The Adventures of Deacon Coombs (33 page)

Deacon rose and moved to the other side of the table and placed his hand on Schlegar’s shoulder. “I am certain that if you could only have known your son in his moment of heroism, if you could have accompanied us on this trek and seen and heard his actions, you would have been proud of him and regained your respect for your son. Travers performed valiantly. I believe you could have found reconciliation through his actions.”

Schlegar was not convinced and stood in anger. “You are naïve, Coombs. I did not want reconciliation. I wanted a reformation of character. I wanted justice.”

“Schlegar, he exhibited honor in all his actions.”

Schlegar was bitter, seeming distrustful in his glances at Deacon. “This presents a new dimension to your journey. How much was staged for your benefit? Aha, I see you never considered that!”

Deacon grew irate at the ludicrous suggestion that Nix and Urzel had been staged by Travers. He replied, “Travers is dead. That is final. His body lies in your ceremonial cooler, awaiting instructions for his burial.”

Schlegar sat down. “I shall attend to it later.”

“Are you really disappointed in me?”

“Greatly. You were our one shining hope.”

“To do what?”

“To bring justice to this matter.”

“And in front of two witnesses, I am disappointed in you, Schlegar. Not just because you cannot come to peace with your dead son, but because I had to venture beyond Brebouillis, beyond the edge of our worlds, beyond Landrew and you, to discover that Morris Mydloan, who tried to assassinate me on Earth”—he raised his voice to drown out Schlegar’s potential interruption while pulling down his collar to expose the scar on his neck—“was in the employ of the Alliance and even came here to get, shall I dare say, programmed! Programmed to assassinate me!” Deacon extended his arms to plead for an answer. “Explain to me why I should trust you.”

Lyanna was aghast. She placed her hands over her mouth in surprise while coming between them, looking at each alternately.

Schlegar was despondent. “Morris Mydloan was a serious miscalculation in judgment. We all bear the scars of his failure. I carry that burden personally. When he was my patient here, during his authentic bout of mental illness, he was a madman. But time seemed to mellow him as he responded to treatments. His biochemistry changed; his mental state was altered. All the doctors here agreed that a being of his extreme mental capacity could be of enormous value in this case. Even the computers agreed. Morris Mydloan was then sent to uncover this evil.”

“Damn your computers!” Deacon shouted, full of rage. “An instrument of the Alliance was turned against me! If not for Gem, I would be dead now.”

Lyanna asked, “Schlegar, how did this happen?”

“We conditioned him to travel around the universe to interrogate a specific list of people. The quest started out perfectly as Mydloan transmitted regular reports back to Landrew and me and then… Mydloan vanished. Through our security network, we recalled him, but there was no reply, only a deadly, disturbing silence. The next time that anyone saw him or heard from him, I ashamedly admit, was in the library on Earth when he attacked you. Believe me, Deacon Coombs, I deeply regret his actions. I felt that… it was my duty to help you to make up for my shortcomings about Morris, so I asked Landrew to send you here, where you could benefit from Lyanna and me preparing you.”

“What happened to Morris? Why did he turn against the Alliance? Do you have any guesses?”

“No.”

“Well, I do. I think he may have killed Geor’s son for his new master. Whoever murdered him got close to him, and the facts from the murder scene infer he was murdered by an ally. He is much more of a suspect than Travers.”

Schlegar pounded his fist on the table. “You underestimated my son. He lied, cheated, and deceived—all non-Aralian traits.”

Deacon was eager to reply. “There seem to be more exceptions to the rules and history of Aralian integrity, as I learn every day.”

Schlegar did not debate the insult. He instead said in a soft tone, “We debated whether to inform you of Mydloan’s activities. Landrew urged me to do so before you left. Lyanna is innocent; she had no idea that Mydloan attacked you on Earth.” Deacon was relieved to hear this. “However, I wanted you to leave here to investigate on your own accord, to discover facts in your own way and not retrace the steps of Morris Mydloan to find out why he turned traitor.”

“Right, like the unbiased facts you fed me about Travers?” Deacon’s tone was caustic.

“I knew my son better than anyone.” Their eye contact remained unbroken.

“Schlegar,” said Quobit, “if I may be permitted, I want to go on record as telling you and the Alliance that we have met the terrible evil responsible for stealing arms and killing Como and Geor, and we fought bravely to save ourselves from his army.”

At that moment, an Owler passed by them to Schlegar and spoke in his ear. Schlegar whirled to face Deacon. “What do your Owlers seek by probing into confidential files in our library and without my concurrence? And how did they gain access to these confidential files?”

Deacon waited until Schlegar had concluded another rant about Travers and then calmly addressed him. “We gathered important data on Nix that needs to be analyzed. This cannot be performed without the services of your facility here. The Owlers perform functions under my guidance and at my commands.”

“And what gives you that authority?”

Deacon was disturbed and disappointed at the tone of Schlegar’s voice. “You mean who gives me the authority? The answer is Landrew.”

“Landrew did not give you such authority!”

Lyanna grabbed their hands and pulled them closer. “Deacon, Schlegar, there is a crisis at hand. We must work together. Schlegar, we must hear the rest of Deacon’s tale. Please.”

Deacon broke the grip and proceeded to wipe his sweaty palms in his pockets as Schlegar stepped away to whisper something to his Owler—obviously something he did not intend for Deacon to hear. A signal suddenly came over Deacon’s handheld from his Owlers, notifying him that they had completed their search.

“How did Travers die?” Schlegar asked.

“It is all there in my diary on this chip.”

“I will read it later. For now, tell me how he died.”

“We encountered a creature with mental powers beyond any ever witnessed before in our galaxy.” Deacon sat down; Lyanna and Schlegar and Quobit followed suit. “This thing, this being, reached out and controlled the minds of the Nicosian natives from tens of miles distant. We barely escaped from Nix with our lives.”

Quobit was anxious to interject. “Schlegar, in the desert of Jabu are many terrifying wild creatures, but never have I been so frightened. This monster held wild savages in a trance; it worked them into frenzy, and while we were awaiting the arrival of Jim and the
Heritage
to rescue us, a band of savages attacked Deacon and Travers and me. I have never fought so hard, for these savages fear nothing. I sustained bruises”—she showed one of her blemishes to Lyanna and Schlegar—“and Travers received near-fatal wounds, losing copious amounts of blood.”

Deacon took over the conversation. “We escaped Nix, but the creature followed the
Heritage
in space and invaded our ship and killed Travers by forcing him to rip off his own bandages, causing him to painfully bleed to death. We found him too late.

“The name of this thing we witnessed, this creature with glowing, devilish eyes, is Urzel, just as Temisori screamed. Urzel is probably still locked in Temisori’s mind. Urzel pursued us in space during our escape. As he interfaced with our ship, he bent Travers’s mind to self-destruction and forced him to kill himself the same way he forced Geor and Como to their deaths. Travers succumbed easily in his weakened state.”

Schlegar said, “I would please ask you and Quobit to remain here with Lyanna. I wish to view the body.”

Deacon grabbed Schlegar’s arm. “Schlegar, he was a friend of the Alliance. Be kind in your last words. Travers died bravely in defense of the Alliance. We should not seek to incriminate him anymore, for it is this devil Urzel who should be brought to justice.” He wanted to say more, but Schlegar ignored him, waved his hand as if to brush away the words, pulled loose from his grip, and left. Lyanna comforted him by giving him a tight hug. Their bodies pressed against each other for an extended period of time, each of them thinking how valuable this friendship could become.

Deacon broke the embrace. “I feel terrible. Travers was tormented by this trip to Nix. He ventured and gambled to prove his innocence, to find peace. Instead he found death. It is my fault that the reunion of father and son will never take place.”

“No, no, no. You can’t blame yourself. It was fate. It was this demon.”

Deacon pulled Lyanna to him and held her tightly again for many minutes until Schlegar returned.

“Perhaps we should discuss this being further,” said Schlegar. “It seems to me that this Urzel, if that is what you called him, is the same creature Temisori referred to when he shouted out.”

“Yes, Schlegar, I told you, one and the same.”

“This creature has my interest piqued.” Schlegar’s mood had metamorphosed, and he amicably offered after-dinner refreshments as the four sat around a table. Quobit placed herself on alert, as she suspected this change in Schlegar’s attitude was a way of manipulating them. Deacon elaborated on Urzel, rambling on about the journey from Aralia to Nix, the rituals that he and Travers witnessed, and the trip back to Brebouillis, omitting very little. Then he came to the startling climax. “On the escape journey to Thous, the Owler Gem divulged a most astonishing fact to me.” He paused for effect. “All the bio readings that Gem recorded point to the fact that Urzel is an Earthling.”

Schlegar, who was penning his own notes as well as engaging a recorder, placed his pen on the table and stared back in astonishment. “Impossible! That comment is totally absurd. There is no record of such an Earthling with the type of mental domination of which you speak.”

“Schlegar, you can review Gem’s recordings and decide, for the record speaks for itself. Urzel is an Earthman.”

Schlegar was firm in his belief. “I will scrutinize these records, and I will repeat that Urzel, this monster you described, this devil, is no Earthman. I stand on this record.”

Lyanna was equally adamant. “Deacon, I have studied and observed all Earthlings who have exceptional mental abilities. I can swear to Schlegar’s statement. You are possibly one of the most advanced, but even you could not ever reach into a sanctuary like Como’s and murder him, let alone hold thousands of savages in a trance over tens of miles.”

“Please listen to me, Schlegar and Lyanna. I was sent with an open mind to identify the villain of recent ails in our alliance. With many questions yet to be answered, and with the deaths of Como and Geor still unresolved, I believe that I have found the source of evil. He is a mighty force… and he is of Earth. Believe it and move forward from that fact. Any other assumption may cause us all future failure and embarrassment. Urzel has stockpiled a large cache of powerful weapons on Nix, and as I told you in my summary, he has allies within the Alliance, as evidenced by the leagues of other races following him. He has enough firepower to start and win a war if he can recruit troops, especially millions of bloodthirsty cannibals of Nix who wouldn’t know any better than to follow him into a battle, led by his mental fixation of their minds.”

Quobit was quick to chime in. “Savages they are; low on the evolutionary scale they are. But they mysteriously have the ability to receive this creature’s brain waves and be held by his power.”

For long after, they debated the origin of the creature, with Schlegar postulating other theories that Deacon dismissed. Schlegar consistently denied knowledge of any families on Earth who could have bred such an offspring. “I can’t believe it. Evolution does not take these quantum leaps, as you yourself said earlier, Deacon.”

Lyanna said, “The strong take eons to become stronger, Deacon, as in the Medullans—their mental prowess took millions of years to evolve.”

After Deacon and Schlegar and Lyanna had worn thin all the circular arguments and counterarguments, they agreed to prescribe a break, so Deacon visited the Owlers in his quarters and Quobit went her separate way. Deacon instructed the Owlers. “I want the short list of high-priority suspects. Schlegar must not know of our intent if we are to investigate unbiased.”

“Sire,” Jim proudly said, “while Schlegar and his Owlers know of our entry, Gem and I have ensured their ignorance of where we navigated in the system, and likewise our specific entries and retrievals.”

“Excellent.”

“It is great work, agreed. It is expected of us. We are programmed, Master, to—”

“Yes, yes, I know, Jim,” said Deacon, and he whisked them into the adjacent room so he could drop out of consciousness, fantasizing that he was in the clutches of Lyanna’s arms.

The following day’s conversation with Schlegar centered on the Nicosians: their physicality, their habits, their patterns, their social structure. Then the stolen arms were addressed, with Gem showing Schlegar and Lyanna the video footage in the caves. Eventually Gem displayed footage from the top of the mount, and Schlegar saw the weakened state of his son.