurking there purely out of pride is like exposing yourself to a clear shot by an enemy! Don’t let fear drive you to attempt the unattainable! Turn back!>

Blackness tinged with crackling energy reached out for her, not on one side but on all sides, and it was with great difficulty and skill that she maneuvered through them and managed a curve and was now heading back toward the top of the helix.

Still, slight tendrils of the evil lightly brushed her, and the shock of the power she felt just in that brush, of the near omnipotence those presences represented, was like an ultimate seduction, and for just a moment she wavered, before continuing on up.

Jimmy McCray felt the Mycohlians pass him, as a chill wind rippling through his soul.

<There it is, Jimmy!> Grysta called excitedly. <The Center of the Universe! It’s beautiful!>

He pulled up hard when he saw the city below and the path to it. <No, Grysta! It’s not heaven, it’s Satan’s city! It is great Dis at the center of Hell itself! You can not reach it! Not this way! This way is eternal damnation!>

<Oh, bullshit, Jimmy! If I fly fast and straight enough I can make it! I’m not gonna go back. Jimmy! I can’t go back! I can’t!>

<No, Grysta, you can’t! If you die, I die! And I’ll not die yet, not here! You owe me that much at least!>

<Come with me, then! We can make it! We’ll be together then! Not as we were, but as two wholes, apart! Listen to Them, Jimmy! Hear Their whispered promises! They swear it!>

<No, Grysta! They lie! They are the root of all lies.>

His pleas were unanswered. <I can’t go back, Jimmy! I just can’t! Not now, not when I’m free for the first time in my existence. You always did say you wanted to be free of me. You won’t die. Not if I’m not there to hold on!>

<Grysta! No! I’d rather still have you than to see you do this! I’ll do anything you want! Just turn now! It’s almost too late!>

<Love ya, Jimmy! Love ya! Goodbye!>

He couldn’t tell if she made it or not, for suddenly he found himself being pulled violently backward at impossible speeds, passing them, passing them all, and screaming, screaming . . . 

Modra felt his intense agony as Jimmy passed; they all did.

<That was McCray!> the Durquist shouted to her. <Pull up! I’m going back—he needs me. Follow along! If we can get back before your new friends do, you might be able to escape them! They must be in the crystal cave as well!>

<I’m with you!> she called back. <If we can get back all the way!>

<We ‘ve got to!> he replied. <We were shown this, just as we were shown the rest! What purpose was it to bring us here if we cannot return?> He wished he was as confident of that as he was trying to sound.

<Who was that who went through? Was it Molly?>

<No, not Molly. It was that thing he always talked to. The parasite. I—I haven’t sensed Molly much at all since the beginning. I don’t know where she is. Poor thing! She wouldn’t have the sense to have any control in here!>


The Mizlaplanians were beginning to ask the same questions about one of their own.

<Where is the captain?> Morok asked. <Where is Chin?>

Krisha tried to contact him with a mental net and failed. <I don’t know. I sensed him with us at the beginning, but not after. I hope he wasn’t too curious for his own good!>

<There is nothing we can do for him in any case,> Manya noted. <The others seem to be trying a return from this place where even the gods do not look. Our prayers are returned mocked, as travesties, the evil ones beckon to us, and we alone are responsible for our immortal souls! We must return if we can!>

Morok had a sudden realization that Chin wasn’t the only one missing. <Where is Modra? She was down and then she darted off on her own!>

<l sensed her going back,> Krisha told him. <I believe that your Talent could no longer hold her in here.>

<Blast! All of us must be in that one great cave!> Morok realized suddenly. <She’s trying to beat us—me—back. She knows too much now to maintain the fiction we have kept up to this point. I will have to blank her memory completely—if I get the chance.>

Krisha suddenly sped up, going away from the city. <But can we get back, Holy One, where we were?>

<We must! We must find the way!>

<And quickly, too,> Manya added. <Now the others know we are all in the same place. If any of them awaken and find our entranced forms, we will have no bodies to re-enter!>

<We will know the way,> Morok told her. <We need only do as we have and follow the others. And they—they are following that scream.>


Jimmy McCray was still screaming, only now, suddenly, it was with the enveloping, agonizing pain.

“Hurry, girl! We’ve got to get him out of that suit! You know how? The controls aren’t the same as mine!”

She nodded, stricken by the waves of agony coming from Jimmy. “Molly know. Push these in this way like this.

The telepath’s suit suddenly swelled up, then collapsed like oversized baggy clothing, and from that it was easy to pull apart the pieces, although he was still screaming and writhing in pain, forcing Gun Roh Chin to hold him down while Molly pulled him out.

“Put him on his side there! Hold him! Oh, by the gods and their holy angels!”

Jimmy McCray’s back was a sea of blood, and in the center, awash in it, was a gruesome grub-like thing perhaps twenty centimeters long, covered in thin brown and gray hair or fur on its upper side. For a moment, Chin didn’t know what to do; it was unlike anything in his experience. “Do you know what this thing is?” he asked her.

“Grysta. She live on his blood long time. Jimmy say if Grysta die, he die, too.”

He poked at it with a finger, thankful for the protection of the suit. “I don’t know if it’s alive or dead, but I’d say it’s dead. At any rate, we have to get it off him if we can. Clearly we can’t do anything without that, and he’s certainly in agony now, and if we can’t get beyond this monstrosity to sterilize and seal the wound he’ll die from lack of blood anyway. I wish I knew whether to cut it out or pull it out or what.” He sighed, stood up, and drew his pistol.

“No! No shoot Jimmy!” Molly screamed.

“Don’t worry. It’s going to be the lightest possible stun. Just enough to knock him out so we aren’t fighting him. Stand back. It’ll take away his pain so we can work.”

Hesitantly, she let go of Jimmy and stood back, and Chin gave a minimal charge to the telepath, who stiffened once, then was still.

“Help me turn him all the way on his back,” Chin ordered. “That won’t hold him for long, so it’s best we’re done with this.”

Bracing himself with a knee against Jimmy’s back, he reached down with both hands and took hold of Grysta and tried pulling the creature straight off. The tiny form gave for a little bit, but did not come free, and he looked under and saw that the underside of the Morgh was not furry, but barren, and from the top, in the direction of the unconscious man’s head, three tendrils emerged, two very much like veins or arteries, the third smaller and more wiry, and went into McCray’s back.

“I don’t dare go any further,” he commented. “I’m going to have to cut them off and then cauterize them.” He fumbled in Manya’s medical kit, taken from her suit pack. He picked up the small powered scalpel, switched it on, and then took a deep breath and cut without any hesitation. The body of the Morgh came free and he tossed it aside. Leaving some of the tendrils out just a bit, he cauterized them with another of Manya’s tools, then ran the sterilizer over the whole thing. Finally, he used some of McCray’s own suit water to wash off as much blood as he could, then applied a bandage, and administered a strong pain shot. Finally, he got up and sighed. “I can’t do any more for him,” he said simply.

Molly was impressed. “You be doctor?”

“No, I’m a ship captain,” he told her. “A captain often has to learn to do a lot of different things. At least he’s a Terran, so I had some knowledge of what I was doing. If he’d been some other race, I don’t know if we’d even have gotten this far. Certainly I wouldn’t have known which shot to dial.”

“The others. You think maybe they die, too?”

He shook his head. “I don’t think so. At least not yet. Apparently this other creature did die, and the shock to his system yanked him back as well. The others . . . I don’t know.”

Molly turned suddenly. “Somebody else back. Molly hear noises.”

He held up his hand. “Don’t. We don’t know who it is. If they’re the Mycohl they’re going to be pretty angry, but they’re real killers, girl. If they’re your people or mine, we’ll reveal ourselves and deal with them.”


In the main cave, Josef stirred, then opened his eyes and tried to sit up. He was still dizzy as hell. He checked his suit, and was alarmed to discover that it was completely switched off and just hung on him. He tried powering it up, but it wouldn’t come on.

He pulled himself up to a sitting position as first Tobrush, then Kalia, stirred as well, and saw that their suits were collapsed, too.

<Sonofabitch! What’s wrong with this suit?>

Josef felt a sudden energy shock. Kalia hadn’t said a word as yet, and yet he’d heard her! Heard her thoughts, and also felt her anger.

He stared at her. <Kalia? Can you understand me?>

“Sure I can,” she snapped, aloud. “What the fuck’s wrong with the suit?”

<Fascinating,> Tobrush’s thoughts came to them. <We’re still sensitized!>

Kalia was still mad about the suit. “What are you two . . . ?” Suddenly her jaw dropped as she realized that she was the only one who’d actually said anything. <Holy shit!> she managed.

“I might suggest we all speak until you get more of the hang of it,” Tobrush said as calmly as was practical. “Otherwise all our thoughts will be jumbled together and we won’t be able to tell ourselves from the others.”

“All right,” Josef agreed, a little unnerved. Although he always knew that his surface thoughts were an open book to telepaths, it was easy to put that idea out of your mind. Somehow, now he felt as if his privacy had been forever violated. Telepaths were trained to block; he had no idea how that was done. He tried to force himself to practical matters. “Can you figure out what’s wrong with the suits, Tobrush? Were we out so long we just ran out of power or what?”

The Julki examined the suits. “Offhand, I’d say not. If you check your power pack, you’ll see that your power cube isn’t there any more, I’ll bet. Mine isn’t. Someone, it appears, got here ahead of us.”

“Damn!” He opened his mind in the chamber. “I don’t sense anybody else here who’s awake, though.”

“No,” the Julki agreed. “And I have experience. I don’t expect we are going to be alone here for long, though, and I might point out we’re now weaponless and without shields—and if they wake up as we did, they’ll have no trouble locating and finishing us off.”

Josef nodded, thinking along the same lines. “We might as well get out of the suits and remove the supply packs,” he told them. “Then we’ll have to get out of here and fast and pray that whatever’s beyond isn’t lethal.”

Kalia wriggled out of her suit and reached back in and pulled out her knife. “I’m not without a weapon!” she announced proudly. “And neither are you, O Great Leader. And you, Tobrush, can poison anything with these bristles. I’d like to take the time to find that praying bitch who burned me and make sure she wanders in that place forever, tryin’ to pray her rotted soul out!”

“We can’t chance it,” Josef told her. “I think I hear somebody else waking up over there, now. Let’s move forward, out of this place, before these things start vibrating and suck us back again. Already I can feel the pull.”

Kalia looked at the other two and sighed. “I wonder if I’m ever gonna get my crack at her? Particularly now, with me bare-ass naked and you wearin’ only a jock strap. About the only thing we haven’t got yet is freezin’ cold, and we’re sure ready for that, aren’t we?”

“One step at a time,” Josef cautioned. <Still, I’d like to get my own hands on the bastard who took our power cubes.>


Across the great cavern, Modra Stryke groaned and stirred and came to. What a hell of a dream! she thought, shivering.

<It’s no dream, Modra. It was very real! Now get your tail over here before that hypno wakes up and nabs you again!>

She frowned. “Durquist?” she said aloud, her voice echoing slightly. The crystals stirred, and, feeling suddenly disoriented a bit, she stayed still.

<Yes, it’s the Durquist. Don’t shout, just stand up and quietly move towards the other end of the cave. I’ll see you. And don’t say anything aloud right now. For some reason, we can still talk telepathically.>

<It’s the ones from the Exchange.> Tobrush’s thought came not just to its companions but to Modra and the Durquist as well.

<Forget it! I can tell right now they’ve still got power. Let’s move. I don’t want them getting any more of our thoughts than they have,> Josef snapped.

Modra stopped dead in her tracks. <Who was that?>

<The Mycohl, I think. Ignore them for now. Here, I’m bipedal now. Can you see me?>

She looked around, then saw the familiar if somewhat grotesque form about thirty meters from her and immediately began walking as quickly as her vertigo allowed toward the Durquist. When she arrived, she looked around, puzzled. “Where’s McCray?” she asked aloud.

“Gone. And Molly, too. I tried hailing them on the intercom but got no response. Anybody missing from the Mizzie party?”

She frowned. “I—I didn’t think to look.”

“Hmmm . . . Talking does help sort it out, so long as you don’t talk loud enough to cause echoes and start the crystals resonating,” he noted. “This is quite odd. I always wondered what it was like to read minds and emotions, and now that I suddenly can, I’m not sure I like it. I wonder if we’re hypnos, too?”

“Don’t you find out on me!” she responded nervously. “I’ve had enough of that type for a while!”

“Don’t worry. Still, I wonder if it’s permanent, or if it’ll fade once we clear this place?”

“Who can say? Who can say anything about this place but WOW? Even now, I’m not sure we actually went someplace or if we simply had some kind of common dream influenced by these crystals and caused by this boosting of our Talents.”

“I, too, wonder about that, but this is neither the time nor place to speculate. I feel like these things are going to start taking me off again if I don’t get out of here.”

She nodded. “Me, too. But what about Jimmy and Molly?”

“It would take hours to search this place, and I think it’s dangerous to stay here. If they aren’t already out, we’ll give them a chance to get out and then wait a while—but not in here.”

“You’re right,” she admitted, loath still to leave any member of a team. “All we’d do would be for both of us to look into Morok’s eyes anyway. We can do more by following the Mycohl.”

They made their way as quickly as possible to the far end of the great cavern. It appeared to have only one exit, as it had had only one entrance, and a very small and narrow exit at that.

The passage ran in a slight S-shaped curve for about fifteen meters, then opened up into a relatively smaller cave. They could feel the absence of the great crystals at once.

<You still hear me?> she shot to him.

<I do. And I’m getting something else from over that way, although it’s hard for me to tell just what.> Both pistols came out.

“No shoot! No shoot!” they heard a familiar voice call to them.

“Molly?” Modra called.

“Hi, Modra! You all right now?”

“Yes, I’m all right. What—”

The guns had just been lowered when suddenly they came up again as they saw, next to Molly, the unmistakable yellow-gold suit of a Mizlaplanian.

“No, no!” Molly cried. “This be Chin! He help Jimmy!”

“Hello, Modra,” the captain greeted them through the translator. “I see you snapped out of Morok’s hold. In a way, I’m glad. I found it most distasteful. I’m no threat, not now, I swear. You know me well enough by now to know my word is good. Please—come look at your man. I’ve done what I could.”

They hurried over, a bit wary, knowing Molly’s innocence, but when they saw Jimmy lying there they both knew that Molly couldn’t have done that.

“He had—something—a creature—on his back,” Chin explained as best he could. “It was dead—I think. He was losing a lot of blood because of it. I got our medical kit and severed it and did what I could.”

The Durquist went to Jimmy and began an examination with his own kit. Modra looked at the unlikely pair and asked, “What happened? How did the two of you ever come to be paired up?”

“I went into a terribly deep sleep,” the captain told them. “Deep, but filled with odd nightmares that scared me as nothing has since I was a small child, but remote. They’ve all faded now already, all but the memory of the fear. I woke up on the cavern floor in there in a cold sweat. The girl, here, heard me and came over and was quite kind to me until I got my bearings again. At just about that time this fellow started screaming, and the whole place sounded very eerie and both of us got splitting headaches. We managed together to drag him out of here, where it was better, and, by that time, things had quieted down enough so that I was able to go back in and find the medical kit. The result you see here. I’m afraid I can’t tell you any more than that, except that she told me she’d woke up with the same kind of bad dreams and had been trying to wake someone else up ever since.”

Molly nodded. “Nobody move. Molly thought you all dead.”

<The captain is a null,> Modra explained silently to the Durquist, finding this form of communication sometimes had its advantages.

<That might explain it,> the Durquist responded. <He was there, all right, for a while, but without the ability to receive the Talents, which even an ordinary no-Talent person has, he had no frame of reference. His mind balked, and he just had nightmares.>

<But Molly’s on the band. She’s an empath. Why did she even come out of it quicker than he did?>

<Impossible to know. At a guess, I think you have to remember that she’s not really organic in the same sense we are. She’s basically a preprogrammed machine with some freedom of thought and independence of action—thank heaven! She just simply wasn’t equipped for the trip.>

“The Mycohl came through a few minutes ago,” the captain remarked, chuckling. “They didn’t say anything, but they were pretty mad, I think. You see, in the time between waking up and this poor fellow starting to scream, we had a little time and I found the Mycohl. I removed their power cubes and threw them randomly back toward the entrance. They might still be in front, but they’re naked savages, without power or weapons, and without suit protection. If the next world is worse than the last one, as I have every reason to expect, they’re probably dead already.”

The Durquist finished his examination and replaced the bandage. “As good a job as anyone could do. Thank you, Captain. You didn’t have to do this.”

He shrugged. “I thought I owed it to you all. Now, unless you wish to take me hostage, I’d better take the kit and get back to my own people. I assume they’ll be coming around soon if not now, and one or more of them might need something, too. Be careful with him for a while, if you can. He’s lost a fair amount of blood and will be weak, and I don’t know what will happen when the pain shot wears off.”

“I have some painkillers if need be,” the Durquist assured him. “Go back to your people, Captain. Consider us even.”

The captain gave them a casual Mizlaplanian salute and left.

As soon as he was out of sight and they could no longer hear his footsteps, Molly said, “We got to go right now!”

“I don’t think the captain will betray us, somehow,” Modra assured her. “And I’d feel better if we saw how McCray was before moving him any more.”

“No, no! You not understand. When I see Chin take little thing from red suits and they go off, I know what he do. So I go over to his suits, do same thing. Think maybe if you only one with suit, you be boss, not slave.”

Modra’s mouth hung open and, for a brief moment, they all stood there, almost like statues. Suddenly she said, “Molly, grab him under one arm. I’ll take the other. Somehow, we’ll drag him out Durquist, you make damned sure that captain doesn’t come back with his gun out!”

It wasn’t that easy to do; the way was fairly long and very dark, but Jimmy was small and light and the two women were very well motivated to do whatever they had to do.

<Well, at least we don’t have to worry much about an ambush,> the Durquist commented. <And if the captain’s right about wherever this is going, we’re not going to have to worry about anybody but him, either. And, somehow, I think we can work with him.>


The captain didn’t have to wait for any of his people to wake up to realize he’d been had. He only had to look at the collapsed suits to know that he had gravely underestimated that girl. Maybe she was some kind of junior demon after all, he thought sourly.

But, no, he told himself sadly. This was his fault, and his alone, for even putting the idea in her head. He’d probably killed them all by his stupidity, and he’d have to atone for that.

The awakening was much like the others had been: the sudden shock of realizing that they were all reading each other’s thoughts and emotions, the secondary realization that they had no power, and confusion. The one thing the others hadn’t had was Captain Chin there.

“Wait a minute! You mean you’re all telepaths now?”

“And empaths, and perhaps a lot more we don’t know about yet,” Morok told him. “I must admit it’s something of a shock.”

Chin immediately thought of the Mycohl, and of Modra and the Durquist. Them, too? Why should it be selective?

He sighed. “Well, since you cannot read my mind or feel my deepest remorse, I must tell you about the suits,” he began, and proceeded to tell much, although not all, of the story. “Modra was already outside our influence and with her companion,” he concluded. “It was either try and kill them all—and it was three to one against me—or do them a service and hope for the best. I chose the latter, although I did not, I assure you, know about this at the time.”

“Captain, I cannot but forgive your lapse,” the Stargin told him. “You did your best. In any case, they will not take us as ogres or monsters. Modra knows us, for one thing, and now you helped their man. As to the suits—how many hours of power do you have left, Captain?”

He hadn’t even thought of that. “Three point four hours, Holiness.”

“Precisely. And ours were at least as low.”

He thought of something. “I still have Savin’s module,” he reminded them. “That’s got over forty hours left on it! You take it! It’ll power one of the suits! And, of course, my power can at least give a few hours to another of you.”

He was answered mostly with silence, an occasional “No, but . . . ” or grunt or gesture being the only other punctuation. He was beginning to feel very left out of things.

“This is much too confusing!” Morok exclaimed at last. “We must train ourselves to speak in the old ways. Krisha knows how to do this; we do not. So many rapid-fire thoughts and half-thoughts fill my mind I can hardly think!”

“The Holy One is correct, as always,” Manya agreed, much to Chin’s relief. “I, for one, need to focus. But the fact remains: you must take Savin’s power supply, Holy Father. You are our leader and guide in all things.”

“No,” he responded. “We must face it, my children. My leg is not getting any better, and there is a limit to how long I can fool myself about the pain. Nothing, but nothing, must keep at least one of us from attaining our primary goal. Krisha, you were second only to Savin in weapons skills, which are the primary skills needed right now. You must take Savin’s power. As for the captain’s, I fear it is irrelevant. What is three hours in this place? You might as well keep your suit on, Captain. The skills that Manya is best at would take more practical power than you have. Now—help me out of this bag of useless rags.”

Manya said nothing, although her thoughts were plain to the other two priests. She felt she was entitled to Chin’s power, both by her position and ordination, and because it had been, after all, the captain’s own inexcusable lapse that had caused the crisis. On the other hand, with a firm belief in her own perfection, she knew it was her duty to sacrifice.

And, as the Holy One had pointed out, three hours wasn’t enough to get upset about losing. She had always thought that she would go, one day, as a martyr to the faith. Perhaps this was the time.

Krisha took Savin’s power module and inserted it in the pack, then reactivated her suit, as Morok and Manya, the latter a bit surly about it, got out of theirs. Chin was amused to note that, while most members of the Holy Orders wore little or nothing under their robes or, in this case, suits, Manya had on a complete black body stocking. Still, shorn of her suit and without the flowing robes she wore otherwise, she now looked far less Terran than she otherwise seemed to; among other more subtle features, the large single breast with the multiple overlarge nipples, now apparent, giving her a decidedly other-race cast.

“Manya, don’t forget the supply pack and medikit—I put it down over there,” Chin reminded her. “I’ll carry your pack, Holy Father.”

Morok looked around nervously at the great cavern festooned with glowing crystals. “Let us get out of this place, no matter what awaits outside. At least we can no worse than die beyond. In here, I sense there are far worse fates.”

They all sensed that, and there was little argument on the point. In a few minutes, they made the far end and the passage to the smaller cave beyond, where Chin and Molly had ministered to Jimmy McCray. The captain drew his pistol and said, “Let me go in first. I don’t underestimate the Exchange people, but I don’t want to overestimate them, either. The fellow was in very bad shape; they might well still be there.”

Krisha stopped him. “No, I will go. Then Manya and the Holy Father will also know what is there before any of us step inside, and I have far more power if it comes to shooting.”

She knew before she entered the outer cavern, though, that the others were gone, and as soon as she knew it, so did the other two sensitized people behind, and they quickly joined her.

They did not realize how much tension and pressure upon them was being caused by the crystals until they were out of there. It was as if a giant weight was lifted from their shoulders at the same time a cloud lifted from their minds.

“I suggest we wait here a bit,” the captain said. “They’ll be carrying an injured and probably still unconscious man and that will slow them. If you can read each other’s thoughts and feelings, then they can read yours as well.”

“Agreed,” Morok said wearily, settling down to rest his leg. Chin was no doctor, but you didn’t need much training to see the difference in the two long, spindly legs, and realize that the leader of the Holy Arm was in far worse shape than his manner implied.

“We’ll give them another fifteen minutes or so,” he suggested, knowing that every delay would help a little. “While we wait, can you tell me what you saw in your common dreams?”

Krisha shook her head slowly from side to side. “That’s the real problem. I can’t remember clearly—or, maybe, I don’t want to. I remember that we were all flying, somehow, in some sort of space unlike any I’ve ever seen before, and that we were surrounded by horrible, graphic evil. But I can’t clearly sort out or remember just what it looked or felt like, and the evil that was so clear and so absolute then is just blackness now.”

“We were being pulled towards a city, I remember that,” Morok added. “Still, beyond a fleeting glimpse of the city in the distance, set out around a great nothingness, I can add nothing to Krisha’s account. It is as if there are no words, not even concepts, to explain the medium we were in, and that the mind rebels and shuts out the specifics of the evils embedded within it.”

Even the usually absolutist Manya agreed on that. “It was the place from which all evil in the universe comes,” she told him. “As if the worst evils any of us could imagine were just pale shadows of the true evils that lived there.”

“I do remember that the city was beautiful, if menacing,” Krisha put in. “It beckoned with a cold, multicolored beauty, yet it was unreachable. The evil was too close in around it to be able to make it through.”

“That cavern back there, and even its bizarre mental effects, are in some way the source of the demons’ power,” the captain said firmly. “I would bet on it. You all came out of the experience mutated—changed, more powerful, more sensitized to all the power this whole Quintara complex represents. It opened your minds so you all, from us to the Mycohl to the Exchange, who could receive those bands, shared a common nightmare that forms the experience.”

Krisha once again shook off the captain’s comments. “No, no. It was no nightmare—we are all certain of that. It was real. It was, somehow, a very real place, where only the mind and soul could go. The evils, and the city, too, are real, Captain. We were simply seeing them in a different alien way.”

Chin reserved judgment on what was real and what was not, not having had the experience himself but in the most elementary, and brief, sort of way, but he was willing to go along with it as a working hypothesis. “If so, then we might suspect that the city that you saw is our ultimate destination. A city surrounded by and guarded by evil and in turn surrounding nothingness. That would be a most interesting city to visit, if we are capable of understanding what is there.” He sighed and got up. “I believe it’s time we found out what’s next.”

Krisha nodded, and she and Chin helped Morok unsteadily to his feet.

“The worst thing is,” the Grand Inquisitor sighed, “we still don’t know if this is indeed the correct way out of this place.”


The route still led down, or so it seemed, and perhaps it had the leftward curve and perhaps it didn’t; it was nearly impossible to tell for sure. Still, the glow from the smaller crystals embedded within the rock all around them continued to provide a dim but serviceable light

<There’s a cool breeze flawing in from somewhere ahead,> Josef thought to himself, not for the first time forgetting that his surface thoughts, at least, were no longer just his own.

<Just so long as it doesn’t get too cool,> Tobrush responded. <I keep having this fear that after fire comes ice.>

<Yeah, and we ain’t exactly dressed for the part,> Kalia put in.

There was a sudden leftward shift ahead, and they all sensed instantly that, beyond that bend, was someone, something, that was aware, that knew they were coming, that waited for them.

Without Tobrush’s handy psychological ability to rationalize almost anything convincingly to himself, Josef could not forget those presences within the strange place they’d been carried to by the crystal cavern. The memories lurked just out of reach in his mind—and thankfully so, he knew—but their effect on him remained very real. Still, even the other two had been affected by it, as they stopped before making that turn and looked at him.

“Well?” Kalia asked aloud. “Do we go or not?”

He shrugged. “We have a choice?”

They went on, founding the curve, then stopped again, somewhat overwhelmed by the sight that met their eyes.

The passage ended in a gate much like the energy barrier in the stations, but larger, much larger, and, this time, it was flanked by the figures of two enormous demons, one five meters high at least but perfectly proportioned, the other perhaps half a meter shorter but no less grand. Instead of the plain and somewhat primitive dress of the others, these two wore robes and capes of the deepest purple; their clawed fingers were adorned with great rings of gold and precious gems of fantastic size. The one on the left, slightly larger than the other, had not the short, sharp horns of the previous demons but great, curled ram’s horns coming from his head, the other mere bumps, like rounded buttons, but had a plume of deep purple hair even darker than the garments running from the brow between the bumps far back until it was swallowed in the folds of the cape.

Neither was encased in anything, but they stood in the center of a glowing, perfect design that appeared as if it were built in somehow to the cave floor: the pentagram inside a circle.

Although they radiated power that might be taken as evil in a strength far beyond the ones previously encountered, it seemed to pale beyond what they had experienced, and half-forgotten, from the helix. Oddly, it made them much easier to deal with.

<Welcome,> they said, speaking in the male-female unison of the others, as if they were one creature but two organisms. <We are pleased that so many of you made it to this point.>

Josef felt he had nothing to lose by showing bravado. “Who are you?” he asked aloud, his voice echoing a bit. “What is this place?”

<You already know who we are,> they responded. <We are Quintara, whom your Holy Ones call demons, or devils or a million other terms. It has been eons since we last walked among you, yet your people still remember us, and, although we have not been present in the flesh, we have been among you and with you all during this time. We have nudged and prodded where we could, but we have waited long and patiently for you to finally arrive here.>

<You knew we were coming all along?> Tobrush asked, being literal as usual.

<Not you, specifically, until our station was discovered and until it was possible to arrange probability to bring representatives from your Three Empires together here, in competition.>

<Then it was chance that brought us to you,> the Julki said, finally glad to have settled a point.

<Chance for you specifically; you were in the right place at the right time. If not you, another group would have been.>

“But what is this place? All of it? And why were we drawn here?” Josef demanded to know.

<This is the Greatest Empire, the Inner Empire, which borders upon all points in your universe simultaneously, yet is a part of all and none. From us sprang all the worlds and races of the universe, not merely your tiny Three Empires, which, as large as they are, are but dust specks compared to the glorious whole of the universe. We gave birth to you all, and then withdrew, awaiting the time when our children would develop to a point where they could come to us. Those who came first, and could get this far, would be set above all the others in the universe. Only one thing remains. You must liberate us, all of us, of your own free will.>

“Why do you need liberating if you are what you say?” Tobrush asked them, speaking aloud as well. “Who is it that imprisoned you here?”

<Why, we ourselves did this. Your own logic should tell you that no conqueror or enemy would leave us thus and all this in place when they had us at their mercy. It was necessary to restrain all of us, lest we be too tempted to stop the experiment, or more actively interfere in it. It is necessary that you free us because only that act, having seen what you have seen and knowing what you know, shows true trust in us.>

“We don’t yet possess that sort of trust and you know it,” Josef countered. “Nor do your answers clearly explain all this, while the only physical evidence we have of what fate befalls someone who liberates you is a mass of decaying bodies.”

<The answers you seek, and the proofs as well, lie yet beyond,> the demons told them. <Remember the Great Helix?>

“We remember,” Josef responded uneasily.

<Now it is time for you to walk that road again in life. Beyond this gate lies the physical representation of what you have already been through. At the other side lies the city, and within the city lies Chaos Keep. To enter the city of the Quintara is to become like us; to become like us is to know.>

“Know? Know what?” Tobrush cried out

The demons ignored the question. <You are the first. Leave everything you now have here. Take nothing in but yourselves. We shall ensure a level playing field. All that you require is provided. As with the crystal plane, it is a journey of choices, not of needs.>

Josef held up his pack. “This is food, water, medicine. We’re not going into an unknown place without at least that.

<If you refuse our advice, you will suffer for it. Trust us, and you will reach the city. To not do so risks failure. You are not the first races to find us, merely the first of your own groups. The others did not trust us. The others are no more, and they doomed their own people to be the subjects when our time comes again. Trust only us to reach the city. Only by trusting us will you reach the end of the quest and reap uncounted rewards. The others approach. Do what you will, but you must go—>

It was more an emotional than a thought process that Kalia went through, but she dropped everything she was carrying, even her knife, and then walked forward.

<I didn’t expect to live beyond this point anyway,> Tobrush commented, and did the same.

Josef hesitated, weighing the options, then stepped through, still carrying his knife and his pack. At the point where he touched the gate but could still see the demons out of the corner of his eye, he saw them flicker slightly, and frowned.

Projections, he thought. They aren’t even really here at all.


Jimmy had come around, but he had a high fever and enough pain that only strong medicine would bring it down to livable levels, and he wasn’t really all there yet. Still, balancing on both Modra and Molly, he managed to do some of his own walking.

Modra and the Durquist both felt the presences, but aside from shifting to allow Modra to draw her pistol with her free hand, they did not really hesitate. As the ones who’d come before had also decided, there wasn’t any other choice.

<Welcome. We are pleased so many of you made it to this point,> the demons said, again opening a discussion that did not differ much either in questions asked nor answers given from the Mycohlians’ experience.

<You must leave the suits, and everything else manufactured that you have, here,> the demons warned them at last.

“We’ll not give up the only advantage we have left!” Modra told them firmly.

<You must. We have promised a level playing field.>

“Your reputation, punctuated by what your people did to our research team, says that you never like a level field,” the Durquist pointed out.

<True, but it is not against us that you play. Does a game piece play the owner of the game? If you refuse, you will discover that you have not gained any advantage, only exposed yourself to danger that could cost you everything at the very time when you might yet win. But the choice is yours—it is a part of the game.>

Modra pointed to Jimmy. “That’s not level. He needs medicine and the support the suit gives.”

<Have him eat and drink of what is beyond, and bathe him in the waters you find there,> the demons instructed. <It will restore him.>

“We’ll take our chances,” Modra insisted.

<Consider what you do. If you are not among those at Chaos Keep, you condemn not only yourselves but your entire people, your entire Empire, to eternal slavery. No one can stand against you with us at your side. No one can stand against us and not fall.>

“I do not recall asking to play,” the Durquist commented.

<If an answer is irrelevant to what is, why bother to ask it?> the demons retorted.

Jimmy came around for a bit, stared at the demons like a drunken man, then looked down at their feet and pointed. “Ha! The Seal of Solomon! You’re still bound, you horny bastards!” And then he sank back once more into a semi-stupor.

“If they’re held as McCray says, there’s nothing stopping us from just walking past this pair,” the Durquist noted.

Modra nodded. “I’m not in the mood for debating right now, and the Mizzies have to be right on our tails, and I wouldn’t give a rat’s ass for McCray’s chances if Chin gets one shot at us. Let’s go.”

She and Molly grabbed Jimmy, and, together, they all walked through the gate.


The Mizlaplanians, slowed by Morok’s wound, were just about ten minutes behind them.

They got the same greeting, but Manya in particular was having none of it.

“Princes of Darkness, you have nothing to say to us!” she declared.

The demons seemed unimpressed. <Trust in your gods and die, then,> they responded calmly. <For your gods are false, your Holy Angels nothing but your masters to keep you in bondage, and all your sacrifice merely wastes what life is all about and yields the same corruption as one who has yielded to all the pleasures of life. The Mizlaplanians created your entire pitiful religion and its boring, passive totalitarian system as a defense against us, but the tragedy is yours, not ours, for it was all futile and wasted. We have little hope for brainwashed automatons like you. Go now and die right off, in pain and agony, so that we need not be bothered any more by your stupidity!>

There hardly seemed much point to waiting around, although Gun Roh Chin regretted that he wasn’t able to ask them some questions.



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