Sliding Into Antar - (CC, ALL, TEEN) - 01/01/06 - COMPLETE

[Island Breeze]

Author: Island Breeze
Rating: TEEN or YTEEN (about like the show)
Forum: CC with some Crossover
Pairings: M/L, M/M, A/I, ALL, + Sliders briefly
The Cast: Sliding Into Antar is first and foremost a Roswell fic, but the Sliders appear briefly twice during the story.

Roswell is the creation of Melinda Metz, who wrote the books, and Jason Katims, who brought us the TV series. They are responsible for the show’s concept and characters and for any events that occurred during the TV series that might be mentioned here.

Sliders is the creation of Tracy Torme and Robert K. Weiss. Its characters just happen to cross paths with our Roswell heroes in this story. You’ll see what I mean. For better or worse, any other elements in this story, including storyline and additional characters that were not in the show, are my own vision and creation. To Melinda, Jason, Tracy, and Robert, a huge thanks for giving us two of the best shows that ever came to television.

Some background is desirable for understanding this story…

Sliding Into Antar is the 6th book of the Altered Time Series, which began with Destiny In The Stars. In Destiny In The Stars, Max and Michael escaped to Antar after Kivar destroyed the earth while trying to kill them. Almost every human, including Liz and Maria, died in the end of the world (One human did survive and escaped with Max and Michael to Antar, but you’ll have to read Altered Time - Destiny In The Stars to find out who it was ). Max and Michael changed what happened to the earth… and to Liz and Maria… by going back in time six years later and changing the past. After that, they all lived on Antar together and had children and lots of adventures, which are detailed in the other books of the Altered Time series. One of those adventures (The Night The Dreams Died) took them into an alternate dimension to save Liz’s younger double there after she came to them in a vision asking for help. But when they got ready to leave that dimension and return home, things went awry… big time! So that’s it. That’s the background… as much of it, at least, as I’ll tell.

Chronologically, Sliding Into Antar takes place right after The Night The Dreams Died and right before Chapter 67 (Out Of A Nightmare) of The Four Faces Of Rath. It is certainly possible to enjoy this story even if you have never read any of the other stories of this series. But… then you may want to know what came before it and after it.

Happy reading!

[Island Breeze]

SLIDING INTO ANTAR

>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Crash

Chapter 1

I
>>>>>>>>>>>>>


Can't touch this!
Can't touch this!
My my my my music hits me so hard
Makes me say Oh my Lord
Thank you for blessing me with a mind to rhyme
And two hyped feet
Feels good when you know you're down…
Can't touch this
Look man u can't touch this
Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh…

Liz finally totally lost it, dissolving into hysterical laughter, and Maria actually snorted the Snapples she was sipping, as they watched Max and Kyle perform their rousing duo version of the MC Hammer hit while offering up a their best spirited rendition of Hammer’s dance style.

Michael leaned back in his co-pilot’s chair and closed his eyes, a smile on his face. After six weeks on a rescue mission in an alternate dimension, they were finally going home… The very thought made everyone smile; and the truth is, everyone was feeling a little giddy…

Maybe some more than others…

Can't touch this! Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh
Stop!
Hammer time!
Oh-oh oh oh oh-oh-oh… Stop!
Hammer time!
Can't touch this!

“Don’t you guys know anything by Metallica?” Michael asked, shaking his head.

Max and Kyle stopped dancing…

“Well… what would you like to hear,” asked Kyle.

“How about… Nothing Else Matters?”

“Don’t know it.”

“Okay, then, how about… Enter Sandman?”

“How does it go?”

Michael shook his head and sighed…

Hush little baby, don’t say a word
And never mind that noise you heard
It’s just the beast under your bed,
In your closet, in your head

Exit light, Enter night
Grain of sand

Exit light, Enter night
Take my hand
We’re off to never-never land.

“Oh yeah. I heard that before. How does the other one go,” Kyle asked.

Michael picked up two long wooden pointers and started to pound out a drumbeat on the console in front of him…

So close no matter how far
Couldn’t be much more from the heart
Forever trusting who we are
And nothing else matters

Never opened myself this way
Life is ours, we live it our way
All these words I don’t just say
And nothing else matters

Never cared for what they say
Never cared for games they play
Never cared for what they do
Never cared for what they know
And I know

So close no matter how far
Couldn’t be much more from the heart
Forever trusting who we are
No nothing else matters…

Michael stopped, and Liz, Tess, and Maria applauded.

“That was good, Michael,” Tess encouraged… “Sing some more!”

Michael grinned and shook his head. “I can’t sing. Let Max and Kyle entertain you. They’re enjoying themselves.” As if to punctuate his remark, Michael rapped, “Can’t touch this! Can‘t touch this!” and Liz and Maria dissolved into hysterics all over again.

“Well, it wasn’t all that funny,” Kyle said.

Tess nodded, sniffling… “It was, Kyle. Trust me. It was!”

Ever since the Antarian mothership, the New Granolith, left Antar in Dimension Y, there had been an almost party-like atmosphere onboard. The work and the worries were over. The rescue had been a total and unqualified success. With nothing to do now but relax and enjoy the ride home, normally restrained personalities gave way to personalities rarely seen in other times, as inhibitions disappeared and everyone seemed to just enjoy the moment.

Then, in the blink of an eye, it all changed.

Michael leaned back in his seat, and the girls were coaxing Max and Kyle to dance again, when the ship suddenly lurched violently and veered sharply off its trajectory. This sent Max and Kyle sprawling to the floor, along with Liz, Maria, and Tess. Thrown almost completely out of his seat, Michael rolled back quickly and raised the seat to its upright position, then he looked out the huge fore window of the New Granolith…

“What the frikkin’ galaxies was that? Did we hit something?”

Max was already beside him in the pilot’s seat. The party atmosphere that had prevailed only moments before was gone. A few seconds later, Varec, Max’s chief science officer and Antar’s most revered scientist, ran into the room and stood beside Max and Michael. He was followed by Alex and Isabel, who had been in the arboretum.

As they searched the void of space outside the ship for any evidence of what had happened, Max noticed that the air in the control room seemed to be thinning, as though it were being sucked out of the room. What happened next was so unexpected that no one had a chance to do anything but stand there, speechless. A large vortex opened up… inside the ship… right there on the bridge. Immediately, the air that had just been sucked out of the room poured back in through the vortex… and something else came with it. First, a girl fell out, then, a young man. He was followed by an older man and another man.

Max and Michael had the four covered before they even got up or knew what had happened to them.

“Who are you,” Michael asked, holding the palm of his hand out, prepared to defend himself and the ship. “What was that… thing… you came out of?”

The four newcomers looked around with a clearly puzzled look, as though they were trying to figure out the answers to the same questions themselves. The younger man stood up then helped the girl and the older man up, as the third man brushed himself off and checked to make sure that he still had everything he should have… two arms, two legs… hands… fingers. He seemed satisfied. Then he gazed out the window at the stars drifting by in the void of space…

“Uh, Cue Ball, you’d better look at this. That’s not San Francisco out there, man. Where are we?”

The younger man looked down at a remote control type device in his hand then looked out the ship’s window. “I don’t know, Rem. If I had to guess, I’d say the timer had a malfunction.”

“A malfunction!” the other man exclaimed. “That’s like saying that the Pacific Ocean is just a fish pond!” He gazed out the window again.

“What do we do now, Quinn,” the girl asked, putting one hand on the young man’s arm.

“Yes, that WOULD appear to be the question, wouldn’t it,” the older man said with a vaguely British-like accent. Then he walked over and stood facing Max and Michael…

“Allow me to introduce myself. I am Professor Maximillian Arturo, at your service. My colleagues are Miss Wade Welles, Mister Rembrandt Brown, and Mister Quinn Mallory.”

“Another Maximillian?” Kyle mused. “Can I stand it?”

“I’m ‘Crying Man,’” the first man said.

“Well… two Maxes isn’t that bad,” Kyle mumbled apologetically.

“No… I mean, I’m Rembrandt ‘Crying Man’ Brown.”

“Oh.” Kyle nodded.

“Remmy is a singer,” the girl said. “He had a group called ‘The Spinning Tops,’ and after that, he had a solo record called ‘Topless’ that went gold. He’s good.”

The man smiled, seeming genuinely surprised by Wade’s comment. “Thanks, Wade.”

Meanwhile, Varec had been staring, fixated, at the remote control-like device in Quinn Mallory’s hand, and without announcing his intentions, he walked over and reached for it. Mallory immediately pulled his hand, and the device, back.

“I just wanted to see it,” Varec said. “I don’t want to take it from you… not permanently.”

“You can see it in my hand,” Mallory said, obviously protective of the device he had called a ‘timer.’ “It doesn’t leave my hand.”

“That must make it hard to eat… or sleep… or bathe,” Varec said.

Mallory nodded. “That’s my problem, I guess.” Then he relaxed just a bit… “I don’t hold it all the time. But I don’t let other people mess with it. It’s delicate.”

“Is that what brought you here,” Varec asked.

Max and Michael looked surprised. It hadn’t occurred to them that the small device in Mallory’s hand might have had any part in his being here; but Max and Michael knew that if Varec thought it did, there was probably something to it.

“Let me see the device,” Michael said, holding out his hand.

“Don’t even try,” Mallory warned, adopting a defensive stance.

Suddenly, with no warning, a small bolt of energy erupted from Michael’s palm, hitting Mallory on the shoulder. The device in his hand fell to the floor, and Michael had it before Mallory realized what had happened. Michael handed it to Varec.

“You think this thing had something to do with whatever’s going on here?”

Varec looked at the device carefully, as Mallory rubbed his shoulder. Mallory was clearly unhappy but decided that a direct attack on someone who could paralyze his nerves with taser-like bolts from the palm of his hand was probably a bad idea. There would be other opportunities to get the device back… if he was vigilant.

Varec took Mallory’s timer and left the control room.

“Don’t worry,” Michael said, “You’ll get it back.”

“But he doesn’t know what he has there,” Mallory said dejectedly. “He could damage it… or…”

“Or what,” Michael asked.

Quinn just shook his head.

“We’re not your enemies,” Liz said, looking at Quinn Mallory then at each of the others in turn… “We would like to help you if you let us.”

Wade looked at Mallory and nodded. “I think we should tell them, Quinn.”

Mallory sighed. “The device is a timer. It counts down the time we have left before the vortex will open again. When it does, we have to be there if we’re going to slide.”

“Slide?” Alex asked, puzzled.

Mallory nodded. “The vortex takes us to parallel words. We’re trying to find our way home… to our own world again.”

“You don’t know where it is?” Maria gasped. “Omigod, that’s so… Omigod…”

Wade smiled and nodded. “Yeah, it is.”

“We’re going home, too,” Liz said. “We’ve been in an alternate dimension for the last six weeks. Fortunately, we know how to get back home, though.”

“Lucky you,” Remmy laughed, “I wish we did.”

“Maybe Varec can help you,” Maria suggested. “He’s the smartest person I know.”

“Does he know anything about the Eisen-Rosenberg bridge to other gateways,” Mallory asked.

Maria looked at him blankly… “The what?”

Mallory smiled. “I didn’t think so.”

“Quinn’s kind of a genius,” Wade said. “If he can’t figure something out, it usually can’t be done.”

“So is Varec,” Isabel said. “I’d put Varec up against Quinn anytime… or anyone else.”

“You say the device is a timer,” Max asked. “How long till it reaches zero?”

“Forty-three minutes… then we have to slide,” Quinn replied. “You see why I have to get the timer back soon.”

Max nodded. “Let’s go see Varec.”

Max led the group down the hall to Varec’s lab and placed his hand over the handprint on the wall by the door. The door slid open. Quinn looked around the room and imediately spotted Varec at his workbench. Then he saw something else, and all the color drained out of his face. On the workbench sat the timer, carefully separated into over eighty small parts of all sizes and shapes.

End of chapter 1

tbc…

[Island Breeze]

<center> Sliding Into Antar </center>

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

A Timer
For Disaster

Chapter 2

II
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>


Rembrandt Brown found Quinn Mallory sitting in the hallway of the ship, his head buried in his hands. He had all the appearance of having surrendered and given up, but Remmy knew better. Quinn was thinking… making calculations in his mind even as he sat there against the wall, his head in his hands, looking lost and dejected.

“Come on, Cue Ball… cheer up, man. What’s the worst that could happen? We miss one slide, right? So we get to spend a little time on this ship, checkin’ things out. Seems like a trade-off to me. Besides, they know where they’re going. We don’t even know where our next slide will take us. I mean, look where we wound up this time!”

Quinn Mallory took a deep breath and lifted his face from his hands momentarily.

“You don’t understand, Rem. Missing the slide screws everything up. I’ll have to recalibrate the timer to see when another vortex will open up here… if one ever will.”

“Well, I don’t know, man. You said yourself that the timer was malfunctioning. If it was workin’ right, that’d be San Francisco out there, not a bunch of stars and planets and empty space.”

Quinn nodded reluctantly. He knew that Rembrandt was right, but it was still hard to admit it.

Rembrandt held out his hand…

“Come on. Let’s go talk to E.T. and see if he can put your timer back together again.”

Back in Varec’s lab, meanwhile, Max and Michael, along with Professor Arturo, Wade, and most of the crew from the ship watched as Varec reassembled the timer, piece by piece. It seemed a daunting task, if not impossible. Some of the screws and parts were so tiny that they were hard to see, and some of the smaller parts were pre-manufactured and not meant to come apart, but that had not stopped Varec, whose curiosity was all but legendary in the Antarian star system.

Varec replaced the back of the timer and tightened the last screw. Then he held the completed unit up for inspection just as Quinn and Remmy walked back into the room. Quinn rushed to take the timer back and checked it over carefully, almost as though it were a kidnapped baby being returned to its mother. But one could see in his eyes that he felt a great deal of awe and wonder at seeing it back together again so quickly. The truth is, he had expected to have to put it back together himself and had estimated, in his own mind, that the task would take the better part of a day, given all the tiny parts that Varec had disassembled… more than eighty in all.

“Is it working,” Wade asked. “We’ve still got time to make the slide in four minutes.”

Quinn shook his head. “I… I can’t be completely sure. Now it says that our next slide is at… 10:03 AM tomorrow.”

Remmy looked at his watch. “What happened to the slide four minutes from now?”

Quinn shrugged.

“I made some adjustments to the computational modem in your timer,” Varec said.

Quinn looked shocked. “Did you take into consideration the Eisen-…”

Varec stopped him. “Are you familiar with the Or’zyn-Kort’yyc-Styas’vor theory of refractive recurring space holes?”

Quinn shook his head.

Varec smiled ever so slightly. “I didn’t think so. You’ve been traveling through space holes all this time and you’ve never taken into consideration the Or’zyn-Kort’yyc-Styas’vor theory of refractive recurring space holes?”

Quinn shrugged. “I guess so.”

Varec shook his head. “Amazing.”

“Maybe it’s the same thing as the Eisen-Rosenberg theory of bridges between worlds… or whatever…” Wade said. “It could be, you know.”

The professor nodded, seeming pleased with Wade’s observation.

“It seems to be a variant,” Varec admitted. “Your theory is valid, but it appears that it fails to take into consideration the variant curve of recurring space hole fracture episodes.”

“Just my luck, the first alien I meet and he talks like Quinn,” Rembrandt said. “What does all that mean in English?”

“No… no… it makes sense,” Quinn said, holding up his hand. “I understand what he’s saying. Don’t you see?” He looked at Professor Arturo, and the professor nodded cautiously…

“I believe I do. Amazing! Absolutely incredible! I should have seen it myself.”

Quinn looked at the timer again and smiled. “We have until 10:03 AM tomorrow before we slide.”

“All right!” Rembrandt exclaimed, appearing more than a little relieved at not having to slide again in what was now less than two minutes.

“If we had slid with the timer like it was before… two minutes from now,” Wade said, looking back and forth between Quinn and Varec, “What would have happened?”

Quinn thought about it and swallowed, then he looked at the professor, who seemed unsure.

“You would have come out right… here,” Varec said, putting his finger on a point on a space map above his workbench.

“I don’t see a planet there,” Professor Arturo said, looking closely at the map.

“There’s not one,” Varec replied.

“Oh.” Professor Arturo swallowed. “Then it would seem, Mister Varec, that we all owe you our most sincere and heartfelt gratitude.”

Varec smiled. “It was nothing.”

“Nothing to you maybe,” Rembrandt said, laughing nervously, “But it means a whole lot to me, I want you to know! I guess you guys saved our skin. I really appreciate that. I’m kind of intimately attached to mine, you know what I mean?”

Michael chuckled and nodded.

“Well, I want to thank you, too,” Wade said, giving Varec then each of the others in turn a quick hug.

“I guess I’ll make it unanimous,” Quinn said, with a nod to Varec, “I probably seemed aloof and a bit… you know… back there before, but it’s just that nobody else understands this stuff except the professor and me… and Bennish. But I’ve got a feeling you could teach me a few things.”

Wade rolled her eyes at the mention of Quinn’s decidedly socially challenged and unconventional, if admittedly genius friend, Bennish, back on their world.

“There is one thing, though,” the professor said,” I wonder if you would mind telling me where you obtained those amazing harem pants.”

“Yeah, I like those myself,” Remmy said, keeping an almost straight face.

Max and Kyle both looked down and realized that they had forgotten to change them back. Max touched his pants, and the Hammer harem pants reverted instantly to his usual style.

Kyle waited… “Come on Max! You know I can’t do it! Don’t leave me hanging here. This is embarrassing.”

Michael grinned. “NOW you think so. I told you guys you should have done Metallica.”



<center>End Of Chapter 2
tbc…</center>

[Island Breeze]

<center>Sliding Into Antar</center>

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Friends In
Strange Places

Chapter 3

III
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>


It was getting to be dinnertime on the New Granolith, and the next sliding vortex would not open until the following morning, so Max and Liz led their guests to the dining area on the second floor, where some of the others were already beginning to gather.

No one in Quinn’s group had thought much about eating until now, but the mention of food brought out that empty feeling in their stomachs and made it suddenly the topic of the moment.

“Our food is a bit different than you might be accustomed to,” Liz said, “But it’s good. I’m sure you’ll like it.”

Rembrandt laughed. “That’s okay. I don’t care what it looks like. If it can be chewed and it fills the empty place in my stomach, I’ll eat it. I just realized that we missed lunch today, and I’m definitely hungry. Cue Ball, you’ve really got to calibrate that thing to dump us out in Micky D’s after each slide, man. It would save so much trouble.”

Quinn smiled but didn’t reply.

Max motioned toward the large dining table…

“Sit wherever you’d like. There are no assigned places.”

“Right here looks fine to me,” Wade said, starting to sit down. Professor Arturo politely pulled out the chair for her then sat down himself in the seat next to her. Quinn took the seat on the other side of Wade, and Rembrandt sat next to Quinn.

Once they were all seated, the little diner droid came in. It looked around momentarily then rolled over to the Professor…

“What would you like to eat tonight?”

Professor Arturo seemed amused, as he looked the little droid over. “Well, I’m not quite sure, my good fellow. Your food is a mystery to me, as I have not yet had the occasion to try any of it. Would you mind running down the list for me?”

“He wants to know what you’ve got,” Rembrandt said with a grin.

“It’s a robotic entity… a machine,” the professor said. “It does not require exhaustive explanations, as some PEOPLE do… I will spare you the embarrassment of mentioning any names. I am quite certain that it understands proper English.”

Rembrandt chuckled, and the droid proceeded to reply to the professor’s question… “We have boneless rib of shebble, which can be served flame-broiled or wrapped in Ama leaves. We also have blue hen eggs, which can be served poached, fried, scrambled, or in an omelet with a sauce of detoxified Guma fungi with pashita toast. We have Grelligo soup, which is the specialty of the Grelligo region on Antar. We have fillet of Golden Sea Pargi, and we have Jarlagos-Droozeen. Some of the members of this crew call them Golden Sea pink-ringed crustaceans. With any of these entrées, you can have jir-bada, sereli-harlat, detoxified guma fungi, min-jaht-gojosh, boiled crushed Ama leaves, kernels of Een-Gelish Yyers, purée of Japo-Bala, or golden grelliats.”

The professor thought for a moment. “What do you recommend?”

“I do not eat food, so I am not capable of making a recommendation, but I have been told that it is all very good… and nourishing.”

“Well, there you are then,” the professor said with a smile. “Bring me… the Golden Sea crustaceans.”

“Very well, sir,” the droid replied courteously. “What would you like with them?”

“Just bring whatever seems… appropriate… with Golden Sea crustaceans.”

“What’s a shebble,” Rembrandt asked.

“It looks like kind of a cross between a longhorn steer and a yak,” Max said. “It’s big, but it has really long hair that reaches almost to the ground.”

“Can you make hamburgers then?”

“I can bring you pashita bread with boneless shebble rib,” the droid replied.

Rembrandt nodded. “What are jir-badas?”

“Bada tubors. I have been told that they are not unlike what you call potatoes.”

“Oh! Okay, I’ll have fries then.”

“Fried what, sir?”

“Potatoes… jir-badas.”

The droid moved over to Wade.

“My turn, huh? Okay, I’ll have an omelet with those eggs you mentioned? And a bowl of the Earl Grey soup.”

“Grelligo soup,” Tess said, correcting Wade with an amused but friendly smile.

“Will that be all?” the droid queried.

Wade nodded.

The droid rolled over to Quinn next.

“Oo-kay! Let’s see, you said boneless rib. I’ll have that. And I haven’t the slightest idea what any of those veggies are, so bring me the detoxified guma things and the golden grelliats. I’m adventurous.”

“Ooh, when did that start,” Remmy asked, his voice abounding with teasing but apropos sarcasm.

The droid went around the table and took everyone else’s orders, then it turned and glided quietly back to the food preparation room.

Quinn watched intently, with a keen curiosity, then he turned to Varec…

“An artificial intelligence life form! Did you build him?”

Varec smiled humbly. “I had a hand in creating him. My colleagues at the lab assisted me.”

Quinn shook his head in wonder. “I’d give anything to have enough time to discuss him with you. Artificial intelligence is so amazing.”

“Yes, there is hope for Bennish after all,” the professor deadpanned.

Wade closed her eyes but smiled.

“Conrad Bennish, Jr. is a prodigy,” Quinn insisted, in defense of his unconventional friend back on his own world. Both Bennish and Mallory had taken classes with Professor Arturo.

“Genius or not, he’s defective,” the professor asserted with great certainty. “I said it before… if I ever get back home, I’m going to dedicate my life to isolating the gene that makes him so obnoxious, and I will destroy it.”

“You don’t like the guy much, do you,” Isabel chuckled.

“He and the professor don’t get along very well,” Wade said, “They’re fire and ice.”

“THAT is an understatement, Miss Welles.”

Everybody laughed.

“So, Quinn… Mallory, is it?” Alex asked. Quinn nodded, as he took an approving bite of pashita bread. “You invented this device that takes you to different dimensions?”

Quinn nodded again. “Yeah. But we always end up in San Francisco… except this time. Anyway, always before, we landed in San Francisco, just in a different dimension.”

“I guess you’ve seen a lot of things then,” Alex said.

Rembrandt laughed and nodded emphatically. “You ever been on a planet that was in its new ice age and had to run from a gigantic ice tornado bigger than anything you’ve ever seen before, but you find out that you don’t slide for another hour?”

“That happened to you?” Tess asked.

Wade nodded her head, as she raised a spoonful of the Grelligo soup that the droid had just put in front of her to her mouth. “Mmmm! This is good! Yes. We did go to an ice world once. I think it was our first slide. We climbed into Remmy’s car with him to try to get warm, and he couldn’t figure out why it had got so cold all of a sudden and his car was locked in a snowbank in San Francisco, because he didn’t know anything about the timer or us. He was just driving by Quinn’s house on his way to sing the National Anthem at the half time show of a ball game, and he got caught in the vortex with us.”

“I did try to warn Mister Mallory that he was using too much power,” the professor said.

“Did you meet your doubles on any of the other worlds you’ve been on,” Liz asked.

“The professor got to work with Bennish on one of them,” Quinn said with a grin.

“And he was every bit as obnoxious as the original,” the professor said, taking a drink of jubish. “By the way, I must compliment you on this wine. It is quite good. It has a pleasant taste… and a very pleasant bouquet.”

“Thank you, on behalf of Antar,” Max said.

“You should have tasted Farj,” Michael said quietly.

“What was that,” Professor Arturo asked.

Michael chuckled. “It was supposed to be a soft drink… I think. We found it on Antar when we got there. It tasted like old, stale root beer.”

“But it was better than Hargoch,” Max said, grinning.

Michael laughed and nodded. “Hargoch is the Ghors’ ‘premium’ wine. It has a reputation among the Ghors for tasting as good the second time you drink it as it did the first time.”

Maria slapped Michael on the arm and put her hand over her eyes.

“It’s true,” Max said, agreeing with Michael.

“I know,” Maria conceded, “But you didn’t have to say it.”

“We had some,” Michael said, “Max and I did… on the Ghors’ planet, Ghorbidfael. We were on an undercover mission.”

“I still haven’t forgiven Shag for that either,” Maria said.

“What else have you seen that’s unusual,” Isabel asked.

“On one planet, Wade won the lottery,” Rembrandt said.

“Really?” Maria exclaimed. That’s great! How much did she win?”

“The winner was awarded the honor of being the next person to be executed for the benefit of population control,” Professor Arturo said. “It was presumed to be a great honor.”

“Omigod,” Maria exclaimed, shocked, “That’s awful! I guess you left that world quickly.”

Quinn shook his head. “We had to rescue Wade. It didn’t look very hopeful for awhile.”

“Oh! And there was this one world where Remmy was bigger than Elvis,” Wade said. “The people practically worshipped him.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t stay there,” Michael said.

“Yeah…” Rembrandt sighed, remembering his moment of greatest fame fondly. “I almost did. But there was this one little catch. I was supposed to be dead on that world… like the king, you know? When I showed up, all alive and everything, there was all this celebrating, and it was great for a while. Then we found out that my double from that world wasn’t really dead. He was just hiding and pretending to be dead. And he wanted to stay that way. That meant getting killed again. Guess who he had in mind for that.”

“Didn’t you ever go to some dimension and find a world that just seemed perfect and want to stay there,” Liz asked.

Wade nodded. “One world seemed really perfect, but the timer only gave us one day there. We didn’t know enough about it to make a decision to stay in that short a time. On another world, we really thought we were home. Everything seemed the same. The professor went back to work at the university. Everybody was happy. But then there was this one little thing that let us know it wasn’t our world. The Golden Gate Bridge was actually gold colored. We thought about staying there anyway, but… well… Then on another world, we thought we were home again, and Quinn was eating breakfast with his mom when his dad walked in.”

“What’s wrong with that,” Maria asked.

“Quinn’s father is dead.”

“Oh.”

“But he could have stayed there with his mom, and his dad would be alive again. It seems perfect,” Isabel said.

“But what happens if my double from that world ever comes back,” Quinn asked. “It’s his world, not mine. That’s the point really. It’s not mine.”

The others at the table all nodded, understanding Quinn’s feelings.

“What were YOU doing out of your own dimension,” Wade asked Liz. “I’d like to hear what brought you guys here.”

“It’s the first time for us,” Liz said. “We never traveled between dimensions before. We weren’t even sure that other dimensions existed until my younger double appeared to my daughter in some dreams and seemed to be hurt. Then she and Alex’s double came through to our dimension somehow using the orbs, and they told us that they needed help. So that’s why we’re here. We came to help them. It’s a long story, but at their high school graduation, their Max, Michael, Isabel, and Maria… and my double, Liz, were shot by special agents from a secret FBI unit who hunt down aliens and then dissect them in cooperation with a shadowy army group.”

Wade looked pale. “You mean… this happened on earth?”

“Yeah,” Liz said, nodding. “We all grew up on earth. Well… except Varec and Rayylar. They were born on Antar. Max and Michael are half Antarian. So are Isabel and Tess.”

“I knew they weren’t like us,” the professor said, “When they changed their pants like that.”

“Well, actually, some of us are only from earth,” Liz said. “I am. So is Maria… and Alex… We just married little green aliens.” Liz gave Max a playful but endearing smile.

“I was abducted,” Maria said, taking a sip of Grelligo soup.

“Really?” Wade asked.

Maria smiled. “Yeah. Okay, Michael abducted my heart. But I have to go where my heart goes, right?”

Wade nodded and cast a quick sidewise glance at Quinn, then she smiled and took another sip of her soup. Liz smiled, too, noticing the look in Wade’s eyes. It was clear to one who could recognize it, even if it was undeclared.

“So were you able to help your doubles,” Remmy asked.

“Yeah.” Michael said, “We were.”

“That’s good. I guess you guys had to hide from the FBI, too, huh?”

Max nodded. “We kept our secret very close, you know what I mean? We told no one.”

“Until Max went and saved Liz’s life after she got shot by a common thug in her dad’s restaurant,” Michael said. “At first, I was kind of pissed. Well, scared would be more accurate. I know that now. I felt like everything was going to come down around us right there.”

“It must have been really hard trying to live like that,” Wade said.

“It was sometimes,” Isabel admitted. “But we all survived it. We went back to our planet, took it back from the tyrant who had taken it from Max before, and put Max back on the throne. I can’t complain…” Isabel looked at Alex, who had reached over to hold her hand under the table, and she smiled. “We all got something good for our experience and time on earth.”

Wade looked back and forth at Isabel and Alex, Liz and Max, Michael and Maria and the others, and she smiled.

“Have you met a lot of weird aliens from other planets,” Rembrandt asked. “You guys look just like us. Do little green men really exist anywhere?”

Max smiled. “I don’t remember any little green men… unless you count Frebel-Ish, but he can make himself anything.”

“But we’ve seen a lot stranger,” Michael said. “We rescued these kids who were little puffy gas balls and some others that looked like ferns and just floated in the wind. The Ghors had kidnapped them.”

“You mentioned the Ghors before,” Wade said. “What are they?”

“Nasty,” Maria said simply.

Liz laughed and nodded.

“They’re nine-foot tall reptilians,” Alex said. “Some of them have hair and scales, others just have tufts of hair here and there on their scales. They’re grayish, ugly, and incredibly stinky.”

Liz nodded vigorously, and Maria smiled and nodded her own agreement.

“The Ghors were slavers,” Jim said, joining in the conversation for the first time. “It was how most of them made their living… kidnapping children throughout the galaxy and selling them.”

“For slaves?” Wade asked.

Jim nodded. “Slaves… exotic pets… exotic foods…”

“Omigod,” Wade whispered, recoiling at the thought.

“Well, we don’t have to worry about the Ghors anymore,” Liz said. “Shag sent them and their whole planet to a place so far away in the galaxy that they couldn’t get back even in a hundred years at the fastest light speed.”

Quinn looked up, his interest suddenly piqued. “This guy, Shag… he can move a planet?”

Liz nodded. “He used the sphere of the portal. The spheres were his to begin with… before I got them.”

“So… does that mean you could move a planet,” Rembrandt asked.

Liz thought about it. “I don’t know. I wouldn’t want to. Shag didn’t want to either, but the Ghors gave him no choice. It was the best solution to the problem, so he did it. Shag isn’t really his name. It’s Zasharn Shaqor Niseel Vredis Davor. He’s the king of his planet, Xarius. Zasharn means king. His first name is Shaqor, so Maya, his wife, nicknamed him ‘Shag,’ and we usually call him that, too, for short.”

“Good thinking,” Rembrandt said.

“Shag and Maya are over ten thousand years old,” Maria said, taking another sip of soup.

“But they don’t look it,” Liz hurried to add. “They look about forty maybe. People on their planet age slowly.”

“I’d like to know their secret,” Wade laughed.

Liz smiled and nodded. “It’s in the genes, I think.”

For the next hour, everyone in the two groups enjoyed themselves and got to know each other over dinner; and there were many compliments on the food, which everyone agreed, was superb. Max and Michael weren’t quite sure why they had opened up so much to these relative strangers, but somewhere, deep inside, they both felt that they and their unexpected guests shared a lot in common… Both groups were now interdimensional travelers with problems that most people could only imagine… Both groups had met and dealt with strange peoples and customs… Both groups had escaped dangers and lived in peril for their lives. The only thing that was maybe different about them was that Max and Michael knew how to get home; their friends didn’t.

But Max and Michael never imagined how alike their fates could become.



<center>End of chapter 3

tbc…</center>

[Ti88]

Gerrry I remember this sotry. I started reading this and I don't think I ever got a chance to finish it. I loved Sliders. I remember the guys when he was on my secret idenity. Total Hottie. Not that that has much to do with your story. Sliders was another show the writers jacked up.

Ok I just finished reading the first part. Excellent. Excellent. I can just see those two fools dancing. You know I think I may have to go and buy a Matallica cd. I really love those lyrics.

He took it apart I can't believe he took it apart. Oh dear oh dear

[Island Breeze]

I remember My Secret Identity! I don't think it lasted long, though. I liked it myself. I was late getting into Sliders, but I loved that show after I did get into it! I think I have all the episodes of Sliders on videotape (from the reruns)...Roswell, too. :D
Thanks for the feedback, Roselle! Here's some more.


Gerry

[Island Breeze]

<center>Sliding Into Antar</center>


>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

And Stranger
Things

Chapter 4

IV
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>


The New Granolith was, in many ways, a small city in space. It had all the comforts that a mother ship could be expected to have… and probably a few more… on seven different levels. Level 1, the lowest level, contained the cargo and storage bay. It was also where the off-ship vehicles were kept and where the “pod room” was located, a special, watertight room that housed a small submarine, which Michael had christened the “Maria Mia.”

Level 2 was the galley and dining room area.

Level 3 housed the living quarters; and at the end of the corridor on that level, there was a lounge with video games, a TV, and various other sources of entertainment.

Level 4 was the bridge and control deck, with the pilots’ consoles and seats. This level also housed all the critical flight control equipment as well as the internal components of the engines.

Level 5 consisted entirely of a series of interconnected gardens, where many of the vegetables eaten onboard were grown. The gardens also sported many beautiful flowers and walking paths, one of which led to a small waterfall and a deep pond that was often used for swimming.

Level 6 was the arboretum. The trees in the arboretum supplied all the oxygen needed for interplanetary travel. There was a long path through the trees that began and ended at the same place, so there was no need to turn around and return the way one had come. It had been designed to meander back and forth through the park, giving the stroller the maximum possible walking distance, about a mile and a half. Approximately in the center of the arboretum, there was a gazebo with a swing, and further along on the trail, there was a small clearing where one could lie down by a clear little brook that provided water to the trees, have a picnic, or swing on a two-person swing suspended by vines from high up in one of the trees.

Level 7, the uppermost level of the ship, was the observatory, a bubble-shaped domed room with a 360-degree view of space. Among other things, the observatory boasted a couple of comfortable sofas for relaxing and watching the stars zip by and two special seats for remote viewing with RV goggles. The observatory was Michael and Maria’s favorite getaway place on the ship. It also happened to be Isabel and Alex’s favorite getaway place, so the two couples often competed to see who could get there first and claim it or had to agree to “schedule” their use of it… if they wanted to guarantee their privacy. From the observatory, one could watch the stars zip by as the ship sped along on its journey through the cosmos.

After dinner, Max and Liz had shown their four visitors to the rooms where they would be spending the night so that they could relax and freshen up. Then Liz, Maria, Isabel, Alex, and Tess had offered to show them around the ship. Max had given the visitors pretty much complete access to the ship, except for the control areas on level four… and even there, as long as they were accompanied by Max, Michael, Jim, or another crew member.

“Have you seen Quinn?” Rembrandt asked Tess, who happened to be nearby as he emerged from his room.

“I think he’s down the hall… playing pool with Rayylar.”

Rembrandt laughed. “That’d be Cue Ball! You got a pool room, huh?”

“It’s more like a game room,” Tess said. “Come on. I’ll show you where it is.”

Tess led Rembrandt to the lounge and pointed toward the pool table, where Quinn and Tess’ husband, Rayylar, were playing. They watched, as Quinn chalked up the end of his cue stick again.

“Hey, Cue Ball! You gonna go see some of the ship with me?”

“Yeah… sure… in a little while, Remmy.”

Rembrandt chuckled. “Yeah, I know. Don’t get between Cue Ball and a good game of pool. Okay, I’ll go see it. You can see it when you get ready.”

Quinn nodded, carefully aiming and sinking the four ball into the side pocket, as Rayylar watched.

Tess smiled and shook her head. “I’ll show you around if you’d like.”

“Yeah… That’d be nice.”

“What would you like to see?”

“Ummm… well, what’s a good place to see?”

“How about the arboretum?”

“Yeah! That sounds good. That means trees, right? Like… Arbor Day… arboretum?”

Tess nodded. “That’s where all the oxygen for the ship comes from. It’s a park with lots and lots of trees… kind of a little forest right here on the ship.”

As they stepped out of the ascension chamber on the sixth level, Rembrandt saw that there was a meandering path through some rather substantial deep woods in front of him.

“Are you sure we’re on a ship out in space, Tess? This is incredible,” Rembrandt said, looking all around him at the trees and forest-like growth, as the two of them walked along the path.

Tess smiled and nodded.

They had just passed the mid-way point and the gazebo about a thousand feet back, when Rembrandt felt a cold, moist something touch his hand and sniff, then lick the back of his neck and all the way up the back of his head, standing his hair on end. Tess was several steps ahead of him on the trail, so it obviously hadn’t been her. Slowly, Rembrandt turned around to look behind him.

His eyes opened wide, and he wheezed once. Every instinct in his body screamed “run,” but then he remembered Tess. Without a word, which he would have been unable to utter at that moment anyway, Remmy scooped Tess up over his shoulder and ran, as fast as his legs would carry him, all the way to the end of the path. There, he quickly sat Tess down, wheezing and gasping for breath.

“Are you okay?” Tess asked.

“It’s a… It’s a…” Rembrandt pointed back down the trail with a shaky finger. “Lady, you’ve got something WILD runnin’ around loose in here! It has big… huge… fangs or something. It looks like a saber tooth tiger!”

Tess giggled then broke out laughing.

“I don’t know why that’s funny,” Remmy gasped.

“That’s just Jung-Jo.”

“Who?”

“Jung-Jo. He’s a pet.” Tess turned around to find Jung-Jo waiting patiently next to the ascension chamber. He had gone the other way and had beat them both back, but until this moment, Rembrandt hadn’t seen him sitting there.

Tess patted Jung-Jo on the head and ran her hand down his back. “He’s really just a big friendly puddy tat… if he likes you.”

“That’s what worries me,” Rembrandt said, backing away cautiously. “How do I know he likes me?”

“Because he hasn’t eaten you yet,” Tess replied matter-of-factly.

“YET? He could swallow us both and not even have to burp,” Rembrandt protested.

Tess laughed, taking Rembrandt by the hand. “Come here. Touch him. He won’t hurt you.”

Rembrandt cautiously reached his arm out as far as it would go and patted Jung-Jo on the head, then he smiled.

“Yeah… Yeah, he is kind of friendly, isn’t he? You know, that gives me an idea. Does he have to stay here in the arboretum all the time?”

Tess shook her head. “Actually, Jung-Jo kind of comes and goes as he wishes. You never know where he’ll be.”

“Do you think I could borrow him… just for a little while?”

Tess shrugged. “Ask him if he’ll go with you.”

Rembrandt swallowed and patted Jung-Jo on the head again. “You want to come meet someone, Jung-Jo?”

The cat stood up.

“I guess he’s okay with it,” Tess said.


<center> <<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>> </center>

Quinn had the three ball, the two ball, and the six ball in his sights. He had carefully calculated each ball’s trajectory. If he hit the cue ball just right, it would drop the three ball into the far left corner pocket, the two ball into the left side pocket, and the six ball would rebound twice before dropping neatly into the right corner pocket nearest to him. Quinn bent down and rechecked the line of sight. Then, seeing that everything was perfect, he carefully drew the cue stick back…

Rayylar saw Rembrandt and Tess come in, and he saw Jung-Jo with them, but he was so accustomed to having the big cat around all the time that it didn’t faze him. He showed no reaction at all. Quinn, however, was totally absorbed as he prepared to drop three balls with one shot. He probably would have done it… He had dropped more than that on many other occasions.

Quinn shoved the cue stick forward over his left thumb, and as he did, out of the corner of his eye, he caught just a glimpse of something. It almost didn’t register through the haze of his single-minded, intense concentration…

Almost…

There was a long ripping sound, as the cue stick missed the cue ball and dug itself in under the felt top of the pool table. Almost simultaneously, Quinn leapt straight up and did a sort of quick side step to the other side of the table. It happened so fast that he didn’t even realize he had done it.

“Ooh, Cue Ball! I never saw you do that before,” Rembrandt said, looking at the long rip in the felt.

Quinn looked back and forth, first at the pawgor then at the ripped felt, then the pawgor then the ripped felt. It was hard to tell which one shocked him the most.

“WHAT is that?” he finally asked.

“It looks like a big rip to me,” Remmy said.

Quinn grimaced. “I can see THAT, Rembrandt! The CAT… Do you know what that is? It could be dangerous!” Even as he said this, his intense curiosity seemed to win out over the initial shock, and Quinn worked his way back around the table toward Jung-Jo.

Rembrandt patted Jung-Jo on the head. “Dangerous? You mean like sliding into unknown worlds… or maybe… telling Michael what happened to his pool table?”

Quinn found himself momentarily at an unusual loss for words. And as fate would have it, Michael walked into the room at that moment. Michael immediately spotted the ripped pool table and looked at Quinn. Quinn shook his head apologetically. Michael looked at the table again then at the pawgor, and he knew what had happened. Without a word, he passed his hand over the pool table, and the felt was once again unblemished.

Quinn took a deep breath --it was more like a gasp-- and ran his hand over the felt that, just a moment before, had appeared to be irreparably damaged. It was perfect now… almost better than new if that was possible. He couldn’t find even the slightest evidence that it had ever been damaged. He looked at the table again then at Michael…

“Listen, Michael… if you ever want to go into business… you could really get rich repairing pool tables and stuff!”

Michael smiled. “That’s all right.”

“I’m really sorry about the table. I never did that before.”

“I know,” Michael said, patting Jung-Jo on the head. “Jung-Jo can be a bit of a shock if you’re not prepared.”

Quinn looked at Rembrandt, who chuckled guiltily. He knew that Quinn wouldn’t forget this and would find a way to repay him sooner or later in kind.

And as if the adrenaline in the room weren’t already soaring high enough, at that moment, Professor Arturo walked in with Wade, looking for Quinn and Remmy. Spotting Jung-Jo, Wade did a double take and backed quickly out the door; but after a second look, she inched her way back in cautiously. Professor Arturo stopped dead in his tracks, momentarily dumbfounded. His eyes refused to even blink, as he stared in awe at the sight before him.

“My Gawd! It’s a Smilodon californicus! A saber tooth cat! Here! And very much alive by all appearances! Where in the world did you find it?”

“Jung-Jo is a pawgor,” Tess said. “They’re common in the Nan-Torel forest on Antar. They’re the reason Antarians avoid the Nan-Torel. Well… one of the reasons. But Jung-Jo’s friendly. Unless he has a reason not to be.”

“I’ll be very sure not to give him a reason then,” the professor said.

“Jim Valenti rescued Jung-Jo when Jung-Jo was very young,” Tess continued. “He was trapped under a fallen tree and would have died if Jim hadn’t found him and taken him home to fix him up and nurse him back to health.”

“As far as we know,” Michael added, “Jim is the first person who ever went into the Nan-Torel more than once… willingly… and survived. He even did a Vid production on the Nan-Torel and its fauna for Antarians. They think he’s crazy. But he’s something of a legend and a folk hero on Antar. His younger son, Danyy, can talk to animals, and we think he’s the reason Jung-Jo is so tame.”

“Amazing,” Professor Arturo said. “Simply amazing! I can only wonder what else there might be in that Nan-Torel forest of yours… perhaps even dinosaurs!”

Michael laughed. “I don’t think so. Jim never saw any dinosaurs. Lots of rob-jettas, nasty bats that will eat you, fire snakes, and of course, pawgors… and more poisonous plants than anyone can imagine… but no dinosaurs… that we know of.”

“Mmmm… all the same, it would be a marvel to be able to catalog the creatures in that forest, I would think.”

“You know… Jim might have a copy of the video he made that was shown on Antarian TV,” Michael said. “It’s not VHS compatible… not even close… but Varec could probably adapt it and copy it for you. I imagine Jim would be more than happy to let you have a copy. He’s always trying to educate Antarians about the Nan-Torel.”

“That would be incredibly generous,” Professor Arturo said. “I would be truly indebted to all of you!”

“I’ll see if Varec can do it,” Michael said.

While Michael, Tess, and Professor Arturo were talking, Wade had edged over next to Rembrandt and was already petting Jung-Jo, who seemed to be very much enjoying all the attention he was getting, especially the petting.

“Where ever did you find this marvelous beast,” Professor Arturo asked Rembrandt.

Rembrandt laughed. “In the arboretum. He sneaked up behind me and licked the back of my head.”

“Yes… I wondered how you had straightened all the hair out on the back of your head and why it was sticking up on the top.”

Rembrandt ran his hands over his head, trying to push his hair back down, but it just popped right back up in the back like an antenna.

“You’ll have to shampoo it,” Tess said. “Danyy likes to let Jung-Jo lick his hair and give him pawgorlicks. That’s probably why Jung-Jo did it. But the pawgorlick won’t go away until it’s shampooed. It drives Danyy’s mom nuts.” Tess giggled as she thought about it.

“Did you see any of the other parts of the ship,” Remmy asked, turning to Wade, who smiled and nodded enthusiastically.

“Alex and Isabel took the professor and me for a walk through the gardens. They have some incredible gardens… they’re awesome! Did you like the arboretum?”

Rembrandt smiled sheepishly… “What I saw of it. The second half was sort of a blur.”

Tess giggled again.

“I would very much like to see the observatory on the top level before we leave,” Professor Arturo said.

Michael nodded. “That can be arranged. I’ll be glad to show you up there right now if you’d like.”

“Talking about leaving…” Max said, walking in the door at that moment with Liz. “I was just in to see Varec, and he has a message for you. He spent most of the evening making calculations and carefully recalibrating your timer. He traced your slides back to the first one you made by making a ghost image or something of your timer’s internal computer.”

“I tried to trace it back,” Quinn said. “The trail wasn’t strong enough to find anymore… after all the slides we’ve made.”

“Well, Varec was able to make a ghost image and sharpen the resolution. And he said to give you this message… He hopes you won’t miss sliding terribly much… because he made some changes to your timer, and tomorrow morning… You’re sliding home.”

In the room, there was total silence… then the room exploded in cheers.



<center>End of chapter 4

tbc…</center>

[Island Breeze]

<center>Sliding Into Antar</center>


>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Everything Is
Relative

Chapter 5

V
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>


As morning dawned and the hour approached for the slide, Quinn, Rembrandt, Professor Arturo, and Wade found themselves anxiously awaiting its arrival. There had always been a certain anticipation whenever they were about to slide, knowing that each slide might be “the one.” But this time there was an indefinable joy in the air.

“Who wants to do the honors,” Quinn asked, holding the timer up above his head.

“I’ll do it,” Wade said, reaching out with her hand. “Let me.”

Quinn handed Wade the timer, and she held it up, grinning from ear to ear.

“One minute left!

…Thirty seconds!

…Twenty!

…Fifteen!”

As the timer reached ten, they all began counting together…

“Nine!

Eight!

Seven!

Six!

Five!

Four!

Three!

Two!

ONE!” Wade pressed the button on the timer, and the vortex appeared.

Quinn looked at Max and Michael then at Liz, Maria, Alex, and the others and smiled…

“Thanks! All of you! And Varec… You’re amazing. I wish I could spend more time with you. Thank you… for everything.”

Varec smiled.

Quinn turned and ran forward; then, leaping into the vortex, he disappeared.

“What Quinn said… that goes double for me,” Rembrandt said. “And Tess, thanks for showing me around. I really liked the arboretum… the parts I saw of it. Take care of the kitty cat.” Remmy grinned then turned and leapt into the vortex, too, disappearing behind Quinn.

“Mister Varec,” said Professor Arturo, as he reached out to shake Varec’s hand, “You are truly… amazing. I will always remember you with fondness. Thank you… and thank each of you for your wonderful hospitality.”

Wade pointed at the timer, and Professor Arturo nodded.

“I would love to have been able to spend more time with you…” Professor Arturo added quickly, glancing at the timer… “But I must go… The vortex only stays open for a brief time.”

Professor Arturo leapt into the vortex headfirst and disappeared.

Wade turned and looked at Liz, Max, Michael, Maria, and the others, then she smiled and, with only a nod, leapt headfirst into the vortex after the professor. A moment after she did, the vortex snapped closed and disappeared as though it had never been there.

On the bridge of the New Granolith, there was an eerie feeling, like waking up from a strange but very vivid dream.

“Did that really just happen,” Isabel asked, voicing everyone’s feeling.

“Amazing,” Michael said, sounding oddly like the professor, “Simply amazing.”

The others nodded.


<center> <<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>> </center>

Quinn walked down the sidewalk and up to the gate in front of his house, with Wade, Rembrandt, and Professor Arturo. Slowly, he opened the gate…

It squeaked.

He smiled, then the others smiled, too.

“SOUNDS like home.”

“Yes, but if the gate had not squeaked, how would you know that someone had not merely lubricated it,” Professor Arturo asked, logically.

Quinn shook his head. “It hasn’t been oiled since Pete Dandridge, our handyman’s nephew, caught his thumb in it while trying to oil it when I was twelve years old. It lobbed half of his thumb off, and mom hasn’t allowed anyone to work on it since.”

“But that was just a freak accident,” Wade said. “It probably wouldn’t happen again.”

“I know,” Quinn sighed, “But mom still feels guilty about it. Pete was just seventeen. The squeaking helps to soothe her guilt, I think. She feels like she’s protecting everyone. So we put up with a little squeak.”

Wade smiled, and Professor Arturo nodded.

As they walked toward the house, Mrs. Mallory saw them coming and ran out the front door, joyously throwing her arms around her son.

“Quinn! Omigosh, is it really you?” After a long hug, she looked at the others then motioned briskly with her hands… “Well come in, don’t just stand there! Come in! All of you!”

“Sit down! Sit down! Make yourselves comfortable,” Mrs. Mallory said excitedly, as she rushed around the room.

“Mom,” Quinn said, “This is Remmy… uh… Rembrandt Brown. You know Wade and Professor Arturo, of course. I guess you must be wondering where I’ve been…”

“Hi, Rembrandt!” Mrs. Mallory said cheerily. “Professor… nice to see you again… and Wade,” Mrs. Mallory added, smiling warmly at Wade.

“I know what happened, Quinn. After you disappeared, I found the notes you made downstairs in the basement… in your lab. I read all the stuff you wrote about traveling through dimensions. I don’t understand a word of it. But I always knew that someday you’d come back.”

Quinn hugged his mother again… “You know me pretty well, Mom.”

“It’s what I get for having a genius for a son, I guess. Right Professor?”

Professor Arturo nodded… “But you are much more the optimist than I, Mrs. Mallory. I’m afraid that there were times when I had serious doubts about getting back. I am pleased to say that now I can put those doubts behind me.”

“You could write a book about your adventures,” Wade suggested.

Professor Arturo nodded, as he considered what Wade had said. “Yes, my dear girl, I believe that is exactly what I will do! And now I will be able to review this videotape of alien creatures of the Nan-Torel forest that Mister Valenti made and that Mister Varec so graciously adapted and copied for me. I will be very busy, I do believe, for quite some time to come. And, Quinn, someone must write a paper for the scientific journals describing this method for traveling through dimensions that we have discovered.”

Quinn nodded and smiled. It was Quinn, actually, who had discovered interdimensional sliding. Professor Arturo hadn’t even believed him until the accident happened. But Quinn guessed that after all Professor Arturo had been through, he was entitled to some bit of credit. At least he had been there… and he did understand the theory and how it worked. Few people, besides the professor, Quinn, and Bennish did. And Bennish was too unfocused to write anything, despite his unquestioned genius.

“Well, my dear, dear friends, I really must leave and return to my work,” Professor Arturo said, “There is much to be done.” He turned and looked at Quinn. “Mister Mallory, in view of the mitigating circumstances… I am excusing you from class today. But please be ON TIME in the morning.”

Quinn saluted crisply.

Professor Arturo turned to Mrs. Mallory… “Mrs. Mallory… thank you for your hospitality. It is always a pleasure to see you, and I shall look forward to seeing you again.”

Mrs. Mallory smiled and nodded, still somewhat at a loss for words. “I hope so, too, Professor.”

“Well,” Rembrandt said, standing up. “I should be going, too. Mrs. Mallory, thank you. Cue Ball… It’s been… uh… What can I say? I hope we’ll see each other around.” Rembrandt looked at his watch and grinned. “You think I missed the half-time show?”

“I think so,” Quinn said. “Maybe they’ll ask you to sing the National Anthem at another game.”

Rembrandt nodded. “So long, Cue Ball… Wade.”

“Wade, why don’t you stay with us for a while,” Mrs. Mallory said, after the professor and Rembrandt had gone. “Have lunch with us.”

Wade looked at her watch and at the door… then at Quinn… and she hesitated momentarily…

“Well… I should be going home, too. A lot of people will be missing me… but… they’ve waited this long. I guess they can wait till I’ve had lunch.”

Mrs. Mallory grinned. “They’ll wait, dear!”


<center> <<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>> </center>

Onboard the New Granolith, Max and Michael, together with Varec, were busy rechecking their course and their instruments.

“Everything looks good,” Michael said. Max nodded. “If nothing goes wrong,” Max said, “We should be home tomorrow afternoon.”

A cheer went up from everyone in the room.

Jung-Jo trotted over and rolled over on his back beside Michael, and Michael reached down and scratched his tummy. “I think Jung-Jo’s looking forward to getting home, too.”


<center> <<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>> </center>

The following morning, Professor Arturo made his way early to the university and checked in with the president of the university and several other higher academic officials, of which he himself was one. He found that the university had not, as yet, hired anyone permanent to replace him… but he also found that they were not immediately inclined to allow him to return after having disappeared without a word for the better part of the academic year. It took a lot of explaining… and a promise to include several university officials’ names as co-workers on the interdimensional theory when he wrote his report for the scientific journals; but in the end, he succeeded in getting his job back.

Professor Arturo left the president’s office and walked to his class room feeling like a million dollars, which all considered, was probably a much smaller sum than he might actually stand to reap from his part in the discovery of interdimensional travel. But the professor was much more interested in the academic prominence and peer respect that this would bring him in scientific circles than in any possible monetary gains.

As he walked into the classroom, Professor Arturo discovered that everyone else was already there. He looked at his watch. He was one minute late, but for the first time ever, this didn’t bother him in the least. He set his briefcase down on his desk and opened it then looked up at the class, a vague smile edging inexorably over his face.

“Well, let’s see who is here…

Mister Darby…”

“Here.”

“Mister Alexander… James…”

“Yo.”

“Miss Moore… Samantha.”

“Here.”

Professor Arturo stopped and looked at the next name for a moment…

“Mister Bennish.”

“Here, sir.”

Professor Arturo looked up but did not see Bennish.

“Who said that?”

“I did, sir,” a very well dressed and well groomed young man in the middle row replied.

Professor Arturo bristled momentarily. “I do not enjoy being made the fool of. You may be sitting in Mister Bennish’s chair, but you are most assuredly NOT Mister Bennish.”

Professor Arturo moved from behind his desk and walked toward the young man in the middle row. Then he took a good look at his face and went pale…

“OH MY GAWD! What have you done to yourself?”

The young man appeared at a loss, as he examined his clothes cluelessly. “I… I’m sorry, Professor. Is something wrong?”

Professor Arturo shook his head. “No… No, you are… impeccable.”

Professor Arturo dropped his papers and rushed from the room then out of the building, almost running into Quinn Mallory on his way down the stairs.

“Sorry, Professor! I’m late again, I know…”

“Never mind, Mister Mallory. It doesn’t matter.”

Quinn looked around, shocked, then looked carefully at the professor. “What did you do with Professor Arturo?”

“Never mind that now, Mister Mallory. The question is not who I am but who that imposter in my class is who is claiming to be Mister Bennish!”

“How do you know he’s an imposter?”

Professor Arturo scoffed. “His clothes… his hair… his grooming are all impeccable… He is good mannered… and infinitely polite… TO ME!”

Quinn shrugged. He wanted to say that maybe Bennish had turned over a new leaf since they had been gone, but he couldn’t force himself to believe it.

“Are you sure it wasn’t Bennish, Professor?”

“Oh, it WAS! THAT is the problem. He was sitting in Mister Bennish’s chair, he answered when I called Mister Bennish’s name, and he has Mister Bennish’s face. I could NEVER forget that face, Mister Mallory, I assure you, as much as I should like to.”

Quinn nodded, still trying to think of some explanation, but he couldn’t. He walked back toward his own house, which was only a few blocks from the university, and Professor Arturo walked with him, at the moment feeling that he had no other place to go.

“I don’t know,” Quinn said. “It seems odd, I admit… but we should check it out. Everything else here is so perfect.”

“A perfect Mister Bennish is too much perfection to be believed, Mister Mallory.”

Quinn shrugged. “Maybe it’s for the better.”

“Oh, of that I am certain, Mister Mallory. But he is NOT OUR Mister Bennish. That is the problem, isn’t it?”

Quinn nodded, but in his mind, he still wasn’t ready to believe it.

As they approached Quinn’s house, Quinn noticed a young man moving the gate back and forth. It appeared that he was oiling the hinges. Quinn started to tell him not to bother, but as the young man turned around, Quinn recognized him…

“Dandridge?”

The young man smiled and held up his hand to greet them, and Quinn swallowed hard.

“Is something wrong, Mister Mallory?” Professor Arturo asked.

“His thumb,” Quinn said, “He has one.”

“The last time I checked, most people do,” Professor Arturo joked.

“Not Dandridge. Remember I told you that he lost it in that gate when he was seventeen.”

Professor Arturo looked at the smiling young man they were approaching. He appeared to be in his early twenties, and he definitely had four fingers and a thumb… on each hand.

“What are you doing here,” Quinn asked, clutching Dandridge’s hand in greeting… at the same time assuring himself that the thumb was real and not a prosthetic.

“Uncle Fred couldn’t come today. He’s got the flu. So I’m doing his rounds. I noticed your gate was squeaking again.”

Quinn nodded and took a deep breath. “Yeah… yeah, it is… it was. Thank you.”

“Oh, you don’t need to thank me. Uncle Fred’s paying me well.” The young man laughed.

Quinn looked at Professor Arturo. “We have to tell Wade and Remmy.”

“Should we,” Professor Arturo asked. “I wonder… wouldn’t it perhaps be kinder to let them go on believing…”

Quinn shook his head. “Would you want to believe it if it weren’t true, Professor? I’ll let them decide. If they want to stay here, they can stay. If they want to keep looking…”

“Agreed,” Professor Arturo said.


<center> <<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>> </center>

Quinn held up the timer and noted the time. It was 3:09 PM, and the vortex would be there in less than one minute. He prepared to push the button that would make the vortex visible, as the timer reached zero.

“You can back out now. You don’t have to go… any of you. This world is more like our own world than any we’ve found so far. You could live normal lives here.”

Wade shook her head and put one arm around Quinn’s arm then put her other arm over the wrist of the first arm, locking them together. Quinn nodded and swallowed, understanding for perhaps the first time ever what Wade was really saying.

Rembrandt looked totally lost. “I don’t know, man. I just don’t know. Things here are like they should be. You know what I mean? I was just getting my life back.”

Quinn smiled and nodded, then he pushed the button and the vortex appeared.

“It’s your decision, Remmy. We’ll miss you… but you deserve to be happy. You may never find what you’re looking for if you go with us, so if you want to stay on this world… I’ll understand.”

“Goodbye, Cue Ball,” Rembrandt said, his face etched with sadness and uncertainty. “Bye, Wade. I love you, girl! Professor! You’re okay, man!”

“I’ll take that as a high compliment, Mister Brown,” Professor Arturo said, squeezing Rembrandt’s hand. Then the professor turned and jumped into the vortex right behind Quinn and Wade.

Now alone, Rembrandt waved a final halting good-bye and started to walk away. Then he looked around again at this world so much like his own…

“Aw, hell!”

He spun around and ran toward the vortex, leaping into it and disappearing just as it snapped shut.


<center> <<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>> </center>

THREE HOURS EARLIER…
unknown to Quinn or the professor, who had already left the science building, an unkempt student walked into Professor Arturo’s class and turned over the seat of the well-groomed Mister Bennish…

“That’s my seat, man! You may be my cousin and you may look like me, but you’re not gonna frikkin’ take my seat just ‘cause it’s your first day here!”

“Sorry, Conrad, I didn’t know. The seat wasn’t taken.”

There was a bit of snickering from some other students in the class.

“Conrad never comes on time,” another student said. “It’s against his religion.”

“Yeah, see!” Bennish said. “So don’t go takin’ my seat when I’m not here!”

He looked around, suddenly noticing that he hadn’t been reprimanded. “Where’s the Babe?”

“The ‘sub’ didn’t come today,” another student said, as Conrad’s cousin stood up and looked around for another seat, “Professor Arturo came in, but he looked at Jeremy and ran out.”

“You see?” Conrad laughed, “Even he can’t stand you! You’ve got brains, man. Granted, you’re not as smart as I am, but you’ve got brains. You just need to get some… style.”

“Weird man that Arturo,” Conrad added, shaking his head. “He usually doesn’t lose it and run out cursing till I get here.”

In front of Quinn’s house, at about the same time, the young Mister Dandridge walked up to the door and knocked, and Mrs. Mallory came to the door.

“Hi, Ma’am. I’m Steve Dandridge. Fred’s my uncle. He’s got the flu, and I’m helping him with his rounds.”

“Oh… okay,” Mrs. Mallory said with a smile. Then she turned back to the young man. “I thought your name was Pete?”

“Pete’s my brother,” Steve said. “We’re twins. Didn’t you know?”

Mrs. Mallory shook her head.

“Most people can’t tell us apart… except Pete’s missing a…”

Mrs. Mallory cringed. “I know. I still feel terrible about that.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Mrs. Mallory. Actually, Pete wanted to come over here himself today, but he had already promised to help a friend baby sit for another relative’s kids.”

“A ‘girl’ friend,” Mrs. Mallory asked.

Steve nodded.

“Well… then I wouldn’t want to get in the way of that,” Mrs. Mallory said with a big smile.

Steve laughed and nodded. “I’ll start with the yard if that’s okay.”

“That will be fine… Steve, is it?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

Mrs. Mallory smiled then went back into the house, and Steve walked out to the fence to weed, but as he moved the gate it squeaked. Reaching into his back pocket, he pulled out a small oil can and pumped it a couple of times on each hinge. Then he moved the gate back and forth several times, waving as he noticed Quinn and another person coming toward him on the sidewalk.



<center>End of chapter 5

tbc…</center>

[Island Breeze]

<center>Sliding Into Antar</center>


>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Antarian Storms

Chapter 6

VI
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>


The morning of the following day was filled with great excitement on the New Granolith. Antar was in sight. Okay, if one used the RV goggles, Antar was in sight. The newest Remote Vision goggles could magnify a speck of light by a factor of three thousand. To the naked eye, Antar was nowhere near visible yet, but at the speed the New Granolith was traveling, it was expected to become visible to the naked eye within two more hours. One hour after that, they would be approaching the planet. Twenty minutes after that… they would be home. HOME! The word was on the lips, in the minds, and in the hearts of every person on the ship. They had not been home in almost two months now, and everyone was anxious to see their children and their own planet again.

“What do you think our vortex-sliding friends are doing right now,” Michael asked, turning his co-pilot’s seat around to face Max.

Max shrugged. “Getting on with their lives, I imagine. They have a lot of catching up to do. Their lives have been turned upside down for almost a year now.

“I can’t imagine being totally lost out here for that long,” Liz said sadly. “I don’t know how they did it and didn’t lose their will to go on… and even kept a sense of humor.”

“Just like your double in the world we were just on did it, I imagine,” Tess said. “The FBI guys shot her and paralyzed her, they told her that Max, Michael, Isabel, and Maria were dead, they locked her and Alex up in an insane asylum, and they tried repeatedly to kill her, and still she survived and even found the others.”

“She WAS amazing, wasn’t she,” Liz said, somehow not feeling at all uncomfortable about praising her own double’s courage.

“They were all amazing,” Michael said. “Those guys have got a lot of guts. I’ve got to give ‘em that. The vortex sliders do, too.”

Liz and Maria nodded.

“You think we’ll ever see them again, Max,” Tess asked.

Max thought about it and laughed. “I doubt it. We don’t even know which dimension they live in. Varec just sent them back to their original point of origin. It had to be their home, since it was where they started out from.”

“Yeah,” Tess mused. “They were a lot of fun, though. They had a lot of interesting stories to tell about all the worlds they’d been to. I hope we see them again.”

“Well, I would never say never, Tess… but don’t count on it,” Michael said. “Now that they’re home, they’ll probably throw that timer thing in the next vortex. I know I would.”

Tess laughed.

“I’m gonna miss them, though,” Maria said. “It was nice to have some company for a while.”

Max nodded. “Yeah.”

As Michael turned around, he noticed Alex and Isabel quietly edging toward the door. It took him only a moment to realize where they were going…

“Uh, Max… can you handle the piloting for the next hour or so, while Maria and I…”

Alex turned and headed out the door with Isabel at a fast pace.

“No you don’t!” Michael shouted, grabbing Maria by the hand and racing for the door behind them.”

“They’ll get to the ascension chamber before we do,” Maria said.

Michael looked around quickly. “Liz? Can I borrow your sphere… just for a minute?”

Liz laughed. “What? No! That would be cheating, Michael! If they get to the observatory first they get there first, that’s all.”

Michael raced for the ascension chamber with Maria in tow. As fate would have it, Alex and Isabel had had to wait for the chamber to come back down, and they were just getting in. Michael leapt into the chamber with Alex and Isabel, pulling Maria with him.

There was a pregnant silence as the ascension chamber rose then stopped on the top level. The door opened, and Michael and Alex both leapt out, racing for the sofa in the back of the room as though it were the final goal of a relay race. Both of them leapt at the same time, Alex falling on top of Michael on the sofa.

Alex lifted his head and looked Michael in the eyes. “I got here first. It’s ours.”

“I was first,” Michael said.

There was a cough from the direction of the ascension chamber, and both Alex and Michael turned their heads to look. Maria and Isabel stood in the chamber tapping their toes on the floor…

“Did you guys forget something,” Maria asked.

“Like US,” Isabel said.

“When you get through hugging Alex,” Maria said, “Can I get some?”

Michael and Alex looked at each other and both of them leapt up from the couch. Michael brushed himself off compulsively. Alex stood there, looking uneasy and embarrassed.

“You know,” Isabel said, “In about two hours, everybody on the ship is going to be up here looking for Antar as we get closer.

“Yeah, I know,” Alex said. “I just wanted you and me to have a little time to ourselves before the rush started.”

Isabel smiled and walked over to Alex then put both arms around him and kissed him. “Save that thought, lover boy. When we get to Antar, I’m going to collect on it… with interest.”

Maria put her arms around Michael and kissed him, too. “What Isabel said… the same thing goes for me.”

Michael grinned. “Well… you ARE a lot more kissable than Alex.”

“That’s your opinion,” Isabel said.

Michael sighed and looked at Maria then back at Isabel and Alex… “All right, you guys can have the observatory. You were headed this way first, I guess, anyway. Maria and I’ll go to the gardens.”

He looked at Maria… “Is that okay?”

Maria nodded and smiled. “More than okay. It’s private.”

Michael grinned. “Yeah, it is… isn’t it?”


<center> <<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>> </center>

As Isabel had predicted, in less than two hours, the others began to show up in the observatory, hoping to get a first glimpse of Antar… and home. The first ones to show up were Tess and Rayylar. Then Jim and Kyle came in together. Shortly after them, Michael and Maria returned from their trip to the gardens. Max and Liz had stayed on the control bridge together, along with Varec, who temporarily assumed Michael’s co-pilot position, though they all knew that the ship could fly with only one pilot… or even with none, if need be, so long as the computer flight program had been set and nothing unexpected happened.

It wasn’t long before Jim spotted Antar. All of them had already seen it, using the RV goggles, but Jim spotted the tiny golden orb in the distance before any of the others did… without the RV goggles. The orb seemed to grow quickly, going from the size of a pinhead to the size of an orange in slightly less than twenty minutes… and from the size of an orange to the size of a basketball in the next ten minutes. Fifteen minutes after that, they were preparing to enter the atmosphere.

Michael and Maria returned to the bridge, where Michael reassumed control of the co-pilot’s panel.

“Looks like everything is still right where we left it,” Michael joked.

Max smiled, then he turned the nose of the ship down slightly and dropped into the atmosphere. What happened next seemed like a dream… a bad one. Almost as soon as the ship touched the atmosphere, the blue skies and clear golden sea below began to turn black and soupy. Then the ship was hit by a bolt of lightning out of nowhere. Within seconds after that, the ship was literally engulfed in torrential weather and incredible flashes of lightning from every different direction at once. The ship rocked to the right and fell back to the left, losing altitude rapidly. Then, just as suddenly, it surged and rose again, as though it had hit a powerful, concentrated updraft.

“My God!” Max exclaimed. “I’ve never seen a storm come up so suddenly on Antar.”

“I’ve never seen a STORM like this one on Antar,” Michael said, trying to brace himself in his seat as the ship lurched again.

“Nor have I,” Varec said. “It appears to cover the entire northern hemisphere… at least… maybe even the entire planet.”

“Did you see how fast everything changed,” Liz said, holding onto the back of Max’s chair tightly. “The sky was blue and cloud-free just a minute ago. Now it’s blacker than midnight! And the sea! The sea turned black, too!”

“How can you tell,” Maria asked. “I can’t even see it anymore.”

“I saw it right before the sky closed in on us,” Liz said… “Well, anyway, I think I did.”

Max swallowed and adjusted the attitude dampers slightly to stabilize the ship. It seemed to work. An older ship would not have had all the special equipment that Varec had had installed in the New Granolith and probably would have been doomed and crashed.

Max took the ship down to five hundred feet above sea level, but they still couldn’t see anything but the soupy blackness around them, lit up by relentless lightning bolts that continued to pound the ship mercilessly from every direction. Michael passed his hand over a sensor, and a screen came alive in front of them, displaying a virtual image of the ship and the planet below. At the bottom of the screen, numbers and data, in Antarian, flowed continuously from right to left, telling them the ship’s altitude and position second by second.

Eight minutes later… though it seemed like an hour… the ship set itself down on solid ground. Actually, it set itself down fifteen feet above the ground, on a magnetic field created by the anti-gravity repulsors, but the anti-gravity repulsors locked the ship in place in that position just as though the ship itself were on the ground. The ship would not move, regardless of weather conditions, while the anti-grav was engaged.

According to all the data, they were in CoruzAntar, Antar’s capitol, in a large field near the lab that normally housed the New Granolith. Varec activated the ship’s ground shields and quickly entered a few calculations into the ship’s computers, expanding the shield’s range outward sufficiently so that they would be able to transport down without being hit by lightning or drenched by the torrential black rains.

Michael went first, appearing on the ground beneath the ship in an invisible ionic beam. Max followed Michael, and Varec went next. After them came Jim, followed by Kyle, Alex, Isabel, Liz, Maria, Tess, and Rayylar. Soon, everyone was on the ground… but they were pretty much confined to the area that the shield covered. No one was going to venture out unprotected into the strange weather beyond the shield’s range.

“What do we do now,” Liz asked. Max shook his head, thinking.

“I have an idea,” Michael said, disappearing back into the ship. A little over four minutes later, the ship’s ramp came down and something started down it. Liz and Maria looked at each other and, in spite of their fears and everything that had been happening, both of them laughed out loud.

“The Snapples truck! I didn’t know we still had that on the ship,” Maria said.”

“Michael thought he might need it if we ever went back to earth again… to bring, uh, supplies to the ship,” Max said.

Michael pulled the truck up beside the others and rolled the window down…

“Anyone going to the palace? Hop in. Rides are free today.”

The others all piled into the back of the truck, and Max worked his way forward into the seat beside Michael…

“Do you think you can find the palace in this weather, Michael? I can’t see anything out there. That black rain is impenetrable. And this truck doesn’t hover… if you run into a ditch…”

“I’ll find it,” Michael said with confidence. Just hold on.”

Michael turned the truck around and headed in the direction of the palace. Though the air all around them was soupy black and visibility all but non-existent, somehow he managed to stay on the road that led to the palace. They were about half way there when things changed again… unfortunately, not for the better. The truck had already taken several lightning hits, but what hit it this time was hard… and fiery. There were gasps and a couple of muffled screams from the back of the truck, as a small fireball passed through the truck, barely missing Varec.

“What was that?” Maria screamed.

Michael looked out the windshield. It was raining fireballs everywhere in the sky, and some of them were beginning to reach the ground. Then Max saw where they were coming from… a huge meteor that was headed straight toward CoruzAntar, and coming fast. The fireballs appeared to be breaking off from it. Max gasped audibly and pointed, but Michael had already seen it. So had Varec.

Suddenly, Michael veered the truck violently to avoid a larger fireball that plowed into the ground directly in front of them, and the truck tilted. Then slowly… unstoppably… as though in a dream… the truck rolled over onto its side.

“This isn’t right,” Varec said.

“You’re telling me!” Alex exclaimed, as everyone scrambled to get back up again and Jim kicked open the back doors of the truck.

“What do you mean… not right,” Max and Michael both asked at the same time.

“I don’t know… exactly,” Varec said… “But it’s not right. That meteor up there is getting larger very quickly.”

“Yeah, it’s getting CLOSER very quickly,” Michael exclaimed.

Varec shook his head. “The angle is all wrong for the rate of optical perspective augmentation.”

“Only Varec can be about to die and be totally thrilled about learning something new,” Rayylar said, incredulous.

“No, no!” Varec shook his head. “You don’t see! It can’t be real. At the angle the meteor is falling, it should increase in perspective exponentially… but not as fast as it is. The rate is all wrong.”

“What are you saying,” Max asked, turning toward Varec and giving him his complete attention. “If I understand you right… are you saying that there’s no meteor out there?”

Varec nodded.

“And no fireballs?” Michael asked.

Varec nodded… “And probably no lightning or bad weather. Someone out there is putting on a show for our benefit… to frighten us away.”

“Well, they’re doing a hell of a good job of it,” Michael said, glancing back up at the fast approaching meteor. He was sure that he could feel heat radiating from it now.

“Tess,” Liz mused, turning around, as an idea came into her mind. “Could you create a mind warp that would make someone out there think they saw the New Granolith fly away… and make all of us invisible?”

“I don’t know,” Tess said, shaking her head, uncertain, “How far would I have to extend the mind warp?”

“I don’t know,” Liz admitted, “As far as you can. We don’t know where the person is who’s doing this.”

“I may not have enough power,” Tess said ruefully, “But I’ll try.”

“Do it,” Max said, encouraging her. “It could work if they’re nearby.”

Tess nodded then closed her eyes and concentrated. For twenty to thirty seconds, nothing happened. Then, as suddenly as everything had started, the meteor, the black rain, the lightning, the fireballs, all of it dissolved into thin air and simply disappeared as though it had never existed at all. The sky was blue, clear, and beautiful.

“IN-credible,” Alex said, looking around.

“Unbelievable,” Kyle mumbled, shaking his head.

Max turned around to look at their overturned truck but noticed that someone else had taken an interest in it, too. He nudged Michael and pointed. Michael turned and looked, then everyone else turned around and looked. The truck was being carefully picked over… by children.



<center>End of chapter 6

tbc…</center>

[Island Breeze]

<center>Sliding Into Antar</center>


>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

The Children
Of The Ruins

Chapter 7

VII
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>


Tess concentrated, pushing the mind warp out as far as she could; and it appeared to be working, since none of the children climbing into the overturned truck thirty feet away had any inkling that they were being watched. The children had seen the New Granolith fly away shortly after the truck overturned in the “storm.” But like the storm, what the children saw was an illusion. The New Granolith still sat only a hundred feet away, fifteen feet up in the air, on its anti-gravity field.

“Now what do you think those kids could want with our truck?” Michael asked, in a whispered tone.

Max shook his head. “I don’t know. But I’m going to find out right now!”

Max walked over and laid a strong hand on the shoulder of one of the children who had just climbed out of the truck. The boy, who was facing away from Max but who appeared to be about ten or twelve years old, nearly jumped out of his skin and swatted frantically at his shoulder, as though he thought he had just been grabbed by a ghost. And since, by all appearances, there was no one there, that must have seemed to be the case. But the boy quickly discovered that his “ghost” was strong. No matter how much he squirmed, he could not break the invisible grip on his shoulder. Max reached out with his other hand and turned the boy around so that he could see his face.

“Zorel,” Michael gasped, recognizing his oldest son. Michael started to walk toward his son, but just then another of the children ran by him, and he reached out and grabbed her by the arm.

“JoLeesa?” Max exclaimed. The girl in Michael’s grip turned pale at the sound of disembodied voices in the air, and when the invisible hand touched her arm, she quite literally leapt out of her shoes. She struggled to get free but found her efforts useless.

“Tess, drop the mind warp,” Max yelled.”

Tess took a deep breath and opened her eyes. As she did, the “ghosts” slowly became visible. If Max thought the children’s reactions to being grabbed by something unseen could not be topped, he was mistaken. Their reactions to him and to Michael were even greater. First, they went pale, then they teetered as though they might collapse where they stood.

“JoLeesa,” Liz exclaimed, her jaw dropping in disbelief… “Andya! Maya! Alyyx!”

All of Liz and Max’s children were there except Jeffy. She didn’t see Jeffy. Michael quickly rounded up Jayyd and Kryys and relieved Max of Zorel, who soon realized that Michael’s grip was no less inescapable than Max’s had been.

Meanwhile, Alex and Isabel had rounded up Mareeya and Ceelya and had also managed to catch Danyy, who was quickly taken “into custody” by his father, Jim Valenti.

Kyle caught Rayyn and Taz as they emerged from the truck and tried to run; then, looking into the overturned truck, he discovered a little girl hiding. Recognizing Liz-Jolee, he lifted her out of the truck and handed her to her father, Varec.

Tess, who had been watching everything that was going on with a stunned reaction, turned around to find her husband, Rayylar, holding Jiba and Drel each by the arm, and they were struggling hard to get away.

“This isn’t right,” Tess said, shocked at what was happening. “These can’t be our children. They just can’t. My children love me.”

“Tess is right,” Maria said, trying to help Michael hold a struggling Jayyd, their youngest child. “Something is very wrong here.”

That, at least, had by now become obvious to all of them. If these were their children, something terrible had happened to them… and if they weren’t their children… then who?

Though all of the parents were thinking the same question, it was one of the children, Andya, who finally asked it…

“Who are you? Are you working for Kivar… Are you darkhole shadowshifters?

“We’re your parents,” Max said firmly, looking Andya in the eyes. Andya tried to reply, but her voice vanished and she only stammered and shook her head.

“You’re not our parents,” Zorel said with total certainty, but Andya was not so sure. Something in Max’s eyes had looked familiar. It was impossible, but it was hard to deny.

“Sweetheart,” Maria said, “We are your parents… I promise you.” She put one hand on Zorel, and he pulled back and cringed, shaking his head…

“Our parents are dead. Kivar killed them.”

The effect of that statement was like a lightning bolt passing through each one there.

“What do you mean,” Max asked, turning to Zorel. “Why would you think Kivar killed us?”

“We saw it,” Andya whispered in a thin, shaky voice. “We saw you… all.”

“Dead?” Isabel asked.

“Yeah,” Ceelya said.

Isabel looked at Alex, and tears welled up in her eyes. Alex hugged her against his heart, trying to comfort her, but he was just as shocked as she was. Then Isabel looked at Max, Michael, Liz, and the others. She had a terrible, sick feeling in her stomach, and she could see that they all shared it. Somehow, they had stumbled upon another alternate dimension instead of their own; and here, Max and the others must have deposed Kivar, and he must have returned and killed them… probably with the help of the shadow-dwelling shapeshifters… leaving their children as homeless orphans fending for themselves amongst the ruins. It was just the kind of cold, heartless revenge Kivar would appreciate. But where was everybody else? Had Kivar killed everyone on the planet… or just the royal family and important people… or all the parents? It seemed very hard to believe that he could have killed everyone, but where were the other children? Where were the other adults? It didn’t make sense.

“Zorel, what can I do to convince you that I am who I say I am,” Michael said, turning to his and Maria’s oldest son.

Zorel shook his head but didn’t reply. He was thinking about it. He didn’t believe it, but deep inside, he did WANT to believe it… He wanted desperately to believe it.



<center>End of chapter 7

tbc…</center>


Coming Next: The Test

[Island Breeze]

<center>Sliding Into Antar</center>


>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

The Test

Chapter 8

VIII

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>


Yes, what can we do to make you believe us,” Liz asked, repeating Michael’s question for Zorel and putting him under even more pressure to decide quickly whether or not these new people were friends or enemies. They looked like their parents. But that was not necessarily a plus. That made Zorel think all the more that they must be shapeshifters. He knew that they weren’t his real parents. And yet, there was something… Zorel had no idea what it was or why he felt so bothered. He was, even at his young age, more than able to defend himself and the others with powerful blasts that he was capable of producing from the palm of his hand. He had done it before. He was not afraid of bad guys… Well… bad guys that he could see anyway. He shuddered briefly as he remembered the feeling Max’s vice-like grip on his shoulder caused in him when Max was invisible.

Zorel turned to Maya, who was the same age as he was… “Maya…”

He said her name then just nodded, but Maya understood. She concentrated for several long moments then shook her head. “I don’t feel any evil in their thoughts… not like I felt in the shadowshifters… or in Kivar.”

“They may have found a way to hide it from you, Maya,” Ceelya said.

Maya shook her head. “I don’t feel like they’re hiding anything like that. I can feel their thoughts, and I don’t sense any evil in them.”

“But they’re not our parents,” Zorel said firmly. “They’re trying to trick us by looking like our parents.”

“I don’t feel any deceit coming from them,” Maya said, shrugging.

“I think I can explain why we look like your parents,” Isabel said. “Have you ever heard of alternate dimensions?”

Maya nodded. “They’re not real. They’re just a theory.”

“They are real,” Isabel said, nodding her head emphatically. “We’re from another dimension. You see, we didn’t know either… I mean… we thought we were returning home to our planet, in our own dimension, but somehow we found your planet instead… Do you understand?”

Zorel just looked at her. Isabel wasn’t sure if he didn’t believe her or if he didn’t know what she was talking about.

“Okay, you see,” Isabel said, “We found out that other dimensions actually do exist, and we went to another dimension in our ship, but when we tried to go home, we came to this world, and we thought it was ours, but now we know it’s not…” Isabel sighed dejectedly. “You don’t understand any of this, do you?”

“I understand,” Zorel said. “I’m just not sure if I believe you.”

“It is possible,” Kryys said, turning to face Zorel. “I’ve seen that there is something beyond the expanse… in the other place.”

“The River of Time,” Michael said, nodding.

“I don’t know what it’s called,” Kryys said. “River of Time? That sounds like a good description.”

“You never met the Drax guy?” Michael asked, somewhat shocked.

Kryys shook his head. “Who is that?”

In our dimension, he’s been teaching my son… Kryys… that’s you in our dimension… about the River of Time and everything like that. You know, the stuff you do, turning into atoms and disappearing.”

Zorel looked at Kryys, surprised… “He knows about that.”

“What else do you know about us,” Andya asked suspiciously.

“Well,” Liz said, “If you’re like my Andya, you can make animals appear out of nowhere… and you hate gojos.”

Andya’s mouth opened in surprise. “I do hate gojos. They taste like little green caca.”

“They do not!” Liz scolded. “They’re good for you. They give you vitamins to grow up strong and healthy, and they taste good.”

“She sure sounds like Mom,” JoLeesa said. Andya nodded, her eyes reflecting her shock.

“We know everything about you… about all of you,” Kyle said. “It’s obvious that your families were a lot like ours. Same kids… so you must have had the same parents.” Kyle looked at Danyy… “Your Dad was my Dad, Jim Valenti. But your Mom was Antarian. Her name was Jeliya.”

Danyy looked surprised.

“On the world we were just on, my Dad… I mean, his double… married Amy DeLuca.”

Danyy grinned then broke out laughing. “No way! Aunt Amy… and Dad?” Zorel laughed, too, then the others started to laugh.

“It’s not really so funny,” Kyle said. “They knew each other on Earth, you know. They even went out together a few times when they were on Earth.”

“That’s true,” Danyy said. “I forgot.”

“Your Dad dated Aunt Amy when they lived on Eluymer?” Andya asked in shock.

“Yeah… but that was when they were both little kids, I think,” Danyy replied.

Zorel nodded understandingly. “Oh, well…”

“Do you believe us now,” Isabel asked.

Zorel suddenly became very serious again. He was a child, only eleven going on twelve, but he was also the defender of all the children there. It was a role he had been cast into… or had taken upon himself. Either way, making a decision about these grown-ups now was clearly taxing his emotions as well as his powers of reasoning to their limits.

“There is one more thing that you must do… to prove that you’re telling the truth,” Zorel said. He looked around at each of the adults, then he pointed at Alex. “You… come with me.”

Isabel suddenly looked terrified. “Where are you taking him?”

“It’s okay,” Alex said, giving Isabel a kiss. “I’ll be all right.”

Isabel shook her head. “Can’t I go, too?”

Zorel stopped her. “Just him.”

Isabel started to protest, but Alex shook his head. Then he walked off with Zorel and several of the other children. The children left Alyyx and Taz to watch the remaining adults. Isabel watched as the other children and Alex disappeared around a stand of trees and a small hill, then she looked at Max imploringly. Max shook his head slowly. “I think he’ll be okay, Iz. Alex can take care of himself.”

On the other side of the hill, the children took Alex into a large cave. Alex immediately noticed that all around him in the cave there were weapons sitting out in the open and totally unguarded… spears, knives, harpoons, even a laser cell disrupter… some weapons that were antiques and some weapons that had long been banned on Antar. If he had been an enemy, he could easily have used one on these children. They would be defenseless. He wondered how they could be so careless. They hadn’t impressed him as being careless before. Young, yes… Immature… yes, but careless… no. They hadn’t survived by being careless.

As Alex reached the back of the cave, he noticed someone sitting on a rock in the dark. At first, he couldn’t tell who it was, but as he drew nearer, he gasped. “Max?”

The seated figure rose and looked at Alex but didn’t say anything.

“Max, it is you! You’re alive!” Alex exclaimed, approaching the standing figure rapidly. It suddenly occurred to Alex that the children might mistake his rush to check Max out as an attack on him and try to defend him… especially if Max was hurt. But surprisingly, the children made no move whatsoever to defend him. Alex checked Max over. Other than the fact that he never spoke, he seemed to be in pretty good shape.

“Max, why are you hiding in here?” Alex asked. “If you need help to fight Kivar, we can help you. We got rid of him before… twice… in two different dimensions. We’re kind of getting good at it.” Alex chuckled, trying to lighten the atmosphere and get Max to say something.

“Are you hurt, Max? ‘Cause we can help you if you are. Our Max may be able to heal you if you can’t do it yourself. Is anybody else alive, too?”

Max still did not answer.

Suddenly, Alex noticed all the unguarded weapons lying around again and became angry. Max was obviously hurt, and these children were just standing around. Not one of them was trying to help him. And they had carelessly endangered his life and theirs with all these unguarded weapons all around. Alex turned on Zorel…

“Zorel, you’re their protector, right?”

Zorel nodded.

“Then you should know better than to leave all this stuff out in plain sight AND BRING A STRANGER IN HERE, TOO! WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU? I COULD BE HERE TO KILL THE KING! AND HE’S TOTALLY UNPROTECTED!” Alex was yelling. He knew it. But the total unmitigated stupidity of what he was seeing momentarily went to his head.

Zorel turned to Jiba and nodded, and Max slowly dissolved into the air. Then the weapons dissolved into the air… then the entire cave dissolved into the air. They were standing on the other side of the hill out in the open. Alex stood there, shocked.

“What… what just happened?”

“You just proved that you are who you said you are,” Zorel said. “Or at least, that you’re not our enemy. That’s all we wanted to know.”

“But…” Alex looked around. “What happened to Max?”

“He was never there,” Zorel said. “The weapons were never there either. You already seem to have figured out that our storms were an illusion.”

Alex nodded. “And the comet that was headed for us… with fireballs breaking off… one fireball went right through our truck!”

Zorel grinned and looked at Jiba. “That was a good touch, Jeeb.”

Jiba smiled.

“You kids did all that?” Alex asked, incredulous.

“Jiba did it,” Zorel said. “She can do mind warps even better than her Mom could.”

Alex nodded… “Tess… Jiba’s Tess’ daughter… That’s right!”

“After Kivar attacked us, our parents were… well, anyway… we chased Kivar off the planet with Jiba’s illusions and my powers… and the powers of the other kids in our group. Andya made some wild animals… pawgors and stuff… lots of them. They weren’t real, so when Kivar’s soldiers tried to kill them, they just kept coming. Then Jiba rained storms and lightning down on Kivar and his soldiers, and they couldn’t see to fight. They didn’t even know where it was all coming from. After they had had enough, they left Antar in a big hurry. A few times, they’ve tried to come back, but we always give them a big welcome that sends them running away again.”

“I’ve seen your welcome,” Alex said, nodding. “It would make anyone run for their life.”

“Not you apparently,” Zorel said.

“Only because we thought we were coming home… and then Varec realized that the meteor or comet or whatever it was wasn’t real…”

“I guess he would,” Zorel said. “He’s pretty smart like that.”

Alex smiled, but then his smile faded away. “It’s too bad about your parents getting killed, though.”

Zorel looked at Maya, Jiba, and the others, and they nodded.

“Come with me,” Zorel said, motioning to Alex.

“Where are we going?”

“To get the others who came with you… then to see if you can help us…”



<center>End of chapter 8

tbc…</center>

[Island Breeze]

<center>Sliding Into Antar</center>


>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

The Black Bog

Chapter 9

IX

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>


“These children… our children… are the ones who created all those illusions… the storms…the fireballs… the crashing meteor?” Max repeated in wonder, as they walked along the path following the children to wherever it was the children were leading them. “I’m impressed!”

“Me, too,” Michael agreed. “And the way they tested us… They’re no fools. They know how to survive. I like that!”

“I feel so sorry for them, though,” Liz said sadly. “All they’ve been through… losing their parents… seeing them killed… then having to learn to survive on their own and having to chase Kivar and the shadowshifters away without any help. It’s so sad!”

Maria sniffed and nodded. “I feel bad about scaring them now… when we were invisible.”

Michael smiled. “I thought that was kind of funny.”

Maria whacked Michael on the arm.

“Well, it was,” Michael insisted. “Besides, they’ve already gotten over that… and anyway, they scared the crap out of us first. I almost peed my pants when I looked up and saw that meteor coming! And don’t forget, we’re here now, so we can help them.”

Maria nodded… “Yeah, we can! That’s right!” Then she thought about it and smiled… “I guess it was kind of funny… a little bit… when you think about it.” She looked at the children leading them down the pathway through the woods… “I wonder where they’re taking us.”

“To feed us to the pawgors… for scaring them, probably,” Rayylar said with a grin.

Jim laughed.

For the next two hours, the children led everyone on a long trek deeper into the Antarian wilderness.

“I’ve never seen these trails before,” Michael said. “Where do they go?”

“I don’t know,” Max admitted. “I’ve never seen them either. Maybe the children made them.”

Michael nodded. “Yeah! That’s probably it.”

As they walked on, everyone began to notice that the woods around them had become denser and denser; and in the last mile or so, everything had become quite jungle-like. In fact, except for the path the children were on, the woods were downright impassible in most places now.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say we were in the Nan-Torel,” Max said in a hushed tone.

Jim nodded, looking around. “I’ve got news for you, Max. We ARE in the Nan-Torel.”

“How do you know?”

“Those guma bushes back there… that’s a species that I’ve only seen inside the Nan-Torel. The variety outside the Nan-Torel is different… and far less toxic.”

If there had been any doubt in anyone’s mind before, the sudden scream of a distant wild pawgor removed it definitively.

“They ARE going to feed us to the pawgors,” Rayylar whispered, this time swallowing instead of laughing.

At that moment, Zorel held up his hand, and everyone stopped. Max immediately saw why. Directly in front of them was a large bog or marsh of very thick, soupy black water. It didn’t look as thick as quicksand, or as hard to see, but it was considerably thicker than any water he had ever seen. And it had an eerie sort of luminescence. The whole place made Max shudder. Behind him, Liz and Maria and the others had already begun backing up.

Alex, however, walked up to the edge of the bog and peered into the water cautiously. As he leaned over to look, Zorel gave him a shove, and Alex fell into the bog, disappearing from view beneath the black waters almost immediately. Liz gasped loudly, and Isabel ran to the edge of the bog. She never stopped running. Maya gave her a shove, and Isabel kept going, right into the black waters. Immediately, she sank out of sight.

In total shock at what was happening, Max and Michael both put their palms up facing Zorel and Maya in order to protect everyone else if they needed to. But without a word, Maya stepped into the bog and disappeared beneath the water. Then Zorel leapt in and disappeared behind her.

“What the f*** is going on here!” Michael screamed, forgetting that he was among children, and at the moment not much caring. “Max…? Can we get them back? I’ll jump in if you tie a line to me. There’s plenty of vines around here we can use. Maybe this bog isn’t too deep… we can find them.”

“It’s deep,” Danyy said. “You won’t find them. Come with me.”

Danyy took Jim Valenti, his dad’s double, by the arm and jumped, but Jim lifted his arm up high, leaving Danyy hanging over the black waters, his feet swinging back and forth. Then quickly, Jim snatched Danyy back with his other hand and held him there…

“Now you’re going to tell me what is going on here, Danyy! I am NOT going to just jump into that bog with you… or be pushed in, either… and I’m not letting you or any more of the children jump in.”

Jim’s voice was stern and convincing, but his words were hollow, because there was little he could do and hold Danyy down at the same time. Even as he spoke, three more children nonchalantly jumped into the bog and disappeared. Then, to everyone’s surprise, Tess walked up and looked into the water… then she jumped in and disappeared, too, with only a shrug.

“What is this… a suicide mindwarp thing?” Max yelled, spinning around to face the most likely source of any mindwarp that might be going on, Jiba. But Jiba just shook her head and jumped into the water, disappearing into the bog’s depths.

Max and Michael rushed to push everyone else back away from the bog as far as they could.

“Something is going on here,” Max said. “I’m going to find out what it is. Michael, tie a line around me. I’m going in.”

“No way, Max,” Michael said emphatically, tying the vine around himself. “They need you on Antar more than me. You’re the king. Hold this!”

Michael handed Max the end of the vine and jumped in, not waiting for any possible objections. Immediately, he disappeared beneath the waters. Max felt the line playing out. It was a long vine, probably fifty feet at least, but it reached its end very quickly. Max held on till it reached the end then began pulling the line back up again. He noticed that it didn’t have much resistance anymore. Then he saw why. When the end of the rope came out of the water, Michael was nowhere to be seen. In shock, Max yelled Michael’s name, but he didn’t expect an answer.

Immediately, Max spun around and grabbed the first child still standing there, which happened to be little Jayyd.

“Tell me what happened to Michael! Tell me what happened to the others! Where are they? How can I get them back?”

Jayyd shook her head. “They’re okay. They’re in the healing place.”

Max stammered momentarily then released Jayyd… “The healing place? What’s that?”

Jayyd turned and pointed with a little finger at the bog. “That’s the healing place. It’s where the pawgors go when they’re hurt… to get well.”

Max looked at Liz and Maria silently… then at Jim. Everyone was in shock.

“They call this the healing place?” Max asked again. Jayyd nodded.

“Does it make you better if you get hurt,” Max asked. Jayyd nodded.

“How do you get back out?”

Jayyd pointed a little finger at the far side of the bog. “It’s shallow on that side. You can walk out over there.”

“But… but…” Max stammered, losing himself in a sudden flurry of thoughts and questions… “Why don’t they drown?”

Little Jayyd shrugged.

“Have you ever been in there,” Max asked. Jayyd nodded.

“Why didn’t you drown?”

“There’s air on the bottom.”

Max looked at the others then at Jim… “I’m going in.”

“Let me go,” Jim said, “Michael’s right. You’re needed on Antar to run things. If they’re down there, I can tell them how to get out.”

Jim turned to jump, but before he could, someone began emerging from the water on the other side of the bog. It was Michael… and he smiled.

“Come on in, Max. You won’t believe this.”

Max hesitated for a moment; then, remembering that Jiba had already jumped in, he decided that Michael was real and not an illusion. He looked at Jim and shrugged, then both jumped in.


<center> <<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>> </center>

For a moment, Max felt vaguely wet… but it wasn’t a cold wetness. In fact, there was an odd “warmth” to it that seemed to radiate all through his body, making every nerve tingle in a surprising way. Max had a feeling of sinking, but it lasted no more than a few brief seconds, then he hit the bottom. Whatever this “water” was, one sure sank fast in it! Max doubted that it would be possible to stay afloat or swim in it even if one tried.

As Max hit the bottom, a hand reached out from somewhere and grabbed him by the arm.

Max wiped his face and eyes and looked around. It was dark… mostly. There was a very dim light that was probably being produced by something in the water above him. But then the area suddenly lit up. Max saw that Zorel was holding his hand up in the air, and it was glowing brightly.

“Why didn’t I ever think of that,” Max mused, shaking his head.

“Come with me,” Zorel ordered, turning and walking away without saying anything more. Max followed. The ground, if that’s what it was, beneath his feet felt squishy… not “wet” squishy, more like “soft” squishy. It looked like it was composed of a thick layer of some kind of mossy growth… or perhaps algae.

Max had gone no more than ten steps when he heard someone calling him from behind. He turned around and looked. It was Liz and Maria, and right behind them were all the others.

“You weren’t going to leave us out there, were you,” Liz asked, taking Max by the arm. “I’ve followed you everywhere else, Max… across galaxies… through dimensions… I guess I’ll follow you into the bowels of the earth… or Antar… or wherever you go, even if it’s into a black bog… But we go together.” Max nodded and smiled then put his arm around Liz, and they turned and followed Zorel.

“Aren’t we going the wrong direction to get to the other side,” Varec asked.

Max looked around and shrugged. “I’ve lost all sense of direction. Everything looks the same in here, so I couldn’t tell you.”

“We are,” Varec said definitively.

“We’re not going to the other side,” Zorel said, motioning toward a rise just ahead of them. “That’s where we’re going.” Zorel led the group to the rise and climbed up onto it, then he turned around and offered Max a hand, but Max was already on it. So was Jim; and very soon, so were the others. Zorel led them on into the crevasse that lay beyond the rise. Then, about a hundred feet in, he stopped and held his hand up, brightening the entire “room” with the glow from his palm. Max immediately noticed that Michael was there. So were Alex, Isabel, and all the other children who had jumped into the bog before them. The children moved to one side so that Max and the others could see, and Max gasped.

“Oh my God!” Liz and Maria both said at exactly the same time, sounding strangely stereophonic.

Max walked over to the hand-fashioned beds made of the soft algae-like growth and stared into the faces of the bodies that lay there… the faces of their doubles, the children’s parents.

“We brought them here after Kivar attacked,” Zorel said. “The shadowshifters caught us all by surprise. The shadowshifters can make themselves look like part of the wall, and when you walk by, they just come out of the wall and stab you or use their xenon-disrupting rays to blast your brain apart inside your head. You can’t see the shadowshifters, then they just pop out and they’re there. That’s how they got our parents. We hoped the bog would bring them back and make them well again… but…”

“Are they dead,” Maria asked.

Max shook his head. “They appear to be… but… they haven’t turned into dust. They should have by now if they were dead. How long have they been this way, Zorel?”

“Two seasons… and three days.”

“About seven months.” Max nodded.

“They’re not breathing,” Michael said. “I already checked.”

Max felt for a pulse in Liz’s double. There was none. “They’re dead… as we know it. But they’re not… somehow… The bog or something in here must be preserving them.”

“Can you heal them, Max,” Isabel asked.

Max put his hands over Liz’s double, trying to sense where the injury was.

“They shot her in the head,” Andya said. “I saw it.”

Tears brimmed up in Liz’s eyes, and she hugged Andya to her. Then Andya began to cry. It was the first time they had seen any of the children cry, and it brought tears to everyone’s eyes.

Max placed both hands over Liz’s double’s head and concentrated, closing his eyes tightly and exerting every ounce of energy that his body had in it… but it was more than he could accomplish.

“Her brain has been severely damaged. I… I can’t fix it.”

“But she’s still here,” Maria said… “I mean… she hasn’t turned into dust. You said that yourself, Max. There must be SOME hope.”

Max shook his head. “Liz is human, Maria… mostly. Anyway, she wouldn’t turn into dust.”

“Oh… yeah… that’s right,” Maria agreed dejectedly… “But the others haven’t turned into dust either, Max.”

Max thought then turned to Kryys. “Kryys… I know you’ve done the swirly atom thing before… you told me so… or somebody did. Have you ever tried to heal anybody?”

“Me?” Kryys asked, surprised. “I’m not a healer.”

“Neither is our Kryys,” Max said, “Not in the traditional sense as we know it… But he can heal people that I could never hope to heal.”

“How?” Kryys asked.

Max sighed. “I really don’t know how he does it. He just turns into millions of swirling atoms and passes through the person over and over. As he does, he repairs the cells in their body one at a time. I can’t tell you how he does it, but HE doesn’t know how he does it either. He only knows that, when he’s in that form, he has a connection with the river of time and its eternal knowledge.”

Kryys looked at Max, and his eyes grew wide. Then he dissolved into a billion glowing, swirling atoms. For a moment, the “room” took on the brightness of a summer day, then the atoms swirled into Liz’s body like a billion little atomic stars, passing through her head repeatedly. This continued for slightly over five minutes; then, suddenly, Liz’s chest rose.

“She’s breathing!” Maria exclaimed excitedly. “She’s alive!”

Andya, Maya, JoLeesa, and Alyyx all rushed to her side, and Andya picked her mother’s hand up in her own hands and held it next to her face, as tears rolled down her cheeks.

When Kryys had finished with Liz, he moved to Max’s double, and the atoms began swirling through his head. Meanwhile, Max discovered that some of the victims had been stabbed, among them, both Alex and Isabel. Max placed his hands over the wound just below Isabel’s left breast and concentrated. The wound began to close; and inside Isabel, the tear in her heart closed up. Max concentrated harder, and he felt blood begin to flow and new blood begin to form, replacing the blood that had been lost, as her heart began to pump again. Max took a deep breath and looked at his hands. He didn’t know HOW he had been able to jumpstart the creation of new blood… or why the blood still there in her body was still as fresh as the day she had died. The only thing he could imagine was that this “room…” something in this room… or in the strange black water…

Max moved to Alex and pressed his hands to Alex’s chest. Alex had been relatively lucky… if one can be “dead” and still be considered lucky. The knife had missed his heart. But it had collapsed his lungs, causing suffocation. This was easy for Max to repair, comparatively.

Kryys repaired the damage done to his parents, Michael and Maria, who had been shot in the head like Max and Liz, and Max “healed” Kyle, Jeliya, Tess, and Rayylar. Kryys repaired the damage to Jim, Kathleen, Varec, and Amy.

It took a total of a little over thirty minutes of continuous effort, but working together, Max and Kryys repaired the damage that had been done to every one of the parents. Now, they only had to wait. The swirling atoms coalesced back into the form of a little boy, and Kryys immediately collapsed onto the soft ground.

“What’s wrong with him,” Zorel asked, alarmed and deeply concerned for his younger brother.

Max picked Kryys up and handed him to Maria, Kryys and Zorel’s mom’s double, to hold. “He’s fine,” he said to Zorel, “Our Kryys went to sleep right after he finished healing someone the first time, too. It takes a lot out of him; he’s still very young. He’ll get stronger with time.”

With nothing more to do but wait, the children sat down on the soft ground to rest, but soon, most of them had dozed off. Shortly after that, most of the group from the New Granolith had dozed off, too.

Then all was silent and still in the underwater room…

Zorel woke up to the soft touch of a hand on his cheek. He looked up into Maria’s eyes, and she smiled. Somehow he knew instinctively that this was not the double who had come on the ship from another dimension. A grin spread rapidly across Zorel’s face like a wildfire racing through a dry field… Then he saw Michael standing behind her, smiling.

“MOM! DAD!”

It may have been Zorel’s exuberance… or it may have just been the moment… but Liz opened her eyes and looked around her to find her children all asleep holding onto her hands and arms. Andya had Liz’s right hand in her hands pressed against her cheek. Liz smiled and kissed Andya on the cheek as she reclaimed her hand. That woke Andya up, and then the others all woke up.

“MOM!” Andya shouted, throwing her arms around Liz’s neck and hugging her. Soon, all four of her children had her in their embrace.

“Where’s your Dad?” Liz asked. Andya pointed to Max, who had not yet awakened. Liz leaned over to Max and kissed him on the lips. Then she lifted her head and looked at his face. Max smiled.

“He’ll be up soon,” Liz said.

Within minutes, the entire room was buzzing with joy and celebration as, one after the other, the parents woke up. The rest of the children and the group from the New Granolith had already awakened at the first exuberant screams from Zorel and Andya.

“Dad, these are our friends,” Zorel said, indicating the group that had come in the New Granolith.

Michael nodded. “I know.”

“You do?” Zorel asked, surprised.

Michael nodded then smiled. “I think I dreamed that they had come to help us.”



<center>End of chapter 9

tbc…</center>

[Island Breeze]

<center>Sliding Into Antar</center>


>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

The Beasts
And The Children

Chapter 10

X

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>


“Lord Kivar, we are six veskits from Antar. We will be arriving soon.”

“Good… Very good.” Kivar waved his hand dismissively at the captain of his shadow shifters. “You may go, Bezto.”

Bezto turned to leave but then paused and turned to face Kivar again… “Sire… are you quite certain of your information?”

Kivar lifted his head and stared at Bezto with an intensity that made Bezto tremble inside, though it was hardly noticeable in that dark, shadowy form. Then, for some reason that Bezto did not begin to understand, Kivar threw back his head and roared with laughter…

“Bezto! I do believe you’re jealous of Dunjin!”

Bezto’s head writhed in the strange, serpentine, ritualistic motion of denial that was customary of the shadow shifters.

“Yes! You are!” Kivar insisted. “But don’t worry, Bezto… it’s one of your better qualities.”

Kivar laughed again.

“Sire, I am not jealous… especially not of a Torvon shapeshifter. The Torvons are vastly inferior to the shadow shifters. I do not understand why you bother with them at all.”

“They got me information,” Kivar said. “Information that eluded your shadow shifters.” Kivar’s smile disappeared again. “I never intended to allow those brats to inherit Antar, Bezto. You assured me that they would all starve to death or die in the strange storms that have been bedeviling our attempts to return and reclaim the planet. Now I find out that not only are the children still alive but the storms have all been mere illusions… CREATED BY ONE OF THE CHILDREN!”

“You are taking the word of Dunjin, Sire… He is of an inferior race… Do not forget that, my lord. His information cannot be trusted… at least without checking it out.”

“And that is exactly what you are going to do, Bezto… CHECK IT OUT! Do you think you can handle that?”

Bezto’s head bobbed up and down oddly, looking for all the world like a flickering shadow cast on the wall by dying candlelight.

“Good. Now get out of my sight. Let me know when we are two veskits from Antar. I’m looking forward to removing the last traces of Zan’s existence from my planet.”


<center> <<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>> </center>

At the same time, in the strange “room” at the bottom of the black bog, on Antar, questions were flying faster than the remnants of a supernova, as the newly-awakened parents struggled to learn what had happened to them, where they were, and just about everything about the last seven months.

“We should go back to the palace and discuss all of this,” the newly awakened Max said, taking a deep refreshing breath and letting it out with an audible sigh. “We have to make immediate plans to defend the planet if Kivar tries to return again.”

“I agree,” Michael said, “But let’s do it right now… right here. If there ARE enemies among us, we’re in the safest possible place right here where we are. Kivar thinks we’re dead. I think we should stay that way… at least until we have a plan. If we go back to the palace and our enemies see us, we will have tipped our hand.”

Max nodded.

“Maya… what did you say this place is,” Liz asked, turning to her daughter.

“It’s called ‘the healing place,’ Mom.”

“The healing place…” Liz looked around at the children with a baffled look on her face. “Who named it that?”

Zorel shrugged… “The pawgors did, I think.”

“Pawgors can’t talk… the last time I heard,” Liz said.

“Danyy hears them sometimes… when they’re thinking,” Liz-Jolee said.

“Pawgors?” Liz asked.

Danyy nodded. “The pawgors know that this is a place that makes them well. I learned it from them.”

“When were you ever near a pawgor,” Liz asked.

“Well… I never was,” Danyy admitted. “I don’t ever see them. I just hear their thoughts sometimes.”

“All the way at your house?”

“No, not that far away, Aunt Liz. Only when I’m here.”

“And where would ‘here’ be,” Kathleen asked her son.

Danyy smiled almost sheepishly… “The Nan-Torel?”

Kathleen’s jaw dropped… “The Nan-Torel? You’ve been in the Nan-Torel? Alone?”

“No. All of us have, Mom.”

“Oh my God,” Kathleen exclaimed, looking at the children.

“We’re in the Nan-Torel now,” Danyy said.

Kathleen looked at her son aghast. “This place… the… the ‘healing place…’ is in the Nan-Torel?”

“It’s kind of poetic, isn’t it,” Jim said, putting a hand on his son’s shoulder. “The most dangerous place on all of Antar… the place that everyone knows as a place of certain death… is also a place that gives life. I like it!”

“You’ve never been in the Nan-Torel before?” Jim from the New Granolith asked his double. The local Jim shook his head.

“Then you don’t have a pet pawgor?”

The local Jim shook his head again and smiled at the utter outrageousness of that thought. So did Danyy.

“You can’t make a pet out of a pawgor,” Danyy said. “That’s silly.”

“Couldn’t you talk to them and make them understand that you wanted to be their friend?” Maria from the New Granolith asked.

Danyy laughed. “No way! Pawgors don’t want to be your friend. I hear their thoughts. They aren’t friendly.”

“Oh, Danyy!” Liz said, “Have we got a surprise for you on our ship!”

Maria laughed and nodded.

“Well…” Jim said, “In all fairness to Danyy here… and to my double… most pawgors aren’t tamable. At least, I don’t think grown ones would be. Jung-Jo was young, and the circumstances were unusual. And we didn’t tame his mate… Jung-Jo sort of did that himself. And their babies grew up knowing us, but they’re all grown up now. I haven’t seen them since they went out on their own.”

“Well, there IS one benefit to our being in the Nan-Torel, the local Michael said. “No enemy who doesn’t have a death wish is going to come in here looking for us… not even a shadow shifter. We can talk freely here without worrying that any enemy will hear us. Our only problem is, can we get back out of here ourselves without getting killed now by a pawgor or by any of the other wild or poisonous creatures that live in here?”

“We do it all the time,” Zorel said proudly, indicating the other children and himself. “Danyy knows when something dangerous is close, so we can avoid it.”

“You HOPE you can avoid it,” the local Kyle corrected.

“Well, for now, we’re here,” Max said. “And Michael is right… we can talk freely here. Let’s make the most of it and make some plans while we can.”

“Do you have any ideas, Max,” Jim asked.

Max shook his head. “I’m thinking. I don’t think very quickly after seven-month naps usually.”

Maya and Andya giggled, and Liz smiled.

Michael turned and looked at Jiba… “You’ve been scaring ships away with your illusions… your mind warps… ever since we were… we were… injured?” Michael couldn’t quite bring himself to say, “killed,” but in his mind, he knew that they had been… in every conventionally-known meaning of the word.

Jiba nodded. “We thought we should try to keep them from coming back.”

“Sounds like excellent logic to me!” Kyle said.

Michael nodded. “It was a great idea. It still is. For now, at least, do you think you could keep doing that, Jiba? Only maybe check with me or Max to make sure it’s a ship that we WANT to chase away.”

Jiba nodded and smiled.

“How did you know when a ship was coming,” Isabel asked.

Jiba grinned… “Maya can sense the people on the ship before they ever get here… and sometimes she can hear their thoughts if she tries.”

“That’s right,” Liz said. “Maya can do that.”

Michael nodded then turned to Tess… “You can help Jiba… if Kivar or his shapeshifters try to come back, right, Tess?”

Tess nodded enthusiastically. “With the show Jiba and I can give them, they’ll never come back again.”

Michael smiled. “I wish that were true. But I kind of doubt that Kivar will just go away and stay away. He’s not stupid. Eventually, he’ll figure out what’s going on, and we’ll need to have another plan in place before that happens.”

“I agree,” Max said. “Zorel… was anyone else killed… besides us?”

“I don’t know,” Zorel said, shaking his head. “I don’t think so.”

The crew from the New Granolith listened to that statement with a puzzled reaction…

“We didn’t see anyone at all except the children when we got here in our ship,” Max said. “We assumed… naturally… that Kivar had killed everyone… or at least that he had killed a lot of the people.”

“No, he didn’t,” Zorel said, shaking his head and grinning. “That was one of Jiba’s mind warps. After they attacked our parents, she made everyone else disappear so the shadow shifters couldn’t find them.”

“Well, actually,” Jiba said, correcting Zorel humbly, “I didn’t make everyone disappear… That would be too hard for me. I just made Kivar and the shadow shifters… and you… not see them.”

Kyle laughed. “She’s reached enlightenment! Genuine humility is a virtue. It’s one of the ten sacred qualities outlined by Avalokite Bodhisattva, the Buddha of Compassion… along with the four noble states of mind: love, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity.”

“It’s gotta be a Kyle thing in every dimension,” Michael said, rolling his eyes.

“Well, if I made everyone disappear,” Jiba said, “Even if I could, then they wouldn’t be able to see each other or even see themselves. But if I put a mind warp on people that I don’t want to see them, then only those people can’t see them.”

“She’s got a point,” Isabel said with a grin.

“Seems like you’ve got everything all figured out… Are you sure you guys need us,” Kyle asked jokingly.”

“YEAH, WE DO,” every one of the children exclaimed at the same time, sounding like a chorus.

Maria and Liz looked at each other and started laughing. “I’d like to have that recorded so I could play it back from time to time,” Liz said, hugging her children. Maria nodded and wiped a tear out of the corner of her eye, as she and all the other parents hugged their children, too.

Rayyn and Taz put their arms around Kyle’s waist and held onto him. “We need you, Dad. Don’t ever let something bad happen to you again.”

Kyle started to laugh, but somehow it caught in his throat and he couldn’t speak. He bent down and put both arms around his children and nodded. “I’ll try real hard not to. I promise.”

“Okay, here’s the deal,” Max said, after everyone had found their voices again, “Jiba and Tess will do their thing if Kivar and the shadow shifters try to come back again. If that fails… and eventually, I have to agree with Michael, Kivar is bound to catch on to us… then Jiba and Tess will make everyone invisible, including themselves… and us. That will at least give us an equal fighting chance with the shadow shifters, because for all practical purposes, they can become invisible by melting into walls and popping out as we go by. I think we can take them. We just need to have a fighting chance.”

Michael nodded. “We can take Kivar. And we can take all his shadow shifters, too. They won’t have an insurmountable advantage anymore.”

Max looked around the room. There were nods from all of the parents.

“Then it’s settled,” Max said. “Let’s go home.”

“We can stay and help you,” Max from the other dimension said.

His double shook his head. “Thanks… but you’ve done more than we could ever ask you to do for us already. Besides, it’s not your fight… and we don’t know when they’ll come back… or how long Jiba and Tess’ mind warps will keep them fooled. You could be here for a very long time.”

Max swallowed and nodded. As much as he wanted to help their doubles here, this Max was right. Nobody knew how long it would be before Kivar would come back… or when he would finally catch on to the fake storms and attack them. It could be weeks, months… or even years.

“I do hope that you’ll stay with us for a few days, though, at least,” Max said, “So that we can thank you properly and get to know you better.”

“Yes… absolutely!” Liz agreed.

“Well… I don’t know,” Max said, looking at his own Liz and at the other crew members. He knew that they were all dying to get home. “Maybe we might stay one more day… two at the most.”

Max smiled. “Welcome to Antar, friends.” Then he turned to Zorel… “How do we get out of here?”

“Follow me,” Zorel said, with a big grin.

Zorel and the other children led the adults over the soft, spongy ground a distance of about three hundred feet then pointed to a gently sloping rise ahead of them…

“Walk up that hill. It takes you out of the bog.”

Max nodded and looked around to make sure that everyone was with him, then he started walking up the rise behind Zorel and the children. The others followed. As they walked up the slope, Max noticed that something did not seem right… water was appearing under their feet. In fact, the further up the rise they went, the deeper the water became, until finally, it was above their knees.

Max stopped Zorel… “Zorel, I know I’ve been asleep for seven months, and maybe I’m still a little confused, but if we’re going UP, shouldn’t the water be getting shallower, not deeper? Maybe we’re going the wrong way.”

“We’re in a room under the water,” Zorel reminded Max.

“Yeah, I understand that,” Max said… “I do. I thought we would have to go into the water… or through the water… or something… but it should be above us. We should have to go through it… above us… but the water seems to be rising from beneath us instead. How can it be rising from below us if we’re going up… through it? Does that make any sense?”

“We didn’t try to figure it out,” Maya said. “We just did it… because the pawgors can do it.”

“The faith of a child,” Alex said, smiling. “It takes the faith of a child to get out of here.”

“Or a pawgor,” Jim said.

Kyle nodded. “Bless the beasts and the children.”

The others looked at Kyle, and he smiled…

“The beasts and the children… It’s something I heard somewhere… in a song I think.”



<center>End of chapter 10

tbc…</center>

[Island Breeze]

<center>Sliding Into Antar</center>


>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Kivar’s
Final Vengeance

Chapter 11

XI

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>


Zorel led the group upward along the cushiony path… further and further toward the surface of the bog… but the water only got deeper and deeper as they ascended. Max knew that logically this was not what should be happening. If they were in an air-filled chamber beneath the waters of the bog, then they needed to go through the water to reach the surface. But the water should be above them, not rising beneath them. Kyle had been right. Whatever the secret of the bog was, it took the unassuming innocence of a child… or an animal like the pawgor… to get out.

The water was already up to Max’s chest, and he glanced back and saw that several of the shorter individuals were barely able to still walk and keep their heads above water anymore. Max stopped and called out to Zorel, who was in front of him and was swimming now.

“Zorel… what’s going on? Are we going to have to swim to get out?”

Zorel laughed and turned toward Max, while treading water. “You don’t have to swim. Just duck your head under the water.”

“Duck…? Okay… and then what?”

“Just duck your head under the water.”

Max held his breath and ducked under the water, but as quickly as his head went under, it popped right back to the surface. Max opened his eyes and wiped the water off of his face then looked around for Zorel. That’s when he realized that he was no longer in the underwater chamber. He was on the top… on the real surface… and all around him was the dense, jungle-like Nan-Torel.

But where was everyone else?

For a moment, Max panicked and began reaching into the dark waters all around him for a hand, an arm, any sign of the others who had been with him. He found nothing but water. Alarmed, Max dove head first into the bog…

Ouch! For water that he had sunk straight to the bottom in earlier, it was pretty danged hard on this side of the bog. It felt like it shoved Max right back to the surface. He started to dive again, but a hand touched him…

“Max? Where were you? You disappeared for several moments there,” Liz said, with concern evident in her voice. Max looked around. He was once again in the chamber under the bog, up to his chest in water. It didn’t make any sense at all.

Michael laughed. “Don’t try to figure it out, Max. Like Zorel said, you just have to trust in some things.”

“I’m not a blindly trusting person,” Max said, wiping the water off his face. “I like to know what I’m trusting in and why I’m trusting in it.”

“Yeah, I know. Me, too,” Michael confided. “But I think this is challenging my conceptions.”

Max nodded. “Yeah.”

“What did you see,” Liz asked.

“The surface… the trees,” Max replied. “If you duck under the water, you pop up on the surface. Don’t ask me how. It’s gonna drive me crazy for a long time trying to figure it out.”

Liz ducked her head under the water… then Maria ducked under. After them, the others, one by one, ducked under, too; and as each one did, he or she disappeared beneath the water and did not return. Finally, only Max and Michael were left.

Max shrugged. “Shall we?”

Michael ducked under the water, and Max followed. When he popped up, he was on the surface again, but this time everyone else was there as well. They were still standing in chest deep water, but instead of being in the underwater chamber, they… or at least their heads… were above the surface.

“I’m assuming that if we walk toward the shore now, we’ll walk out of the water?” Max asked Zorel. Zorel nodded, still treading water.

Max started walking toward the shore, and the others followed. As they went, the water got shallower and shallower… until they literally simply walked out of the bog.

“Woo hoo! Land!” Alex yelled, doing a little dance on the shore, with a huge grin on his face.

Max looked around. “I hate to ask what is probably a stupid question… but how are we going to get back to the south side of the bog again? The jungle growth to the east and west looks impassable to me… We can’t go around to get back to the path…”

“Wait… Don’t tell me! You kids fly! Right?” Max said, smiling at what he clearly intended as a joke.

“No, that’s silly,” Liz-Jolee said. “We can’t fly.”

Max chuckled. “Well, that’s good to know… I think.”

Zorel looked at the surface of the bog for a moment then carefully put one foot on it… Then he put the other foot behind the first one. Then he took another step out onto the water and turned around and smiled.

Max threw up his hands. “Of course! You walk on water! Why didn’t I know that?”

The children laughed.

“No, silly,” little Jayyd said, taking Max’s hand and leading him to the edge where Zorel had stepped off. “There are stepping stones under the water. You just have to look for them.”

Max knelt down on one knee and placed his hand on the water. Sure enough… just below the water… not even a quarter of an inch below the surface… there was something hard. It appeared to be about two and a half feet wide and equally as long, but try as Max might, he could not see it. It was black in a black water bog, and it looked exactly like the water. For all practical purposes, it was invisible.

“Do these… stepping stones… go all the way across,” Max asked. Jayyd smiled and nodded.

“Come on,” Maya said, taking Liz by the hand, “We’ll lead you across.”

“How do you know where to step,” Liz asked, straining to see anything at all in the black water, with no more success than Max had had.

“You can’t see the stepping stones,” Jayyd replied, “You just have to feel them with your feet.”

“And if you miss one?” Maria asked.

Jayyd smiled. “You go to the bottom and start over again.”

“Don’t miss one,” Taz said with a grin.

Liz nodded and looked at Maria, and both of them stepped onto the first stone with Maya. As they proceeded, stepping onto the second stone, Andya and JoLeesa followed them. Then, one by one, the others walked out onto the water, too, most of them being guided by their children. Max and Zorel, meanwhile, were just reaching the other side, and Max stepped onto the ground and turned around to see how everyone else was coming. Slowly, the parents and children inched along followed by the group from the New Granolith… in all, some 40 adults and children. Kyle reached the other side and turned around and looked back, then shook his head in disbelief as he watched the rest of the group cross the bog, each person appearing for all the world to be walking on the water…

“Incredible…”

Soon, everyone was on the south side of the bog, where they had first gone into the water. With everyone safely on the shore, Max turned to look for the path that led back out of the Nan-Torel, but as he walked away from the bog, he froze suddenly in his tracks. Michael moved to the side a couple of steps to see what had made Max stop, and he froze, too.

“Don’t anyone move,” Michael whispered, standing as still as a Nan-Torel rock tortoise. Not twenty feet in front of him and Max, on the path, was a full-grown male pawgor, saber teeth and all. It stood there, almost chest high to Max and Michael, motionless, its eyes burning into Max and Michael’s eyes with a searing heat and intensity.

Despite the discomfort, which was probably psychological, Michael stared directly into the huge cat’s eyes, not daring to look away or even to blink. So did Max. The pawgor NEVER blinked, a fact that was disconcerting to both Max and Michael, who wanted badly to blink but couldn’t. Their eyes seemed to burn and quickly began to water, but neither dared to move. Both Max and Michael were prepared to raise their hands quickly and blast the pawgor if it moved toward anyone. But what happened next was totally unexpected. Without warning, the pawgor averted its eyes… then it slowly walked forward, dragging its left rear leg, which appeared, now that they saw it, to have been grievously wounded. The pawgor might have been in a fight with another pawgor… or it might have been wounded by a falling tree or attacked by flesh-eating rob-jetta bats as it slept… or any of a million other things that could befall even the mightiest creatures of the always-dangerous Nan-Torel. But today, this pawgor clearly did not intend to fight unless it was provoked. And Max and Michael had no desire to provoke it.

The pawgor walked to the edge of the bog and, without ever looking back, simply laid down and rolled into the water, sinking immediately out of sight in the dark bog. It looked like some kind of strange suicide, but Max and Michael knew better.

“Zorel…” Max called. Zorel came running.

“How long will it take that pawgor to heal… till it comes back out?”

Zorel shrugged. “A few hours, at least… maybe a whole day… I think.”

“Good. Let’s be gone before it comes back out all fixed up like new and hungry again, okay?”

Everyone was nodding.

“Lead the way,” Max said to Zorel. “You kids are the ones who know how to get back out of here.” Zorel smiled and hurried off down the trail, and Max and the others followed, leaving the black bog and its mysteries behind them.

They had walked for almost an hour along the trail when Maya suddenly stopped and let out a small cry. Liz immediately rushed to her daughter’s side…

“Maya? What’s wrong, Honey? Did something happen?”

Maya shook her head. “They’re coming back.”

“Who’s coming back,” Liz asked, as Max and Michael gathered around them with the others.

“Kivar… and the shadow shifters. They’re coming back.”

Liz gasped and looked up at the sky, but the ship was still too far away to see… wherever it was.

“Can I do the mind warp,” Jiba asked.

Max looked at the sky and thought about it, but only for a brief moment. Then he nodded to Jiba. “Do it. Let me know if they go away or if they keep coming.”

“They always go away,” Zorel said. “Jiba scares them.”

Max nodded. “I know, but I just have a bad feeling about it this time. Kivar is evil, but he’s not stupid. He will figure out that the illusions are only a mind warp eventually… and when he does, he won’t go away.”


<center> <<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>> </center>

As Max spoke, half a light year away, in space, a different conversation was taking place…

“Lord Kivar, we are two veskits from Antar. You requested that I let you know when we had reached this point.”

“Very good, Bezto.”

Kivar waved his hand dismissively at the captain of his shadow shifter minions then walked to the fore window of his ship and stood there, gazing into space, with his hands behind his back. Exactly three minutes later, as expected, Antar came into sight. At the speed the ship was traveling, it took only another two and a half minutes to reach the atmosphere. Kivar nodded and smiled.

“They’ve begun. They know we’re coming, Bezto. Look at my planet… enveloped in dark clouds and electrical storms that would scare off the most fearless of travelers. Actually, I kind of like it, you know, in a way. I wish I could keep the one who is doing this. Her illusions could be… useful.”

“You can do that,” Bezto said frankly. “I am still not convinced that Dunjin has given you correct information, but if one of the children is creating these… manifestations… why not just take the child and train it as your own. My army and I will eliminate the others.”

Kivar sighed. “If it were only so easy, Bezto. These children are not just any children. They’re the offspring of Zan and Rath… and the other royals. They will fight together… and die together. I am under no illusions that one can be willingly separated from the others.”

“I didn’t say that it would have to be willingly, Lord Kivar. Simply take the child. I know you have very effective methods for altering the minds and thoughts of your enemies. I am certain that in no time the child will be calling you father and doing your bidding… quite happily.”

“Perhaps,” Kivar said, mulling the thought over in his mind. “But it is also possible that she will become a useless shell, her brain burned out by the… methods I use.”

“I don’t see a problem,” Bezto said. “In that case, you simply discard her. You will be no worse off for having tried.”

Kivar was silent. Clearly, Bezto’s words had caused him to consider the possibility, though he still considered the success of such a gambit a long shot.

“Very well, Bezto. Find the girl. Bring her to me and kill the rest. Dispose of them as you see fit. Some of them are hybridized and may not disintegrate properly.”

Bezto nodded and smiled. “It will be as you wish, my lord.”

“Take the air skimmer and leave now… Take two… no, three… of your shadow shifters with you. That should be enough to capture one little girl.” Kivar stared at Bezto defiantly, as though daring him to contradict him, but Bezto only nodded and smiled. He had no doubt whatsoever that with three of his shadow shifters or alone, he would have no problem at all capturing Jiba and terminating the others. They were, after all, mere children… and an inferior race. To the shadow shifters, all other races were inferior, including Kivar himself, but some exceptions had to be tolerated for expediency.

Bezto left Kivar’s presence and immediately departed from the ship with two of his shadow shifters. Two would be more than enough. Of this, he was quite certain. Kivar, meanwhile, remained in front of the window, admiring the fury of Jiba’s storms, which increased mightily the closer the ship came to Antar.

“It’s about time for some fireworks,” Kivar mused aloud, “A few fireballs and maybe some crashing meteors…” As if on cue, several meteors appeared at once, all heading in the direction of Kivar’s ship.

“So predictable,” Kivar sighed. “I don’t know how I was ever fooled by these childish tricks. Where are the fireballs?”

As he looked, fireballs broke off from the meteors and sped toward the ship. But this time, instead of taking evasive action and fleeing as in the past, Kivar stood his ground and smiled. Kor’Voyl, the sub-captain of the shadow shifters, who had just appeared on the bridge, watched, too, somewhat more nervously, and several other shadow shifters standing near the door watched very nervously. Suddenly three of the fireballs struck the ship, causing near panic among the shadow shifters at the door and causing Kor’Voyl to swallow and close his eyes momentarily, but Kivar only smiled. The fireballs passed right through the ship without causing any damage…

“You see, Kor’Voyl? Dunjin was right. It’s all illusions. None of it can harm us.

The shadow shifter sub-captain smiled… in the strange way that shadow shifters smiled… but he did smile. At that moment, the first of the three meteors crashed head on into the ship… and disappeared into nothingness. Again, much to Kivar’s pleasure, the ship was untouched.

There was nothing that pleased Kivar more than always being right… unless it was always getting his way, but that was almost a given. Always being right was harder.

Within moments, the other two meteors crashed into the ship, too… with the same result… nothing. For a few brief moments, Kivar was almost giddy with the knowledge that he would soon have complete control of Antar, finally and decisively, and the children who had been a thorn in his side for so long would be gone… dealt with… equally finally and decisively.

“Lord Kivar, another meteor is coming,” Kor’Voyl said, pointing into the distance. “It’s bigger than the other three.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Kivar replied, grinning with anticipation. “An illusion is an illusion, whether it’s the size of a fireball, a meteor, or a planet… Ignore it.”

Kor’Voyl watched nervously as the meteor grew larger… and closer…

“This one looks different…”

“Of course it looks different! You don’t think she would try the same illusions again, do you? Even a child has more brains than you, Kor’Voyl! She’s varying her arsenal. It doesn’t matter. Illusions are illusions.”

Kor’Voyl shook his head. “This one looks different, Lord Kivar!”

Kivar sighed. “How?”

Kor’Voyl shook his head… “I… I’m not sure. The others increased in size at irregular intervals… They seemed to suddenly get a little larger every few seconds or so… but this one is increasing in size with regularity.”

Kivar nodded and smiled. “She’s learning! Bravo! She may be more useful to me than I thought… I hope she survives the brain purges.”

Kivar and Kor’Voyl watched, as the meteor tumbled through the sky toward the ship, growing larger and larger. It was traveling fast… incredibly fast… and now they could see that it was easily three times the size of the ship. As the meteor reached them, Kivar thought, for the briefest of moments, that he could feel heat radiating outward in front of it.


<center> <<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>> </center>

Near the edge of the Nan-Torel below, a small group of individuals looked upward, watching the fireworks. When Kivar’s ship had appeared in the sky, far in the distance, a couple of minutes earlier, Jiba had begun throwing her illusions at it.

“Ooh, look at that one!” little Jayyd yelled, pointing at the large meteor when it appeared in the distant sky.”

“I like that one,” Zorel said, patting Jiba on the back. “It tumbles. It’s awesome!”

Jiba shook her head. “I didn’t make that one.”

Everyone turned to look at Jiba. “What do you mean, you didn’t make that one,” Michael asked.

“I didn’t make it. It’s real, I think.”

“I think I made it,” Andya said, looking sheepish.

The others turned to Andya. “I didn’t know you could make illusions,” Zorel said, surprised.

“I can’t,” Andya said.

“But she can create real animals… well, almost real,” Liz said.

“Yeah, she does that good!” Zorel agreed.

Max looked at the meteor. It was moving incredibly fast. It would collide with Kivar’s ship in twenty seconds or less, Max estimated… if Kivar didn’t move his ship fast.

“Is that meteor solid,” Max asked Andya. “I mean, will it be like the illusions or will it… you know…?”

“It’s solid, I think,” Andya said. “I never created an inanimate object before, so I’m not sure.”

Michael raised his eyebrows. “Well, for an inanimate object, that one is pretty animated. It’s really trucking!” Michael started to count down, and everyone held their breath…

“Ten, nine, eight, seven…”

“Ooh, this is gonna be big!” Zorel said.

“Three, two, one…”

The sky lit up in a huge fireball, and there was a blinding light that forced everyone to cover their eyes, as the meteor struck the ship head on. Michael could picture Kivar standing there, staring at the huge rock, as it literally rolled over him.

But when they looked up again, the sky was clearing already. The flames and blinding light were dissipating, and the remnants of the huge meteor winked out and disappeared just like all the illusions had before.

“Where’s the ship,” Liz asked.

“I don’t see it,” Max said.

“I don’t think we’re going to,” Michael mused.

“But the meteor vanished,” Kyle said. “It wasn’t real.”

Michael nodded. “It was real enough… when it rolled over Kivar. Andya got rid of what was left of it after it broke up from the explosion of the ship.”

“I didn’t want the pieces to hit Antar,” Andya said.

Max smiled. “That was very good thinking, Andya. Excellent thinking! I’m going to have to make you my special defense minister… of inanimate and animate creations.”

Andya smiled.

“And you,” Max said to Jiba. “I’m going to have to make you my special defense minister of most awesome illusions.”

“What about me?” Zorel asked.

Max nodded and grinned. “You can be the protector of the black bog and royal Nan-Torel guide.”

“Awesome!” Zorel exclaimed.

Max turned to Danyy… “And since you heard the pawgors’ thoughts and found out about the black bog in the first place, you will be my new minister of pawgor communications and black bog therapy.”

Danyy grinned. “Awesome!”

“Don’t start any HMO’s,” Alex joked.

Danyy looked puzzled.

“Never mind,” Alex said with a grin. “It was a joke.”



<center>End of chapter 11

tbc…</center>


Coming up: Lest we forget about Bezto…

[Island Breeze]

<center>Sliding Into Antar</center>


>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

The Shadow

Chapter 12

XII

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>


“Zorel, as my new royal Nan-Torel guide, I’m giving you a job… Lead us home.”

“Yes, sir, Uncle Max! I mean… yes, sir… King… Zan… sir…”

Max smiled. “Uncle Max will be fine, Zorel… for you and all the children.”

“Yes, sir, Uncle Max!”

Zorel turned and walked down the path. “We’re almost out of the Nan-Torel now, Uncle Max. It’s only a few more minutes.”

“Good,” Max said. “I’m looking forward to getting back to the palace. I have this odd feeling like I’ve been gone for a long time.”

Liz smiled and nodded, taking Max’s arm in hers and holding on to it. Everyone knew what Max was feeling… They felt it, too. It was eerie waking up as though it were only the next day, yet somehow knowing… and feeling… deep inside… that a considerable amount of time had actually passed while they “slept.” Of course, the feeling had been confirmed by the children and the group from the New Granolith.

“Max… is there something strange about the shadows in the Nan-Torel,” Isabel asked nervously. “I keep seeing shadows in the trees where there shouldn’t be shadows… I think.”

Max looked around, clearly concerned. His mind still retained memories of his killer…

Max had walked right up to the wall and touched it, thinking that there was a light stain on the wall that would need to be cleaned. He had never even suspected that anything sinister was afoot. Max had been the first one killed. The shadow shifter had simply emerged from the wall like a shadow and fired a type of pulse beam into Max’s head at point blank range before Max realized what was happening. Max felt a sharp pain, as part of his brain exploded inside his head, then nothing… until he woke up… nothing, at least, that he remembered now. Only feelings.

“I saw a shadow on that tree over there just a moment ago,” Alex said, pointing the tree out for Max. Max nodded and glanced at Michael. Michael nodded back. Then both of them raised their hands and fired two blasts into the tree. The tree slowly fell over and crashed to the ground… but the shadow remained standing.

Not for long.

Lending their doubles a hand… literally… Max and Michael from the New Granolith both fired blasts directly into the stunned shadow, and it caught fire and began to burn like an oily rag, which, in a strange way, it somewhat resembled.

Now, there was no longer any doubt. The shadow shifters were back… and they were among them. Max had no way of knowing… no idea at all… how many of them there might be. But he wasn’t taking any chances. Not after what the shadow shifters had already proven themselves capable of… not with the lives of all the children and his entire circle of friends in his hands and in jeopardy. Michael seemed to have the same thought as Max. Both of them turned to the group…

“Go back! Go back into the Nan-Torel, everybody!”

“I don’t think they’ll follow us in very far,” Max said, “Most beings have a deathly fear of the Nan-Torel.”

Michael nodded. “I’m surprised they came in this far.”

Together, Max and Michael rushed everyone back down the trail in the direction of the bog. For fifteen minutes, they saw no more shadows that looked out of place, but then Zorel spotted something high in a tree. It looked like a rob-jetta bat, swooping from one tree to another, but Zorel had never seen a rob-jetta in this sector of the Nan-Torel…

“Dad,” Zorel said, tugging on Michael’s arm and pointing into the tree. Michael saw it and nodded. A moment later, a blast from the palm of Michael’s hand sent the “rob-jetta” tumbling and spiraling to the ground. Two Maxes, two Michaels, and two Jim Valentis were immediately on top of the black form, which writhed eerily on the ground for several moments before turning back into its natural form, something between an oily rag and an oily humanoid.

The shadow shifter must have thought he was seeing double as he opened his eyes, though it is possible that he had already figured out that there were two of each of them, since he had been following them for some time already in the tree tops.

“Kivar is dead,” Michael said emphatically, in case the shadow shifter had not seen what happened. “You don’t have a master anymore. What do you want with us?”

The shadow shifter writhed again, momentarily attempting… unsuccessfully… to change its shape, before answering in defeat, but still with the false pride and superior attitude typical of his species… “Kivar is not my master.”

“You serve him blindly… You do his bidding,” Michael said, “That makes him your master.”

“Convenience,” the shadow shifter mumbled, “Kivar has power. We want it.”

“Not now he doesn’t,” Jim said. “He’s splattered all over the front of an asteroid… along with his ship. I don’t think you want to be like him.”

“We saw what happened,” the shadow shifter muttered, “But we did not need Kivar. He needed us.”

“Symbiotic parasites,” Kyle said, “That’s what you both are… or were… symbiotic parasites. You fed off of each other… But you don’t have Kivar anymore.”

“How many of you are there here on Antar right now,” Jim asked.

The shadow shifter did not reply.

“Oh well,” Michael said, raising his palm and aiming it at the dark form on the ground. “I guess you saw what happened to your companion back there. What are you guys made of… oil and gas?”

The shadow shifter writhed on the ground, clearly appearing to be distressed. He attempted yet again to shift but apparently still could not change his form. Michael’s power blast had stunned and addled him too deeply.

“There are fifty-three of us,” the shadow shifter replied. It was a half-truth. There had been fifty-three, but fifty of them were on the ship when it was demolished. One more had burned up after being hit by Max and Michael’s power blast. There was only this one left now… and one other one that was still at large. But Max and Michael had no way of knowing this.

“Fifty-three!” Kyle exclaimed. “What are we going to do, Max? We’ll be out here forever.”

“As long as it takes,” Michael said with determination. “If there are fifty-three, then we stay as long as it takes… till all of them are dead. We get them one at a time if we have to.” Michael raised his hand again. “We can make that fifty-two right now.”

“No!” the shadow shifter yelled, cringing. “No… I can give you information… information you need.”

“What information would you have that we would care about,” Michael asked, pretending disinterest.

“How many of us there are… still alive… and who it is.”

Michael lowered his hand, and the glow in his palm ebbed… “Alright… tell me… but make it convincing. I’m getting tired of discharging like this. I need to blast something. It’s frustrating getting all up and then having to hold it.”

A smile tugged at the corner of Max’s mouth, but he struggled to maintain his stern look.

“There is only me left… and Bezto,” the shadow shifter said, “The others were all… on the ship.”

“Well, that’s better odds,” Kyle said. “Maybe we won’t have to be out here forever after all.”

“But can we trust him,” Alex asked, “I know I don’t.”

“I don’t either,” Max said, “But I have a gut feeling that he’s telling us the truth. I don’t know why.”

“It doesn’t matter,” the shape shifter said, “Bezto will kill all of you. You will not be able to find Bezto… or defeat him. He will be there when you least expect it. He will come from nowhere. He will be unseen… until it is too late.”

“We’ll see,” Michael said. “We’ll see.”

Michael had barely spoken when the ground rose up at his feet, and his own shadow lunged at him, grabbing him around the throat. There was a knife in its left hand. Michael saw it coming but didn’t have time to react. The knife came up and passed across Michael’s throat with a speed that was unexpected. Fortunately, Max saw it coming, too, and from where he was standing, he WAS able to react in time. A blast of power sheared off a small portion of the attacking shadow and sent it scurrying into the trees. It had left Michael bleeding from a serious, but not fatal, gash that Max was able to quickly heal, even as Michael protested that he deserved it. Michael was furious with himself for not getting the creature, and Max was annoyed at himself for not making a direct hit, but he had been concerned that he might hit Michael by accident. He was, after all, trying to kill Michael’s shadow, as weird as that seemed.

Even worse, Michael looked around and discovered that the other shadow shifter had disappeared while they had been distracted by Bezto. That fact, on top of everything else, probably would have elicited some interesting word choices from Michael’s occasionally interesting vocabulary; but before that could happen, he got a glimpse of something shadowy flying through the trees. Unexpectedly, it turned and headed straight for him. This time Michael WAS ready, and he spun toward the attacker and blasted it. It was a perfect, dead center shot. A huge hole opened up in the center of the oily creature and began to burn, quickly consuming the shadowy mass, which Max and Michael could now see was the one they had had on the ground and not Bezto.

“Wow, that felt so good,” Michael said, looking relieved.

Max smiled. “Would you like a cigarette?”

Michael gave Max a strange look. “Max, you’re losing it.”

“Just checking,” Max said.

“Do you still believe him,” Alex asked Max. “Do you think that Bezto is the last one left?”

“I don’t know,” Max said honestly. “These shadow shifters have pursued us deep into the Nan-Torel. There’s almost nothing that will come in here… even them, usually. I just don’t know what they’re capable of anymore.”

Max turned to Michael… “Let’s get everybody back to the bog. If someone does get hurt, you’ll be able to do something about it… if something happens to me.”

“Don’t talk like that,” Liz retorted.

“Reality check,” Max said, sighing. Then he put his arm around Liz. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound harsh, but reality can be harsh, Liz. I have to face the fact that something could happen to me… and make contingency plans for the safety of the group.”

Liz put two fingers on Max’s lips… “I know… but I don’t have to like it.”

Max smiled and kissed her. “No… you don’t have to like it. But I don’t intend to just roll over, Liz. They’ll have to drag me down fighting if they get me again. I promise you that.”

As the group walked on toward the bog, the conversation dwelt on the eerie way the shadow shifter had simply replaced Michael’s shadow. It unnerved them all, and more than once, each one found himself or herself staring suspiciously at his or her own shadow. The children seemed especially concerned about their shadows, occasionally jumping on them or kicking them… Liz and Max’s son, Alyyx, pelted his shadow with rocks from time to time… just to be sure.

They all knew that, somewhere out there, Bezto was watching and waiting for just the right moment to strike again. It wasn’t a question of “if” but of “when.”

“I don’t understand what Bezto has to gain from killing us now,” Alex said. “Kivar’s dead, so what’s his motivation, anyway?”

“I think Bezto has this pride thing,” Michael said. “He can’t let go until the job is done.”

“That’s probably true,” Jim agreed, “But I think there’s more to it than just that.”

Max nodded… “Well, the other shadow shifter did say that they wanted the power for themselves… and that they didn’t need Kivar, he needed them.”

“You think the shadow shifters want to take over Antar?” Isabel asked.

“I think that’s a very real possibility,” Max said. “At least, I think Bezto wants to take over Antar.”

Michael nodded. “I have to agree. Bezto wants something, and it has to be big. He doesn’t bother with small potatoes. If he wants something on Antar, it’s probably Antar.”

“So he’ll keep trying to kill us… and Max, especially,” Maria surmised thoughtfully.

“I’d say that’s a pretty safe bet,” Jim agreed. “We have to get Bezto before he gets any of us. If we get Bezto, now that his army’s gone, too, there won’t be any more shadow shifters left here… and I don’t think the ones back on their planet will bother coming here again.”

“Unless another Kivar or Bezto comes along someday,” Alex said.

Max nodded. “But Jim’s right. If we get Bezto, we’ll probably have peace on Antar, now that Kivar is gone.”

“Peace… without Kivar… without shadow shifters…” Isabel mused longingly. “Can it possibly be true? I’ve dreamed of that.”

“On our Antar in our dimension, Alex from the New Granolith said, “we have had peace ever since Kivar was killed. There have been other problems, especially from the Ghors, but basically, our planet has been at peace… And largely because of Michael, we have over three hundred new allied planets now. The strength of our peace has never been greater than it is today.”

Max from the present dimension turned and looked at Alex. “I long for the day when I can say that. We have had relative peace here since Kivar was sent packing, but he’s made other attempts to return. The threat has always been at our doorstep, and then, of course… this happened.” Max was referring to their murders at the hands of the shadow shifters. “Maybe now that Kivar is gone, finally, we can have a real and lasting peace.”

As Max spoke, Varec and Amy’s daughter, Liz-Jolee, began jumping on her shadow.

“I thought I saw it move.”

“Were you moving when you saw it move?” Varec asked with a smile.

Liz-Jolee nodded.

“It’s all right,” Amy said, picking Liz-Jolee up, “We’re all a little spooked by everything right now.

Alyyx looked around for several stones that were just the right size and threw them at Liz-Jolee and Amy’s shadow, but they were only shadows. He noticed another large stone and picked it up to throw it, too, but this one failed to fly out of his hand. Instead, Alyyx Evans found himself in the clutches of Bezto, who had been lying on the path waiting, in the form of a stone… the precise type and size of stone that the boy had been picking up and throwing at shadows as he walked. Bezto had been watching and plotting. And now he had his bait.

Bezto did not wait to be hit by another power blast from Max or Michael. Holding the child close to him to dissuade them from firing at him, he quickly leapt behind a large boulder with his hostage. Max and Michael both knew that they could easily blast the boulder apart, but that might kill Alyyx.

“Give us the boy,” Michael yelled. “He’s not the one you want. Take me.”

Maria gasped and held tightly onto Michael’s arm, but she didn’t say anything.

“The boy is mine,” Bezto said from behind the boulder. “I will kill him at my leisure.”

“No! Don’t!” Max yelled, swallowing hard, as Liz held his arm and cried, terrified for her son’s safety.

“I could be convinced to let him go… if you were to take his place, Zan.”

“I’ll take his place,” Liz cried. “Take me and let him go.”

Max shook his head at Liz and hugged her, then he released her and walked toward the boulder himself. At the same time, he looked at Michael, and Michael nodded, understanding.

Bezto smiled to himself, seeing his plan coming together. What Bezto did not notice was Max and Michael’s signals… He also did not notice two children whispering to each other.

Danyy smiled and nodded at Andya, and Andya closed her eyes and concentrated. Then Danyy concentrated, too.

Suddenly, a 14-foot-long red snake with a light mint-green belly, an electric blue zigzag pattern on its sides, and small, brightly glowing luminescent greenish spots all over fell out of the tree behind Bezto, landing right on his unsuspecting shoulders. The snake immediately slid down over Bezto’s arms, pinning them to his sides.

Bezto struggled unsuccessfully to get free, and in his struggling, he accidentally managed to cause the tip of the snake’s tail to touch its head, forming a complete circuit. As soon as this happened, the entire snake lit up like an atom bomb that had just exploded, throwing a roaring sheet of flames high into the air… a sheet of flames so intense that it went right through both Bezto and Alyyx’s bodies, allowing everyone to actually see Alyyx’s skeleton and Bezto’s odd interior physiology in a sort of X-ray effect… and making it momentarily appear that both had been vaporized. This elicited gasps from most of the group…

Slowly, both Alyyx and Bezto returned to their normal opaque state, and the radiation-like glow all over their bodies started to subside. Completely freaked out by what had just happened, Bezto shapeshifted into a small bat, slipped out of the snake’s noose, and flew off, disappearing before Max or Michael could hit him with a power blast.

“Damn!” Michael exclaimed, throwing a blast that incinerated the top of the tree that Bezto had just flown over, but missing Bezto. Max, meanwhile, ran to check Alyyx out. Liz was already at Alyyx’s side, and both were sure that Alyyx was going to need Max’s medical attention in a very big way after what had just happened. To their shock and amazement, Alyyx was fine… and the snake had mysteriously disappeared.

“I don’t understand,” Liz said, looking their son over, “He’s not burned or hurt at all… not that I can see.” Max shook his head, speechless.

“I think I can explain it,” the other Max, from the New Granolith, said, “What you just saw was an Antarian Nan-Torel green-spotted fire snake. Jim can tell you about them. He had one on his TV program, ‘Jungle Jim,’ that’s been running on our Antar for a while now.”

Jim nodded… “The flash of fire the fire snake gives off is actually not fire but a massive burst of radiation coupled with a sensory boost produced by a small organ in the snake’s brain that allows it to intensify the visual effect of its display in susceptible brains… like ours… and apparently, Bezto’s. When the fire snake gives off its flash of radiation, it sends out a powerful signal from its brain at the same time that causes a predator to see the radiation flash as flames. The flash is real, but it wouldn’t be visible, or certainly not as impressive, without the sensory boost from the snake’s mind. If the flames were real fire, the fire snakes would burn the Nan-Torel down.”

Jim was trying to explain the mechanism of the snake’s awesome display but was drawing blank stares from most of those there, who had never seen his show in their dimension.

“It can be lethal to smaller animals and to some larger animals with susceptible nervous systems,” Jim continued, “But it’s not lethal to humans or Antarians… as long as we’re in Antar’s atmosphere, which counteracts much of the radiation’s effects. On Earth, this amount of radiation would probably have killed them.”

“Are there a lot of these snakes around here,” Max asked Zorel.

Zorel smiled. “We’ve only seen two or three. Andya made this one with her mind… and Danyy told it what to do.”

Max turned to Andya and Danyy… “You did that?”

“Was it okay, Dad,” Andya asked sheepishly.

Max looked at her sternly then smiled. “Well, Michael and I did have a plan to get Bezto, but it was risky. Someone might have got hurt. You got Alyyx away from him without Alyyx or anyone else getting hurt. Thank you! You guys are pretty awesome!”

Andya and Danyy both grinned from ear to ear.

“We can make more fire snakes whenever you want them,” Andya said.

Max shook his head. “I’ve had enough fire snake excitement for today, AnDasniya… but thanks. I’ll keep it in mind in case I need one anytime.”

“Max, do you think we got rid of Bezto,” Tess asked, “I mean, do you think he’ll come back again?”

“No and yes… in that order,” Max replied solemnly. “He’ll try again. We can count on it. Until we get him, we will never be safe, I’m sorry to say. Bezto is like a Gorvian chogo. When a chogo clamps its jaws down on you, the only way to get it loose is to remove the jaws from the chogo and pry them apart… after the chogo is dead. That’s Bezto. He won’t let go… ever.”

Nobody seemed happy to hear Max say this, but it was what all of them either knew or suspected already.

The group walked on toward the bog for another thirty minutes, with everyone on hyper alert for any sign at all of Bezto’s presence, but no one saw any trace of him.

“There’s the bog,” Zorel said, pointing ahead about a hundred feet. Max nodded and walked to the edge of the bog. Then he stood there, looking at the black waters, and thinking.

“What are we going to do if we don’t find Bezto,” Alex asked.

Max shook his head silently.

“We won’t find him,” Michael said, “He’ll find us. We just have to be ready.”

“Jiba, can you make us all invisible now,” Max asked, “So that Bezto can’t see us?”

Jiba nodded enthusiastically and concentrated momentarily, then she opened her eyes. “It’s done.”

“I still see everybody,” Max said.

Jiba nodded. “We can see each other, but anybody else won’t be able to see us.”

Max walked over to the spot where they had crossed the water and bent down to feel the stepping stone just beneath the surface.

“Do you think he could be masquerading as one of the stepping stones,” Kyle asked.

Max nodded. “Bezto could be anything. We won’t know what he is or where he is until he pops out.” Max poked at the stepping stone with a stick. It appeared to be only a stone, though he couldn’t see it. In any case, there was no reaction when Max poked it, so he proceeded to step onto the second stone and poke it, too. Again, he got no reaction. Max stepped onto the third, then the fourth, then the fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth stones, poking each one as he went, with no reaction. He looked back at the others, from the center of the bog, and shrugged.

“Max, look!” Michael yelled, pointing across the bog toward the other side. Max turned around and looked where Michael had pointed. It was the pawgor that had gone into the bog earlier that day, the one with the injured leg, coming out of the bog, and its leg looked totally healthy now. So, unfortunately, did its appetite. Standing in the middle of the bog, Max froze, as the pawgor sniffed the air. He was unsure whether the pawgor could see through Jiba’s mind warp or not, but he suspected that a major movement might be perceived by the cat, even if only by dispersing his smell into the wind for the cat to pick up.

“Oh oh,” Michael whispered, “It’s hungry. It’s looking for food. Stay very, very still, Max.”

Max couldn’t hear what Michael said; Michael didn’t expect him to. It was merely a thought… expressed out loud… if only in a whisper.

Sniffing the air, then the ground, the pawgor found an inoffensive wiffer, a large armored turtle-like creature that hides underground, just beneath the surface, in the Nan-Torel. The saber-toothed cat dug the wiffer out of its hiding place then nudged it, turning it upside down in an effort to get at the animal inside the armored shell. Crushing the shell would not be a problem for the pawgor. With its two huge front teeth and vice-like jaws, it could make short work of the wiffer’s shell, and it would if it was unable to get at the animal any easier way.

The pawgor was patient, but it was also hungry. It managed to get a hold of the wiffer’s front leg and pull it out of the shell, but the wiffer quickly reclaimed its leg and pulled it back into the shell. The pawgor had waited long enough for its meal. It stretched out on the ground, held the wiffer between its front paws, and used its huge front teeth to literally pry the top part of the shell from the bottom part. The shell burst open, exposing the pawgor’s meal… but it was not the meal that the pawgor had expected. The succulent white meat of this wiffer was neither succulent nor white, but dark and oily… and the creature mutated rapidly, suddenly rising up and becoming a man-sized object. The pawgor grabbed it with sharp claws, ripping the dark, oily creature almost in half, as the creature tried unsuccessfully to escape…

Already injured, and unable to shift his entire body to another form again, Bezto tried to run. That in itself was a major mistake, as Jim could have told him had he asked. Jim had once said that anything running was pawgor food.

Bezto tried to fight back, quickly producing a large knife by shapeshifting --It was actually a part of his arm-- but it was no match for the pawgor. A shrill scream pierced the air of the Nan-Torel, as the pawgor grabbed Bezto and shook him violently, shredding him into small pieces that floated on the wind and came to rest on the ground all around the huge cat.

The pawgor sniffed at the shreds of what had once been the prince of the shadow shifters. It didn’t seem too impressed by the smell, but it was hungry, so it ate some of the pieces anyway. They didn’t stay down long. Hacking like a cat with a hairball, the pawgor ejected the shredded pieces, along with its other meager stomach contents.

Across the bog, Alex watched and smiled sympathetically… “Yeah, I know! Hospital food sucks, doesn’t it!”



<center>End of chapter 12

tbc…</center>

[Island Breeze]

<center>Sliding Into Antar</center>


>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

A New Age Dawns

Chapter 13

XIII

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>


“To our new friends from across the dimensions… however many dimensions it may be and however far from here their Antar may lie… may our hearts and thoughts bind us together now and till the end of time,” King Zan said, raising his goblet in a toast.

“Hear! Hear!” Alex seconded, raising his goblet to Isabel’s, as the rest of the royal group and friends raised theirs, too, in joyous agreement.

“And may our doubles have long, healthy, happy, prosperous lives wherever they may go in their travels,” Michael added, clinking his goblet against Maria’s.

“Hear! Hear!” several people said at once.

It was a joyous occasion, as everyone sat around the large royal dining table together, enjoying the finest Antarian foods and jubish, an Antarian wine-like drink, for the first time in seven months. And the meal had an added atmosphere of celebration because their doubles were present… the doubles who were at least partly responsible for their being alive now. After all, it was Max from the other dimension who had healed many of them… and it was Max and Michael who had made Kryys aware of his own incredible healing abilities so that he could heal the others.

Kryys’ contribution had not been forgotten either… nor had those of the other children…

“To Kryys Guerin!” Zan said, raising his goblet again… “For healing me and many of the other parents. You have an awesome ability, Kryys! Thank you… from all of us!”

(Alyyx Evans sneaked his hand under the table, smiling innocently.)

“And to Jiba, Danyy, Zorel, Maya, Andya, JoLeesa, Alyyx, Taz, Jayyd, Liz-Jolee, Drel, Mareeya, Ceelya, Rayyn… have I forgotten anyone?”

(Alyyx shook his head, still smiling innocently, and pulled his empty hand back out from under the table.)

Zan looked around the table and smiled, as he saw the grinning faces of each one of the children. “I think after the last two seasons and three days… actually, four days, now… you have all become something more than the children you were before this happened, and you’ve earned the right to join us at the big table during formal meals at the palace where everyone else is present. You were forced to survive without us for two seasons and three days… almost seven months. And you did better than just survive. You drove Kivar and his shadow shifters away and protected Antar and our people from them when they tried to return, and you saved me and all the other parents here by taking us to the healing place, a place that I was not even aware existed until we woke up there. So, Danyy Valenti… here’s to you for discovering the healing place… Zorel Guerin… here’s to you for guiding us through the Nan-Torel and for holding everyone together as a group… Jiba… here’s to you for the most awesome illusions I’ve ever witnessed anywhere…”

“Hear! Hear!” both Max and Michael from the other dimension said at the same time, raising their goblets with a grin.

“Maya Evans… here’s to you,” Zan continued, “For using your mental ability to find out when Kivar was coming before he got here… and Andya Evans… here’s to you for creating wild animals to help scare Kivar away the first time… and for a totally and outrageously awesome asteroid… which some of our people, I hear, are already calling ‘the Kivar petard’ and ‘the Kivar Avengerstar.’”

There were a lot of nods and chuckles around the table, and everyone raised his or her goblet again, as they had done each time another name had been mentioned.

“And to all of you, here’s to you… our children,” Zan said, “For staying together and being an unconquerable force for good while we were away, uh… sleeping.”

Zan raised his goblet, and the children grinned. Some of them raised their own glasses, which contained a special mixture of Indigo Grape Snapple, Agave Cactus Snapple, Cherry Coke, and a dash of Tabasco, all flavors that the Antarian scientists had copied from Earth drinks brought back to Antar by Michael. The children absolutely loved the mixture and always asked for it at parties. And this was definitely a party… or at least a major celebration.

“To a new beginning!” Liz said, “And freedom from the threat of Kivar ever returning again.”

“I’ll toast to that!” Maria and Isabel both said at the same time, raising their goblets high. They were quickly joined in by everyone else.

(Danyy nonchalantly slipped his hand under the table, all the time looking straight ahead and smiling as the grownups spoke.)

“So what do you plan to do next,” Zan asked his double.

Max smiled and shook his head. “We’re going home, we hope. That’s where we thought we were when we came here. We didn’t know this was another alternate dimension until we saw the children and figured out that something more than the weather was wrong here.”

“I’ve been thinking about that,” Varec said, “I have a couple of theories about why we went off course. My thinking at the moment is that the four individuals who called themselves sliders may have had something to do with it. I’m working on that as the most likely theory.”

“But you can get us back on course, right?” Michael said.

“I should be able to,” Varec replied, but his tone did not sound particularly optimistic.

“Well,” Michael said, shrugging and turning back to the others, “Varec will get us back. I have complete faith in him.”

“What I want to know,” Liz said, turning to Tess, “…is, what in the name of Antar possessed you to jump into the black bog, when we still had no idea what was going on there. You might have drowned!”

Tess smiled. “Jiba jumped in. We have a bond.”

“Well, yeah, I know,” Liz said, “I have a mother’s bond with Maya and my other children, but these weren’t OUR children really… they were our children’s doubles.”

Tess sighed and nodded. “I know… but I still felt something. I knew that Jiba was totally unafraid when she jumped in… I felt it… and I knew that she would be all right… and that I would be all right.”

“Must be a side effect of the mind warp ability you and Jiba share,” Kyle said.

(Jayyd giggled and peeked under the table then slipped her hand under the table and back out quickly, looking straight ahead and smiling.)

Tess nodded, then she looked at Liz again… “I have a question for you, Liz. Maya, Andya, JoLeesa, and Alyyx are all here… I mean their doubles are here… but where is Jeffy… your baby? Is his double here? I haven’t seen him.”

Liz from this dimension caught her breath and turned to her double from the New Granolith… “You have a baby?”

“You don’t?” Liz from the New Granolith asked, but deep inside, she already knew the answer. She had known it all along… “I think Jeffy is a one world wonder,” Liz said, a bit sadly. Her double looked puzzled.

“What Elizabeth means,” Varec offered, “Is that Jeffy was created in a time bubble that no longer exists and that only ever existed in that one place and time where Jeffy was conceived and born. It ceased to exist, and… it’s very difficult to explain, but… it never existed at all.”

“That doesn’t make any sense at all,” Liz from this Antar said, trying hard to understand.

“Our Michael traveled back in time,” Liz from the New Granolith said, “And he met my double in the past. It was a screwed up timeline, and Max, Michael, and the others didn’t exist in it… and I was about to marry some jerk professor who had been stealing my research to get himself ahead, but our Michael showed up and kind of put a stop to the wedding. Anyway, Max was in a different time or something entirely, and like I said, he didn’t exist in my double’s screwed up timeline. Time and everything had been all messed up by some guys called the Nogi-K’ya. We thought Michael did it, but it was them. Anyway, I was curious about what Max looked like, after Michael told me about him and convinced me that he was supposed to be my husband, so I called the sphere of the portal… Michael had shown me that it would answer to me… and I went to meet Max. I returned the same day to my own time by coming back in time again. But I had stayed with Max for a whole year in the other timeline, and we had Jeffy. I meant to return to Max right away, but then everything changed again and the time bubble that Max was in disappeared. At first, I didn’t remember having Jeffy, because when the time bubble ceased to exist, it never happened. With the timeline thing straightened out, I returned to my real timeline with Max and our children… or became one with myself in the real timeline. I think that’s actually what happened… but I couldn’t forget my baby.”

“She knew there was something terribly important that she was supposed to remember,” Michael said, “And it was killing her. Eventually, she remembered. The Nogi-K’ya told her that Jeffy never existed, but Liz couldn’t accept that. My son, Kryys, found him by going into the river of time, and he found a way to get him back and bring him home to her.”

“Wow! I have a baby brother in another dimension,” Maya exclaimed. “That’s so totally awesome,” added JoLeesa. “Can we get one, too,” Andya asked.

Alyyx just wrinkled his nose, but then he smiled. “Oh, I guess I could train a new little brother.”

Liz smiled. “Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you guys, but apparently, this baby only exists in their dimension. You would have to go there to see him.” She sighed then looked at her double, as she thought about it… “Do you think that would be possible?”

Liz looked at Varec, and he shrugged and smiled. “I don’t see why not. Once we get back home, I’ll have the ship’s internal log of all the places we’ve been, and I should be able to find them again… I suppose it would be possible for us to bring them to our Antar… to meet Jeffy.”

The three girls squealed with delight, and Alyyx smiled and nodded… “Cool.”

“Of course, we have to find our way back home first,” Liz from the other dimension said.

(Ceelya pulled her hand out from under the table secretively and smiled.)

“Well, Zan said, raising his goblet again, “Here’s to all of us…” He looked at Zorel and Danyy and smiled… “And to Jung-Jo under the table!”

The children’s mouths dropped open. “You knew?” Danyy asked, surprised.

Zan nodded. “It was either that or one of you kids has been licking my feet all during the meal.”

Everyone laughed.

“I thought Zorel’s appetite was pretty hardy today,” Michael said, looking under the table. “They’ve been feeding Jung-Jo.”

Zan nodded.

“Can you let Jung-Jo stay here with us when you go home,” little Jayyd asked.

Jim from the New Granolith laughed. “I think Jung-Jo wants to get back home, too, honey. He has a family, too.”

“Whoa!” Jayyd exclaimed. “Jung-Jo is married?”

“Pawgors don’t get married, silly,” Zorel said, laughing.

“That’s true, they don’t,” Jim said. “But they do choose a mate for life. Their babies grow up and leave to make their own lives, and the mama and daddy pawgor go their separate ways for a while, but they always find each other again when… when…”

Michael leaned forward and raised his eyebrows, waiting for Jim to finish and enjoying seeing him stammer as he tried to think of the appropriate words.

“When they want to start a new family,” Jim said.

“I’m gonna miss you, Jung-Jo,” Jayyd said, lifting the table cloth to peek under the table again. A big tongue licked her face, putting a huge smile on it again, as the other children all laughed and nodded in agreement.

“Maybe Jung-Jo’s double is here on our Antar somewhere,” Alyyx said.

Jim sighed but nodded. “It’s possible. He may have survived, but he would be a fully-grown wild pawgor now. He didn’t grow up around people the way Jung-Jo did… and around Danyy, who can talk to him.”

“Our Danyy can talk to pawgors,” Maya said, “Maybe he can find him.”

Jim shook his head. “Even if you found him, remember that he would be wild. A wild pawgor is a dangerous animal.”

“Oh, I know that!” Danyy replied. “I hear their thoughts. They’re not like Jung-Jo.”

“Exactly,” Jim said. “But since you may be going into the Nan-Torel again, I should tell you what I know about pawgors. It might save your lives. If you ever see one face to face, never, ever run! Anything running is pawgor food. That’s lesson number one. Lesson number two is, drop down on all fours and stay totally still. The pawgor will sniff you and leave. Don’t get back up until he’s long gone. And lesson three, don’t ever come face to face with a wild pawgor if you can help it.”

The children all nodded.

“Good advice,” Zan said.

“And if you ever get lost in the Nan-Torel and have to sleep there,” Jim added… “First off, don’t! And second, if you do, cover yourself up with a deep layer of Ama leaves. It will keep the rob-jettas from eating you during the night.”

“Wow,” Zorel said, “You know a lot about the Nan-Torel.”

“I’ve been in it a few times,” Jim admitted, then he looked at his double and smiled.

Jim’s double nodded. “I’ve been in there a few times myself. I always wanted to go in and do some deep exploring. I had been thinking about it a lot right before Kivar’s shadow shifters showed up and ambushed us. Thanks for the tips.”

“You’re welcome,” Jim said, “There’s one other thing you should know about the Nan-Torel. The jah-ee is not just a myth. Since your Max does not have an understanding with the jah-ee’s, you will have to consider them extremely dangerous predators. They have hollow talons filled with a deadly poison for which there is no antidote except in the world beneath their island. It would really behoove you for Max to make friends with them, but I don’t know how he might do that. It was mutual need that brought the jah-ee and our Max together. And the jah-ee tried to eat him first. So beware. Do not get caught out in the open in a clearing in the Nan-Torel, especially near the river. I suspect that Zorel and the other children here can tell you a few more things about the Nan-Torel.”

“Oh, yeah!” Zorel agreed, nodding, “We can!”

“Don’t ever touch the purple bushes with the big anchor-shaped leaves,” Liz-Jolee said, “They’ll give you real bad welts all over.”

Jim from the other dimension nodded. “Those are poison guma plants.”

As Jim spoke, a huge feline head with two long saber teeth laid itself in his lap and purred. Jim smiled. “I know… we all want to get back home, don’t we, boy.”

Jung-Jo appeared to smile. It was probably his eyes. When he closed them in a contented way, it gave his entire face a smiley look.

“Jung-Jo says he’s going to miss us, too,” Danyy said, hearing the pawgor’s thoughts.


<center> <<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>> </center>

Most of Antar, it seemed, had turned out to say goodbye to the group from the other dimension as they prepared to leave their Antar and return home to their own. The New Granolith hovered on its anti-gravity docking system, waiting for the last ones to come aboard.

The group had spent the morning of their third day on this Antar receiving gifts and giving tours of the New Granolith to their doubles and to anyone else who wanted to come aboard; and that had been a steady stream of Antarians. Now, at just after high noon, they were finally ready to depart.

Liz, Maria, Isabel, Tess, and the others had all said goodbye to their doubles and to everyone else, and enough kisses and hugs had been exchanged to power the New Granolith all the way back home to their own dimension if kisses and hugs could be converted into energy. Max and Jim were the last ones out now, along with Jung-Jo, who was still frolicking with the children, giving them rides and pawgor licks. But the time had come to go, and Max nodded to Jim. Jim gave a little whistle to Jung-Jo, who came running to his side.

“Goodbye, friends,” Max said shaking his double’s hand again and hugging Liz and Maria and a few others. He looked at Jung-Jo and wondered how he was ever going to be able to extract him from all the adoring little arms holding onto him… If anyone had been a real hit here, it had been Jung-Jo with the children.

“Come on, Jung-Jo,” Jim said. We gotta go.”

Jim led Jung-Jo into the transport circle beneath the ship, and he and Max waved a final goodbye, as the transport beam took them into the ship. Moments later, the ship rose slowly from where it had been hovering… and headed out into the Antarian sky.



<center>End of chapter 13

tbc…</center>

[Island Breeze]

<center>Sliding Into Antar</center>


>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

On The
Road Again

Chapter 14

XIV

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>


On the road again!
Just can’t wait to get on the road again!
The life I love is makin' music with my friends
And I can't wait to get on the road again!

On the road again!
Goin' places that I've never been!
Seein' things that I may never see again,
And I can't wait to get on the road again!

On the road again!
Like a band of gypsies we go down the highway
We're the best of friends!

Michael leaned back in his co-pilots seat and smiled at Maria and Liz…

“Looks like we can count on music during our journey. Max and Kyle must be expanding their artistic range. First MC Hammer, now Willie Nelson. Well, no one can say they’re locked into a rut.”

Liz laughed and nodded. “I don’t know, I kind of like it myself. They’re not that bad… once you get used to them.”

“Green eggs and ham wouldn’t look that bad to someone coming out of the desert after a week,” Michael chuckled. “We’ve been deprived of real music for too long.”

Maria slapped Michael playfully on the arm. “Don’t knock Dr. Seuss. I like Dr. Seuss. And I agree with Liz, Max and Kyle are kind of… sort of… not too bad.”

“Like green eggs and ham?”

“Oh, Michael!”

On the road again!
Goin' places that I've never been!
Seein' things that I may never see again,
And I can't wait to get on the road again!

On the road again!
Like a band of gypsies we go down the highway
We're the best of friends!

Jung-Jo lifted his head and let out a softly rising aaarrrroooooooooooooooo, seeming, eerily, to harmonize with Max and Kyle.

“Okay, now, that’s an improvement!” Michael exclaimed with a big grin. “I could listen to that!”

As fate would have it, Varec walked in at that moment, effectively ending the concert. Everybody turned to Varec, waiting to see what he had to say about their futures.

Varec smiled, but Michael noticed that he also swallowed hard… “As you often ask on Eluymer, so I have heard, do you prefer the good news first or the bad news first?”

“Bad,” Michael said. “Good,” Liz and Maria both said at the same time. “Just give it all to us,” Max said.

Varec nodded. “Well, the bad news is, I don’t know exactly where we are interdimensionally, so I cannot guarantee that the next Antar we come to will be our own… or the one after that… or ever…”

“What’s the good news,” Michael asked.

“I know what happened. The New Granolith was moved off of its predetermined dimensional plane by a powerful beam composed of ions and protons… the vortex that brought the four Sliders to our ship.”

“So what do we do about it,” Max asked. “There must be a solution.”

“There is always a solution,” Varec replied. “If one can find it.”

“Then we work on that,” Max said. “We WILL get home.”

The others all nodded, and even Varec, who –usually- was too scientific-minded to be swayed by emotion, seemed oddly relieved seeing Max so emphatic that they would get home.

“Where there is conviction, there is always solution,” Varec said with a smile, switching from Antarian, which he had been speaking, to his best English.

“You mean where there’s a will there’s a way,” Maria said.

Varec nodded. “That’s what I said, isn’t it?”

Maria smiled and nodded.

Michael sat back down in his seat, leaned back, and sighed… “Well, nothing to do then but see where we wind up… and if it’s not our Antar… we refine our calculations and try again…”

He picked up a couple of wooden pointers and began beating out a hard drum beat on the console…

And the road becomes my bride
I am stripped of all but pride
So in her I do confide
And she keeps me satisfied
Gives me all I need

And with dust in throat I crave
Only knowledge will I save
To the game you stay a slave
Rover wanderer
Nomad vagabond
Call me what you will

But I'll take my time anywhere
Free to speak my mind anywhere
And I'll redefine anywhere
Anywhere I roam
Where I lay my head is home.

Jung-Jo put both paws over his head, and Michael stopped and looked at him…

“Traitor! I’ll have you know that was Metallica! That’s real music!”


<center> <<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>> </center>

Forty-eight hours later, everyone was gathered in front of the New Granolith’s large bridge window to watch, as once again the ship approached the planet Antar. There was no question it was Antar. The Golden Sea was pretty distinctive… plus, all the landmasses were right. But was it theirs? No one could say for sure.

“What do you think, Max,” Michael asked.

Max shook his head slowly and shrugged. It looked like their Antar… but so had the last one… before the storms had started. So far, there were no visible storms on this Antar. That, at least, was a good sign. Max slowed the ship and took it into the upper reaches of Antar’s atmosphere. Almost instantly, they began receiving a transmission.

“Put it on the VidScreen,” Max said, but Michael was already on it.

A young man appeared on the screen. It was Dak, the young AVMTech at the Antar Space Field outside CoruzAntar. Immediately, a cheer went up from everyone onboard the New Granolith.

“Wait,” Max said, holding up his hand, “Don’t get your hopes up too high just yet. Just because Dak is here doesn’t necessarily mean this is our Antar.”

“But it could be,” Isabel said, grinning.

Max nodded. “Yeah. It could be.”

“Identify yourself and your ship,” the young AVMTech said. Everyone’s hearts sank a bit, but they hoped that there would be some unexpected explanation for Dak’s not recognizing the New Granolith.

“I am Zan,” Max said. “Rath is with me… and my wife, Liz, and our friends. The ship is the New Granolith, our mother ship. Are you having a problem with the transponder signals, Dak?”

“No problem with the signals,” Dak said. “You will have to land at the field on the outside of CoruzAntar, on the east side of the capitol.”

“Do you know who I am, Dak,” Max asked.

“You said that you are Zan.”

“Do you know who Zan is?”

“Of course. Zan was our king. But you are not that Zan.”

“Was?”

“Before Kivar… then the regents.”

“Who?”

“The regents… Lady Vilandra and the new King of Antar.”

“The… what!”

“Omigod!” Isabel exclaimed, “Please, please, please don’t let it be Kivar!”

“Lady Vilandra… Isabel… and Alex, the King and Queen of Antar.



<center>End of chapter 14

tbc…</center>

[Island Breeze]

<center>Sliding Into Antar</center>


>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Alex & Isabel,
King & Queen Of Antar

Chapter 15

XV

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>


“Is there a problem,” the AVMTech asked.

“No… no… no… no problem,” Max stammered. “We, uh… We’ll land where you directed us to land. Is, uh… King Alex around?”

The young tech smiled. “The king has more important things to attend to than hanging around watching me work, I suspect. He may be at the palace.”

“Could you let him know that we’re here?”

“I already have,” the tech said. “The message was relayed to the palace and to his private ComServer as soon as your ship entered Antarian air space.”

“Oh… okay… well… good. Yeah, that’s… that’s… good.”

“I can’t wait to see how this all came about,” Michael said, as Max dropped back into the pilot’s seat, a stunned look on his face.


<center> <<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>> </center>

The New Granolith settled into the space designated for it at the CoruzAntar spaceport and powered down, coming to rest on its anti-gravity locks. From the bridge window, Max could see that a hover vehicle was headed toward the ship…

“I’ll go down first and make sure their friendly.”

“Like hell, you will,” Michael objected. “I’m going with you. You may need me.”

Max just nodded.

Max and Michael appeared in the transport circle beneath the ship and watched as the hover vehicle drew near. It was a Dyygitix-Sixteen. Michael looked the vehicle over, nodding appreciatively, as it approached…

“Well, somebody is either robbing the royal treasury or Antar is going through a prosperity boom,” Michael mused, “A Dyygitix-sixteen would set me back two years salary on our Antar.”

“Maybe it’s the palace car,” Max said.

Michael nodded. “Could be, I guess. Kind of small and sporty for a palace car, though.”

The Dyygitix-sixteen pulled up beside Max and Michael, and the top slid back and flipped upward then slid down into the sides of the vehicle and disappeared all in one smooth, almost fluid movement. Alex hopped out of the driver’s seat and walked up to Max and Michael, looking Max in the eyes…

“When they told me you were here, Max, I wanted to see it for myself. I’ve gotta tell you, I didn’t really believe it.” Alex glanced at the New Granolith. “Where’d you get the ship? Even I don’t have any ships that big. Don’t tell me Kivar left it on Earth. You couldn’t hide something that size.”

“You’d be surprised,” Max said, lifting his arm and speaking into his wrist ComServer… “Varec… put the invisibility shield on.”

As they watched, the New Granolith disappeared completely from sight.

Alex nodded. “I’m impressed! But I still don’t believe Kivar left it on Earth.”

Max shook his head. “Nope… you’re right… he didn’t. I had it built. That is, Michael and I had it built… so we could go back to Earth’s past and change some… uh… mistakes.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. You lost me there, Max. The past? Did you mess with the past on Earth? My past? Am I going to disappear now or something, so you can take your throne back? You didn’t want it… remember?”

Max’s face clearly betrayed his surprise, but he recovered quickly…

“Alex, there’s something you need to know.”

“Yeah, it sounds like it.”

“We’re not the same Max and Michael that you know… KNEW. We’re sort of… from a different dimension.”

Alex nodded. “Oh, well, why didn’t you say so?”

“You believe me?”

“No.”

“It’s true,” Michael said. “Do you want proof?”

“Proof would be good.”

Michael nodded and spoke into his own wrist ComServer…

“Varec… would you send Alex and Isabel down, please?”

Michael smiled, enjoying the puzzled look of uncertainty that came over Alex’s face. A moment later, Alex and Isabel appeared in the transport circle beneath the still invisible ship and walked over to where Max, Michael, and the King stood.

Alex put out his hand, and his royal double took it and slowly shook it, albeit a bit suspiciously… then he looked at Isabel and shook his head…

“Another dimension, huh?”

“Yep,” Alex from the New Granolith said.

“Wow. That’s… unexpected…” King Alex replied thoughtfully, finding himself having trouble taking his eyes off of Isabel. “Why did you come to this dimension?”

“Actually, we were trying to find our own dimension again,” Isabel said. “We seem to have been pushed off of our dimensional trajectory or something like that. Varec can explain it. Anyway, we keep finding Antars in the wrong dimensions now.”

The king nodded. “I didn’t know the existence of alternate dimensions had been proven yet… much less that anyone was actively traveling around between them.”

“We’re kind of new to it,” Alex from the New Granolith admitted. “I guess that’s why we’re lost.”

His royal double smiled, suddenly becoming the congenial host. “Well! As long as you’re here on my Antar, you’ll have to come to the palace and have dinner with us… with Isabel and me. She’d love to see you!” Alex turned and looked at Max… “I’m happy to see you, too, Max… even if you’re not the one I knew… or maybe because you’re not.”

“I don’t think we’ll all fit in a Dyygitix-sixteen,” Michael said.

Alex nodded. He had forgotten that there were others on the ship besides Max, Michael, Isabel, and his double. “How many of you are there?”

“Eleven,” Michael said, “Max and Liz, Maria and myself, Alex and Iz, Tess and Rayylar, Varec, Kyle, and Jim.”

“Liz and Maria?” Alex repeated, suddenly perking up noticeably, “Liz and Maria are here?”

Max nodded.

Alex raised his wrist to his mouth… “Joygo, would you please send the palace car to the spaceport? Yeah… thanks.” He turned back to his guests and smiled. “There’ll be plenty of room.”


<center> <<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>> </center>

As the sun began to set over CoruzAntar, Antar’s capitol city, the palace dining hall came alive with gaiety, laughter, and small talk…

“To our guests,” Alex said, raising his tall glass in a toast. Queen Isabel, Tess, and several Antarian friends raised their own glasses in agreement. When Isabel had learned of the arrival of the New Granolith group she had called Tess and her Antarian friends and asked them to come to the palace.

“It’s nice to have visitors from Earth,” Isabel said, “It’s not like we get a steady stream of them. In fact, actually, you’re the first… and you don’t even live on Earth anymore.”

Isabel from the New Granolith looked at her double and smiled, but her eyes seemed to be saying, “I’m so sorry.” The queen noticed…

“Don’t feel sorry for me. I chose to come… I have Alex! And I have friends, lots of them. Of course… they’re not the ones I grew up with. Or mom and dad…”

“I’d love to hear how you came here by yourselves and became the king and queen,” Liz said, looking at Alex.

Alex smiled and shook his head… “Boring. You wouldn’t want to hear it.”

Liz raised her eyebrows and pressed her lips together with determination…

“I do want to hear it, Alex! And I don’t think it’s boring. There has to be a very interesting story there!”

Alex shook his head again. “I try not to make a habit of killing my guests with boring talk about myself… especially during their first meal with me.”

“We’ll take the risk,” Maria said. “Spill it, Alex!”

“Let’s talk about you,” Alex replied, trying to change the subject. “Tell me about your ship.”

Liz and Maria, sitting on either side of Alex, both reached over and put their hands around his neck at the same time. “Don’t make us strangle you, Alex!” Maria said. “Humor us. You’re not supposed to say no to a lady’s request.”

Alex adopted a mock look of terror and glanced at Isabel… “Are you going to let them do this?” Isabel smiled and nonchalantly took another bite of grelliats.

“Darn, she knows we love him too much to kill him,” Maria said.

“But what if we didn’t,” Liz asked.

“I’d probably have to vaporize you,” Isabel said, calmly taking another bite of grelliats. This drew laughter from all her Antarian friends as well as from Tess; and Liz and Maria both smiled, too.

“You’re lucky you’re so adorable,” Liz said, giving Alex a gentle shove, “‘Cause if you weren’t…”

“So I don’t have to tell you how we got here then?”

“I didn’t say that,” Liz replied emphatically. “I can still hurt you… lovingly, of course.”

Alex chuckled. “Alright! Alright… You asked for it. Don’t blame me if I bore you to death, though. I warned you.”

Alex turned and glanced at Tess, almost apologetically, and seemed to be asking for her permission. Tess smiled slightly and then nodded.



<center>End of chapter 15

tbc…</center>

[Island Breeze]

Okay, this part may have just a little bit of strong language… but probably no more than you hear on any TV program today… maybe not as much! Just so you know, though (Like that’s going to stop you, right? ) Also, this part is being told by Alex, but not always in the first person. There is direct dialog between the characters, set off by quotation marks “” in the usual way. There is simple exposition, to say what you should be “seeing” as Alex tells it, but which is not in Alex’s own words precisely, though he is telling it. And there is what Alex says to us directly. This has been indicated with >>> before he begins each time. I think it will be clear when you read it.

<center>Sliding Into Antar</center>



>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Alex’s Story

Chapter 16

XVI

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>



Alex sighed and rubbed his chin… “Where to start…”

“Try at the beginning,” Liz said.

“Okay… well, I was born in…”

“Not that far in the beginning, Alex! Come on! Start with… whenever whatever happened that led to your BEING HERE ON ANTAR!”

“Oh, that!” Alex smiled. He knew he was jerking the girls around, but he also knew that he could get away with it.

“Well… I guess it started when…”


<center> <<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>> </center>

“You did this to me, Tess! You sent me to Las Cruces!”

“Okay… Alex… Alex, let me fix your mind. You're not thinking straight.”

“You mind warped me for two months while I decoded that silly book for you, and now there's nothing left for you to mind warp. You destroyed my mind! How could you do this to me?”

>>> I think that’s when Kyle came in and asked what was going on. Tess was already frustrated and scared, because she was having trouble controlling the situation…

“Kyle, get out!”


>>> At that point, I was losing it, too… totally. I didn’t care who was there or anything. My mind was just so totally numb from all the mind warps, and I couldn’t think straight anymore. But I finally remembered enough to know who was responsible…

“See what you’ve done, Tess? I can’t… I can’t… think… I have nothing left of ME anymore. I might as well be dead!”

“Calm down! Just calm down,” Tess pleaded frantically, at the same time trying to get Kyle out of the room. Then I felt it happening again… It felt like a flood washing through my brain, washing away everything that was me… all my memories, all my own thoughts, all my feelings. I tried to fight it…

“No! You can't mind warp me again… NOOO!”

>>> That’s all I remember. Then everything went blank. I know now that my brain couldn’t take any more, and it simply shut down on some level. It was gone, like a light that had been blown, and it wasn’t coming back on this time… not for anything that Tess might wish or do.”


<center> <<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>> </center>

“Your duffel's all loaded.”

“Thanks Kyle.”

“Want me to come along?”

“No. Go in the house. I'll take care of everything from here.”

“Are you sure?”

>>> Tess looked Kyle in the eyes, and he nodded and walked back toward the house. He never knew that the “duffel” he had put in the car was actually me… he had been mindwarped. Tess drove over to my house and got a guy who was passing by on the sidewalk to move her “duffel” from her car into the front seat of mine. Then she drove out to the highway and stopped and got out. She pushed me over into the driver’s seat and used her powers to start the car and guide it into the front of a semi at 70 miles per hour while she watched from a safe distance away, out of sight.

After the crash, Tess went back to the café and tried to act like one of the group and like nothing had happened, but her mind was in turmoil. Then Valenti came into the CrashDown and told everybody that I had been killed in an accident, and they all rushed over to the morgue with him so Max could heal me. When the coroner’s van showed up, Valenti hurried the two attendants inside to give Max a chance to get into the back and bring me back to life, but Max wasn’t able to. My body was too… well…

When Max wasn’t able to bring me back, everybody just started to fall apart, and Tess didn’t know what to do. She walked around for the rest of the afternoon, thinking. That evening, she showed up at the CrashDown again…

“Max.”

“Tess.”

“I need to talk with you, Max.”

“Okay.”

“Not here. Not in front of everybody.”

“Anything you have to say, you can say in front of Liz and me,” Maria said.

“This doesn’t concern you, Maria. Stay out of it.”

“If it’s about you and Max, it concerns me, Tess. Liz is my friend, and you’re hurting her.”

“Maria… It’s okay,” Liz whispered.

“No, it’s not okay, Liz… You have to speak up. Wherever you and Max are, Tess always shows up. It’s like she’s got a LoJack hidden in his pants. She always knows where he is. If you don’t stop it now, she’ll have him in bed before you know it.”

“Maria!” Liz exclaimed, her face reddening to a bright crimson, “That is so not going to happen. I’m a big girl, Maria. I can handle my own relationships. I know you’re trying to help, but… well, don’t. Not here… not right now. You’re embarrassing me.”

Max and Michael looked at each other, and both decided, perhaps wisely, not to comment.

“Well, I tried to tell you,” Maria said, glaring at Tess.

Tess huffed and pursed her lips tightly together… “Okay… okay… you all want to hear it? Okay, then. But you may not find what I have to say very pleasant.”

“Well, that won’t be a big change,” Maria said.

Tess took a deep breath. “I killed Alex.”

There was total silence for several moments… total stunned silence.

“Why?” Maria asked, tears starting to roll down her face. “Why would you hurt Alex? Alex, of all people! What did he ever do to you?”

“Nothing.” Tess’ lips trembled, and she started to cry.

“Oh, for God’s sake, don’t!” Liz said, starting to shake uncontrollably and unable to contain her feelings any longer. “Save it for the theater, Tess!”

“I’m not acting. I didn’t mean to kill him. It just… it happened.”

“Shit happens,” Maria said. “Killing my best friend doesn’t just happen.”

“It was an accident. I needed him to decode the book. I didn’t know his mind couldn’t handle the mind warps.”

“He died in a car wreck,” Liz said.

“I staged that to take suspicion off of me. He didn’t die in the crash.”

“Why are you telling us all of this now,” Max asked solemnly.

“I only wanted to tell you, Max. I didn’t want to tell everybody.”

“Well, now we all know,” Michael said.

Tess nodded. “Max, you need to try again to heal Alex. If I help you, maybe we can do it… together.”

“You didn’t see the body after the crash, did you?” Max asked.

Tess shook her head.

“If you had, you wouldn’t ask me.”

“But it was an accident, Max. I didn’t mean to kill him. You have to heal him.”

“It’s too late for self-recriminations, Tess. Maybe if you hadn’t smashed him into a semi head on at 70 miles per hour, I could have done something…”

“A hundred twenty-five,” Liz said. Max turned and looked at Liz.

“The truck driver said he was doing 55. Alex’s car was going 70. That’s 125 miles per hour.”

Max nodded and looked back at Tess. “I can’t fix that, Tess. Nothing can.”

Tess closed her eyes and choked back a sob, but there was no sympathy for her in the room.

“Leave us,” Max said, “Leave Roswell. Go far away and don’t ever come back. If you ever do, I’ll kill you myself.”

Michael nodded in agreement. Tess looked around the room, but except for Maria, everyone was in agreement that she be banished. Maria preferred the death option.

“Omigod,” Liz whispered, placing her hand over her mouth reflexively, “When Isabel finds out what really happened, she’ll die.”

“Where is Isabel,” Michael asked.

“She went home,” Maria said, “To cry.”

Max turned and looked at Tess again. His eyes were hard, cold, and totally void of any sympathy… or any feelings that he ever might have had for her. Tess knew that this time she had stepped over the line, and what she had done could not be fixed with a few tears, real or otherwise. She turned and walked out the door of the CrashDown in silence… and didn’t look back.


<center> <<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>> </center>

At home, Isabel lay on her bed, sobbing into her pillow. She had been like this since finding out that Max would not be able to do anything, and her pillow was already in desperate need of a long tumble in the dryer. Seeming to finally realize this, she rolled over to reach for a dry pillow… And that’s when she noticed…

Thinking that it must be the tears making it look like what she thought she saw, Isabel wiped her eyes and looked again…

“Hello, Isabel.”

“Alex? Omigod, Alex! You’re alive! How did you…?”

“That’s not important, Iz. Actually, I’m not sure how I got here.”

>>> Isabel reached out and touched me to see if I was real, and she found that I was solid… It surprised me, too… maybe more than her. She threw herself into my arms and hugged me, and tears started running down her face again.

“You’re not really here, are you, Alex? This is a dream. You’re not real. It’s not fair!”

“It’s not a dream, Isabel. I’m here… in some way.”

>>> I tried to reassure her that everything was going to be all right, even if I couldn’t be there with her anymore, but I felt wrong saying it, because I knew that it would never be all right for me. I wanted Isabel to move on… for her sake… but…

I put my arms around her and kissed her… and I was overcome by the passion that flowed between us… through our kiss… through every fiber of our very beings, whatever our beings were at that moment. Isabel closed her eyes and surrendered herself to me totally, and we both let the feeling carry us away emotionally. But her heart was still breaking, and I could feel it. We both knew that our time together was limited and I would have to be going much too soon, so we held each other tight, trying, in those few short minutes, to capture all the moments that we would miss for the rest of… eternity.

“Dance, milady?”

Isabel nodded and smiled, wiping a stray tear from her cheek. And we danced…

…and we danced…

…and as we danced, I felt myself slipping away…

“Iz, I have to tell you something. I love you!”

“Oh, God, I love you, too, Alex… so much! Will I ever see you again?”

“Not here.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m being taken somewhere… I think… my body…”

“Your body?”

“Tess…”

That was the last thing Isabel heard me say before I disappeared.

Isabel stood there, her mind reeling, thinking about what she had heard, trying to put it all together…

“Omigod! Tess!”

Isabel raced from her room and out the front door. Slamming the door behind her without stopping to look back, she jumped into Max’s jeep… then headed for the desert.



<center>End of chapter 16

tbc…</center>

[Island Breeze]

<center>Sliding Into Antar</center>



>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Abducted

Chapter 17

XVII

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>



Puffing from exertion, Tess stopped and wiped her brow. Then she took the end of the rolled up carpet in both hands again and continued to drag it across the desert sand, leaving a swept path in her wake. The distance between the car and the rocky outcrop was no more than fifty feet, but the desert heat was merciless, and Tess was not accustomed to doing heavy moving herself.

Perhaps it was this fact, and the exertion, that caused her not to immediately notice the arrival of another vehicle. That was a mistake that she soon regretted, as something unseen hit her with the force of a freight train, bowling her over and sending her sprawling into the desert sand. Before Tess could get her breath back, Isabel was on top of her, straddling her, and Tess was face down in the sand.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Tess?”

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that question,” Tess managed to sputter, trying to spit the sand out of her mouth. “I’m going home. Max told me to leave, remember? You all did.”

“What’s in the carpet?”

“None of your business. Groceries… my belongings… what do you care?”

Isabel shoved Tess’ face into the dirt again. “Who’s in the carpet, Tess?”

Tess gasped and sputtered…

“Earl… It’s Earl, okay?”

That answer earned her another mouthful of desert sand.

“It’s Alex, isn’t it?”

“If you know the answers, why are you asking me?”

Isabel rolled off of Tess, wiping the sweat off her own face and giving Tess a chance to roll over on her back and finally look at her attacker. It was, at least, an improvement over eating hot desert sand.

“How did you get the body out of the morgue, Tess? Wait! Don’t tell me! You had the attendants roll it up for you and put it in your car.”

Isabel thought she saw just a flicker of a smile tug at the corner of Tess’ lips. She considered removing it with another mouth full of sand but realized that that would make it harder for Tess to answer questions. And as much as Isabel wanted to stuff Tess’ face in the dirt again at that moment, she wanted answers even more.

“What do you want with Alex?”

“I’m abducting him. Isn’t that what we do, Isabel… abduct humans?”

Isabel reached for Tess, but Tess was ready this time and brought her hand up unexpectedly, throwing sand into Isabel’s face. Isabel choked on the sand for a second, which was all the time Tess needed to grab her tormenter by the hair and pull her onto the ground with her. Isabel screamed, more out of dismay and anger than pain, and grabbed Tess by the hair, too, as they rolled in the sand together, each trying to gain the upper position. After several rolls, Tess came out on top, but a sideways kick from Isabel put Tess in the sand again, and Isabel scrambled to get back on top of her before she could get up. Isabel succeeded in securing the upper position but only had one of Tess’ hands pinned, and Tess grabbed at Isabel with the other hand, catching hold of Isabel’s blouse at the neckline and ripping it from the neck all the way down the right arm, causing the shredded garment to hang awkwardly.

“You bitch! That was a new blouse!”

“Ooh, somebody needs their mouth washed out,” Tess taunted, ignoring the fact that she was currently at a disadvantage again.

“And I suppose you think you’re the one who’ll do it,” Isabel spat angrily.

“Well, frankly, Iz, I could care less about your potty mouth. Unlike you, I’ve got more important things to worry about… like Alex.”

Isabel slapped Tess resoundingly, leaving a pulsing crimson handprint on her alabaster cheek… though in actual fact, not much alabaster was visible anymore. Most of her face was by now covered with desert dust… as was Isabel’s. For good measure, Isabel grabbed Tess’ blouse at the neck and ripped it down the front, leaving her exposed.

“You’ll pay for that!” Tess screamed, flailing her one fist that was still free, trying to connect with Isabel’s face. Isabel dodged it and grabbed Tess’ arm, forcing it back down, and ironically, hitting Tess in the eye with her own fist.

“What do you want out of me?” Tess cried. You wanted me to go home, so I’m going. You should be happy. You’ll never have to see me again!”

“I didn’t tell you to take Alex with you,” Isabel said angrily, no longer in a mood to even pretend civility.

“What difference does it make, Iz? He’s dead. Max can’t bring him back. You know those stupid Earth doctors can’t bring him back. So what do you care what happens to his body?”

“I care,” Isabel said, “I care. Alex deserves a decent, dignified burial at least. You killed him. Isn’t that enough?”

Tess stared at Isabel, Momentarily at a loss for words, and Isabel thought that, just for the briefest of moments, she saw something unexpected in Tess’ eyes: regret… and sadness. But then she told herself that it was probably just Tess’ black eye coming on.

“Isabel, listen to me… This stupid backward planet is, like, in the stone age compared to our planet. What Earth doctors couldn’t even dream of doing is common every day practice on Antar. They can heal Alex.”

Isabel shook her head slowly, wanting to believe it, but having a hard time making such a leap of faith…

“I don’t know, Tess. You heard what Max said. Alex is beyond his help, and we’re Antarian, too.”

“Max is a child, Isabel. He’s just a boy. His knowledge is like a two-year-old’s on our planet. There’s so much more that our people can do. You don’t have a clue what we are capable of. Nasedo could have taught you so much.”

Isabel shook her head. “What he would have taught me, I can live without. Mom and dad taught me more important things… like not to kill my friends… of which you are not one, I might warn you.”

“That was an accident, Isabel. Okay, I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry! I never meant to kill Alex. Alex was my friend. Nasedo taught me to survive, okay? And survival sometimes means using others… even if they’re your friends. It’s life. That’s just the way it is.”

“Not for everybody, Tess. Working with others and respecting them can get you a lot more in life than using them can.”

“That’s if people like you and want to work with you… and respect you,” Tess said.

“Well, you have to earn their respect, Tess… especially after you’ve lost it.”

“My watch is broken. Do you still have your watch, Iz?”

“You’re worried about the time? It’s 4:26.”

Tess exhaled, still trying to remove some of the sand that was stuck in her teeth… “We have four minutes to get Alex into the Granolith… four minutes to decide if he lives or dies. What’s your choice, Isabel?”

The color went out of Isabel’s face, and she stammered, “I… I… What about Max… and Michael? If we take the Granolith…”

“Three minutes, Iz.”

Isabel grabbed the end of the carpet… “Get the other end, Tess. I can’t do this by myself.”

Tess smiled and grabbed the other end, and the two girls carried it into the Granolith chamber together.

“Put him down right here, Iz. The Granolith will pull us in when I touch my hand to it. You should leave us now.”

“I’m not leaving Alex with you, Tess. Wherever you’re taking Alex, I’m going with him.”

“Suit yourself… One minute left.”

Isabel wiped at the dust that was caked on her face and groaned… “I don’t suppose there’s a ladies’ room in that thing…”

Tess smiled and shook her head. “I don’t suppose.”

“Just checking.”

Holding the carpet with one hand, Tess reached out with the other hand and touched the Granolith, and immediately both she and Alex were absorbed into it, along with Isabel, who was holding the other end of the carpet.

“What happens now,” Isabel asked.

“How do I know. I’ve never used the Granolith before. It’s a one trip machine, I think.”

A moment later, lights began to swirl around them and the sound of rocks crumbling could be heard, even from inside the Granolith. Then the Granolith streaked into the sky, leaving a vapor trail behind it, and taking with it three passengers.

Isabel smiled wearily… “Let me fix your blouse, Tess. You’re indecent. We don’t want you to show up on Antar this way.”

Tess nodded silently, as Isabel passed her hand over the torn blouse, mending it… then Tess lifted the torn sleeve of Isabel’s blouse back over her arm and passed her hand over it, fixing it the same way.

“What about Kivar?” Isabel asked.

“I can handle Kivar,” Tess said with assurance.


<center> <<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>> </center>

The Granolith settled gently into the grass near the Starkeen River, several miles outside Antar’s capitol city, in a well-hidden area surrounded by forest and high cliffs. Not far away, there was a small house, and someone inside was definitely aware of the machine’s arrival. An older man and a girl hurried out of the house and over to the Granolith. As they approached it, it ejected its three occupants, and Tess and Isabel suddenly found themselves on their knees in the grass.

“I am Zory,” the old man said in Antarian, “This is my daughter, Tryla. I thought there would be four of you.

“Just us,” Tess replied, also in Antarian.

“I didn’t know you could speak our language,” Isabel said, surprised.

Tess nodded. “Nasedo prepared me to live on our planet. It was his purpose… besides protecting me. He awakened my memories and taught me what I would need to know to survive. He could have done the same for you and Max and Michael… if he had raised you.”

“That thought just plain scares me, Tess.”

“You wouldn’t have grown up so ignorant of who you are if he had raised you,” Tess said, then she turned to the old man and the girl, who appeared to be about seventeen…

“We will need someone to take the other one of us to a healer or to one of our scientists who can regenerate badly injured bodies. The patient is inside here.”

The old man looked at the roll of carpet and shook his head sadly. “Kivar banished most of our scientists. It may be difficult to find one on Antar anymore.”

Tess closed her eyes and groaned. “Then take me to Kivar.”

The old man and the girl both recoiled, quite obviously shocked by this request.

“I need to know where to find one of our scientists to heal Alex,” Tess explained, “And if Kivar has banished them, he will know where they are.”

The old man nodded solemnly… “I will tell you where you can find Kivar, but I will not take you. You will have to go on your own. Kivar would kill me… or torture me… or both… if I were caught. I am the keeper of the Granolith, and Kivar is searching for me.”

“Where can I find him then?”

“In the palace, of course. You will need to walk along the river until you get to the small settlement of Starkeen-Lom. From there, someone will take you into the city. You will see the palace. If you want, you may leave your indisposed companion here so that you can travel more easily, but you must not bring Kivar here… and he must not know where the Granolith is.”

Tess nodded. “Are you ready for a walk, Isabel?”

“No. I’m staying with Alex. Besides, Kivar may find it suspicious if he knows I’m here. Are you sure you know what you’re doing, Tess?”

“Yeah… sure… I can handle Kivar, trust me.”

“Do I have any choice?”

Tess shook her head. Then she set out walking along the river in the direction indicated by Zory. After a little over an hour, Tess came to the settlement of Starkeen-Lom, and there, she quickly found a good Samaritan willing to drive her to the capitol; though like most Antarians, it seemed, the young man did not wish to go near the palace himself. Tess accepted and thanked him. Twenty-five minutes later, she was in CoruzAntar. The young man dropped her off three blocks from the palace with a note of caution, which Tess acknowledged, seeming genuinely grateful for the advice. Then she walked off toward the palace.

At the entrance to the palace grounds, she was stopped by four guards, who were not the least bit inclined to allow her to pass; a few moments later, however, they happily escorted her into the palace, convinced that Kivar had sent for her and was expecting her. Tess’ mind warps did work on full-blooded Antarians. This was good to know.

The four guards escorted Tess to the entrance of the throne room, where Kivar was at the moment, and left. Taking a deep breath, Tess knocked on the door then opened it. Kivar sat on the king’s throne, meditating, and he looked up to see who had entered. He never expected it to be the person he saw in front of him…

“Ava?”

Tess nodded and smiled. “I could not bear being stuck on that backward rock any longer.”

Kivar laughed. “I don’t doubt that. But I’m quite sure that there are other reasons for your being here that you aren’t telling me. You have no reason to want to ally yourself with me. Why are you really here, Ava?”

“You’re right. I need information.”

“Information? That’s all?” Kivar laughed again. “You mean you have no hidden ulterior motive? No matter. I will find out what it is. How did you get here?”

“I hitch-hiked.”

“What does that mean?”

“A traveler gave me a ride.”

“A traveler… stopping off on that backward blue planet? Earth has never been high on the list of interplanetary stops and vacation spots, Ava… except for scientists looking for clues to primitive evolution. And Antar, I might add, has not been high on the list either, since I took over. Why would travelers go out of their way to bring you to Antar?”

“I mind-warped them.”

Kivar laughed. “Well! That was straight-forward and honest. I didn’t expect that. But you always were shameless, Ava. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate that. I can work with people who want something and those who have ‘agendas.’ I understand them.”

“I heard that you banished all of our scientists.”

“Mmm… not all of them. I still have the important ones… the physicists and weapons developers.”

“I didn’t know there were weapons developers on Antar anymore.”

Kivar waved his hand dismissively. “There weren’t. But what else are physicists good for? They haven’t complained. It’s kept them alive… and off of some of the dreariest planets in the universe… where most of their colleagues are trying to survive right now.”

“I need a healer.”

“Well… that’s no problem. I have healers.”

“Not just any healer… a regeneration specialist.”

Kivar chuckled then started to laugh… “For a black eye? That’s vain even for you, isn’t it, Ava? A bath and some cologne would do a lot more for you.”

Tess reached up and felt her eye. It did hurt. Until now, she hadn’t really noticed.

“A healer would be fine for my eye, Kivar… and… and the bath. I need a regeneration specialist to reconstruct… a friend.”

Kivar raised one eyebrow. “A friend? Really? Now this I do find interesting! You have a friend, Ava? And not just any ‘friend…’ but one that you care enough about to come here and ask me to bring back a regeneration specialist, whom I banished to the other end of the galaxy… just because you ask me to. I’m perplexed, Ava. Either you have some motive that I haven’t figured out yet or you’re even more of an enigma than I realized.”

“So do I get the regeneration specialist?”

Kivar thought for a moment and shook his head. “There’s nothing in this for me.”

“I’m here… begging you. Isn’t that enough?”

“It’s pleasant, I admit. But I have no reason to send a ship to the far side of the galaxy just to please you or to heal a friend of yours, Ava. Sorry. If you had something tangible to offer me, I might consider it, but you standing here before me, humbled and begging, is merely a pleasant diversion for me… one that I am already enjoying, without having to give you anything in return. I’m sure you see my point.”

Tess nodded. “I expected that. That’s why I brought Vilandra with me. I can give you Vilandra.”

Kivar smiled and rubbed his chin with one hand. “Now that is much better. Still not enough… but much better. You realize, of course, that I can find out where Vilandra is without giving you anything. I have excellent methods for obtaining information. But surely you know that. What else do you have for me?”

“The keeper of the Granolith… and the Granolith.”

Kivar perked up noticeably and, for the first time, he actually looked interested.

“I could still get the information from you my way, you know…”

“You could… but you might kill me trying. It is a risk that you will not take… considering what is at stake for you.”

Kivar nodded then started to laugh again. “Oh, Ava! You are good! I knew there was something you were hiding! But it’s not enough. I can’t control the Granolith without the codes, and the keeper does not have the codes.”

Tess’ face fell, and Kivar could see that she had totally expected him to leap at this offer.

“You have something else, Ava.”

“I don’t. I have nothing else to give you, Kivar. I swear it.”

“Oh, but you do. You’re still hiding something from me. And whatever it is, it has to do with this alleged ‘friend’ whom you wish to have regenerated. How well do you handle torture, Ava?”

“You might lose everything if you try.”

Kivar smiled and nodded. “True… but I might consider it anyway. That is something that you cannot be sure of. Tell me why this ‘friend’ is so important to you, Ava. And don’t tell me that you are becoming sentimental. I’m not buying it. This person has something that you want very badly. What is it?”

Tess pursed her lips tightly together and scowled. This made Kivar smile, more certain than ever that he was on the right track. Tess took a deep breath and, with a look of total dejection, shook her head…

“I didn’t come all the way here to have my prize ripped from my grasp, Kivar. I can resist your methods… even torture. You may kill me, but you will not get any more from me. Haven’t I given you enough? I gave you Vilandra, the keeper of the Granolith, and the Granolith.”

Kivar laughed again. “Well said, Ava… and exactly what I expected you to say. I think you’ll find that I can be flexible… when it’s in my interest. Whatever this secret of yours is worth to me, I’ll give you thirty percent. I would take it, Ava. It’s a very good offer. You won’t get another one.”

Tess swallowed and closed her eyes, a look of total frustration and resignation on her face…

“All right. The boy who is to be regenerated decoded the book for me…”

Kivar looked at Tess, suddenly interested… “The book… that book?”

Tess nodded. “The one you were never able to decode.”

“It’s ancient Antarian… and written in an unknown code besides… None of the scientists that I had look at it were ever able to decode a single word. You’re telling me that a primitive Earth boy was able to do what I and all of my scientists could not?”

Tess smiled. “It seems so.”

“Where is the decoded version?”

Tess smiled again. “In his head. He never got to write it down. In order to… convince him to help me, I had to mind warp him… over a period of two months. I didn’t know that his mind would not be able to handle it. He died before he could give me the complete decoded version. His death would have been investigated, and I would have been suspected of causing it, so I made it appear that he had been in an accident… in his car… with a semi, an eighteen-wheel truck. Now do you understand why I need the regeneration specialist, Kivar? The person who controls the Granolith controls the universe.”

“And that book contains all the information for controlling the Granolith… including the codes for all of its different functions.”

Tess nodded, and Kivar smiled…

“NOW you have a deal.”



<center>End of chapter 17

tbc…</center>