When we left our heroes, Archie Grant and his granddaughter Haley had fallen out of a crashing spaceship, landing on an island called Clod, whereupon they met a mighty Dirt warrior named A’Dobi. Meanwhile, the ship crashed somewhere in the distant forest, carrying their pilot, Docian, the owner of the only key to the dimension-crossing device they need to get back home.

So, off they go to A’Dobi’s village, where the dirt people are being used as slave labor, mining, heavy lifting, and whatnot. Archie and Haley avoid the Imperial presence with A’Dobi’s help and start planning to go find Docian, either meeting him at a prearranged rendezvous point or finding the crash site. A’Dobi advises against this, as that part of the landmass is occupied by the Plant Men, the mortal enemies of the dirt people. Also, the plant men are staunch supporters of Emperor Lao and would turn them in without a second’s thought if they were captured.

While this discussion is going on, in hushed tones in a semi-private cross-species drinking establishment, a group of imperial soldiers enter. Think of the Nazis in Casablanca. Our heroes overhear them talking about how an enemy of the state was captured on the far side of the island earlier that day, and is being taken to the imperial dungeons. Docian, obviously. They need a new plan.

They decide they need to break Docian out as soon as possible, but they need help, so the first step is to go find the people Docian told them about, the leaders of his resistance cell. With some effort, they find a guy with a ship who’s willing to make the trip, and to take A’Dobi along. There’s some mutual animosity between the meat people and the dirt people.

Meanwhile, the dimension-crossing device has been uninstalled from the abandoned monastery and taken to the imperial palace. Emperor Lao has been informed of what the machine does, and begins to dream of starting an era of trans-dimensional conquest. He sets the Science Directorate to the task of reverse-engineering the machine and making it work.

Back with the heroes: they make their way to the place Docian told them about, and make contact with the resistance. They explain their situation and discover that Docian was not a respected member of the cabal. They also hear some backstory, as follows.

About sixty years ago, while Emperor Lao was still conquering everything, one of the rebel scientists came up with a brilliant, desperate idea. I think there may have been a prophecy involved too; I don’t remember anymore. Yeah, there was, because the plan revolved around the notion that a hero from beyond the universe would come to them and lead them to victory over the oppressive Lao. Or he had a doohickey that detected destinies or something. The scientist’s plan was to build a machine to go fetch this hero and get the prophecy rolling. He also invented a device to locate the “Chosen One.” The scientist did his thing, crossed over into Archie’s universe, and nabbed his friend Zeke that day in the park, as described in the Prologue. The kid got raised by the rebels and trained in war and leadership. The scientist’s young son, Docian, became the Chosen One’s adopted brother and sidekick. The Chosen One started using the name Dash Mercury.

Things went pretty well for a while, but the fact of the matter was that this kid was not the one destined to defeat Lao. A few months after he took command of the resistance, Dash was captured and presumed executed. The scientist fell into disfavor, their monastery base was overrun, and most of the resistance was captured, killed, or demoralized to the point of surrender. Only Docian, his eyes wide with hero worship for Dash Mercury, kept the faith. Which made him the dangerous kind of determined to see the mission through.

Docian spent his life going from one resistance cell to another, looking for his place in the world. No one took him or his claims of a dimension-hopping device seriously. It was a pathetic time for the Boy Spaceman. Meanwhile, Lao consolidated his power and claimed rulership over the entire known universe.

Only recently did Docian get the hero detector working again and realize what had gone wrong all those years ago. He tried to convince his current co-conspirators to help him, but they refused. So he went and fetched Archie on his own.

Around about in here, it is learned by the resistance that Lao has the machine and Docian, but only Archie and Haley immediately realize the implication that Lao has everything he needs to invade other realities, because they’re the only ones who believe it works in the first place. Haley thinks they have to do whatever they can to stop Lao, while Archie thinks the odds are really good that there are enough alternate realities out there that his homeworld would remain relatively safe. However, Archie does see the need to get the key and the machine so he can get himself and Haley home. So, while their motives are different, Archie and Haley are at least on the same page as to what to do about it.

The resistance leaders instinctively defer to Archie. Not in a, “Yes my liege,” kind of way. More sort of, “You know, he’s making a lot of sense.” So, they agree to help storm the castle.

Meanwhile, back on Earth, Archie’s daughter/Haley’s mother, Maggie Grant, has become something of a media sensation. National news has picked up the story of her relatives’ disappearance, and she’s doing TV interviews, pleading to “the kidnappers” to bring back her family, and so on. It starts out sincere, but she quickly starts digging the whole being in the spotlight thing and starts milking it. She’s sort of a cross between Cindy Sheehan and the guy who was going to marry Jennifer Wilbanks (The Runaway Bride). Famewhore, basically.

Archie comes up with a plan to get into the imperial palace dungeons. He doesn’t believe in any of this Chosen One crap, but he’s willing to use it if other people do. Also, remember, he is the Chosen One. By now the reader should get that. All the flashbacks to his life that have peppered the text to this point have been showing that he has the skills and talents needed to pull off exactly this kind of thing. The only reason his life sucked was that it wasn’t the one he was supposed to live.

Order of events gets a little more nebulous here. Archie and Haley lead a squad of guys up from underneath the floating island that the imperial palace rests on. Actually, there’s so much palace dug into and through the island that there’s hardly any mass of rock left. Anyway, they get in. Meanwhile, the Science Directorate has figured out how the dimension-hopping machine works, and has come up with a large-scale version, meant for sending parade ground-fuls of troops to other worlds. Testing is about to commence in preparation for their first invasion.

Somewhere along the line, the heroes get split up. Haley meets up with Effulgia, and they have it out. Archie meets Marla Virago, Emperor Lao’s wife.

Remember how, in the old Republic serials, whenever the bad guy got his hands on the hero’s love interest, he would immediately start planning to marry her? And how the hero would then have to come rescue her at the last moment? It was all a metaphor for rape, I suppose. Anyway, in this case, the hero wasn’t around to stop the wedding. The wedding went through without a hitch (that sounds backwards). Marla has spent all these years married to Lao, and has turned into a shrill harpy of a woman.

Of course, when she sees Archie, she instantly falls in love with him, because that was her destiny. But she’s so screwed up now that it’s not really a romantic kind of thing anymore. It’s clingy and creepy. And Archie feels the shade of an attraction too, but it gets overwhelmed almost instantly by revulsion at what has become of her. However, he’s not above using her to get into the dungeons.

Where he finds Dash Mercury. Archie’s boyhood friend, Zeke, is still alive, an old man now, who has lived the vast majority of his life in Lao’s dungeon. Marla knew he was there the whole time, because Lao delighted in reminding her. Archie decides he has to get his friend out of there. In a callback to the Prologue, he tells Archie, “You can be Dash Mercury now.” I think it would have been a touching scene.

Archie finds Docian, and finds out that Lao has the key. Docian and Zeke reuinite. Marla reveals about the impending invasion. Zeke reveals that Lao always promised to destroy his world and everything he held dear if he ever got the chance, which he now has. Archie’s homeworld is dead in Lao’s sights.

A’Dobi is running around here somewhere too, but I don’t remember his subplot offhand.

The machine works like this: a crystal shoots out a cone of energy. At one point within the cone, you place a metal grid. At another point farther back, you place another. You apply a voltage between the two grids. Depending on which grid has the positive charge relative to the other one, everything between the grids travels either to or from the target dimension. In other words, to undo whatever the machine does, you reverse to polarity. I couldn’t resist.

Anyway, everyone manages to regroup. I don’t know whether Effulgia is dead at this point, or Haley’s girlfriend, or what. But she is still a total bitch. Yes, even if she’s dead.

There’s fighting, and somehow Archie and Emperor Lao wind up alone between the grids of the machine. I would say they’re fighting, but they’re old men who are very tired, so they may just be threatening, or Archie may be trying to reason with Lao. Somehow, the machine gets activated. Probably, this was Archie’s plan, to send Lao to a random universe, and Haley set off the machine. Archie just wasn’t intending to go along.

So, two old men wind up alone in a strange universe. They decide to knock off the animosity for a minute and get some coffee. They’re sitting together in a diner or someplace, talking about life, fate, getting everything you wanted or nothing you deserved. This is the first time Lao expresses to anyone that he hates being the ruler of everything. He much prefers being the guy struggling to conquer everything. That’s why he allows the various resistance movements to exist. They give him something to do. It turns out that both Archie’s and Lao’s lives have sucked because they weren’t there to oppose each other. They would have given each other meaning. Archie points out that it’s too late for him now; he’s too old to start a never-ending battle. Lao offers rejuvenation and his own dimension-hopping machine so he can spend the next decades chasing Lao across multiple realities. Archie refuses. Lao and Archie understand each other. Lao hits the trigger button to recall himself to his palace.

There are a few ways I could go here. One, Archie comes back with him and the battle continues. Two, Lao strands Archie on account of being evil. Three, the button doesn’t work at the moment and they have to fight for it. Not really sure how that goes.

At any rate, eventually, Lao’s forces successfully land in New York, where Maggie Grant is doing a spot on the Today Show. Like I said, it’s still kinda fuzzy in this part. I assumed I’d have worked it out as I wrote. The heroes wind up in New York too, Maggie winds up looking like an idiot when her father and daughter show up amid an alien invasion fleet. The bad guys wind up losing. The good guys save the world. Archie fulfills the prophecy he never even knew about. Lao gets sent to another random universe where he gets to start over and rebuild and re-conquer. So he gets a happy ending. He’s supposed to be sympathetic so this is okay. The Dash Mercury universe is freed. Zeke gets to come home. Haley wants to stay in Dash Mercury World, because it’s so much cooler. Some sort of inter-universe communication/trade is set up.

And they all live happily ever after.

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Meanwhile, on the Perdition, Effulgia was terrorizing the bridge crew. “Find them!” she shrieked. “I want their corpses!”

“Your Ladyship,” Abbazia said indulgently, “their ship exploded over the forest of Clod. It is very unlikely that anyone survived. If they did, the Plant-Men will inform us.”

“I won’t wait!” Effulgia insisted. “Bring me their heads by the end of the day, or yours and your crew’s will take their place.”

“Yes, Your Ladyship.” Abbazia took the threat in stride. Not because he knew she would not make good on it. Quite the contrary, in fact. Rather, he knew that upcoming events would both distract her and give him ample excuse for not following through on her unreasonable demands. Still, it might not be the worst idea to prod those events forward just a bit. “I will send word to the Emperor at once that the arrival of this ship, yourself, and the device we discovered will be delayed until your thirst for vengeance is appeased. Communications Officer!”

“Yes, sir!” the Communications Officer replied.

Effulgia interrupted the exchange. “Just a moment, Captain. I will speak to my father personally. Prepare for transmission from my suite.”

Looking away, Captain Abbazia smirked. “Yes, Your Ladyship.”

#

Effulgia returned to her quarters, quickly bathed and changed into a new outfit, reworked her hair and cosmetics, and sat down in front of the communications terminal. She pressed a button, signaling the Communications Officer to initiate the call.

Effulgia’s mother, Marla Virago, answered. “Hello, dear,” she said in greeting. “How are you today?”

“Hello, mother,” Effulgia replied, emphasizing the latter word in such a way to connote both hatred and disgust. “I must speak to Father at once on an urgent matter.”

“Again, dear?” Marla questioned. “You spoke to him only this morning. He is very busy ruling the universe, you know.”

“Get him for me, Mother. Now! I still don’t understand why he hasn’t had you executed yet, blithering harpy.”

“Effulgia!” Marla snapped. “That is no way to speak to your mother. You know I only want what’s best for you.”

“Now, mother. Tell him it concerns the matter we discussed earlier.”

Dabbing away tears she fought to keep inside, Marla turned away from the screen, said, “Yes, dear,” stood, and walked away. Bland, sterile music started to play. Effulgia examined her fingernails, bored, while she waited.

Eventually, the music stopped and Emperor Lao came into view. He was not smiling. “Effulgia, your mother tells me you had some harsh words for her. What have I told you?”

Effulgia recited, “Keep my anger bottled up inside so that no one knows my weakness.”

Emperor Lao nodded and smiled. “Now, what is it you want? I was in a budget meeting.”

“The people I told you about this morning. They escaped, Father. They kidnapped me and escaped.”

Lao sat puzzled. “They didn’t kill you? How odd.”

“One of them tried, Father. They had help. I worry that another rebellion is growing.”

“Let me worry about that, Daughter. Do you have the machine you mentioned before?”

“Yes, Father, but that is why I called. We are pursuing the escaped prisoners. We will be delayed until we can find them.”

“Nonsense, Effulgia.” Lao waved his hand dismissively at the screen. “That’s what we have vast numbers of faceless troops for. Bring the machine here at once. I have spoken to the High Minister of Science about it, and he is most excited about studying it. Meanwhile, I will mobilize the forces in the area to retrieve those who slipped away from you. All right? Good,” he answered himself without waiting for Effulgia to say anything different. “I expect you here as soon as possible. See you then. Now, I must get back to my meeting before the minister of security spends all my money.” Lao stood up and walked away without a backward glance. Eventually, the screen faded to gray.

Effulgia sat and fumed at the blank screen. “How dare he?” she finally screamed to no one in particular. “How dare he order me around like one of his minions? His own daughter!” She ran over to the bed and collapsed into it, sobbing uncontrollably into one of her pillows. There she stayed for ten minutes, shuddering with the release of pent-up rage.

Finally, she sat up, composed herself, took a couple of deep breaths, and touched a button on her bedside table. “Captain Abbazia, recall your men and set course for the Imperial Palace.”

He acknowledged the order, but she wasn’t listening.

Chapter 17: 2005, Ohio

“This is Chad Newsguy. Welcome to the Noon News. Our top story: A college student and her grandfather disappear from a local retirement community. The call went out last night to police when a bed check revealed that one of the residents of Shady Estates Retirement Community was not present. Investigation quickly revealed that no one had seen or heard from the man, Archie Ulysses Grant, since that afternoon. In fact, the last person known to have seen him was his granddaughter, Haley Eunice Grant, who is also missing.

“Police declined to speculate as to the fate of Haley and her grandfather, seen in these photos taken last Christmas. However, Emily Grant, mother of Haley and daughter of Archie, spoke to reporters this morning.”

The tape rolls. “If anyone out there has seen either Haley or my father, please come forward. If you have taken them, please bring them back. Charges will not be filed. Haley, Dad, if one of you has taken the other one, please come home.”

“Powerful stuff. At this time, authorities cannot say whether these people have gone missing of their own accord or were taken by someone else. We’ll keep on top of this story as it unfolds.

“Up next, Ding-Ding the Panda has babies! Stay tuned.”

Chapter 18: The Destruction of Jared Syn

Archie and Haley turned toward the voice. Archie stepped in between Haley and the small hill behind which the voice seemed to come. He said, “We mean you no harm.”

Haley looked at him quizzically. “’We mean you no harm?’”

Archie glanced over his shoulder at her and shrugged. “Cliché, but true. Watch. In a minute I’ll ask him to take us to his leader.”

“You came from the sky,” said the gravelly voice in the distance. “You are from Lao. These are both mistakes on your part.”

Archie held his hands out in front of him, as if to stop a runaway shopping cart. “No, wait. You’ve got it all wrong. We escaped from Lao. Well, from his daughter, actually, if you want to get technical. We only wound up here by chance.”

“You adorn yourselves with the fibers of Lao.”

“Excuse me?” Archie asked.

“The woven fibers you have colored and draped upon your bodies.”

Archie looked down at himself, surprised to discover he was still wearing the stolen uniform Docian had cobbled together for him. “What, these?” Archie said, tugging at his lapels. “No, this was a disguise.”

Haley added, “I’m not even sure what I’m wearing is fabric, really. It may be a polymer of some sort.”

“Listen,” Archie requested, looking for a way out. “We don’t want any trouble. We’re not here to cause any trouble. You stay there behind your rock, and we’ll go…” Archie scanned the terrain quickly. “…over to that small stand of trees over there, and we’ll both forget we ever saw each other. What do you say?”

The boulder Archie had been addressing shifted, and started to rise off the ground. As it did so, it unfolded, producing a pair each of arms and legs. It elongated and swiveled, as if stretching after a long period of sitting still. Archie could see now that what he thought was the stony surface of a boulder was actually something softer and more malleable. Finally, what Archie assumed must be the thing’s head came into view as the creature rotated toward them. However, it did not stop when it faced the humans, but rather continued on until it spotted the trees Archie had mentioned moments earlier.

“Oh no,” moaned the earthen beast, “Copse.”

Archie lacked the wherewithal even to ask, “What the hell is going on?” Instead, he dumbly followed the glare of the creature before him until he, too, was staring at the stand of trees. They seem closer, he thought, idly.

That’s when they attacked. A trio of wooden javelins launched out of the woods and arched toward them. Haley screamed, grabbed her dumbstruck grandfather about the waist, and bodily hefted him behind one of the other boulders littering the field they were in. Then, she poked the boulder experimentally and cautiously whispered, “Hello?”

Meanwhile, the monstrous golem curled into a ball on the ground.

Two of the spears lodged themselves into the ground, sticking like a knife thrower’s greatest achievement. The third neatly impaled the strange being from almost directly above. It roared and fell splayed out on the ground, the giant wooden spike growing out of its back.

Haley checked Archie over for injuries. She felt something hard in one of the jacket pockets. She reached in and retrieved it.

“Hey,” Archie said, recovering the power of speech, “my death ray.”

Haley smiled. “How convenient is that?” She peeked over the boulder and took aim at the trees, looking for a target. “Where are they? I don’t see them.”

Archie leaned his back against the boulder. “Just fire. Maybe you’ll scare them off.” So she did.

A yellow lance of light burst forth from the pistol with a screech, streaking toward the isolated stand of trees. It entered the vegetation at about ten feet above the ground, scorching the wood as it passed. The trees shook, their limbs flailing, their leaves rustling. Then, they started moving away.

Haley watched in disbelief as the copse of trees retreated, back toward the larger forest just visible on the horizon. She fired again, aiming wide, and they picked up their pace. “Huh,” she said. “Ambulatory hardwood. How about that?”

“Help me,” moaned the creature. Archie and Haley came out from their hiding place and stood over the thing. “Remove the spear.”

“Do you think we should?” Haley asked Archie.

“I don’t know. He might bleed to death if we do. I saw that on TV.”

“No, please,” it pleaded. “I have no blood. Remove the spear before it takes root.” Archie crouched to get a better look at the injury. He did not see any blood, but he did see small tendrils reach out from the spear and dig themselves into the creature’s, for want of a better word, flesh.

“It’s growing,” he said incredulously.

“As I said,” the thing reminded him. “Hurry, before I am consumed.”

Archie stood upright again, put one foot on the creature’s back next to the wound, and grabbed the spear with both hands. It tickled his palms. “Help me out here, Haley.” She mimicked her grandfather. “Ready?”

“I have no idea, but let’s say yes.”

“All right, sir?” Archie said loudly. “This is probably going to hurt very much. If this kills you, we’re sorry.”

“Do it. I don’t feel what you would call—aaauughhh!!” Archie and Haley heaved on the spear, bringing out a small root ball with it, and leaving a gaping hole in the creature’s back. Together, they tossed it aside. Archie noticed that the other two spears had started sprouting leaves.

They stood back when the creature started to lumber to its feet. First, it pulled its arms and legs up under it, then pushed with them to raise himself to a crawling pose. With visible effort, he swung one leg around, braced himself with his opposite hand, and hoisted himself shakily upright.

The thing saw the two upright spears and thundered over to them. Taking each in turn into his powerful hands, he ripped them out of the soil. They had much larger root systems already than the one from his back. He snapped them in half and placed them on the tops of nearby boulders. He then did the same with the one Archie and Haley had discarded.

“They can’t grow on solid rock,” he explained, and knelt down next to one of the holes he had made during the uprooting. He slammed his fist into the hole and pulled out a large handful of earth, which he raised to the jagged crease in his head that must serve the function of a mouth, and ate.

“You have my thanks, meat.”

“Um, anytime?” Archie ventured.

“I am a proud Dirt Warrior. My name is A’Dobi.”

“Hi,” Haley said, extending her hand. “I’m Haley Grant. This is my grandfather, Archie.” The two empty pits where A’Dobi’s eyes should be stared uncomprehendingly at Haley’s gesture.

“Haleygrant, Mygrandfatherarchie, you should leave this place. It is too close to the forest. They will return soon.”

“You’re hurt,” Haley reminded him. “Is there anything we can do to help?”

A’Dobi turned his back on Haley. “It has already begun to heal.” Indeed, the hole was smaller than it was previously.

“Well, good,” Archie interjected. “Listen, on the subject of getting away from here, could you maybe point us in the right direction? Someplace where could, perhaps, find a ship and not too many questions?”

“Only the meat comes and goes from Clod. We mine for them. They come. They take. They leave.”

“Oh, that’s too bad. Sounds terrible. So, which way is it to where all this taking and leaving is going on?” Archie looked over both shoulders to emphasize his question.

“If it’s so dangerous,” Haley asked, having an entirely different conversation, “why are you sitting out here all alone?”

“The plants come closer all the time,” A’Dobi explained. “They want our dirt. They kill us to grow themselves. We must fight back. Every dirt warrior must kill his share.”

Haley commiserated. “That must be hard with your people being worked in the mines the way they are.”

“That is why I am alone.”

“Haley, come over here a minute. I want to talk to you.” Archie waved Haley out of earshot of A’Dobi. “What are you doing? We don’t need the giant dirt man’s life history. We need directions. We’re not getting involved.”

“But what if we can help them out of their plight?”

Archie pointed his finger in Haley’s face as if admonishing a bad dog. “No, Haley. This is not a cause. It’s not one of those things you do to try to save the planet, because we’re not on the planet! Okay? We don’t know these dirt people. Maybe they’re rotten folks who would be wreaking havoc on the place if they weren’t controlled.”

“And maybe they’re tragic noble warriors fighting an endless battle of survival.”

“Maybe they are,” Archie agreed. “But that’s beside the point. It’s not our business.”

“Sure it is, Grandpa!”

“What?”

“Look around,” Haley said, spreading her arms and spinning in place to encompass everything around them. “This place is something out of the silver age of science fiction. Oppressed peoples, an all-powerful evil ruler, spaceships, and islands floating in the sky, for crying out loud! And us, two strange visitors from Earth, outsiders who help the helpless, gain a cohort of staunch compatriots, conquer the forces of evil and bring freedom to everyone. I’ve read this sort of thing a thousand times.”

“Haley, no,” Archie commanded. “Neither one of us is cut out to be Dash Mercury here. Who we are, are two people dropped in the middle of a place and a situation we have absolutely no understanding of, surrounded by things, people, and things who are people that may very well decide to kill us without a second thought. We’re not heroes. We’re not following a script. We’re not guaranteed to win. This isn’t a game, and the more we try to stick our noses in, the more likely it is that we’ll annoy the wrong people, and die. Our only responsibilities here are to stay alive and to find a way to get back home. We can’t do anything to jeopardize that.”

“But….”

“No buts, Haley. What we’re going to do is leave here, go see the people Docian told us about, and hope they have some idea how to get us back where we came from. We don’t have the training, and I don’t have the physical ability to get involved in someone else’s war, no matter how cool it would be to swing in on a rope and save the day. So, knock it off, and keep your head down.”

“So, you admit it would be cool to be the hero.”

“Of course. I was young once.”

Haley changed subjects. “All right. We still need to go find Docian before we leave this place. He still has the key to the machine.”

Archie shook his head, “I’m still not convinced he was telling us the truth about that. For all we know, whatever that machine was is commonly used technology here.”

“But, Grandpa, Effulgia kept asking me questions about the machine and where we came from. If she really is the daughter of the ruler of pretty much everything here, why wouldn’t she know about it if it is common knowledge?”

“I didn’t see him jump out of the ship. Granted, I was a little busy at the time. But we have no way of knowing if he’s even still alive.”

“Dead or alive, he would still have the key. If he doesn’t show up where he told us to meet him, then we go try to find the body.”

“What? You expect me to go traipsing around this place, hither and yon, on the off chance that we’ll find one small crashed spaceship or one even smaller dead guy in the middle of all this uncharted wilderness, amidst unknown dangers we have almost no chance of defending ourselves against?”

“I don’t see that we have much choice,” Haley said. Holding up the pistol, she added, “Besides, we do have your death ray.”

Archie thought for a long time before relenting. “Okay, good point.” He scanned the distant terrain and spotted the stone spire Docian had indicated as their meeting spot. Then, he stepped toward the dirt warrior and said, “Excuse me – A’Dobi, was it? – Listen, we need to get over to that stone tower over there.” The dirt man pivoted to look at Archie, so Archie pointed toward his goal. “Do you know anything about it? Is it hard to get to? Anything we need to worry about on the way there?”

A’Dobi’s head rotated to face the store spire. “It is half a day’s travel away. You would never make it alive.”

Archie mumbled, “Well, that’s encouraging.”

A’Dobi continued, “The conflict between my people and the plants is an ancient one, old before men of meat ever came to Clod. We shall never know peace as long as we share this land. However, we agree that your kind is a scourge on both our peoples. Two of you, alone and unarmed, would be set upon by anyone you meet, vegetable or mineral.”

“That’s that, I guess,” Archie relented.

A’Dobi continued, “You saved my life. I will escort you. Perhaps my presence will deter at least my own people from attacking immediately.”

“See, Grandpa, we’re making allies.”

A’Dobi looked skyward. The dome of light had grown a large black spot in the center. “The day grows late. Today, you come to my village. Tomorrow, I will take you to the spire.”

“Great!” Haley exclaimed.

Archie held up a finger. “Um, didn’t you say that Emperor Lao’s men were here? Won’t they notice a couple of meat bags wandering around your town?”

“Other visitors are not unknown to us. Traders come and go. Men load and unload cargo ships. Merchants offer goods and services to each other. You will not be the only meat.”

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Docian had the throttle pushed to maximum, but the blips on his radar kept getting closer. “They’re catching up,” he announced to Haley and Archie, who were strapped into the two rear seats in the cockpit.

“Well,” Archie suggested, “do something!”

Docian yanked the yoke to the left and back. G-forces pressed everyone into their seats. Through the front window, Archie saw the smoke trail of a missile zooming past them to impact on the large rock formation ahead.

“They’re firing!” Docian pointed out.

“Why don’t you cloak the ship or something?” Haley offered.

“Cloak? What is that? Never heard of it.”

“Oh,” Haley replied, disappointed. “It was worth a shot.”

“Listen,” Docian called out over his shoulder as he continued his evasive maneuvers. “I don’t know if I’m going to be able to get away from these guys. In case you survive and I don’t, there are things you need to know.”

“If they shoot us and blow us up,” Archie asked, “how would we survive if you didn’t?”

“Under your seats. Put them on.” Archie and Haley reached under their cushions and found a pair of wide white lengths of either heavy plastic or light metal, with a large disk on each end and a rectangular box in the middle.

“They’re belts,” Archie identified. He squirmed in his seat to strap the belt onto him without unhooking himself from the seat’s restraints. The side of one disk attached itself to the other by what Archie assumed was magnetism.

“Anti-gravity belts,” Docian explained. “One dial controls up and down, the other forward and reverse. Power button’s on the battery pack in the back. It will last maybe ten minutes, if you don’t push it. I’m going to try to get inside the atmosphere of that island up ahead. If I can’t lose our tail there, you may have to jump.”

“Seriously?” Haley asked, intrigued. “That is so cool.” She reached behind her to look for the “on” switch.

Archie had other opinions. “I’m not jumping out of anything.”

Docian reminded him, “You may have no choice.” The cockpit filled with the beeping of alarms. “Hang on to something!” He pushed the yoke straight forward until they were pointed down, then turned into a tight roll. They heard the momentary roar of rocket exhaust buffeting the hull of the ship. He pulled up again, swerved wildly, and resumed course. “Close one.

“Listen carefully. If you can, try to make your way to the land of Coldplaya. It’s a mountainous land above here. In the main city of Frieze, one of the town councilmen is the leader of my resistance cell. His name is Hreen. He’ll keep you safe and give you everything you need to plan your revolution. He—“

“Now wait one damn minute,” Archie interrupted. “I thought we had this discussion already. I’m not whoever you think I am. I’m not starting any revolution. As soon as we can find someone who doesn’t immediately try to kill us or draft us, we’re going to get them to help us get back to that temple and go home. That’s final.”

“Grandpa, are you sure? If Effulgia’s any indication, the rulers here are terrible and cruel.”

“That’s not our problem, Haley. I feel bad for them, of course, but they’re the ones who have to deal with it, not us. Our only responsibilities here are seeing to our own safety and going back to where we came from.”

The ship lurched to the right as an ear-splitting noise reverberated through the cabin. “We’re hit!” Docian cried.

“You think?” Archie replied. The ship started shaking as Docian wrestled with the yoke.

“I’m not going to be able to control it much longer!” Docian’s voice vibrated in tune with the shuddering of the ship. “Get ready to jump!”

“How?” Haley asked.

“The bottom hatch! The way you came in!” Haley unstrapped herself and stood up shakily. She grabbed the headrest of Archie’s seat to balance herself while she struggled to release his restraints as well.

Another noise joined the chorus of complaints echoing through the ship: the sound of rushing air. “We’re inside atmosphere now!” Docian yelled over the cacophony. “I need to slow down, or you’ll be ripped in half when you try to exit!”

“What about you?” Haley cried.

“I’ll be right behind you. Just have to keep it level until you’re out.” The wind noise was starting to die down. When it was down to the level of a dull roar, he called out, “All right. Get ready! See that tall stone spire?” He pointed out the windshield at such a rock formation, standing alone in an otherwise smooth, barren expanse. In the far distance, the edge of a green forest was visible. “We’ll meet there. Got it?”

“Okay!” Haley agreed. Archie stood mute.

Docian hit a control on his panel. A section of floor slid aside, revealing a narrow tube, wide enough for one person to pass. The hatch at the other end of the tube was open. Haley could see the ground rushing past underneath the ship. “Go!” Docian ordered.

Haley reached behind Archie and flipped his power switch. Then, she activated her own. “You go first!” she shouted over the wind and the ominous groaning noises coming from the rear.

“No way in hell!” Archie replied. “I’m not putting my life in the hands of a disco belt!”

Haley twisted one of the dials on her own belt and lifted off of the deck. “Look, it works! Go!”

“You go, then!” Archie shouted, becoming hoarse.

“Not without you, Grandpa!”

Ahead, Docian called out, “The port engine’s going critical. Any second now it will—“ And then it did. Explode, that is. Archie was knocked off his feet as the ship bucked both from the explosion and the sudden change in its aerodynamics. Docian manhandled the controls, trying to keep the ship in the air. Haley bounced off the ceiling. Archie grabbed her legs and held on to her, trying to keep her from ricocheting off of anything else.

With a groan and screech of metal stressed beyond its breaking point, the left rear of the ship ripped away entirely, exposing the passenger cabin to open atmosphere. Before Archie had a chance to react, he and Haley were sucked out of the ship through the gash and flung out into the sky. They tumbled, Archie losing his grasp on Haley. Haley rose up away from him as he, dazed, watched in confusion. “That shouldn’t be happening,” he thought.

Some corner of his mind managed to correctly process the information it had been given, despite the refusal of the rest of it to accept the facts. Haley wasn’t rising. Archie was falling. The wind whipped past him with a nearly deafening howl. He managed to spin himself around and saw that, indeed, the ground was rising up to meet him. He thought about an old Irish friend of his, and considered the irony of his blessing to Archie as it applied to this situation.

Then, he remembered the belt. It had to work, didn’t it? That was why Haley was suspended unconscious in midair while he was plummeting toward painful squishy death. He decided to give it a shot. He reached down and twisted the dial closer to his right hand. The belt squeezed against his abdomen painfully. The wind noise slowed, stopped, and then started again. However, this time Archie was being dragged upward. Very quickly, by the sound of it.

He looked upward, trying to spot Haley. She was not directly above him. He finally spotted her off to the side. The prevailing winds must have caught her. As he watched, a trio of angry-looking ships flew overhead in the direction of the forest Archie had seen before. By the time he looked back, he was even with Haley. By the time he managed to adjust the dial on his belt he was above her, feeling dizzy from a sudden burst of vertigo.

He adjusted the dial this way and that until he thought he was at roughly the same altitude as Haley. She was dangling limply in her anti-gravity belt, knocked unconscious or worse during the explosion and its aftermath. Archie turned the other dial, and found himself moving closer to her. He found by trial and error and plain dumb luck that the left dial would move him in whatever direction he was facing at the time. So, in fits and starts, he managed to get within arm’s reach of his granddaughter.

Suspended in space, he shouted at her. “Haley! Wake up!” When she didn’t respond, he felt her neck for a pulse. It was there, but it was either too fast or too slow. Archie had no idea. He had to get her to the ground.

Archie wrapped both arms around Haley from behind, below her arms. Then, he reached down and turned the altitude knob on her belt down. He felt her weight increase in his arms. Then, he reached between them and reduced his own lift. As they dropped, he continually adjusted the knobs on both belts to keep them at a balanced rate of descent. Overhead, he noticed the wide trail of black smoke left behind by Docian’s ship. It looked like he at least made it over the trees. Maybe the fighters had not gotten to him before he crashed or managed to bail out.

They were near the ground when the power packs on both belts started to vibrate. Archie correctly deduced that it was a warning that the power was about to run out. He considered turning one of them off to conserve power, but he did not think he would be able to hold the weight of whichever person until they reached the ground. Instead, he reduced the power on both as much as he dared. They plummeted to the bare, beige ground. At the last moment, he turned Haley’s back up, on the basis that if he was going to lose his grip and drop someone, he’d rather he was the one who fell than she. He felt the lurch of deceleration killing most of their momentum, and then let them drop the rest of the way.

He only misjudged it a little. They landed hard, but not hard enough to break anything. The impact jarred Haley awake. Archie laid her down on the ground and started checking her head for injuries.

“What happened?” she asked blearily.

Archie replied matter-of-factly, “Ship exploded. We got sucked out. I flew us down to the ground.”

“Aw,” moaned Haley. “We flew, and I missed it. Where are we?”

Archie looked around at the field of boulders in which they had landed. “I can’t come up with a meaningful answer to that question. But, we’re alone, so we’re probably safer than we have been since we arrived in this cockeyed place.”

A voice came from behind one of the boulders. “I wouldn’t be too sure about that, ferner.”

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Effulgia sighed in sapphic post-coital bliss. She gazed across the room toward Haley, who was wrapped in a silken sheet, staring out the window into the unfathomable expanse outside.

“Amazing,” Haley said, awestruck.

“I know,” Effulgia replied. “You were surprisingly competent yourself.”

Haley giggled. “I meant this,” she explained, gesturing toward the window. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“You keep saying that. How can that be?” Effulgia prompted, standing naked out of her bed and crossing over to the young girl. “Is it not the same wherever you are from?”

“Not even close,” Haley admitted, allowing Effulgia to stand behind her and wrap her arms around Haley’s waist. “Your entire sky is full of light. Ours is mostly black, with small points of light called stars. It’s nothing like this.”

“Small points of light? How could anyone see?”

“They’re not really small. Stars are huge, larger than any planet. Most of them are so far away, though, that they appear to be very small.”

“Yes, I have seen this. At night, the light comes from below, illuminating the bottoms of the higher landmasses. The effect is quite striking.”

“It doesn’t sound exactly the same, but close.”

“Tell me,” Effulgia asked, “why have you come to this place from your – what did you call it?”

“Ohio.”

“Yes, Ohio.”

Haley shrugged. “It wasn’t my idea. I was visiting my grandfather when this strange man showed up, called us the Child of Destiny, and brought us here.”

“I see. And how did he do that?”

“Beats me. Have you seen my pants?” Haley stepped out of Effulgia’s grasp and started looking around the floor.

Effulgia explained, “Servants have taken them to be cleaned.” She didn’t add, “And analyzed for evidence of point of origin.” Instead, she walked over to one wall, which slid aside to reveal an enormous wardrobe. “If you wish to dress, you may select from among these.”

Haley, clutching the sheet around her, sashayed to the gargantuan collection of impractical dresses, elaborate headwear, and uncomfortably complex-looking shoes. She flipped past several, seeking the most modest one she could find. “These are beautiful,” she effused.

“I design them myself,” Effulgia confessed.

“I believe you,” Haley said, passing on a sequined blue gown with less material than Cher’s most outrageous ensemble. “So, your father is the ruler of the entire universe, you say?”

“So we believed,” Effulgia replied, picking out a gold spangled outfit with more fringe than fabric. “Either we have been wrong all this time, or you are lying. In either case,” she added, holding the dress in front of her, “You are a most interesting find.”

“Actually,” Haley countered, finally settling on something that would at least cover more than it revealed, “there is a third possibility. I think I’m from a different universe entirely.”

Effulgia laughed, a soul-crushing noise. “Another universe? Nonsense!”

“Okay,” Haley relented, wriggling into her chosen outfit. “There is no other universe, I’m lying, and you’ve just never heard of Ohio because it is beyond the emperor’s reach.”

Effulgia stepped over and slapped Haley hard across the face. “Never speak of my father in that way! He is all-powerful!”

Haley rubbed her cheek. “But you just said—“

Effulgia sniffed and stuck her nose in the air. “I am his daughter. It is not your place to doubt him.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Haley apologized. She took Effulgia into her arms and embraced her. “Let’s not fight. We were having such a good time.”

“You hurt me,” Effulgia replied.

Outside the door to Effulgia’s suite, there was a brief commotion. Haley and Effulgia released each other and tried to step away, only to find that the various baubles and protrusions on their selected clothing had become entangled, hooking them to each other.

The suite doors flew open with a bang. Standing in the opening were two men in the uniforms of the imperial navy, their faces obscured by the angle of their hats. As they stepped forward into the room, Effulgia roared, “What is the meaning of this?”

One of them drew a gun. “Don’t move, your highness,” he said.

The other one whipped off his hat. “Haley?” he cried.

“Grandpa?” Haley asked, confused.

“Get away from that woman this instant, young lady!” Archie ordered.

Haley looked down at her predicament. “Um, I can’t,” she declared.

“She’s gotten to you! Haley, snap out of it!”

Effulgia interrupted imperiously, “How dare you come in here and threaten me?! I will have you both flayed alive for this.”

“No, Grandpa, I can’t. I physically am unable. We’re… sort of… attached,” she finished, lamely. She leaned away from Effulgia to illustrate.

“Oh. Well, get unhooked and get over here. We’re leaving.”

Suddenly, alarm klaxons started going off. The one with the gun said, “I told you we should have shot the kid.”

Effulgia twisted around, grabbed Haley’s neck with her arm, and held her between herself and the intruders. “The only things you will do are suffer and die.” She placed her free hand on the top of Haley’s head. Haley struggled to free herself from Effulgia’s grasp, but her dress had become a tangle, constricting her movements.

“Guards will be here shortly. Surrender peacefully to them, and this girl will survive the day. Do anything else, and I will break her neck.”

“Effulgia Hai,” said the one with the gun, “You are guilty of crimes against humanity and decency too numerous to list. I hereby sentence you to death.” He lifted the gun and aimed for Effulgia’s head. She ducked behind Haley.

“What?” Archie cried. “Are you nuts? You’ll hit Haley.”

“I don’t care,” Docian admitted. “I told you, she is unimportant. I cannot waste this opportunity.”

Archie slammed into Docian, knocking the gun out of his hands and sending it spinning across the floor. The two of them sprawled onto the floor. Effulgia dragged Haley to the far side of the room, where she opened a panel in the wall and pulled out a gun of her own. She leveled it and aimed for the two men.

Haley pulled with all her might, ripping out of her borrowed dress, knocking off Effulgia’s aim in the process. She grabbed Effulgia’s gun hand. Effulgia kicked her in the shin. Haley flinched, but did not let go. She pushed, and the two of them toppled onto the bed, wrestling for control of the pistol.

Across the room, Archie and Docian scrambled along the floor in a race to Docian’s death ray. Docian was ahead, but Archie grabbed Docian’s ankle and used it to drag Docian backward. Archie got to the gun first. He pointed it at Docian and said, “Now we do things my way, got it?” Docian nodded, never taking his eyes off the working end of the death ray emitter.

Archie stood up, his aching joints protesting, and crept over to the bed where the women were still fighting. Averting his eyes from his granddaughter, Archie concentrated on getting close to Effulgia. He placed the tip of his pistol to Effulgia’s temple. “Stop it,” he said simply.

Effulgia realized she was in a losing situation. “Don’t kill me!” she begged. She released her grip on her gun and let Haley take it from her. “I’ll give you anything you want.”

“Haley?” Archie said, “get off this crazy woman and go put something on, please.”

“Yes, Grandpa,” she said, rolled off of Effulgia, and hurried over to the closet.

“Something decent!” he called after her.

“I’ll do my best,” she replied.

Archie turned his attention back to Effulgia. “I’m going to have to live with that image in my head now, thanks to you.” Archie turned his head so he could see Docian. “You said you had a ship?”

Docian nodded. “In the aft hangar.”

“Ha!” Effulgia laughed. “The ship is on full alert. You’ll never make it.”

“Docian, can we get there through the maintenance tunnels?” Archie asked.

“There’s no way. They don’t connect. There’s a blast barrier built in to the ship’s infrastructure fore of the hangar in case of explosion.”

Archie felt Haley move up beside him. “Point your gun at her,” he told her. Then he looked over at her. “What the hell are you wearing now?”

She shifted her shoulders uncomfortably, careful not to lose her aim. “I think the material conforms to whoever puts it on, but at least I’m covered.”

Archie shook his head to clear it, and then clambered across the bed so that Effulgia was between him and the door. “Docian, find something to tie her up with,” he ordered.

“Ooh,” Effulgia commented. “Maybe I did pick the wrong one.” Docian’s eyes wandered around the room, searching for something appropriate. “The closet to your left,” she suggested. “The one on the second shelf is my favorite.”

Docian looked helplessly at Archie, who nodded. As Docian entered the closet, Archie said to Effulgia, “All right. You’re the evil yet beautiful daughter of a ruthless, world-conquering dictator, with your own personal spaceship with and within which you do whatever you want. Am I right?”

Effulgia nodded. “Pretty much.”

“In that case,” Archie continued, “I bet you have some sort of escape route off of this crate, in the event that revolutionaries storm the place and take it over. Your daddy would insist.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Effulgia denied. Docian arrived, carrying a complicated mass of plastic straps and metal buckles. “Mmm, I’m being bad. You should punish me.”

“God, woman,” Archie exclaimed, “can you lay off the crude innuendo for five minutes? Docian, tie her up. Make sure she can still walk. And make sure she doesn’t enjoy it.”

“Right,” Docian agreed. He climbed onto the bed and started restraining Effulgia, while Archie and Haley kept a bead on her. At several points, she had to explain to him where everything went.

They heard the sound of running footsteps in the hallway. Archie shouted, “Haley, close those doors, then get back over here!”

She ran to comply, saying, “You mean those really flimsy, decorative doors over there? Sure.” She slammed the two doors together, and then grabbed one end of the sash hanging over the door and wrapped it around the door handles several times. “That’ll hold them,” she said without conviction as she returned to Archie.

“It’s time to go,” Archie proclaimed. “Docian, stand her up.” Docian lifted Effulgia, whose arms were now secured behind her back, and helped her get to her feet. “Now,” Archie repeated, “where is your escape craft, or personal flyer, or whatever you call it?”

Docian asked, “How can you be so sure she has one?”

“The villain always has an escape plan,” Haley explained, to Archie’s surprise.

The door to the suite exploded inward in a cloud of smoke. “Everyone, get behind her,” Archie called. “They won’t risk shooting her.” The trio gathered around the bound woman.

“Give up now,” Effulgia sneered. “You eventual deaths will be painful, but if you surrender, I promise, you will eventually die.”

“I’m not too familiar with these death ray things,” Archie mused. “If I shoot her in the foot, will it just kill her foot, or all of her?”

“Excuse me,” said a voice from the smoking remains of the doorway. “My name is Captain Abbazia. This is my ship. You have no way out of that room or off of this ship. We cannot risk harming Her Ladyship in an attempt to recapture you. I believe we can come to some accommodation.”

Archie, Haley, and Docian traded glances. Haley piped up, “What did you have in mind?”

“We know you have a ship waiting in our hangar. Release Her Ladyship and take me in her place. You will be guaranteed safe passage to your ship. I will then accompany you to the nearest landmass with an atmosphere. Drop me off there and be on your way. My men won’t fire upon your ship with me aboard it.”

“What do you think?” Archie whispered.

“You can’t trust him,” Docian indicated.

“It does sound like too good a deal to be true,” Haley agreed.

“I’d do it if I were you,” advised Effulgia.

“Hey, Captain… what was your name?” Archie called out.

“Abbazia.”

“Abbazia, right. Nice to meet you. I want you to settle a disagreement we were having just before you arrived.”

“Anything I can do to help.”

“Is there or is there not some sort of personal escape craft for Her Freakiness’ use accessible from this room?”

“There is the ship’s boat, one deck up. You’ll find an access hatch in one of the closets.”

“Will it hold four people?”

“Yes.”

“All right, then. Here’s the deal. We three take Effulgia and yourself up to the ship’s boat. No one follows us, and no one meets us there or she dies. You come with us on the boat, and we leave her behind. We’ll drop you off somewhere once we know we’re safe.”

“What about your ship?” Abbazia asked.

“Yeah,” Docian asked, “what about my ship?”

Archie asked him, “What if they power it up and throw it out the back?”

Docian shook his head. “No good. It’s got security features. Fatal ones.”

“Do you need your ship, really? Is it that big a deal?”

“It’s my ship,” Docian reiterated.

“All right,” Archie called out again, “new plan! Captain, you personally escort Docian to his ship and accompany him away from here. Once we have proof that you’re out there, we and Effulgia will go up and take the ship’s boat. We’ll rendezvous somewhere to be determined later. You take the boat and your princess one way, we go another. No one dies, everyone’s happy. What do you say?”

Abbazia replied, “This is acceptable.”

“Great. Finally. Do you guys have radios?” Archie asked.

“Radios?”

“Long distance communication device, so we can talk to each other.”

“Of course.”

“Good. Give one to Docian and one to us. I want constant contact between us.”

There was a short pause. Abbazia said, “Done. I am ready to come in to give the radios to you. I am unarmed.”

“Come on in,” Archie invited. Abbazia was a tall, handsome man in the uniform of the empire. His arms were outstretched to the sides, and in each hand he carried a box with an antenna.

“No tricks,” Archie warned.

“No tricks,” Abbazia agreed.

“Put them on the bed and stand back,” Archie commanded. His hand was starting to cramp from holding the death ray so tightly. Abbazia did as he was told.

Archie nodded to Docian. “Go get them, and make sure they work.” Docian cautiously split from the pack and crawled over the bed to reach the radios. He flicked each one on, selected a broadcast channel, and ensured they each one could both send and receive. Then, he nodded his satisfaction to Archie.

“All right. Docian, hand me one of those, and get going.” Docian rejoined the group and gave over one of the devices.

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Docian mumbled.

“That makes, I’m guessing, three of us at minimum.”

Abbazia asked, “Shall we go?”

“Wait,” Archie suddenly exclaimed. “Abbazia, show us the way to the ship’s boat first. She was a bit reluctant earlier.” Abbazia nodded, and led them to another room. In the closet of that room, Abbazia revealed the sliding panel behind which stood a ladder. At the top of the small chamber was a heavy hatch.

“If that will be all,” Abbazia excused himself.

“Remember,” Archie reminded him. “If anything happens, your princess dies.”

“Of course. Shall we, Docian?”

As Docian and the captain left, Archie reminded Docian, “Stay in constant contact.”

“All right already,” Docian replied.

It took fifteen minutes for Docian and Captain Abbazia to navigate through the ship to the rear hangar. The entire time, Archie and Docian took turns asking each other over the radio if the other was okay. Beyond the door to the room, troops stood ready to attack at Effulgia’s order or the first hint of violence. They hated missing out on the first hint of violence. Effulgia, for her part alternated through phases of pleading for her life, making threats, and hitting on pretty much everyone and everything.

Finally, the message came over the radio, “We’re on board. Preparing to leave. The captain behaved himself.”

“Roger,” Archie replied. “We’re on the move.” He added, “By the way, I assume we’re being eavesdropped upon. There had better not be anyone waiting where we’re going. If so, and I hate to keep bringing this up but circumstances demand it, your princess will die.”

“Fear not,” Abbazia said over the radio. “They all know what Emperor Lao will do to them if his daughter is injured.”

Haley went up first, after some discussion. Archie didn’t want Effulgia to go up first in case someone was waiting there to grab her and whisk her away. Haley, on the other hand, thought they might shoot the first head to poke out of the hatchway, and therefore Effulgia should go first. Finally, they compromised by sending up Haley, on the premise that anyone watching their point of exit for something to shoot might be confused by Haley’s appearance in Effulgia’s clothes at least long enough for her to react and get out of the way.

They need not have worried. The small compartment was empty, other than the dominating presence of what appeared to be a giant, hot pink manta ray. They closed the hatch behind them.

“That’s your ship’s boat?” Archie asked.

Effulgia smiled. “I had some work done on it.”

“Right. Whatever,” Archie said, dismissively. “Everybody pile into the Barbie Dream spaceship and let’s get out of here.” They walked around the ship, failing to find any way to enter the vessel. “Where’s the door?” Archie re-emphasized the fact that he had a gun by sticking it up under Effulgia’s nose. “Tell us, or—“

“Or, you’ll kill me,” she completed wearily. “Yes, I know. There’s a hatch on the top.”

Haley scrambled up onto the ship while Archie kept his gun pointed at Effulgia. When she yelled out, “Found it!” he waved her up with his gun. Then Haley took over the task of guarding Effulgia while Archie lumbered his way up onto the hull. Through a similar process of trading responsibilities, they made it inside.

Where they stood in a small cabin, staring dumbly at the pilot and copilot’s seats.

“Hmm,” Archie hmmed.

“So, uh, we may have forgotten something,” Haley offered.

“What?” Effulgia asked.

“Yeah, I was just thinking that,” Archie agreed.

“What?” Effulgia repeated.

“I guess I’ll just come out and ask,” Haley volunteered. “Does anyone know how to fly this thing?” Effulgia broke out into cruel, boisterous laughter.

“Hey,” Archie said defensively. “There was a lot going on back there. So I missed a few details. So what?”

Effulgia, gasping for air, said, “You people are the worst kidnappers I’ve ever had.”

Haley shrugged. “It’s our first heist.”

“On the whole,” Archie added, “I think we’re doing pretty well, considering the circumstances.” This did nothing to calm Effulgia’s guffaws. She did, however, walk to the pilot’s seat and sit down.

“Honestly,” she said as she activated the power-up sequence, “What would you do without me?”

“Probably live through the night,” Archie muttered. The pink manta ship lifted off from the deck. Bay doors quickly slid open in front of it, and in a moment it was in open space.

Haley sat in the copilot’s chair and gawked out the front view port. “Look at that,” she sighed. “Land floating in the sky like clouds. Amazing.”

“Of course,” Effulgia sneered. “What else would there be?”

“We’re used to planets and stars where we come from.”

“Haley!” Archie admonished, “Shush! She doesn’t need to know where we come from.”

The ship banked left. The Perdition came into view, its guns visibly tracking the small flying boat. “You might want to give me some idea where to fly this thing,” Effulgia suggested. “Otherwise, I might just take it back to its hangar and let my soldiers take their shot at you.”

Archie, who was staring off into the hypnotic surreality of the sky around him, jerked back to awareness with Effulgia’s comment. He brought the radio to his mouth and said, “Docian, can you hear me?”

The answer was full of static, but audible. “I hear you.”

“Where should we meet?”

“There’s a landmass at bearing 45 by 10 from the Perdition. Meet on the far side of that, out of sight of the big ship.”

Archie asked Effulgia, “You know where that is?”

“Of course.” The ship weaved and swooped, settling down on a new course below the Perdition.

Haley commented, “You’re being awfully cooperative, Effulgia. I really appreciate it.” She reached over and put her hand on Effulgia’s shoulder.

“It has nothing to do with you,” Effulgia denied, shaking off the hand. “I still have a lot to do today. I want to get this over with as quickly and painlessly as possible.”

“Still,” Haley persisted, “thank you.”

Effulgia laughed as Archie burst forth with, “What? Are you thanking her for throwing us in a cage, for torturing us on that table, or for trying to kill you when we came to rescue you?”

“No, Grandpa. I meant… oh forget it!”

“Haley, my darling,” Effulgia said, reaching over and taking her hand. “I just want you to know….” She paused, brought Haley’s hand to her lips, kissed her fingers, and continued, “…that you meant absolutely nothing to me.” Haley gasped and yanked her hand away. “You were merely a morning’s entertainment, that’s all. An interchangeable, disposable plaything.”

“But…” Haley stuttered.

“While I applaud your enthusiasm,” Effulgia continued, “Your skills are mediocre at best. With your looks, you should really work on that.”

“I don’t want to hear this,” Archie moaned.

Haley shouted, “You bitch!” and punched Effulgia in the jaw with her free hand. The ship swerved and plunged downward in response to Effulgia’s reaction. The smirk on her face as she righted herself and the ship was short lived. It died upon meeting Haley’s absconded death ray pistol pressed against her cheek. “I’ll kill you, you whore!”

Archie enfolded Haley in a bear hug from behind, pinning her arms to her side. He didn’t have the strength to hold her, but was hoping that whatever drove her to visit him every month at the retirement center despite the total lack of encouragement would also compel her not to do him harm now.

“Calm down, Haley,” he whispered to her. “You can’t kill her right now. We need her.” Louder, he said to Effulgia, “This is the second time today that someone has decided to kill you shortly after meeting you. Have you considered that there might be something about you that brings this out in people?”

Haley relaxed in Archie’s grip and began sobbing. “It’s okay, shh,” Archie consoled her, turning her into the more traditional hug orientation. “Don’t let the mean evil lesbian bother you. It’s what she wants. Go in the back and see if there’s a place you can wash your face. I’ll guard her for a while.”

Haley nodded and mumbled, “Okay.” Archie let go of her. She stepped toward the rear of the cabin.

Archie sat down in the copilot’s seat, his pistol aimed in Effulgia’s general direction. Ahead, a mass of land filled the view port. He studied the controls in front of him. It looked to him like a standard flight stick control system. The purpose of the gauges and switches was still a mystery, but he had seen Effulgia work the throttle. He could probably work out the rest if he had to, Archie judged.

“Are we there yet?” Archie asked impatiently.

“Just a few more minutes,” Effulgia assured him.

“You know, that was not a nice thing you did to my granddaughter just now.”

“I’m not a nice person.”

“Well, obviously. Still it was kind of gratuitous, don’t you think?”

“I only regret that you were not as offended as she. That would have warmed my heart.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve been around. I’ve seen and heard worse at more than one loading dock. I tell you, after you’ve listened to a couple of big dyke truckers get going after each other, nothing else will shock you anymore. But Haley? She’s still young and sensitive. You hurt her. She’s going to remember that. So will I.”

“Tell me something… Archie, is it?”

“That’s me.”

“Tell me, Archie. Moments ago, you dismissed me as not worth listening to. So, why are you now offering me your tedious, pedestrian advice?”

“It’s like this. Old folks like me have a lot of advice built up inside them. They have to let it out once in a while or they explode. And maybe you’re still young enough to learn something from an old fart like me. I don’t know if I approve of Haley’s decisions. Then again, I don’t suppose it matters if I do. But, if she’s going to waste her time on someone like you, I figure it’s my family responsibility to kick people like you in the ass until one of you shapes up.”

“There’s your ride,” Effulgia said, point out the view port. Far ahead, a speck of black stood against the yellow sky.

“Great!” Archie said, adding, “Say, can these things dock together or something?”

They could, and did. Archie had Effulgia bring her ship to a stop. Docian then maneuvered his above hers, aligning his bottom hatch with her top access. Archie suggested that they should take Effulgia’s vessel and leave their hostages in Docian’s to confuse pursuit, but Docian insisted on keeping his own.

People transferred back and forth until finally, Archie, Docian, and Haley were all on Docian’s ship, and Effulgia and Captain Abbazia were on the other. Before disconnecting the two ships, Archie called down through the connecting passage, “Sorry about all this. It’s all been a huge misunderstanding. We won’t bother you again.”

The ships separated. Effulgia returned to her place in the pilot’s seat and activated her radio. “Perdition, this is Lady Effulgia, come in.”

“Yes, your Ladyship,” the radio responded. “Are you and the captain well?”

“Launch fighters immediately! Chase down the vessel leaving this location and shoot it out of the sky!”

“They’re already on the way, Your Ladyship. Perdition closing to rendezvous with you before joining the pursuit.”

“Excellent.” She switched off the radio and turned to Abbazia, who had taken up position in the chair beside hers. “Remind me to have guns mounted on this boat, Captain. I find myself dissatisfied that I cannot hunt them down personally.”

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Effulgia was gone by the time two guards came to take Archie to a more comfortable location. Off to do God knows what with his granddaughter. Archie drove the thought out of his head. She’s an adult. It’s the 21st century. A person has to be open-minded.

This was all her mother’s fault, Archie decided. She’s the one who went to that clinic when she decided to have a baby instead of finding a good man and settling down. Without a stable and balanced home life growing up, how could Haley help growing up perverted? She never got to see what a good, solid, loving relationship between a man and a woman was like.

Society was to blame as well. It’s all over the place these days. A man can’t turn on the television these days without seeing two women all over each other. Everything is smut nowadays. Everyone’s business is all out in the open, experimenting and whatnot. It was disgusting.

In Archie’s day, people kept their business to themselves, the way they ought. If you did anything with another person, it was in private, the other person was the opposite gender, and you felt a proper amount of shame afterwards. It kept folks honest.

Archie continued muttering to himself along those lines during the entire journey from the interrogation room in the rear to the portside cabin he had been assigned. He was so deep in thought that he was surprised when they stopped him from walking past and continuing down the corridor.

“Oh, we’re here, are we? Doesn’t look like much,” Archie complained.

“Get inside,” grumbled the guard on the left, pushing the button to open the door. “This is the only door, and we’ll be out here all the time. You will be questioned shortly.”

Archie stepped into the cabin. “Better than the last place, anyway,” he mumbled. Indeed it was. For one thing, it was well lit. A track of concealed lighting ringed the walls near the ceiling, casting an indirect glow upward onto the white ceiling and down onto the ornate decorative pattern of the wall, providing uniform soft illumination. The room itself was on the small side, dominated to Archie’s right by a large couch that spanned one entire wall and curved to consume part of each adjoining wall as well. A square, glass-topped table stood in the center of the space defined by the couch, not unlike the sort of coffee table Archie was accustomed to seeing.

Along the far wall was a series of small, round windows. From where Archie stood, the sky outside appeared yellow, swirling with different shades and threatening to fade into either orange or green at any moment.

Through an arched doorway to Archie’s left, he saw a dimmed room with a variety of darker shapes huddled near the floor. He concluded that it was probably a bedroom, given the Holiday Inn-esque décor of what he could see. Between the doorway and the corner of the wall nearest Archie were a counter, some cabinets, and what Archie imagined were a refrigerator and a stove. “Kitchenette,” Archie said, approvingly. “Swanky.”

Satisfied that he was at least briefly not in any immediate danger of painful death, Archie set out to determine a method of escape. A cell was a cell, no matter how fancy, as far as he was concerned. He started by defining the parameters of his predicament. He was locked in a room with only one door—wait a minute. Archie stepped across the plush carpeted floor to the archway and looked inside. The lights came up as he did so. In the room beyond was a large oval mattress, flanked on either side by small tables. An upholstered chair occupied each of the near corners of the bedroom. On the wall to Archie’s left was a closed door.

Archie, curious, went over to the door. There’s no way, he thought. They wouldn’t be so stupid as to put him into a room with a rear exit. Would they? He wasn’t that lucky. At best, it would open up into the same hall that his two overly-protective companions were guarding. But what if it didn’t?

Archie was disappointed but not surprised when he discovered the bathroom. “I suppose some things are universal,” he commented to himself.

“Okay,” he said aloud so he could hear a friendly voice. “I’m locked in a decently-appointed room with only one door out. That door is being guarded by two men who didn’t seem all that amenable to persuasion or bribery, and whom I could never defeat physically. In a little while, someone is going to come in here and ask me questions I may or may not know the answers to. The consequences of which could be unpleasant for both myself and Haley. Meanwhile, Haley is in the company of, let’s face it, an evil princess, apparently doomed to suffer a fate worse than death. Whatever will Archie do? Tune in next week and find out!”

Archie chuckled and sat gingerly down on the bed in deference to his still considerable aches and pains. “Come on, Archie, think!” he encouraged himself. “What would Dash Mercury do? That’s easy. He’d overpower the guards, dress in one of their uniforms, make his way to where the evil princess was holding the girl, romance the princess, rescue the girl, then set the ship’s reactor to explode while he made his getaway in an escape pod.

“Great! All I need is someone to overpower the guards for me, a uniform that would disguise the fact that I’m old, a map of the ship, a lot of alcohol, the opportunity to ply Effulgia with it, some knowledge of how to overload a reactor, and an escape pod. Piece of cake.”

Archie toppled backward on the bed and stared up at the ceiling. He noticed a ventilation duct vent in the corner. He guessed it was roughly six inches wide and nine long. “There we go. I’ll just slip into the air ducts.” He laughed bitterly.

Maybe, Archie thought, having grown tired of talking, I could set a fire on the stove. And hope that they cared enough to come put it out before I asphyxiated.

He wrestled himself back up to vertical and walked back into the living room. He was fairly certain that two walls of his cabin had the hallway, full of guards, and the exterior of the ship beyond them. The hall was out, but what about outside? He didn’t know whether they were flying through air or vacuum, or, to be perfectly honest, if they were flying at all. They could be at sea or on a very smooth road. Still, it was worth exploring.

The portholes were less than a foot across. Archie doubted he could get his head through one, never mind his entire body. He banged on the wall experimentally. It sounded hollow. He had no idea what that meant. So he looked out one of the windows.

Above the ship, the entire dome of the sky was aglow. At about the level of what he imagined was the horizon, the yellow abruptly shifted to darkest black, which continued downward as far as he could see from the limited viewpoint of the porthole. Archie seriously considered retreating back into the blissful denial he had enjoyed when he first arrived in this strange place. While he pondered the benefits of consensual insanity, he noticed dark spots on the background, some mere specks and some he could not cover with his thumb. He did not know what to make of it.

Suddenly, a loud noise of rushing air engulfed the ship. A large object came into view under the ship, moving swiftly toward the rear. He stared transfixed as he recognized brown and gray stone, topped with green. It was gone in a moment, taking the sound with it, but he was sure of what he saw. It was land. It was a block of stone the size of a mountain, flat on the top with a field of green in the center. Floating in mid-air. What kind of crazy place had he fallen into?

Archie dealt with his confusion by ignoring it. It was not going to get him out of the room, so he had to put it out of his mind. He deliberately turned away from the porthole, then moved toward the couch along the side wall. There were only four possible directions he could move to get out of the room. Up, down, through the wall behind the couch, or through the wall behind the bed.

He thoroughly examined the wall behind the couch, looking for removable panels or some other method of egress, and failing miserably. As he headed back into the bedroom to search that bulkhead as well, he starting thinking that he was going about this all wrong. He was not in any shape to go crawling through ductwork, avoiding patrols and whatnot. He had to think of something else. But what else was there?

Trickery, he decided. The key to his escape had to lie with the interrogator who was coming to question him. Archie sat down on the bed again and looked around the room. Maybe, he could use one of the end tables to bludgeon him when he came. Archie lay back and closed his eyes to promote concentration. But then what? Once I have him on the deck, what do I do?

***

Archie awoke with a yelp. In the dimness, he saw, and felt, someone in a uniform shaking him awake. Driven purely by instinct, he swung both fists in a wide arc into the figure. It made a satisfying, “Oof!” and rolled away. The lights came up in the room as Archie tried to leap off the bed and press his attack. He managed to scoot to the edge of the bed by the time the uniformed man got onto his feet.

“Docian?” Archie said, incredulously.

“You’re awake,” Docian replied amiably. “Good. We need to get you out of here.”

“What are you doing here? And why are you dressed like that?”

Docian looked down at his attire. “I had to dress like this to get in here, obviously. But look at you! In the clutches of your enemy, and you stay calm enough to take a nap before your thrilling escape.”

“What are you, my press agent? Anyway, how did you get past the guards at the door?”

Helping Archie stand, Docian explained, “I took care of them. We have to hurry before they’re discovered missing. Here,” he added, hurrying into the other room. He returned with an armload of clothes. “Put these on.”

Archie held up the uniform jacket skeptically. “I already thought of this. Do they have a lot of senior citizens on staff on these ships?”

“It won’t matter. It’s not that far to the hangar, through mostly little-used corridors. As long as we stay far enough away from everyone, we should be okay.”

“We can’t go straight to the hangar. We have to rescue Haley from almost certain sex.”

“She doesn’t matter,” Docian insisted.

“What?”

“You are the Child of Destiny. Her fate is unimportant. You must survive.”

“Like hell,” Archie argued. “I’ve got three kids and six grandkids. Haley’s the only one worth a damn. I’m not leaving her here with these people.”

Docian stared at nothing. Eventually, he relented. “All right. If you insist. What do you propose?”

“Well, first things first. You were right about one thing. We have to get out of this room before someone comes.” He started putting on the uniform pieces over his clothes. “Go tie up the guards.”

“Why?”

“So they won’t sound the alarm when they wake up.”

“Um,” Docian said slowly. “That… won’t be a problem.”

“It most certainly will,” Archie began. “If we’re going to have any chance of getting Haley and getting out of here before….” His voice trailed off as the realization sank in. “What did you do?” he cried, hurrying into the living room.

On the floor were the two guards, their uniforms in various stages of dishevelment. Both of their faces carried accusing grimaces of pain.

Following Archie, Docian said matter-of-factly, “I shot them with my death ray. It was the only way. There’s no time.”

Archie kneeled down beside one of the prone men, felt for a pulse, but found none. “You couldn’t have used the stun setting or something?”

Docian drew the weapon from its hiding place and looked at it. “It’s called a ‘death ray.’ What makes you think it has a stun setting?”

“These were people!” Archie reminded him. “They probably had families. Wives, kids maybe.” He turned to confront Docian face to face. “Don’t you care about-” Archie noticed the gun in Docian’s hand. “Whoa!” He held his hands in front of him in a combination of a reassuring stance and a defensive posture. “Hey, let’s talk about this. Just relax, there, buddy. There’s no need for that.”

“What?” Docian asked, confused.

“Just put the gun down,” Archie said soothingly. “Stay calm. We can discuss this like reasonable people.”

Docian stared uncomprehendingly at Archie. Then, suddenly, he understood. “Oh!” he exclaimed, replacing the gun in its concealed location within his uniform. “No, please. I would never… it was an emergency… I’m not in the habit…” Archie relaxed as Docian’s stumbling words trailed off. “Listen, we don’t have much time. I have my ship in the docking bay. The longer we take, the more likely they will discover I’m not inside it. We’re done for if that happens.”

“Okay,” Archie said, having rethought his interest in confronting the friendly murderer before him. Putting on the dead guards’ clothes, he continued, “So, how do we get to Haley? She’s with that Effulgia woman.”

Docian started dragging the first of the corpses into the bedroom. “Her state room is in the nose of the ship, just above the centerline. We should be able to get there through the maintenance access tunnels. There’s a hatch at the end of the corridor.”

“How do I look?” Archie asked, extending his arms to the sides. The uniform hung loosely off of his frame. The sleeves were too long, and the pants bunched up at the waist where Archie had cinched the belt as tightly as he could. Noticing the skeptical look on Docian’s face, he added, “They weren’t small people.”

“It will have to do,” Docian concluded. He pulled a handheld device out of a leather pouch on his belt. It had flashing lights and was making small beeping noises. Archie watched as Docian manipulated the controls. Docian smiled when a light at the top turned from red to green. Then, Docian waved the machine at the wall of the room bordering the hallway. He examined the machine afterward, and declared, “It’s clear. Let’s go.” Docian returned the device to its pouch and stepped over to the door.

Archie stood back as Docian activated the door control. The door slid open with a quiet, “Shhff.” Docian stuck his head out the doorway, looked both directions, then looked back at Archie and said, “Come on.” Docian slipped out the door and disappeared to the left. Archie followed.

Together, they trod quietly up the corridor, doing their best to appear simultaneously invisible and perfectly at home. They reached a turn at the forward end of the hall without incident. On the wall facing the hallway they had just traversed was a closed hatch. Archie didn’t see any handles or other way to open it.

“Now what?” Archie whispered, well aware of how exposed he felt. In response, Docian pulled out that odd electrical device again. Now closer to it, Archie could see that the entire front face of the thing was covered with switches, buttons, and dials. These Docian manipulated with what Archie considered amazing speed. He couldn’t even keep up with what Docian was doing. He imagined it must take years of practice to learn to use whatever that thing was.

Finally, a light turned green and Docian stopped fiddling with the device. He placed it on the wall next to a keypad. In a few seconds, four of the keys lit up, one after the other, and the hatch hissed open.

“Well, that’s handy,” Archie said, as Docian led him into to hatchway. Inside, a ladder led down a short distance. Archie descended creakily. At the bottom, the small niche opened up into another hallway directly beneath the one they had just left. Archie stepped out, while Docian repeated the process with that device of his. Above, the maintenance hatch closed and resealed itself.

“This way,” Docian said softly, heading toward what Archie was pretty sure was the fore of the ship, amid pipes leaking steam and bundles of wires running overhead and underfoot.

As they traveled, Archie asked, “Say, what is that machine you keep using? What does it do?”

“This?” Docian replied, holding the device over his shoulder for Archie to see in the uncertain light. “It’s a widget. My father invented it many years ago. You can use it as a sensor, or to access computers, or store and retrieve data, or as a short-range radio, things like that.”

“The things they can’t do these days,” Archie commented.

Docian stopped and turned around, holding the widget out so they could both see it. “See, first, you decide what you need it to do. Then, you push this button.” Docian pointed out the large button on the side. “This light will turn red. Next, you operate these controls until the light turns green. At that point, it’s set for whatever task you need, so you use it. Simple.”

“I see,” said Archie, who didn’t. “How do you know which buttons to push? Is there a manual?”

Docian looked confused. “I don’t understand the question.”

“For instance, the way you opened that hatch back there. I find it hard to believe that you just happened to have the proper settings memorized to make your widget a hatch-opening device. I assume you looked it up before you came, in case you might need it, but it looked awfully complicated just the same. So, how do you know how to work it?”

“Um, no,” Docian admitted slowly. “I just needed to open the hatch, so I worked the controls until the widget could do it.”

It was Archie’s turn to look confused. “You just flip switches at random? That doesn’t make sense.”

Docian shrugged. “I don’t understand the science behind it. But that’s how it works.” Docian looked ahead of them. “I’ll show you. Up ahead, there’s a security checkpoint. We have to disable it to get into the nose of the ship. Let’s go.” Docain led a bewildered Archie to the checkpoint, just outside of sensor range. “All right, what we need here is a security bypass, something that will keep the sensors from reporting our passing to the central electric brain.

“So, the first thing I do is fix in my mind the idea that I want a security bypass device.” He pushed the button on the side of the widget. “See the red light here?” Archie nodded. “Now, watch. I’ll go slow.” As Archie observed, Docian’s fingers jumped from one control to the next, seemingly at random: a button here, a dial there, three switches in a row, then reversing the middle one to its original position, and so on. Archie could make no rhyme or reason out of any of it.

Eventually, the light on the machine turned green. “Ah!” Docian exclaimed. “There we are. Now, we move forward. Stay close to me.” Archie did as he was told, stepping into Docian’s footsteps almost before the other had vacated them. He noticed the cameras mounted just above head height on both sides of the tunnel, tracking their movements.

“They see us!” Archie hissed.

“Relax,” Docian assured him. “They do, but they aren’t sending that information anywhere. We’re almost past.” Archie listened to the whirr of servomotors behind him until they fell silent.

“There. We’re through,” Docian announced. “Effulgia’s rooms are a couple decks above us. We need a ladder. Keep an eye out.”

“That worked,” Archie said, incredulous.

“It seems to have,” Docian agreed. “No alarms went off. That’s usually a good sign.”

“What if they were silent alarms?”

“Silent? What good are alarms if you can’t hear them?”

“No,” Archie elaborated. “Silent for us. They get warned someplace else, but we don’t know we set anything off.”

Docian pondered this. “Hmm. Never heard of such a thing. Not Lao the Pitiless’ style to let those who threaten him think they’re getting away with it.”

“You’re sure?”

“Pretty sure, yeah.”

“That makes me feel so much better, thanks.”

Docian disappeared in front of Archie. Taking a step forward, Archie discovered that Docian has stepped into another side niche.

“Found a ladder. If I’m right, then the corridor outside Effulgia’s suite should be almost directly above us.”

Archie looked up into the darkness of the ladder’s shaft. “How far up, do you think?”

“Not far. Come on.” Docian began climbing the ladder. Archie labored with his stiff joints to follow. He fell behind, and by the time he caught up to Docian at the top -- his heart pounding, his shoulders screaming in protest, and his vision blurring -- Docian had already used his widget to open the maintenance hatch. Docian stepped out, and Archie collapsed through the doorway behind him. Docian helped Archie to his feet, and then went to peek around the nearest corner.

“There it is,” Docian whispered. Archie leaned against the wall and took his word for it. “Just one guard,” Docian added, fishing out his death ray. “Looks like a boy. Probably just ceremonial.”

Archie saw the movement of Docian’s hand and grabbed the other’s wrist. “No,” he stage-whispered. “I won’t let you kill anyone else.”

“Well, what, then? This was your idea, after all. You want in that room. He’s in the way. Would you rather run over and beat him unconscious?”

Archie was still struggling to catch his breath after the climb. “Maybe,” he offered. “It’s what Dash Mercury would have done.”

“Perhaps, but do you know what will happen to him if he’s discovered alive after failing to protect the emperor’s daughter from us? Killing him now is a kindness.”

Archie pushed himself off the wall. “We’re in uniform, right? Maybe you can convince him you’re a superior officer and order him away.”

“It won’t matter to the boy in the long run. Lao the Pitiless is not called that because he accepts failures gracefully.”

Archie wheeled on Docian. “I can’t control that. What happens later is not my fault. What happens now is. We trick him. We scare him off. We knock him out. We do not kill him. Understand?”

“Fine, anything. Let’s just hurry. We’ve already wasted too much time.”

The two men straightened up, adjusted their uniforms as well as they could and marched around the corner toward Effulgia’s suite.

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Supply Sergeant Grant was sitting behind his desk reading the latest issue of Astonishing when Corporal Pennington entered his office.

“Hey, Genie. How’s Shirley and the kids?” Pennington said.

Glancing up from his magazine, Grant replied, “Afternoon, Cy. They’re doing just fine, thanks. What brings you by?” The rhyme was stale from being aired so often, but Pennington chuckled at it anyway.

“Yeah, um, listen, Genie. Some of the guys are heading into Pensacola on leave before they get sent over to West Germany. I got some pals who invited me along. So, I was wondering if maybe you could swing me a weekend pass, maybe?”

Supply Sergeant Archie Grant had developed something of a reputation in the past few years as the sort of person who could make things happen for you or get things you wanted, on a purely unofficial basis, you understand, in return for either financial remuneration or a favor to be named later. One of the wiseguys had taken Grant’s last name and his ability to fulfill wishes, and started calling him Genie. That particular wiseguy had been transferred overseas years ago, but the nickname survived in the base scuttlebutt ever since.

Genie had developed a network of favors owed and grateful clients that he used in this under the table supplement to his income. There were junior officers whom Genie had done a little something for back when they were green recruits, and from whom Genie could, on occasion, impose upon for a little extra paperwork.

He had one rule he lived by: he wouldn’t deal in anything actually unlawful. He had to have some standards. But if it could be requisitioned, or purchased legally outside the confines of Eglin Air Force Base and shipped in, that was no problem. By the same token, he didn’t put much stock in what he saw as the arbitrary restrictions of living on a military installation. Booze, women, and cheap smokes were his most popular products, “women” referring not to paid companions, but rather to the opportunities to avail oneself of the local talent in the form of 1-, 2-, or 3-day passes.

Genie put down his pulp fiction, looked every way to make sure they were not being overheard, leaned forward, and said, “You want Friday and Saturday or Saturday and Sunday?”

“Friday and Saturday. I need to be back here for church Sunday anyway.”

Genie nodded conspiratorially, “Twenty five.”

Pennington nodded. While he fished out his money, Genie took the ring of keys out of his pocket and unlocked the desk. He opened the lower right drawer and lifted out a small lockbox. Another key opened that. Genie sorted through his available passes until he found one that fit Pennington’s request. He tucked that one into his magazine, then reversed the procedure to put everything back in its place, secure.

“Here you go,” Genie said, holding out the paper. “Be back by eight Sunday morning. We never had this conversation.” He held out his other hand for the cash.

“Sure thing, Genie. Thanks.”

“Sergeant Grant!” boomed the voice of Grant’s company commander, a short, squarish thumb of a man named Lieutenant Fields, from behind a tall stack of combat boot-filled boxes. Genie quickly made the cash disappear and shooed Pennington away from his desk.

He stood up, picking up his magazine so that he could be seen putting it down as Fields came into view. “Yes, sir?”

“Grant,” Fields barked, “I just got a letter from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. You went behind my back to apply to be an astronaut?”

“I did, sir. The Apollo program was looking for men—“

“For pilots, Grant. They need people to fly to the moon, not fly a desk. What made you think you had any chance in hell of becoming an Apollo astronaut? Are you a test pilot?”

“No, sir,” Grant replied, his ears burning.

“Are you any kind of pilot at all?”

“No, sir.”

“That’s right, ‘No, sir.’” Fields picked up the copy of Astounding from Grant’s desk. “You read this nonsense, and you get stupid ideas in your head.” Fields threw the magazine down. It skidded across the desk and off the edge, landing on the floor. “You’re a grunt, Grant. You’re one of the nameless and faceless multitudes who make it possible for great men like Alan Shepherd to become great. You’re a cog, a piece of the machine. If you weren’t here, someone else just like you would take your place. You don’t get to be the star, Grant. You’re nobody’s hero.”

“Yes, sir,” Grant replied. There was really nothing else to say.

Field stabbed his finger at Grant’s face. “Now I don’t want to get any more letters or phone calls telling me you broke channels trying to get a transfer, Sergeant.” The way he emphasized Grant’s rank stung like a slap in the face.

“No, sir,” Grant obeyed.

“Good. Get back to work.”

Grant sat down at his desk as his superior officer marched away. He reached down and picked up his Astounding magazine. He looked at the cover, a picture of a man in a space suit holding a similarly-dressed woman by his side and shooting his laser pistol at some multi-eyed, tentacled thing, all in front of a gleaming silver rocketship.

With a sigh, he tipped it into the trash can.

Chapter 12: Citizens on Patrol

“Emergency! Emergency!” Docian called out over the ship’s radio. “This is the independent trading ship Actinium to Imperial vessel. I am dangerously low on fuel, and will not make it to the nearest refueling center. Request immediate docking and emergency fuel ration.” He waited impatiently for the response.

“Scout ship Perdition to Actinium. Request denied.”

“What?” Docian exclaimed. He briefly reconsidered the merits of actually draining his fuel tanks to increase believability. “Perdition, please! My gravity pumps are going to fail any moment! I don’t want to die! Requesting approach clearance!”

He waited. Then he waited some more. He began to hope that the delay meant there was some discussion taking place as to whether or not to allow him to board and refuel. Finally, the answer came. “Perdition to Actinium. Permission granted. Prepare to pay emergency fueling fees.”

“Thank you, Perdition,” Docian said, the relief in his voice not entirely faked. Docian set his controls to the vector transmitted to him. “Approaching now.”

“Acknowledged. Be aware your maintenance and travel logs will be audited during your stay. In addition, an unsafe flying citation will be issued as a result of your failure to properly fuel your vessel. Proceed to slip seven.”

“Understood.” Docian maneuvered the small craft into the aft hangar of the scout cruiser and landed at the assigned location. He flipped some switches to connect his ship’s “official” log book and trade manifest –the ones that said the ship had been several dozen thousand miles away in a different direction than was really the case – into the larger electric brain of the larger ship.

Once the connection was made and the data transfer begun, Docian activated another computer bank, designed to surreptitiously access the host ship’s databanks. He keyed in a request to locate two prisoners that had been brought aboard in the last day or so.

“Perdition to Actinium,” the radio startled Docian by saying. He almost hit the kill switch on the extra computer, but restrained himself.

“Go ahead, Perdition.”

“Actinium, according to your records, you shipped half a ton of plant fertilizer to Clod three days ago.”

“That’s right,” he confirmed. He stared at the blinking “Working!” light as if that would make it go faster.

“Sir, are you aware that fertilizer is a controlled substance on Clod? It acts as an aphrodisiac on the native inhabitants.”

“I did not know that,” Docian lied. Always give them something to find, so they stop looking.

“Well, it is, sir. There will be a fine applied to your license, payable before you depart.”

“Okay, sorry.” The computer light turned green, indicating success, as a tickertape printout delivered the information to Docian’s hands. “Hmm,” he thought, reading the results, “being held separately. Well, I only need the one.”

“Actinium, please wait until a maintenance crew is available to service you.”

“Will do,” Docian agreed amiably, happy for the delay, giving him the chance to mount his rescue. Quickly, he moved to several different places within the cockpit, retrieving a variety of small metal objects from them. He sat back in the pilot’s seat and assembled the parts into a small but functional death ray pistol. Range and number of shots were limited, but he hoped not to have to use it at all. It was only for emergencies.

He turned the copilot’s seat one and one half rotations counterclockwise, finishing with it facing the rear of the cockpit. Then, he reached under the control panel and pushed a recessed button while simultaneously pushing backward on the back of the copilot’s seat. It flipped over, lifting the floor panel below it on a shared hinge. From inside the revealed compartment, he retrieved a uniform of the Imperial Navy. Quickly, he stripped off his clothes and put on the uniform. Then, he closed the secret compartment again.

He took only a few more moments to gather up a few small personal items and to set certain controls just so before exiting the rear of the cockpit.

The airlock was to his right. He turned left and entered a small storage volume, intended to hold aether suits. He twisted on one of the wall hooks while pulling on another, and the floor fell out from under him. He carefully lowered himself through the hole, arriving on the flight deck of the Perdition, concealed behind one of his ship’s landing struts.

Docian looked around to see if anyone was paying attention to his ship. Seeing no one, he stepped out from under it and quickly straightened up, facing the hull as if he had been inspecting it. Another furtive glance around, and Docian strode away from his ship and into the interior of the Perdition.

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His Imperial Majesty, Emperor Lao Hai the First and Only. Lao the Pitiless, Supreme Imperator and Potentate, Sovereign over All that Is, and Undisputed Ruler of the Totality of Existence, had scrambled eggs for breakfast. They were runnier than he liked, but the chef prepared the finest veal Lao had ever tasted, so he decided not to have the man executed.

Afterward, dressed in his Thursday morning kimono, he left the royal suite, flanked by four bodyguards sworn to give their lives to protect him on pain of the deaths of their families should they fail, and proceeded to the meeting with his High Ministers. The floor upon which he walked was stone, a pastiche of materials from every land in his domain, hand-polished to mirror-like smoothness by the finest craftsmen, who had then been executed so that they might never work on anything more grand. It made Lao smile to think that he could stride the worlds under his rule when heading down to the kitchen for a midnight snack. Blood, sweat, and tears, Lao thought. That’s where quality comes from.

Arriving at the double doors to the meeting room, two of Lao’s bodyguards opened them and stepped inside while the other two took up positions outside the room on either side of the doorway.

Lao noted the occupants of the room: the ministers of Science, Propaganda, Finance, Exploration, and War. They all stood from their places at the meeting table and looked toward Lao. He nodded a greeting to them, which they returned, and strode to the raised chair at one end of the table. It was not quite a throne, such being impractical to have in every room where the emperor might want to sit, but it did tend to dominate the room and become the focus of attention.

“Gentlemen,” Lao said expansively. He could afford to. “Please, be seated.” He took his place at the head of the table, taking time to spread the folds of his kimono just so before continuing. “Tell me, how fares my empire today?”

The Minister of Finance, a weasel-faced man named Greenspan, spoke first. “Very well, your majesty. Production is holding steady in the areas of food, housing, and consumer products. The problem we were having with the outlying reaches seems to have cleared up thanks to the mandatory efficiency standards you instituted last month.”

“So, the workers saw the error of their ways and returned to their labors?” Lao asked.

“The survivors did, yes, your majesty. Total output has decreased 40 percent, but the production per worker has never been higher.”

“Excellent,” said Lao. “See to it that quotas are increased an additional five percent for the next production cycle.”

“Yes, your majesty.”

“Minister of Exploration,” Lao said to an overweight man who was sweating through his coat. “Any news to report? Have you found me any new worlds to conquer?” This was Lao’s favorite moment of the entire day, the moment of anticipation immediately before the Minister of Exploration’s report, when Lao could indulge his dreams of marching off once again to war.

“Negative, your majesty.” This was Lao’s most hated moment of the day, and had been for the last twenty years. “We have thoroughly explored the habitable section of the universe several times. There are no worlds here left to conquer. Because the aether is either too dense, below us, or too thin, above, sending living troops into those areas of the universe is very dangerous. This same fact makes it very unlikely that your robot-men will discover any life in those areas.”

Lao sighed. “Very well, Minister. Continue the search and keep me informed.”

“Your majesty,” argued the Minister of Exploration, taking his life in his hands. “We won’t find anything. There is nothing else out there. The universe is yours. Enjoy that fact.”

Lao shouted, “I said keep looking!”

The Minister of Exploration took in a sharp breath, his eyes wide. “Yes, your majesty. Certainly.”

Lao knew the Minister of Exploration was correct. That was why he didn’t have him killed for his insolence. Lao was a fair ruler. He couldn’t admit to himself that the universe and every landmass in it, from end to end and top to bottom, was his to rule. No one had slipped through his grasp. Every life in the cosmos was his to extinguish at his whim. While that did give him a certain sense of satisfaction, he would have preferred a new challenge over this endless bureaucratic busywork.

Lao maneuvered the rest of the meeting on autopilot. He wasn’t really listening when the Minister of War told him that the Mark 17 death rays were in production and should be in the hands of his troops in a few weeks. The news from the Minister of Science that the new hovertanks had been successfully tested drew forth little more than a distracted nod.

The Minister of Propaganda had just started his presentation on subliminal broadcasting via the universal communications network for crowd passivity control when the doors to the meeting room opened and a young liveried boy ran in with a message for the emperor. The note said, “Urgent communiqué on private channel. Subject: Discovery!”

Lao abruptly stood, interrupting the Minister of propaganda. “Gentlemen, an important matter has just come up. Proceed as your duties require. That is all.” Lao hastened out of the room, his bodyguards trailing after. He walked back down the hallway to his chambers and entered, leaving his followers behind.

In one corner of the well-appointed living room stood a chair facing a large screen mounted on the wall. The screen flashed the word “Pending” at him. Excitedly, he sat in the chair and activated the responder. As soon as the screen changed, before he saw who he was talking to, he immediately said, “What’s all this about a discovery?”

Then, he realized he was looking into the face of his daughter, Effulgia. Disappointed, he said, “Oh, it’s you. Here, talk to your mother.” Lao, stood up and shouted, “Marla! Your daughter has called to speak with you.”

From the screen, Effulgia said, “Father, no! I have news for you. I have found something wonderful.”

“Effulgia, my dear, there is nothing you could do with a man that someone else hasn’t tried before. I was in a very important meeting—“

“No, father, that’s not why I—“

“Or a woman, or a robot, or whatever it was we decided to call those animals with the five legs and three genders.”

A woman stepped through the doorway connecting the living room to another room of the royal suite. Her black hair had streaks of gray that the longevity treatments developed by the Ministry of Science could do nothing about. The same was true for the wrinkles in her forehead and at the corners of her mouth.

“What did you say, you worthless excuse for a man?”

“Your daughter, cow,” Lao replied. “She has called to tell us about some new trick she has learned.”

“Don’t you have an empire to run, instead of wasting your time and mine pretending to have any interest in this family?”

“Be silent, woman! Or I’ll have you deported to the salt mines of Slugovia. If they can’t use you as labor, you will at least feed them.”

“Go ahead! I’d rather be hip-deep in slime than have to spend another day here with you.”

“Mother. Father.”

“All the more reason to keep you here, where I can watch you suffer, hag.”

“Father!” Effulgia screamed over the communication screen. “I’ve found some sort of machine on an island you depopulated decades ago. It was hidden in an abandoned monastery.”

Lao spared a moment for hateful look at his loving wife, Marla, before returning his attention to the screen. “What did you say? You found a machine?”

“Yes, father. And we captured two people there who claim they know nothing about it.

“Lao sat back down, intrigued. “Tell me more.”

Effulgia looked toward Marla. “Mother, this is official state business. Please leave us alone.”

“Yes, dear,” she said to Effulgia. To Lao, she added, “Don’t waste too much time on this nonsense, you bastard.”

“Yes, dear,” Lao echoed as Marla left the room. He said to the screen, “Tell me more about these people you’ve found. What land are they from? Have they admitted anything yet?”

“No, father. I haven’t seen them yet, but our interrogator spent most of the night with them. They refuse to admit to anything. They claim to be from some place called,…” Effulgia picked up a printout and referred to it. “…Ohio. I’ve never heard of it, father. Is it far from home?”

“I am unfamiliar with it as well. What about this machine you say you’ve found?”

It was disguised as the altar of a temple in a monastery. We only found it because we detected an energy emission from it. We scanned the location and discovered it. We have technicians working to remove it for study by the Ministry of Science.”

“Do your prisoners know the purpose of the device?”

Effulgia consulted the report again. “They claim not to. I’m going to question them myself shortly. Perhaps I can be more persuasive than the interrogator.”

“Very good, my daughter.” Effulgia beamed. “Just make sure they are still able to talk once you are done with them. When you have everything ready for transport, have your ship return directly to the imperial palace. Also, before you leave, destroy the monastery.”

“Yes, father,” Effulgia smirked.

Chapter 10: Chapter Titles Are Hard

Archie spasmed awake for the eighth time. As with the previous attempts at consciousness, the pain hit him fresh. His joints ached. His muscles ached. His teeth ached. Somehow, and he was in no mood to work out how, his clothes ached.

He was lying curled up in a corner of what has was forced to admit was a cell of black metal walls and bars. Beyond the bars was a larger room, the most prominent feature of which was a padded table with straps for the arms, legs, chest, and head. Archie had spent more of the last several hours on that table than he cared to remember. In the dim light leaking in through the bars, Archie searched his body for evidence of the torture he had been put through. Whatever they had done to him, it hadn’t left a mark. Not physically, anyway.

Archie struggled to gain his feet, every movement a new experience in agony. Slowly, painfully, using the nearest bars to brace against, he managed to achieve something resembling vertical.

He staggered over to the door of his cell, and quietly called out, “Haley! Are you all right?” He heard a moan from his right. “Haley!” he called again.

“I’m here,” he finally heard her say softly.

“Are you hurt?”

“Everywhere. But I don’t think I’m injured.”

“We have to get out of here. Do you have any idea where here is?”

A loud male voice said, “You are in the interrogation chambers on the Imperial Scout Ship Perdition. You are prisoners of the Empire under authority of Lady Effulgia.”

“Who said that?” Archie asked. “Are you a guard? Can you get a message to whoever’s in charge? We don’t belong here. This has been a long series of events completely out of our control. We are here against our will.”

“That is usually the case in the interrogator’s cells,” agreed the guard, for that is who he was.

“No! I don’t mean here in this torture chamber, although that is part of it. I mean here, wherever here is. This empire you mentioned. We’ve never heard of it. We don’t know this Effulgia woman. I’m sure she’s very nice.”

The guard scoffed. “The Empire of Lao the Pitiless extends the length, width, and depth of the universe. His power is everywhere. You speak lies.”

“Lao the Pitiless,” Archie repeated. “Sounds like a fun guy.”

A heavy metal door opened with a loud clank. A female voice said, “Then you haven’t heard of him.” Archie looked that direction. A lithe figure stood in silhouette in the doorway, in front of the brightly lit backdrop of the hallway beyond the door. She slinked forward gracefully, the translucent material of her dress teasing Archie with hints of the feminine form underneath. Behind her, the door slammed shut with a booming finality, ending the salacious display.

“We haven’t met,” she continued. “I am Effulgia. I am ‘in charge here,’ as you put it. Your plea has been heard, but not understood. All who live do so under the rule and at the whim of my father. There is no land that has not felt his touch. For you not to know of him, or myself, is nonsensical.” In the dim light remaining, Archie saw a shadow approach the door to his cell. “I do so love nonsense,” she purred, her voice drawing nearer. “I invite you to join me and tell me your tale—oh!” She had reached the door to Archie’s cell and gotten her first good look at him.

“Guard! Bring me that light at once!” she barked.

“Yes, highness,” said the guard. The light moved outside Archie’s cell, shadows falling over one another, until a glowing, pale blue globe stuck itself into his face.

“Ew! He’s old!” she whined. “No one told me he was old.”

“Maybe so, miss, but if you’ve got some Viagra with you, I’m willing to give ‘er the old college try.”

“Grandpa!” Haley admonished him from her cell.

Archie shrugged, a useless gesture. “Hey, if it gets me out of this cell.”

Effulgia reached between the bars and pushed Archie backward with disdain. He stumbled and fell, re-igniting his cornucopia of pains once more. Effulgia threw back her head and laughed. “Fools! You are to be taken to the imperial palace, where Father’s personally selected master interrogators will tear your secrets from your very flesh. You will suffer agonies to make what you have experienced in my tender care seem like the gentlest breezes against your cheek. That is, unless you tell me everything now. Speak of your origin. Explain the purpose of the machine we found in the monastery. Reveal yourselves and be treated as honored guests, or keep silent and endure nightmares without end. In either event, we will understand you.”

Archie commented, “You sure do like to hear yourself talk, don’t you?”

“You dare defy me?” Effulgia snarled.

“I would defy anyone who says things like ‘You dare defy me?’ in conversation. I’m ornery that way. Listen, we tried to be reasonable. We wanted to cooperate. Your people locked us in a dungeon and took turns trying to kill us all night. Now, we’re not so much in the mood to chat anymore.”

“You are, by your words, choosing to be tortured.”

“No, I’m not,” Archie said quickly, realizing how close he was to doing just that. “All I’m saying is that all this, with the chair o’ pain and all, wasn’t necessary. Did you try asking nicely? No. Does the word ‘please’ mean anything to you? You catch more flies with honey than an electric agony chair.”

Effulgia sniffed diffidently. “I am heir to the House of Hai. I do not ask. I take.”

“Well, that’s just rude,” Archie judged.

Haley’s voice broke through the wall of righteous indignation Archie had been erecting when she said, “I’ll talk.” Effulgia turned to look at the other occupied cell. She signaled for the guard to precede her with the light, and sauntered over to it. Archie pressed his face against the bars in a futile attempt to see what was going on.

“Ah, much better,” Archie heard Effulgia say. “A bit stern, perhaps.” Her voice changed timbre as she continued, becoming more mellifluous. “Hello, there. You have something to say?”

“Haley, what are you doing?” Archie called out.

“Silence, wrinkled worm!” Effulgia snapped.

Haley spoke quietly, so Archie had to strain to hear. “I said I’ll tell you what you want to know, if you let us out of here.”

“Such a smart girl,” Effulgia replied. “And so attractive as well.”

“Thank you, your highness. You are quite lovely, too.” Archie could not believe his ears. Did Haley sound…coquettish?

“Haley Eunice Grant, you stop that right this minute!”

“I’m sorry, Grandpa. I can’t stay here anymore. If I can…share my secrets with her, and stop us both from being hurt anymore, I’ll do it.” Archie thought she sounded short of breath. “Please, Mistress Effulgia, let me offer my…knowledge to you.”

Archie muttered to himself, “I think I may be sick.” Louder, he added, “Does your mother know about this?”

“Guard!” Effulgia ordered, “Escort this delightful creature to my cabin, and tell my servants to have her cleaned and dressed in preparation for my arrival. Then return here and take the old man somewhere comfortable that he may answer some questions.”

“At once, your highness.” Archie heard an incongruous electronic beeping sound he assumed was some sort of door locking mechanism. Then came a heavy metal clang as the cell door swung wide. Moments later, Haley came into Archie’s view, being hustled out of the room with her wrist in the grip of the guard, who had his free hand resting near his hip, ready to draw what Archie imagined was some kind of gun at the slightest provocation.

“I’ll need my bag,” Haley announced to the guard, pointing at her backpack laying neglected in the far corner of the room. The guard stopped, looked over his shoulder, nodded, and dragged Haley to pick it up before they exited the room together.

Effulgia stepped into Archie’s view. “I know what you’re thinking,” she told him. “You think I’ll leave you here to rot while I have my way with your charming companion.”

“It had crossed my mind,” Archie admitted.

“And mine as well.” Effulgia smirked. “Alas, you did have something of a point earlier. The wresting of information from the reluctant by force is, while effective, not always the most efficient method at one’s disposal. I believe this is much to be preferred.”

“Well, I’m glad we could come to an agreement.”

“Yes, this way, I can torment you with doubts as to your companion’s fate, and her with yours. That’s the sort of anguish that can be maintained for days, or even weeks, without having to worry about healing you up between sessions or the difficulties of getting blood out of some easily ruined fabrics. Unless I get bored and decide to torture one of you anyway, for my own entertainment. You’ll never know, will you? Yes, I believe you’ll cooperate.”

“Great,” Archie groaned. “Glad I could help.”

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The door chimed. Effulgia Hai, reclining on a bed of pillows, resplendent in her flowing silken robes, stopped in the middle of placing a peeled grape between her perfect teeth and sighed.

“Yes?” she called out impatiently. “Enter!”

The door swung inward under the power of a thin boy wearing the red and gold livery of the House of Hai, revealing Captain Abbazia standing outside. He stepped in, and the door closed behind him.

“Oh! Hello, captain,” Effulgia cooed. “To what do I owe what I hope will be a great amount of pleasure from your visit?”

Abbazia cleared his throat. “Your Ladyship,” he reported, “we have captured two prisoners in the vicinity of the energy source. They are being transported to the cruiser at this time.”

“Two, you say? How terribly interesting. Are they men?”

Abbazia replied, “One of them is, your imperial highness. And one woman,” he added, for benefit of those unfamiliar with basic math. “We believe there were more with them, but we lost them in the catacombs.”

Effulgia sat up attentively. “Ooh, one of each,” she purred. “Decisions, decisions. Are they beautiful?”

“I couldn’t say,” Abbazia stammered. She had asked him this question before, on other occasions, but he had given up attempting to judge what she would find appealing after she had had that Adonisian executed in favor of that purple thing with the tentacles.

“Hmph,” she pouted. “You’re no fun. Very well, have them cleaned and prepared. Put them in interrogation room B. I’ll be along once they’re ready.”

“Of course, your highness,” Abbazia said solicitously. “Would it be all right if we questioned them first? There is the matter of the mysterious energy reading.”

Effulgia smirked. “Oh, yes. I do get excited when I meet new people, don’t I? It slipped my mind completely. Permission granted, of course, my dear Captain.”

“Thank you, your highness.”

"Will the interrogator be done quickly, do you think? I simply must make some plans for this evening.”

“I cannot say, your highness.”

Effulgia threw a pillow at Abbazia, giggling at her own cleverness. He let it hit him, and then caught it as it fell and deposited it back on the pile with the others. She pointed and laughed at him as he did so. “Very well,” she told him. “I suppose I will have to find someone else to do until morning.”

“Yes, highness. If there is nothing else?”

“There is, captain, since you mentioned it. How goes the search otherwise? Have your little soldiers found anything of this energy? My father would be most interested to hear about it if you have.”

Effulgia grew warm imagining the panic she had just instilled in Abbazia. “The emperor, your highness? Isn’t that a bit premature? If this expedition fails to turn up anything, he would be very disappointed. Would it not be better to delay mentioning it until we have something definite to tell him?”

“Of course not, my beautiful captain. Emperor Lao maintains a keen interest in everything that happens in his realm. I would never dare suggest anything be kept from him.”

“No, absolutely not. I agree completely,” Abbazia said quickly. “I didn’t mean… I had no intention….” Abbazia paused, took a deep breath, and tried again. “I was merely saying that if we waited until we had more information, the report would be more complete. Not fail to tell him, no. That would be treason, obviously. It’s just, if this does turn out to be nothing, I would hate to have gotten his hopes up.”

“Oh, stop your worrying, captain.” Effulgia smiled at him. “I have every confidence that you will discover something amazing.”

Military discipline was the only thing keeping Abbazia’s shoulders from slumping. “Yes, your highness.”

“You may go, captain,” Effulgia said smugly. Abbazia started backing toward the door. It opened at his approach.

“Oh, captain? Tell the interrogator: no bruises.”

Chapter 7: 1954

Archie sat on the bench in the locker room, staring at the floor. He still wore his pads and jersey, even though the game had ended well over an hour earlier.

The coach walked in, noticed Archie, and went over to him. “Tough game,” he said.

“Yeah,” Archie replied noncommittally.

“Listen, sometimes it just happens this way. It’s no one’s fault we lost.”

Archie turned his head to look up at his coach, his eyebrows raised. “Every game? It’s no one’s fault we lost every game of the season?”

“Well, all right, then,” the coach corrected. “It’s everyone’s fault. Mine, yours, the other players, the other teams, the people in the stands, the guy selling hot dogs. My point is, it wasn’t just you.”

“But I’m the quarterback!” Archie reminded him. “Everything depends on me out there. You told me that, Coach. How can it not be my fault?”

The coach sat down beside Archie. “Listen to me. I’ve been doing this for twenty years. I’ve seen good players and bad players. I’ve seen guys I wouldn’t want anywhere near the field. You’re one of the best I’ve ever seen out there. A natural born leader. You make the right calls. The other guys look to you for guidance and inspiration. That’s not something I taught you. You walked in here able to do that.”

“Then why did we lose?”

The coach put his hand on Archie’s shoulder. “Because, sometimes, leadership isn’t enough. Football is a team sport. Everyone out there has to give their all to bring in a win. You couldn’t do it alone. No one man could.

"We just didn’t come together this year like we should have. I blame myself for that. Maybe we could have drilled more. Maybe I could have shuffled people around more, tried them in new positions. And over the next few months, I’m going to be studying this season to find out exactly what did go wrong, so I can learn from it and not do it again next year. Because that’s what people need to do. Don’t dwell on your failures. Learn from them and move on.”

“Okay, Coach,” Archie said, with a smile birthing on his lips.

The coach continued, “My biggest regret in all of this isn’t that we lost so much, even though I admit that stings a little. No, the worst of it for me is that I let you down, Archie. Scouts should have seen your talent from miles away. You should have college recruiters beating down your door by now. Instead, you’re just another losing quarterback on a losing team. It isn’t fair, I tell you.”

“Gee, thanks, Coach,” Archie said sarcastically.

“Oh,” replied the coach, realizing what he had just said. “Ah, you know what I meant.”

“Yeah, Coach.”

“So,” the coach said, changing the subject, “Are you thinking about college yet? With your grades, you should get a scholarship easily enough, even if you aren’t on the football team.”

“Actually, I’m thinking about the military. Maybe the Navy. I want to be a pilot.”

“Pilot? I thought the Navy was boats.”

“Nah, Coach. They have planes too now.”

“Oh. Well, good for them. And good for you, too, son. Serving your country is one of the highest callings a man can have. I did a tour in the army myself, back in the day.”

“Did you see any action?”

“Not really. It was the Depression. Not a lot of wars back then.”

“Oh, right. Thanks for the pep talk, Coach. I’d better get going. I’m supposed to be meeting Shirley over at the hamburger stand.”

“Good man. Go hit the showers.”

Chapter 8: 2005

The phone was ringing when Peggy Grant entered her house. She flipped on the foyer light, closed and locked the door behind her, placed her briefcase under the side table, upon which she dropped her mail, and hurried to key in the deactivation code on her home security system before it went off. Then, unbuttoning her suit coat as she went, she clip-clopped to the phone in her high heels, picked up the cordless receiver, pushed the “Talk” button, lifted it to her ear as she shook her coat off the opposite shoulder, and said, “Hello?”

“Mrs. Margaret Grant?” said the voice on the phone.

“It’s ‘Miss’ Grant. Who is this?”

“My apologies, Miss Grant. This is Shady Estates Retirement Community. Your father, Archibald Ulysses Grant, is one of our guests.”

“Yes, that’s right,” Peggy confirmed as she sat down on her couch and started removing her shoes. “What’s this about?”

“Ma’am, every night we send around someone to make sure all our guests are present and in good health, as part of our comprehensive service. Tonight, your father was unaccounted for.”

“What do you mean, unaccounted for? You can’t find him?”

“That is correct, ma’am. And while our guests are not restricted from leaving the grounds when they wish to do so, policy dictates that they check out at either the front desk or the gate before they leave, and check back in when they return. This does not appear to have been the case in this instance.”

Picking up the mail from the side table and sorting through it as she walked back into the living room, she said, “So, he’s missing. You lost my father.” She turned on one of the living room lamps.

“Not necessarily, Miss Grant. It may just be that he left without signing out and hasn’t returned yet. In fact, that is the reason for this call. Is Mr. Grant with you, or have you seen or heard from him today?”

“Of course not! If I had, would I sound so surprised right now?”

“I don’t know, ma’am. I don’t know you that well.”

Peggy started pacing back and forth across the living room, from mantle to doorway. “Well, I haven’t. What do I pay you people for anyway? He’s just one old man. How hard is it to keep track of one old man?”

“Ma’am, we have 75 residents here at Shady Estates.”

“So, you’re telling me you can’t handle that many old people? Well, don’t worry. By the time I’m done with you, you won’t have that problem anymore.” Approaching the mantelpiece, Peggy noticed a picture of herself and her daughter, taken years earlier when she could get Haley to sit still for her for five minutes. That reminded her. “What’s the date?”

“Ma’am? It’s the first of September.”

“In that case,” Peggy said, forgetting her outburst instantly, “I think I know what happened. My daughter Haley goes to visit him on the first of every month, although I don’t know why. They probably went out to do something and forgot to sign out. That sounds like her.”

“One moment, ma’am.” While Peggy waited for the woman on the phone to come back, she retrieved her briefcase from the foyer and pulled out some documents she wanted to review before morning. Before she got very far into the first one, the voice returned. “Miss Grant?”

“Yes?”

“We do have a record of a ‘Haley Grant’ signing in this afternoon at 1:13. However, she did not sign out. If you could give us a number where we could attempt to reach her, we’ll see if we can’t get this straightened out.”

Peggy dug her cell phone out of the front pocket of her soft leather briefcase. “Hold on one minute. I’ll call her myself, and get to the bottom of this. She might not answer if she doesn’t recognize the number.” It never crossed Peggy’s mind that she might not answer if she did. “I’m using my cell. Hold on.” Peggy opened her cell phone, brought up the address list, located Haley’s number, and pressed “Dial.”

Five seconds later, a man’s voice from the cell phone said, “We’re sorry. Your call cannot be completed as dialed. Please check the number and try again.”

Peggy picked up her house phone and said, “Hold on one more second.” Without waiting for a reply, she put it back down and retuned her attention to the cell phone. She relocated Haley’s number, and then dialed the area code followed by that number.

She started to panic when she heard, “We’re sorry….”

Peggy put her house phone to her ear again. “Hello? Are you there?”

“Yes ma’am. Any luck reaching your—“

“Listen!” Peggy interrupted. “Haley rides a motorcycle. I don’t know what kind, but I don’t imagine there are too many in your parking lot. Could you send someone out to see if it’s there?”

“One moment, ma’am.” A pause, then, “Do you know the license number on your daughter’s motorcycle, ma’am?”

“No! How would I know that?”

“Thank you, ma’am. We’re sending someone out there now. Please hold.” Muzak poured out of the phone.

Pacing to and fro, Peggy listened to the synthetic music substitute and fumed. “How dare they lose my father and my daughter I’ll sue the lot of them they won’t be able to operate a dog kennel when I’m through with them of all the useless worthless stupid incompetent mismanaged inept clumsy bungling blundering blithering neglectful Hello?”

“Yes, ma’am, Miss Grant. There is a motorcycle in guest parking. We’re sending people around to the other current visitors to find out if it belongs to them. It will take a few minutes.”

“You do that. Then call the police and report a possible kidnapping. I’m on my way.” Peggy hung up the phone and ran upstairs to shower and change, pausing only to retrieve her shoes and blazer, and put the phone back in its charger.

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“Scout troop leader to Captain Abbazia,” said the voice over the radio. “We have made contact with hostiles. How should we proceed?”

Abbazia gave a hand signal to the Communications Officer indicating that he wanted to reply. “Say again, troop leader.”

“There are people here, sir. Do you want us to kill them?”

“You haven’t already?”

There was a pause before the reply. “No, sir. They’re very clever, sir.”

“Have you seen any sign of that energy source we sent you down there to find?”

“Not yet, sir. We haven’t finished securing the place yet.”

“In that case, troop leader, try to apprehend rather than eliminate the hostiles.”

“Sir?”

“I know, troop leader. It goes against all my training as well. But this comes directly from Her Ladyship herself. If you can’t bring her back the power source, she wants some people to interrogate. Better them than you, troop leader.”

“Yes, sir. Live capture if possible. Sir?”

“Yes, troop leader?”

“There’s more than one. Does Her Ladyship want all of them? I only ask because the boys are a little worked up, sir. Do them a world of good if they got to blast one or two of them.”

“Better safe than sorry, troop leader.”

“Understood, Captain Abbazia.”

Chapter 5: The New Batch

The kitchen door shook with what sounded like a series of small explosions on the opposite side.

“That’s our cue,” Archie announced. “Where’s this secret passage of yours, Docian?”

“This way,” he replied. He headed toward one of the large fireplaces, beckoning the others to follow him. They did.

Haley asked, “How do you know so much about this place anyway? Were you a monk?”

“No, I… spent some time here as a child. Here we are!” Docian stepped over to a large metal grate in the floor, crouched down, and locked his fingers into the latticework. “Give me a hand with this,” he requested.

“You go ahead, Haley,” said Archie. “I’ll lift the next heavy iron grill.” Haley moved to the opposite side of the grate from Docian and took hold of it. Together, they heaved, but the grate remained fixed in place. “Lift with the legs,” Archie coached.

“Once more,” Docian said. “I think we almost had it. Ready? Lift!” Once again, they struggled, to no avail.

Archie asked, “Is there a lock or something?”

Docian shook his head. “It must be rusted shut. Look for something we can bang on it with to loosen it up.”

Archie spotted a poker by the fireplace. He reached over and grabbed it. “Here you go.” Docian took the poker, motioned for everyone to stand back, and swung it at the grate with all his might. The ringing of metal on metal filled the room, momentarily blocking out even the steady thundering at the kitchen’s main door. Again and again he smashed the poker all around the edges of the grate, hoping the shock would dislodge decades of oxidation.

Docian handed the poker, now bent and twisted, back to Archie. “Let’s try this again,” he said to Haley. “And… go!” The two yanked on the grate. Archie looked over at the door. It was starting to crumble a bit in the middle. “It moved! Again!” They pulled one more time. The grip of the grate on its frame finally broke loose. Haley and Docian spilled backwards as they launched it upward.

“Look out!” Haley cried to her grandfather. His attention thus grabbed, Archie ducked away before he even had time to see what had happened. The grate landed on the floor with a clatter.

“Good job,” Docian told Haley. “Let’s go.”

Archie looked uncertainly down the hole. “So, what’s down there?”

Haley tugged on his arm. “The way out, Grandpa. Come on.”

Docian sat on the edge of the hole, his legs dangling. “It’s perfectly safe,” Docian assured him.

“That’s not what I asked,” Archie pointed out. “What’s down there?”

“Nothing to worry about. Come along.” Docian slipped off the edge and let himself fall down into the hole. “See?” he called up to them. “Easy.”

Over the racket of the main door in its final death throes, Archie exclaimed, “Forget it! I’m not jumping down a strange hole. I could break something.”

“Grandpa,” Haley admonished, “you have to. It’s the only way. You’ll be fine.”

“That’s easy for you to say. You have no idea how long it takes for a bone to heal in someone my age.”

“Well, I’m going,” Haley announced, positioning herself by the opening. “I’m sure I won’t be raped and murdered or anything.”

“Yes,” Archie agreed. “You go ahead. I’ll see if I can delay them a little.”

“How, with your bullet-riddled corpse? Don’t be ridiculous.”

“They’re not using bullets. Go ahead.”

Haley stared down at the darkness. She nodded, stood up, and said, “I’m not going to leave you here alone.”

From below, Docian’s voice wafted up. “Hurry up! What’s taking so long?”

“Stupid girl!” Archie shouted. “Go!” He pointed down at the opening.

“Do you want to die, Grandpa? Is that it?”

The door exploded inward, showering bits of rubble across the kitchen. “Nobody move!” shouted someone from beyond the dust cloud.

“Archie said, “Now is not the time for that discussion.”

Half a dozen hulking figures stormed in through the remains of the ancient stone door. They surrounded the pair, weapons ready to fire. One of them said, “By order of Lady Effulgia, you are hereby under arrest."

“Well,” Archie commented. “That went better than expected.”

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Around them, the static dissolved into world.

Archie surveyed his current location with detached curiosity. He appeared to be standing in a small alcove which had an ornate metalwork cage across the opening. Beyond the cage was a larger room. Archie’s perspective was limited, but the outer room appeared to be round, with a series of columns encircling it, holding up the high ceiling. On the far wall was a pair of tall, thin, arched doors that almost reached the ceiling. Both the alcove and the outer chamber seemed to have been carved out of stone, as if the room were not built but rather excavated. There looked to be some sort of stone table in the center of the large room under a central chandelier, but it was too far away for Archie to get a good look from where he was. A glow emanated from a wall sconce above Archie’s head. He imagined other alcoves spaced around the chamber had similar light sources.

Archie pressed his hand against the nearest wall, only a few inches from where he stood crowded by his granddaughter and the odd man who had triggered this strange event. It was cool to the touch, and only slightly rough. Idly, Archie supposed that whoever had constructed the place must have started smoothing the surfaces, but got bored or distracted partway through.

“So,” Archie said to no one in particular. “This is what senile dementia feels like. I didn’t expect it to come on so suddenly. Nice, though. Calmer than I imagined.”

“What the hell is going on here?” Haley asked.

“It’s all right. I’ve just suddenly gone around the bend,” Archie assured her. “That’s all. Nothing to worry about. Do your old granddad a favor and run fetch the doctor. He’s next door to the admin office, by the parking lot.”

“What the hell is going on here?” Haley repeated, more emphatically. The old stranger touched a bit of the scrollwork and opened the cage closing off the alcove. He stepped out and headed toward the stone table.

“Honestly, I’ll be fine. But hurry before I hurt myself wandering around like this. I have gone quite mad, I’m afraid. Your mother will be happy to hear it. State hospitals are even cheaper than this mummy factory, if you can believe it.” At the stone table, the other man turned some dials and flipped some switches.

Haley screamed, “What the hell is going on here?!” Her voice echoed through the room, acquiring an excellent reverb. Archie, standing a foot away, winced at the outburst.

“Haley!” he shouted. She turned to give him her attention. “I don’t know whether I’m speaking English or gibberish right now, but if you can understand me, pull yourself together.” He over-enunciated what he said next. “I am suffering a major mental breakdown. I am hallucinating. The gazebo has turned into a large stone chamber. I think I may have had a seizure. Go get help before I swallow my tongue.”

Haley glanced over her shoulder, then back at Archie. “Grandpa, we are in a large stone chamber.”

“We are.” He said it like a declaration, but intended it as an interrogative.

“Yes. If you’ve gone mad, then so have I.”

“Are we in an alcove?”

“Yes.”

“Is there a man over there swearing at a block of stone?”

Haley looked back into the large room, and nodded. “There certainly appears to be.”

Archie said cautiously, “I see.”

“You do?”

“Well, no,” Archie admitted. “But you seemed tense. I thought you might relax if you thought I knew what was happening.”

The other man rushed back from the stone table to the alcove. “My friends, I apologize. I am called Docian. I promise to explain everything as soon as we have time, but right now we don’t. A patrol of the emperor’s men is on the way. They must have detected the power output of the trans-dimensional translocator. I have an aethership hidden nearby, but we must hurry! Everything depends on it!” Docian hurried back over to the stone table. Out of curiosity, Archie wandered over to have a look at it. Haley hung back in the alcove briefly, but then thought better of it and rushed to join him.

The top of the table was inclined away from the niche in which the group had, for want of a less insane term, materialized. Banks of knobs, switches, buttons, gauges, lights, and small display screens covered most of the surface, which was bordered by a rim of stone a couple of inches high. One of the displays was blinking red. In the bottom center was a circular dial, larger than the others. Docian took hold of this, twisted it one quarter turn clockwise, and pulled.

The dial came away from the control panel. Attached to it was a green crystal roughly three inches long and one inch wide. It glowed until it separated completely from the table, and then went dim. At the same time, the table started moving. The top lowered itself to horizontal, and a façade of stone slid from recesses along the edges to conceal the controls below. Two candelabras rose up from hidden compartments on either side of the table, complete with half-melted candles.

Archie heard chains clanking above him. He looked up, and saw that what he had originally thought was a chandelier was in fact a cylinder four feet long with an ornate crystal on each end, hanging horizontally, oriented toward the alcove. As he watched, the large cylinder rotated from horizontal to vertical and six smaller cylinders descended from far above, coming to rest arrayed around the large one. Each had a crystal of its own on the lower end, so that the final result gave the appearance of a decorative lighting arrangement, reflecting the light from the wall sconces.

By the time the various machinations were complete, there was no trace of anything more technologically advanced than a torch, and the room resembled a stodgy, little-used chamber of indeterminate function.

Docian revealed an etched metal tube he wore around his neck by a golden chain. He slid the crystal that he had removed from the control panel into this tube and gave it a twist. He tucked the resultant assembly back under his shirt.

“Control crystal,” he explained, as if it did. “The translocator won’t work without it.”

“Oh, good,” Haley replied. “Then put it back in the machine and take us home.”

“No, please! You have to come with me. I’ll explain everything as soon as we’re safe.”

“Like hell,” Haley said.

“I’m inclined to agree with my granddaughter,” Archie added. “I don’t know what is going on, exactly. I’m not even convinced that this isn’t all some dream or hallucination I’m having. However, assuming for the moment that I am still, despite the evidence of my senses, somehow grounded in reality, then the fact of the matter is that you brought us here against our will. That’s not the sort of thing that tends to predispose me toward blindly trusting you and doing what you ask.”

Docian’s hands shook with frustration. He nervously ran one of them through his white hair. “Listen,” he began, exasperated. “In about three minutes, a large group of angry, well-armed men will be coming down the hall and through that door.” He pointed toward the arched double doors. “It is quite likely that they will kill anyone they find in this room just on general principle.”

“So you say,” Archie retorted.

Docian took a few steps away from the others. “So I do. I also say that the trans-dimensional translocator is the only way the two of you have to get home.” He grabbed the tube he was wearing around his neck through the fabric of his shirt. “And I have the only control crystal that will make it work. Without this, you aren’t going anywhere. I, and it, are leaving right now. If you want any chance at all of returning to your own world, you need to come with me.”

Docian rushed over to the arched doorway. He listened at it for a moment, and then heaved on the door’s handle to open it a crack. He stuck his head out the opening and quickly glanced left and right. He shouldered the door open wider with a shove and a groan. He turned his attention back toward Archie and Haley. “Are you coming or not?” A faint rhythmic pounding could be heard from beyond the doorway, quickly becoming louder and more distinct. Docian stepped into the hallway, turned to his left, and disappeared.

Archie and Haley looked at each other. Haley said, “Well, when he puts it that way….”

Archie nodded. “He does have a point, doesn’t he?”

(POV changes here)

Haley ran for the door. Archie followed behind. Haley stepped out into the corridor. Looking both ways, she saw that the wide hallway curved back in each direction, encircling the room she had just left. The walls and floor were all rough-cut stone, the same as inside. Halfway up the opposite wall hung a mezzanine, suspended halfway into the open space and dividing it into upper and lower levels. Along the lower level, the outer wall had a series of simple wooden doors, broken up by statuary in a niche every fourth door. Haley could not see what was at floor level on the upper level, but near the ceiling were cut open triangular windows, alternating between point up and point down. Diffuse light shone in through these openings. To her right, Haley spotted a staircase or ramp angling down from the upper level, its lower end hidden by the curve of the hallway.

From her right, Haley could clearly make out the tromping of several sets of feet. She looked left, but initially saw no sign of Docian. Then she noticed one eye peeking at her from around the bend. He began waving her to come toward him.

(POV changes back here)

Archie caught up with her just as she started moving down the hallway toward Docian. Taking a deep, cleansing breath, he followed after her. He tried his best to keep up with her, but she was jogging away from him.

“That’s all right,” he muttered. “You go on ahead. I’ll be fine.”

Haley reached Docian, and looked back, dismayed to discover that her grandfather had only covered half the distance. “Grandpa, come on!” she hissed.

“I am coming on. This is me, coming on. I’m not one of those spry old farts who run marathons, you know.”

“You have to hurry!” Docian added.

“You’re one of them, aren’t you?” Archie accused Docian as he approached. “You and your matching track suits and sneakers and your original hips. What’s the point, I ask you? Why waste time with all that sweating and tiring yourself out? Get in the best shape in your life if you want to, you’re still going to die soon. You won’t outrun the Reaper, that’s for sure.”

“Grandpa, no one’s asking you to outrun Death. But if you could maybe outrun the people coming to kill us?”

“Same damn thing,” Archie grumbled as he came to a stop next to the others. “Now what?”

“This way. We have to get to the kitchens.”

“Kitchen? That’s your big escape plan? We take the servant’s exit?”

“You’ll see.” Docian led them to the outer wall, under the stairs, where they were hidden from direct observation by the mezzanine and in the gloomiest, most shadowed part of the hall. They moved slowly counterclockwise, at Archie’s top walking speed. Above them, they heard the patrol, which would move a short distance, stop, and then move again. They were still moving faster than the group below.

Docian whispered, “We’re in luck. It sounds like they’re searching room to room. If we can get into the kitchens before they finish sweeping the lower cells, we should be able to get into the secret passage and away before they know we’re here.”

“Secret passage?” Archie asked.

“Cells?” Haley asked.

“This used to be a monastery, before Emperor Lao had the monks killed for aiding the resistance.”

Archie asked, “Why didn’t they use the secret passage? I’m loving this plan more every minute.”

Docian pointed to a large door in the inner wall. “There it is. We have to wait for the soldiers to get out of sight.” They stood and waited, listening to the activity above as it migrated away.

Then it stopped. Then, it started moving again, coming closer this time, and lowering to their level.

“Oh, no,” Docian cursed, softly. “I’m an idiot! They had to come in from the south. We started at the north, and have come almost halfway around the circle.”

“Geometry was never my strong suit,” Archie said. “What are you trying to say?”

“They’re coming down the stairs. Right now!”

“What stairs? There’s stairs all over this place.”

“Those stairs!” Docian cried, pointing toward a staircase whose lower end was thirty feet away. “They’ll see us if we don’t move.”

Archie offered a solution. “Let’s move.”

Docian nodded. “Right. Come on.” He scurried across the hallway to the kitchen door, pushed it open, and slipped inside.

“I meant back the way we came, actually, but whatever.” Archie started across the hall with Haley at his side.

“Here, let me help you, Grandpa,” Haley said, draping one of his arms across her shoulders. He pulled it away.

“I don’t need any help from you,” Archie insisted. Haley drew back. “I’ve been walking since before I could walk. I’ll manage.”

“But, they’re coming,” Haley reminded him. “We need to hurry.”

“Who’s coming? Evil soldiers who are going to kill us? Says who? I’ll tell you who: the guy who just kidnapped us. I still don’t see why I should believe a word he’s said. Besides, we’re victims in all this. We didn’t choose to be here. I’m sure if we just explain everything to the proper authorities, we’ll be fine.”

Haley stared incredulously. “We’re standing in an abandoned monastery in an alternate universe whose rules we don’t understand.” She stared off to the side. “I can’t believe I just said that. Anyway, the only person we’ve met so far has been helpful, and he tells us the people we’re about to meet won’t be. Why can’t you just trust that?”

“Why can you?”

Archie and Haley heard sounds of alarm from the staircase. A moment later, the floor near Archie’s feet exploded with a flash. They turned, and saw several people in black and gold uniforms aiming weapons at them.

Haley looked at Archie. “Told you.”

“Open fire!” one of them called out. Haley grabbed her grandfather’s arm and started running toward the door to the kitchens. He was too surprised, both at her actions and the impending death that had inspired them, to resist. The floor and walls where they had been standing a moment earlier shattered and boiled with the energy of the incoming weapon fire.

The soldiers adjusted their aim at the now-moving targets. Archie’s feet got tangled up in each other. He fell, dragging Haley down with him. The next barrage whizzed over their heads. Haley scrambled to find her footing, stayed in a crouch, clung to Archie’s hand, and dragged him bodily the rest of the way across the stone floor into the kitchen door. Once they were both inside, she slammed it shut behind them.

“Are you hurt?” she called out, leaning against the door, breathing heavily.

“Only my pride and any understanding I had of how the universe works.”

“Are you shot?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Am I shot?”

“You look fine from here. On the floor. Where you threw me like so many potatoes.”

“We need to block this door,” Haley said.

Docian reappeared from behind a large brick fireplace. “What happened?”

“They found us,” Archie understated.

Docian rushed over to the door. He located a lever affixed next to the doorjamb and pulled it. He fought the long-unused mechanism, and lost at the halfway mark. Haley pitched in, and together they were able to wrestle it the rest of the way down.

Docian explained. “This place was once subject to raids by barbarians living on the outer edges, so the monks built this. All the big doors have something like it. As I understand it, we just moved several thick metal rods into the door from each side, above, and below. It’s enough to stop your average barbarian, but it won’t hold up long against raygun fire.”

“Well,” Archie pointed out, “that didn’t do us a whole lot of good, then, did it?”

“Maybe not. But maybe it will last long enough for us to make our escape.”

“Right,” Haley decided. “So let’s do that.”

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“Captain, there it is again!” the Operations Officer called out. “Energy spike, bearing 350 by 30, range 1200 miles!”

Fleet Captain Abbazia strode over to the operations console and looked down at it over the operations officer’s shoulder. “Analysis. Is it a weapon? Are we being fired upon?”

The Operations Officer turned some dials and flipped some switches while staring intently at his display monitor. “Negative, sir. Energy source is stationary. The source appears to be somewhere on a landmass at that location.”

Fleet Captain Abbazia thrust a finger toward another of the bridge crew. “Information Officer! What do we know about that place? Is it a hotbed of subversive activity?”

The Information Officer frantically turned some dials and flipped some switches, encoding her data request into the ship’s electric brain. She drummed her fingers as she waited for it to process, then read the resulting report on her view screen. “Negative, sir! That island is classified X dash 17, abandoned and uninhabited.”

“Abandoned?” Abbazia wondered aloud.

“Affirmative, sir. The last mention of it in our databanks indicates the population was involuntarily reduced to negligible status 48 years ago.”

“Purged, hmm? Well, that doesn’t explain this phantom energy spike. Could it be a natural phenomenon?”

“Sir!” interjected the Operation Officer. “I compared this spike to the one we detected previously. It’s really weird.”

“Elaborate, Lieutenant.”

“Well,” the Operations Officer began, “I was curious as to the source of this energy, so I plotted it as a function of time. Then, I retrieved the data from the previous spike and did the same thing. Looking at the two of them side by side, I noticed an unusual relationship between them.”

“Lieutenant?”

“Yes, sir?”

“I wanted you to elaborate on your conclusions.”

“Oh,” said the Operations Officer, abashed. “Yes, sir.”

After a few seconds of contemplative quiet, Abbazia said, “Lieutenant?”

“Yes, sir?”

Abbazia shouted, “What did you discover?”

The Operations Officer jumped in his seat. “Oh! Right. Sorry, sir. The two energy spikes appear to have exactly the same amplitude, but precisely opposite wave forms.”

“I see.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And why is that important?” Abbazia asked through gritted teeth.

“Well, if the source of the energy were some sort of natural activity, as you had previously suggested – very clever of you, by the way, sir – then I would expect the second one to be slightly weaker than the first, and for the wave form to be roughly identical. This is different. It’s like something happened, and then later something else happened to reverse it.”

“So that means it is artificial?” asked Abbazia.

“Most likely, sir,” the Operations Officer agreed, nodding. “Very astute of you. Either that or something very unusual is happening, which would be of interest to the Ministry of Science.”

“Right,” said Abbazia, never one to miss an opportunity to suck up to higher management. “Send down a troop of scouts to look into it.” Abbazia reclaimed his uniform coat from the back of his captain’s chair, slipped it over his shoulders, and started buttoning it up. Smoothing back his wavy black hair with his hand, he added, “I’ll go alert Her Ladyship that we will be slightly delayed.”

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“There you are, Grandpa! Hi!” Archie roused from his doze at the sound of the young woman’s voice. Stiffly, he shifted on the bench of the gazebo where he was taking a mid-constitutional rest after lunch, looked around until he found the source of the voice, and then turned away to stare back toward the small artificial lake on the flank of the complex. He found the splashing of the tacky fountain soothing.

“Oh, it’s you,” he said, finally. “What are you doing here, Haley?” The woman, identifying herself as Haley by the fact that she responded to this comment, stepped up onto the gazebo, briefly blocking Archie’s view before taking a seat beside him. She was not particularly short or tall, with short brown hair drooping around a rounded, pale, bespectacled face. Her lack of makeup wasn’t doing her any favors, either. She was wearing blue jeans, a black T-shirt under a leather jacket, and hiking boots, and had a backpack slung over her right shoulder. Archie, in his chinos, cotton button-down, and Velcro-strapped sneakers thought she must be very warm in that getup.

“It’s the first of the month, Grandpa. You remember I come to visit every month, right?”

Without turning his head, Archie replied, “I’m old, not daft. Of course I remember. How could I forget? You’re the only one in this damn family I ever see anymore.” He followed this with an unintelligible mumble.

Haley leaned toward him. “What was that, Grandpa?”

“I said… I forgot what day it was.” He suddenly (well, sort of) sat up, looked at her, and shook his finger. “Nothing strange about that, kiddo. Lots of folks who aren’t in old age homes can’t remember what day it is half the time. My average is still better than that, so you just watch it.”

“Oh, Grandpa,” Haley said indulgently, “This isn’t an old age home. It’s a retirement community.”

Archie waved his hand dismissively at her. “Bah. Call it what you want. There’s a live-in medical staff and a list of local mortuaries delivered with the new phone books. This is where old people come to die. Why do you think your mother picked it for me?”

Haley crossed her arms and turned away from Archie. “Ooh, don’t mention Mom to me right now. I don’t want to talk about her.”

“Who was talking about her?” Archie looked around, searching for this mysterious person who had suggested they converse about the inestimable Margaret “Peggy” Grant. “I just said her name. Not even her name, really, if you want to get technical.”

“I am so mad at her right now,” Haley plowed ahead, ignoring her grandfather. “I told her I was switching my major from Psychology to Women’s Studies, and she flipped out. She said she wouldn’t pay my tuition if I wasn’t going to get anything useful out of it. Can you believe that? I explained to her that I would have plenty of use for women’s studies in my life, but she forbade me – forbade me! – to do it. It’s my life! God! I can’t stand that woman.”

Archie stared out at what passed for water on the lake and let Haley’s tirade flow over him as if he were one of the specially designed, mass produced, ergo-aesthetically rock-like lakebed substitutes laying at its bottom. This place spared every expense. Occasionally, he would toss out an “Mm hmm” or an “Uh huh” just to be polite, but he had discovered long ago that actually listening to her gave him headaches.

Eventually, he realized she had wound down to silence, which was quickly becoming awkward. Grasping for the first topic that came to mind, he blurted, “So, how’s your motorcycle?”

“Pardon me,” came a voice from behind Archie. It was thin and a bit reedy. Archie, with some difficulty, pivoted, and was unsurprised to see that the owner of the voice matched it perfectly.

Speaking loudly, Archie said, “The cafeteria’s the third building to your left.” He pointed that direction. “You’d better hurry before they run out of pudding.”

“Grandpa!” Haley admonished.

“Please, you must help us,” the old man in the strange pajamas began. “We’re suffering terribly.”

“I know. I’ve had the pudding.”

The newcomer started walking around the gazebo toward the stairs, talking as he went. “Our world is being oppressed most cruelly.”

Archie whispered to Haley, “Must be a Democrat.”

“A cruel and heartless horror of an emperor has conquered everyone, everywhere. He kills for pleasure. He destroys for entertainment. None may do or say anything he does not approve, under penalty of death. The weak suffer. The strong take unfair advantage. Good men starve while base villains gorge.”

Reaching the steps, the old man climbed up into the gazebo. “But there is hope. It is said a Child of Destiny will rise up against the evil gripping our existence, free the people, and right the wrongs.” Holding his arms out expansively, he headed for the big finish. “You are that Child of Destiny. Will you help us?”

Archie and Haley’s eyes shifted back and forth between the strange man and each other. Finally, Haley broke the silence.

Talking out of the side of her mouth, she asked, “Is he talking about you or me?”

Archie replied the same way. “Does it matter?” Archie stood, brushed the wrinkles out of his shirt, and subtly placed himself between Haley and the crazy old man. It wasn’t that he was afraid for Haley’s safety. If it came down to it, the odds were in favor of Haley protecting herself better than he could anyway. He did it instinctively.

Archie smiled unconvincingly and asked, “So, are you a resident here at Shady Estates?”

“Please,” the old man responded, “We haven’t much time. The longer we wait, the greater our chance of being discovered.”

“Oh, well, we wouldn’t want that, now, would we? I’ll tell you what. My schedule is pretty full today. As you can see, my granddaughter is here visiting.” Archie gestured toward Haley as he said this. “But, I’m free tomorrow, between lunch and bingo. How about we save the world then?”

The visitor looked pained. Haley stood up beside Archie and asked, “What are you doing? Why are you encouraging him?”

Archie turned to face Haley fully. “Two reasons. One: I try never to upset the crazy ones. They might turn violent and wind up hurting me or themselves. If he killed me, I couldn’t live with myself. Two: I really don’t have much to do tomorrow, and listening to him rave is bound to be better than playing damn cards all afternoon.”

During this exchange, both Archie and Haley failed to notice that the visitor with the strange story was becoming increasingly agitated. He was fidgeting and sweating. His hands clenched and unclenched. He kept scratching at phantom itches and adjusting the collar of his pajama top.

Eventually, it became too much for him. “I’m sorry,” he exclaimed suddenly. “I didn’t want to do it like this, but I have no choice.” As Archie and Haley returned their attention to him, he rolled up his sleeve. Strapped to his arm, from his wrist to halfway up his forearm, was a curved metal plate covered in flashing lights, a tangle of wires, and one large button. They barely had time to register this bizarre device when the old man wearing it took a step forward so that he was almost touching each of them with one of his shoulders. “I’ll explain when we get there!” he cried, and pushed the button.

Around them, the world dissolved into static.

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A horrible thing happened to Archie Grant when he was twelve years old. He was almost abducted, never to be seen again. If only the kidnapping had been successful, he would have been so much better off.

One Saturday afternoon in the summer of 1949, Archie was walking home from the matinee movie with his best pal and his friend’s little brother. Archie’s friend was called Zeke, which, considering that his German immigrant parents had saddled him with the moniker “Percival Hezekiah Stone” in a misguided attempt to help him blend in to their adopted homeland, was something of a blessing. Arguably, Zeke’s little brother, Wolfgang Ezekiel, age nine, had caught the worst of it by virtue of the fact that his elder sibling had laid prior claim to the only decent available nickname.

The movie itself had been nothing special, one of Abbott and Costello’s lesser works. As Archie and Zeke strolled down the sidewalk chatting excitedly at each other, with Wolfgang tagging along behind, the main topic of conversation, as usual, was the short feature that had appeared between the Movietone newsreel and the last intermission: The Amazing Adventures of Dash Mercury of Space Patrol!

“Bang! Pow!” Archie shouted, punching the air. “Did you see the way Dash Mercury beat up all the Emperor’s men?”

“I know!” Zeke agreed. “That was so cool. I can’t wait ‘til next week to see how Dash gets away from the space station before it explodes.”

Wolfgang squeezed in between the two other boys and looked up at them. “But it blew up already,” he insisted. “I saw.” Archie and Zeke burst into laughter. “It did!”

Zeke chided Wolfgang, in that tone of voice older brothers reserve for when their younger siblings give them the perfect opening to point out how dumb they are. “It was a cliffhanger, you goof. This week we saw it explode, so that next week we’ll go back to see how Dash escaped before it exploded.” Zeke’s youthful cynicism was just starting to take root. “They couldn’t call it ‘The Adventures of Dash Mercury’ if they killed off their hero. Duh.”

Wolfgang looked up at his brother, eyes wide. “Aren’t we going to go back next week anyway?”

Zeke opened his mouth to speak, paused, pondered a moment, then reached down and smacked Wolfgang lightly in the back of the head. “Hush up, twerp.”

As they were walking past the park next to the elementary school, Zeke said, “So, what do we want to do now? Mom doesn’t want us home before dark.”

Archie suggested, “Want to go skip rocks across Skinner’s Pond?”

“No, Skinner’s cows are in that field, and these are new shoes,” Zeke replied. “How about we go wading down by the creek and catch crawdads?”

“Swings!” Wolfgang interjected, pointing into the park. He was tired of walking and wanted to play. Also, crawdads gave him the willies.

“Hey, I know!” Archie exclaimed. “Wolfgang, you be the evil Emperor of the Universe. That swing set can be your throne room, and the slide is your death trap. Zeke, you be Bobby Jupiter. The Emperor has captured you and put you in the death trap. I’ll be Captain Dash Mercury and come rescue you.”

“Why do you get to be Dash Mercury?” objected Zeke.

“Because I thought of it. Zeke, you climb up on top of the slide, and if I don’t get to you in time, Wolfgang will push you down and that means you’re dead.”

“How do I play Emperor?” asked Wolfgang, who was interested in anything that let him both play on swings and maybe push his older brother to his pretend death.

“That’s dumb,” Zeke argued. “You get to do the rescuing and I just sit on the slide?”

“Come on. It’ll be fun.”

“If it’s so fun, then you be Bobby Jupiter and sit on the slide. I’ll come rescue you.”

Archie thought for a moment. “All right. How about this? The slide is the Emperor’s Death Ray and it’s aimed at Earth. Bobby Jupiter snuck in to try to stop it, but the Emperor saw him and now they’re fighting over it. You be the Emperor and Wolfgang can be Bobby.”

Wolfgang tugged on Archie’s arm. “Which one was Bobby?” While Archie and Zeke had been going to the bijou pretty much every Saturday that summer, Wolfgang had only been foisted on them by Zeke’s mother for the past couple of weeks. Even then, he had been more interested in his jujubes than anything happening on the screen, except for the cartoon. As a result, Wolfgang was only barely aware that something he’d seen this week had any connection to last week, let alone character names or plot points. He had in fact been briefly confused and frightened when he failed to notice the change from the newsreel to the serial, and thought the spacemen were coming after him. However, something in his little boy’s bones told him that going from someone named “Emperor of the Universe” to someone named “Bobby Jupiter” was a demotion.

“Bobby Jupiter, Boy Spaceman, remember?” Archie explained. “The little kid who flies around with Dash in his rocket and gets into all kinds of trouble? ‘Great Ganymede, Dash!’?”

Wolfgang attempted this. “Great gammy need.” He didn’t like it. “I wanna be the Emperor!” he proclaimed.

“No, you should be Bobby,” Zeke agreed. “He’s little, you’re little, it makes sense.”

“I’m not little!” Wolfgang protested, standing extra straight.

“No, you be Bobby, and I’ll be Dash and come save you from Archie.”

“Hey, I was going to be Dash!” Archie reminded Zeke.

“Too late. I called it.” Zeke crossed his arms and tried to look dashing.

“But I called it first.”

“Rock scissors paper,” Zeke proposed, holding up one fist ready to swing down into the waiting palm of his other hand.

“You’re on.”

The two boys stood facing each other in the grass at the edge of the park, fists in position. They each threw steely gazes at the other -- cold looks of pure, unbridled competitive spirit.

Off to the side, Wolfgang stood in a similar pose trying in vain to stare down two people at the same time who weren’t paying him any attention at all.

“Ready?” Archie asked. Zeke nodded, not breaking eye contact.

Together they chanted the count, smacking fists into palms with each beat. “One…two…three … go!” On “go,” Archie extended his first two fingers out into the internationally recognized symbol for scissors. The contest done, he looked down to see whether he had won or lost.

Zeke’s hand was a fist. Rock breaks scissors. Wolfgang had paper, but nobody cared.

Archie suggested, “Two out of three.”

"You can be Dash next time,” Zeke offered.

Archie grumbled, “All right, fine,” more because he was tired of arguing than anything else. “Come on, kid,” he said, waving for Wolfgang to follow him as he started trudging toward the swings. Zeke, meanwhile, ran off into the park so he could sneak up on the Death Ray from an unexpected direction.

When they reached the playset, Wolfgang clambered up the steps to the top of the slide. Once at the summit, he stood up, holding on to one handrail for balance, turned around to look down at Archie, shook his fist, and said, “You mean old emperor! I won’t let you use this death ray on Earth! I’ll stop you! I’m Jimmy Jupiter!”

“Bobby. Bobby Jupiter,” Archie corrected indifferently.

“Uh, yeah. I’m Bobby Jupiter!”

Archie recited without enthusiasm, “You foolish young boy. You cannot hope to defeat me. Dash Mercury was killed when my death ray destroyed Space Station Ajax. Without him, you are no match for me.” Archie stepped over to the bottom of the slide’s ladder, reached out and grasped one railing, and placed a foot on the bottom step. A gust of wind blew through the park just then which Archie heard rather than felt, as it shook the leaves on the trees, making a sort of hissing sound all around him. A moment later, it subsided.

To heck with Zeke, Archie thought. Why does he get to be the hero when it was my idea in the first place? Now I’m stuck having to deal with his annoying brother while he gets to sneak up on us. It’s not fair.

“Oh, yeah?” cried Wolfgang. “Well, I pull out my radio gun and shoot you!” He demonstrated this by miming pulling a gun out of a hip holster, pointing his right index finger at Archie, and making a “Zzzzt!” noise.

“Bobby Jupiter doesn’t have a radio gun, Wolfgang. Dash says he’s too young.”

“I shot you! Fall down,” Wolfgang insisted.

“No, you didn’t. You don’t have a gun.”

“Do too!” For emphasis, Wolfgang pointed and “Zzzzt!”-ed again.

“Besides, you’re one of the good guys. You can’t shoot at me unless I shoot at you first. Heroes don’t do that. It’s a rule.”

“Zzzzt!”

Archie rolled his eyes and sighed. “Forget it.” Looking back up at Wolfgang, he continued, “You can shoot me all you want, but I’m not going to act like you did, so it won’t do you any good.”

“Oh.” Wolfgang looked down at his finger gun like it was a Christmas set of mittens from Aunt Ruth when he was expecting a new fire truck. He let his fingers relax.

“Good.” Archie glanced around the park. “Where is Zeke anyway? He should have attacked by now.” Wolfgang shrugged. Archie called out, “Come on already, Dash Mercury! I have your young sidekick in my clutches! Earth is doomed! What are you going to do about it?” No response. “Zeke? You out there?” Archie stepped away from the slide and took a good look in every direction, to no avail. “Zeke! Seriously, show yourself!”

Archie glanced back at Wolfgang, who was watching him intently with worried eyes. “Don’t worry, kid. He’s just messing with us. Come on down from there.” Wolfgang climbed back down the slide’s ladder, sniffling. “Let’s go find that blockhead.”

They walked all over the park together, which wasn’t that much of an ordeal, really, but they didn’t find any sign of Zeke. Calling his name did nothing but spook a few squirrels. The only thing out of the ordinary at all that they came across was one location not unlike anyplace else in the park, about 50 yards away from the slide, where the hair on their arms stood up for no good reason. Archie assumed it was goose bumps brought on by the nervous, twisty feeling growing in his stomach, and thought nothing more about it. As they traversed the park, Archie noticed that Wolfgang was making special effort to walk on the same side of every large tree they passed.

When they were done, Archie told Wolfgang, “I bet he went home. He’s probably sitting on your front steps right now having a big laugh about leaving us out here wondering where he is.” Wolfgang stared blankly up at him and nodded. “Let’s go see.” Side by side, they walked out of the park, back out to the street, and headed for home. Wolfgang reached up and took Archie’s hand. Archie let him hold on.

Zeke wasn’t at home. He wasn’t at Archie’s house either, or at Skinner’s Pond, or at the crawdad hole, or at the dime store reading comics off the racks. The sun was getting low in the sky, and Archie knew with dreadful certainty that the moment was coming when he would have to tell Zeke’s huge Bavarian mother that he had lost her oldest son.

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