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  “That was close,” I said into Pias ear as we lay in the wet grass. “We were careless. Now we both owe our lives to the Good Presence.”

  We were in big trouble if Blade ever learned to control his emotions at his kill moment. I rose to a half-crouch and pulled Pia with me into the cover of the trees, both of us injured and weak and dragging each other. It was just as well that the Presence had destroyed my radio. There was no further benefit in Blade and I psyching each other out. I might have thought earlier to appeal to Blade’s better side, but the better side, if he even had one, was now dominated by the Presence.

  One of us, either he or I, was going to win. But if I were a betting Zentadon, I would put my credits on neither. My credits would go on the lizards.

  C·H·A·P·T·E·R

  FORTY NINE

  The lizards boxed us in after midday. Blade continued to pop in and out of vision as his chameleons gradually lost their camouflage properties, but he kept his distance. Obviously, he had us cut off from the pod and intended to work on our desperation to win the strange and deadly game in which the three of us and the lizards were engaged. The reptiles possessed no such subtlety.

  Blade’s coming in and out of their senses the way he did continued to confuse them. They soon ignored him altogether and concentrated on us. Lucky us. They posed the most serious immediate threat. It was terrifying the way, unseen but felt, they dogged our trail and then ranged out on either side and in front, occasionally barking signals at each other. Pia hyperventilated from fear at living this waking nightmare and almost passed out. I supported her and we supported each other. Our lives were reduced to simple repetitive motions of placing our feet one in front of the other.

  “There,” I said, pointing from an opening on a wooded ridgeline.

  Pia batted her lashes against slashing sheets of rain which fortunately reduced the sniper’s effective shooting range. She seemed disinterested. She clung to me, weaving on her feet.

  “It is the black river,” I said.

  “We’ll never reach it, Kadar San.”

  She was crying. I knew it by the snuffling sounds she made. Her tears were invisible in the rain washing her brown cheeks. The nearby lizards had to know their quarry was about done for and susceptible to attack with little risk on their part. Like most predators, they sought as first choice the aged, the weak, the debilitated, and the injured.

  The only category Pia and I did not match was that of being old. I felt old, however. The Dark Planet had aged me.

  “The river is right there, Pia,” I said, sounding irritable even to myself. Couldn’t she see it?

  “Don’t you see, Kadar San?” she snapped back, pausing in between words to gasp for air. “All Blade has to do is wait for us in ambush at the clearing.”

  “You cannot count us out so readily,” I flared. “You Humans are so fatalistic.”

  “And you Zentadon have such chips …”

  We both froze at the sound of the guttural chuckle, the not so subtle odor of ozone and rot. The Presence was still able to pit us one against the other.

  I am here, I am with you, said a kind voice in my head. I recognized the GP.

  The Presence snarled, like a hot gust of scorched wind through the rain. Then it was gone.

  What are we to do? I asked the GP.

  You are to do.

  What the … What does that mean?

  I placed my hands on Pia’s cheeks and neck and used some of my remaining energy to allay her suffering. I looked below to the black river. Once again so near, yet so far away.

  Helping each other, we labored along a rocky ridgeline off which water ran in thin, shimmering sheets. There were caves in the rocks. I felt tempted to call a long rest halt to rejuvenate our strength and replenish my taa supply for one final assault on Blade at the pod. In my present state, the use of taa was out of the question; lintatai was inevitable. I couldn’t even get enough air to fuel my body’s engine because of my injured chest plate.

  In light of all this, I was still to do?

  The second, the longer, of the two Aldenia nights was approaching. That gave us tomorrow when I would tie the last knot in my cord. One last chance.

  I was thinking of the river, fixated on it, when the intelligent lizards sprang their trap. I was too far gone and dulled by fatigue to heed the fanger warning even if it had been sent. The first animal appeared as an ominous black-gray hardening of the rain, a product of it, like a block of cloud gone vicious. It was suddenly upon us with slashing teeth capable of ripping off our heads with one bite.

  Instinctively, for it is within Zentadon as within Humans to protect females and children, I flung myself at Pia. We both sprawled on the spongy ground. At the same instant, sharp teeth ripped into my thigh with such excruciating pain that I thought I would pass out.

  The next moment I felt myself lifted head down and being shaken so savagely that my teeth almost rattled loose. I glimpsed Pia below me cowering in terror. A second lizard leaped forward with the intention of dispatching the defenseless female.

  The lindal flew from my hand. I held onto the Punch Gun with the other. I thrust it at the lizard’s body and squeezed the trigger. The resulting explosion ripped the lizard’s body apart. The head with me still in its jaws slammed against the other reptile with enough force to knock it over. It scrambled to its feet while I struggled to extricate myself from dead razor teeth.

  I pointed the Punch. It refused to fire since it required at least a second and a half to recycle. The lizard recognized the gun as a weapon. It sprang back away from Pia. The king lizards waiting under cover barked commands. Another lizard appeared behind me. I rolled out of the dead jaws to confront this new challenge. This attacker held up its charge, intelligent enough to understand that the little piece of steel in my fist was capable of immense destruction. After all, it had shredded the first attacker into bloody pieces which now ornamented every tree within a fifty-meter radius.

  The scene of five surrounding beasts blurred and swam in front of my eyes. I verged on lintatai. I still lay on the ground, sweeping my gun back and forth at the surrounding enemy.

  Kadar San?

  Go away. Let me die untormented.

  She will also die.

  Pia crawled on her belly toward me, her breath making funny little catching sounds of fear in her throat. I stood up gingerly, using willpower I wasn’t sure I possessed. I swept the gun back and forth, keeping the lizards temporarily at bay. They barked and snarled and gnashed their teeth, but I had earned their respect.

  I copped a glance at my leg. The sight of it roiled my stomach. It was mangled almost beyond recognition from the knee up. The flesh was torn and bloody. I was bleeding to death.

  I had three shots remaining and four lizards. Wonderful! Any way you looked at it, Pia and I were bound to come up with a lizard too many. One lizard and one sniper too many.

  The lizards didn’t know that, did they?

  “All right!” I shouted at them. “Which one will it be next? Who will sacrifice himself?”

  I jabbed the weapon at the nearest beast. It twisted its snout and bellowed, but it took a step back. I pulled Pia to her feet. She looked so pale I feared she was about to faint.

  “Get back!” I shouted at the nearest lizard. It rose on its hind legs. Its long, thick tail lashed back and forth. I advanced on it step by step. It retreated step by step. The lizard behind us moved with us but kept an interval. I whirled and covered it with the Punch. It halted.

  “Grab the case,” I ordered Pia. It didn’t get through the haze of her near-shock. “Get the case,” I repeated more sternly. I squeezed her hand and shook it to snap her into awareness.

  “The case?” she murmured. Then she understood. She bent down and picked it up, but never took her eyes off the terrible reptiles. I never took the gun off them. I was thankful they were intelligent enough to understand the situation.

  “Pia, we are backing out now. Remember the ledges? They are not far.
There were small caves.”

  She nodded and kept nodding. A crack of thunder made her cringe. I took her hand.

  We backed slowly. The lizards gave way, but they followed, barking and slavering. We passed two caves. Their entrances were too large to keep the lizards out. We came to a third whose doorway in the rocks appeared as a mere slot. Maybe it wasn’t a cave at all, perhaps only a mere shallow crack in the rocks. We would have to chance it.

  “Do you see it, Pia?”

  She nodded when I shook her hand to get her attention.

  “These guys are psyching themselves up for another attack. I can get one, but the other three …”

  The trembling of her hand told me she understood.

  “When I give you the word and release your hand, run for your life. Get to the cave.”

  “What about you, Kadar San?”

  “I will be right behind you.”

  “But, your leg …”

  The lizards crouched in front of us, tongues like quick, liquid black ropes, lapping out to test us. Perhaps it was through their tongues that they tasted the essence and demeanor of their intended victims. If so, I realized what they sensed in us would not hold them back much longer.

  I released Pia’s hand. “Run!”

  I made threatening gestures with the gun to keep the lizards off-balance for another moment. Then I turned and ran after Pia, dragging my leg and clutching my ribs. The lizards saw what we were doing, but by then Pia had disappeared into the cliff. I dived in after her. Heavy jaws snapped at the air where I had been.

  I rolled into what appeared to be a fairly large room filled with dry dust and animal smell. I pulled myself away from the entranceway where enraged lizards were snapping and barking and trying futilely to force their teeth inside.

  Then I passed out.

  C·H·A·P·T·E·R

  FIFTY

  When I revived, my leg felt stiff and heavy but the bleeding seemed to have stopped. Pia had ripped up part of her uniform to make pressure bandages. It was too dark to see in the cave, but Pia felt me move. She delivered a barrage of kisses to my face.

  “Kadar San, I was afraid you were dying.”

  She sounded better. Part of her old toughness returning.

  My mouth felt dry from fever. Pia put her canteen to my lips. I drank.

  “Are you feeling better, Kadar San?”

  “It is a good thing I do not have a Zentadon tail, or I would not have it now.”

  “You almost didn’t have a leg.”

  “How long was I out?”

  “It’s dark outside.”

  “And our friends?”

  “Still waiting.”

  I edged up to rest my back against the wall of the cave. I moaned.

  “Kadar …?”

  “It is over,” I sighed. “The lizards have trapped us. Blade will be here at dawn to finish us off.”

  “Yes,” she agreed, equally resigned to our inevitable fate.

  Blade had already demonstrated what he could do to the lizards with his rifle. Once he killed them or drove them off, there we were, complete with the Indowy case, the prize. Trapped inside a hole in the side of a hill.

  I was too weak and beaten to care anymore. I hadn’t enough taa left for lintatai. Maybe at dawn, but not now. Pia curled up at my side, shivering from the cold. I closed my eyes.

  Kadar San?

  I can no longer “to do,” I protested.

  “I can hear him too,” Pia whispered in awe.

  I wish you both to hear.

  Go away. I have done all that is in me. Can you not see the condition we are in?

  You would give up without a fight?

  We have been fighting. We have lost.

  You haven’t lost until your spirit is gone. Do you want such evil as before to be released into the galaxy through that wretched genie in the case?

  Leave me alone. Who are you?

  I think you know.

  It had occurred to me before. You are from the Zentadon who were prisoners and died here, I guessed, and I knew I was at least partly correct.

  I am their combined spirits.

  And who is the Presence? The combined spirits of the ancient Indowy?

  It is a simplification, but that is all as true as you would understand it. You see, Kadar San and Pia Gunduli, there really are two poles in the universe. Opposites, as you would say. Evil and good.

  Why is evil allowed to exist? Pia asked in her thought-voice, clearly amazed that she could communicate in this realm and with an entity that existed only in our minds and souls.

  Because it is necessary to have opposite poles for us to appreciate the best there is in the universe. The only way we who are at the poles can direct events is through our influence. Otherwise, we are powerless and good and evil are equal and the same.

  You said the Presence was stronger, I pointed out. Does that mean evil dominates?

  It depends.

  On what?

  On whom we influence. Sometimes evil prevails. Sometimes it does not.

  I sighed.

  You bet on the wrong horse race. I looked to Pia to see if I had got the old, old Earth expression right.

  You are half-Human and half-Zentadon, said the Good Presence. Both suffered from the Indowy and their wicked inventions. You have the opportunity to prevent further evil from those times, to make amends for what was done to both peoples. You can be the right horse.

  I scoffed. I see. I am the son of a Human whore and a Zentadon fool … and I can save the world?

  We have to use what is available.

  Exasperated, I attempted to shut the GP out of my head. I felt it waiting, waiting.

  Start afire, it said.

  What?

  Start afire.

  How is that going to help? We will suffocate. The smoke has nowhere to go.

  I cannot help. I can only influence. Start a fire.

  If that will satisfy you …

  It will satisfy you.

  I felt around on the cave floor until I found a nest of dry twigs built by some small mammal. Using an energy stick left in Pia’s battle harness, I soon had a fire going. The light from it revealed a rather large chamber. Instead of the smoke clotting in the chamber, it sucked into the back of the cave and down a small corridor. The cave had a back door!

  That gave me an idea. But first I had to rest, regain strength.

  We have made a wise choice in horses, said the Good Presence, sounding satisfied.

  C·H·A·P·T·E·R

  FIFTY ONE

  DAY NINE, THE LAST DAY

  Blade’s only choices, if he would leave the planet, were to either kill Pia or leave with her. That meant he had to follow the signal given off by the Indowy artifact. He had thirty two hours — one Galaxia day, two Aldenia days if you counted each of the short nights — to accomplish his treacherous mission. We had the same thirty-two hours to accomplish ours.

  I felt somewhat recovered, my ebbing spirits and courage restored, after sleeping three of the four hours of the longer night. I roused with a renewed sense of purpose and mission. It was up to me to make sure the Indowy box of evil vanished. Sen, warrior, and savior of the known world. Commander Mott would be stroking that useless tail of his furiously if he knew of my predicament. Even if I succeeded, however, no one must ever know about it, else scores of other adventurers, opportunists, pirates, and assorted riffraff, with or without tails, would descend upon the Dark Planet looking for other boxes that might have survived to make them rich.

  Pia awoke and was solicitous of my injuries. Zentadon have amazing recuperative powers. My leg was stiff and painful, my chest plate beyond tender, I was hungry, I lacked sleep, the taa hormone was kicking in a little again and acting up under stress … Other than all that, I was five-by, good to go. I felt fully capable of kicking the ass of any one-hundred-year old deaf and blind paraplegic Human on Galaxia.

  I didn’t tell Pia that, though. I didn’t want her to think of me as a bra
ggart.

  “It is a bit stiff,” I said of my leg. “Wait here, lovely Human female. I will be right back.”

  I kicked up the fire again, adding another mammal nest of twigs, dried grass, and other stuff that stank worse than a lizard’s breath. The lizards waiting outside barked sleepily. There was still some night to go.

  Aided by the firelight, I followed smoke into the natural chimney. The cleft narrowed and squeezed around me so that soon I had to drop to my belly like a legless, blind reptile. I pulled myself forward and ever upward with the tips of my fingers and progress was measured in inches. I heard Pia coughing back in the chamber from the buildup of smoke. I was clogging the flue with my body.

  I thought I tasted fresh air soaked with the incessant rain, but there was not even a trickle of water oozing down on me. That concerned me. An opening on top of the ridge would surely collect water, unless the chimney came out into another protected chamber or something. I had to hope for that.

  I rested frequently, a necessity of my enfeebled condition. During one rest break, I probed with my mind and touched Blade in that unguarded moment of his first awakening. He was nearby, I could tell that. I sensed his desperate awareness that time was running out. Then he slammed the door on me, accompanied by a peal of thunder that crashed and rolled across the sky like pins in that silly alley game of Human prolies.

  I breathed deeply for a few minutes, still tasting fresh air. I felt my way forward, unable to see so much as the backs of my eyelids. I came to a small opening that even my slender elfin body could not negotiate. I attempted to force myself through but without success. I touched around it. Nothing but rock and it apparently solid. Outside air circulating beyond mocked me with its inaccessibility.

  I dropped my head on my arms. Moisture in my nostrils and in my eyes collected dry dust, making it difficult both to breathe and blink my eyes. Frustrated and all but defeated, I lay still for a few minutes and simply breathed.