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small clearing well back from the camp. The receiving pentagram was drawn in
the dirt but it worked, and a single one of Tobrush's thousands of tendrils
was sufficient to sync it.
"I wish we had time to clean up," Krisha commented, still happy to have an
e-suit again, even if it was an ugly blue. The internal controls were also
quite different in their layout and design, but she had no trouble figuring
which did what with a little guidance from Modra.
"Now what?" Krisha asked them.
"Now we wait half an hour or so, until Colonel Mogod issues all the proper
security codes and clearances for us to pass," Jimmy told her.
"Without ever knowing he did it," Modra added.
Gun Roh Chin frowned. "You can do that! To a cymol!"
Jimmy nodded. "Tobrush says that it's child's play. He could do it before if
he'd been in the same room with the colonel. The only thing we added was the
mind-link conduit. Kind of lets you know why they're the bosses, doesn't it?"
The captain nodded. "And he and the Angels, Guardians, and Quintara are
further below your mystical Crew than we are from them. It does become rather
humbling."
He sighed. "Still, if our friend can be believed, we're still missing a vital
piece of the puzzle. Clearly the only possible deduction covering all this is
that the Higher Races once fought and defeated the Quintara; that they were
created, or introduced, or possibly mutated into their current management
roles, and that, having done it once, they can defeat the Quintara again.
Clear?"
"I'm with you so far."
"So," the captain continued, "why doesn't Tobrush know anything more about the
Quintara than we ourselves have discovered? Particularly when his particular
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form of life has such a superb crack at true ancestral memory? Why did your
Guardians not immediately spot the danger and swing into action when the first
reports of the discovery of a Quintara station came in from the scout who
discovered it? Why, in fact, did they allow apparently unbriefed and
unprepared scientists, without even military backup for all the good it might
have done to poke, probe, and eventually initiate the very events that have
led to this point? And why, once it was done, didn't they immediately initiate
measures to control the damage before the princes and their master were
released? In particular why didn't the cymols, on the scene, personified by
your Captain
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Lankur, or even now with this mob scene here, their own security chief know as
much as we do? I could go on and on."
"Yes, there are lots of missing pieces," Jimmy agreed, "but the litany you
recite asks the most important one."
"Indeed?"
"All right, we've got some knowledge of at least what the bad guys are doing,
and we've got some power now and some defenses, but within very local limits.
We can't take on the whole bloody demonic army. He as much as said so. So
where does that leave us? Just what the bloody hell do we do now?"
"We get out of here," replied Gun Roh Chin. "We get Tobrush to his own people
with the same information so they'll at least be as informed as we've now
hopefully made the Guardians. Then, if possible, we do the same thing with the
Holy Angels. When we've done that, either the process of combating the attacks
to come will be put into motion and it will be out of our hands, or we are
going to be scrambling just to stay alive."
"We'll be doing that anyway," Jimmy said nervously. "It won't take that demon
prince long to put two and two together when he discovers we're not in the
city.
Most likely he can trace us through the network. Some records must be
automatically maintained. You saw the level of technology in the city. Not to
mention the ones who broke and ran for the city after our encounter in the
other plane. If / was a Quintara, I'd make bloody sure that our descriptions
were everywhere, that there was no reward too high to ask for our heads, and
simultaneously attempt so much disinformation about us to our own people that
we'll not be received."
"I thought of that," Chin replied. "Indeed, I'm much more worried about the
implications if that isn't already in motion."
"Implications?"
"They've had some time now to evaluate the situation here. What if they aren't
hunting for us? What if they don't care? What if they consider us to be
totally irrelevant?"
"There is no chance of that, my captain," Krisha put in, having stood in back
and listened to the discourse. "You have seen them only from afar, never from
within your mind as the rest of us have. It would not matter to them if we
could truly hurt them or not. They have an ugly code of honor, as it were, and
that is that they always keep their word. We may or may not be high on their
list of priorities, but they want us. Of that I am certain. They want us
badly, and alive. They have made promises ugly, evil promises to many of us.
The rest have still thwarted their will. And particularly now that we have
spilled their blood, they will not rest until we are dealt with. It is their
way."
The captain stroked his chin, thinking, then chuckled. "Isn't it ironic that
we find our own so incomprehensible, yet we understand the Quintara so very
well?"
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Jimmy suddenly looked up and away, his expression distant. Then he said, "All
right, it's time to get off this dirt ball. Just follow our lead, act like you
belong here, and say nothing. It is better to walk out of here than to have to
try and fight our way out."
They walked down into the camp, Chin, Krisha, and Grysta flanked by the four,
their blue uniforms and confident manner causing not a ripple of attention.
Other than one of the three not mind-linked panicking or saying something
wrong, the only worry was that someone would take a very close look at
Tobrush, since the Julki were not a shared race but existed in the Mycohl
alone. Still, with so little of him exposed in that amorphous blue environment
suit, and with so many
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a real expert in race and nationality to identify him as one who didn't belong
in this company, let alone as a Julki.
They approached the first parked shuttle. The two guards, rather bored and
none too bright Zamigls, anthropoids noted for big, round, black eyes and hair
that grew naturally as uneven spikes all over their faces and bodies, snapped
to attention. "Orders?" one barked, trying to sound important.
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