The Light-Field (53 page)

‘Back in our universal past, where we are going, Mythric is still alive, Zeven,' Jazmay pointed out. ‘In fact, he's still alive
here
… somewhere … I think?' she added, less surely.

Taren had left Telmo with En Noah to join the huddle. ‘Are you talking about Rhun?'

Jazmay gave a nod.

‘The governor contacted us at the KEPA base,' Jahan explained. ‘But he was very rattled and unreasonable, and wouldn't tell us where he was.'

‘You couldn't trace the call?' Lucian wondered.

‘The trace kept coming back as an unregistered government line.' Jahan shrugged. ‘I wasn't even aware there were any unregistered communication lines in Chailida.'

‘I know where the governor is.' Noah spoke up, raising himself to a seated position with Telmo's aid. ‘There's only one secret communications centre in Chailida and it was made for situations just like this one.' Noah was clearly relieved to hear the governor had survived. ‘Was anyone else with our governor?'

‘
En Noah
.' Jahan was pleased to note him present. He looked at Ringbalin, who was surprised by the sight of his shivering, older twin.

‘Woah,' was all the botanist could master at first. ‘Jahan wasn't kidding, you
are
like me.'

‘Always delighted to meet another incarnation.' En Noah grinned to make light of the awkward moment. ‘And pleased to see I am still hanging out with the old crew.'

Ringbalin found the comment amusing, as did everyone else.

‘Can we all stay focused?' Zeven objected. ‘The governor, was he alone?'

‘Yes. Part of the reason the governor was so unreasonable was that he'd not been able to save anyone else,' Jahan advised. ‘I've never heard the governor swear or be so obnoxious.'

‘It's the after effects of the initial blast that hit the city yesterday,' Noah stated. ‘Our council, who have never failed to negotiate a crisis amicably, were at each other's throats only minutes after the invisible force hit. Not only were we rendered mortal by the blast, but we were reduced to our most primal self-serving selves. Our governor, fed up with trying to bring his council into order, left the council chamber to get some air. I left soon after, wanting nothing more than to return to my lake house … I didn't even wait for my wife —'

The historian was fit to burst into tears at this stage, and Ringbalin was rather stunned to learn En Noah was married.

Noah reined in his emotions to continue: ‘As I was mortal, I was none too happy about having to walk all the way home.
Such feelings
of hate, frustration and
sheer
selfishness, I have not experienced in hundreds of years. I couldn't control my erratic emotions, or even remember how I'd once dealt with them. I got home, submerged the lake house and stayed there, seething and malcontent. When I received word from the university that Chailida was under attack, my only thought was to save my own skin —' Noah's guilt burst forth in a flood of tears. ‘I didn't feel any attachment to anyone or anything,'
he attempted to explain why he'd not attempted to aid his kindred. ‘Divide and conquer,' the historian concluded.

‘Well, the good news is you seem to have found your conscience,' Telmo assured the man seated beside him. ‘Obviously our weapon works.'

Noah looked at the grazes on his hands, from when he'd fallen, which had yet to heal. ‘It works to a point.' He noted his immortality had not been restored.

‘En Noah, you still haven't explained where the governor is?' Taren gently steered the conversation back on track, as Zeven was looking frustrated again.

‘Don't you remember?' Lucian prompted his wife, for she had viewed En Noah's chronicles about their lives spent in this universe the last time she'd been on Kila. The captain let his gaze drift to the large amphitheatre that was located in the middle of central park.

‘The pit,' Taren uttered, as her memories of the chronicles resurfaced. ‘The Chosen used it when Kila was attacked once before.'

Despite everything he'd suffered in the past two days, En Noah had to laugh. ‘I'm sorry,' he suppressed his nervous amusement, ‘but I fear I've fallen asleep and I'm dreaming. How did you all get back to the Earth plane?
Why?
Because of this disaster?'

Everyone looked to Taren to respond. ‘Okay, here's the quick version. We were born in another universe … and yes, we're here because of this disaster, which we were made aware of when we visited Kila in another time line. Now, let's go find Rhun, and see if we can figure out a way to reverse this.'

‘Wait a second.' Noah prevented everyone leaving. ‘You can move through time? Across universes?' he asked with a good serve of awe in his voice.

‘Some of us can move through time, others can see into the past or future,' Taren clarified. ‘But to shift universes we require cosmic intervention.'

‘Look.' Zeven passed Lucian the happy gun and retrieved his pistol from its holster. He aimed it at Khalid. ‘Either we go find my fath — I mean, the governor, or I'm just going to shoot this prick anyway.'

‘Fine.' Khalid was calm in the face of the threat. ‘Get it over with.'

‘Zeven.' Taren willed his pistol into her hand. ‘We're going.'

Zeven willed his pistol back to himself. ‘Good!' He holstered the weapon, retrieved his happy gun from the captain and headed off toward the amphitheatre in the centre of the park.

‘When did our great forefathers become so uncivil?' Jahan queried En Noah, as he helped the historian to his feet.

‘I tend to rub people the wrong way,' Khalid commented.

Taren shot a perturbed glare in Khalid's direction. ‘Stay here.' She looked back to En Noah. ‘You're not up for this either.'

‘But —' he tried to protest.

‘We know the way.' She grinned to reassure him. ‘Jahan, would you stay and watch
the prisoner
?' She emphasised Khalid's status, as she handed Jahan her pulse laser weapon and set it to stun.

‘If you wish?' He took the weapon in hand.

‘
We're in another universe
,' Khalid pointed out, ‘where am I going to go?'

‘I'm more worried about you killing somebody.' Taren enlightened all present.

‘I never kill for sport, only for gain,' Khalid stated, ‘and there's nothing to gain here.'

‘Except revenge.' Taren retrieved the other happy gun from Telmo and backed up to follow Lucian and Jazmay in pursuit of Zeven, who was now disappearing into the ruins of the amphitheatre.

 

Zeven had psychokinetically dispersed with all the fallen rubble preventing entry to the area beneath centre stage by the time Taren, Lucian and Jazmay caught him up. The many dressing rooms and storage areas located below the stage area appeared relatively unscathed by the attack.

‘This is all so familiar,' Lucian muttered, leading the way. ‘I recognise more of this than I ever saw on Noah's chronicles.'

‘I know what you mean,' Taren concurred.

‘Ditto,' Zeven added, ‘and I never even viewed the chronicles.'

‘Might have something to do with the fact that we are wearing our Juju stones this time around?' Taren theorised.

‘Either that or I'm having the strongest déjà vu ever!' Zeven bantered.

‘Now that's just typical.' Lucian's memory had led them to a set of stage stairs, over which the cement roof had collapsed. It had crushed the stairs and blocked the concealed door beneath that granted entry to the secret bunker.

‘The governor is trapped in there,' Zeven stated the obvious. ‘That explains why he called for help. But what I don't understand …' He restored the ceiling and staircase to a pristine state with a thought and a sweeping hand gesture. ‘… is why didn't he want to tell you where he was.' He aimed the query at Jazmay.

‘We informed the governor of our discovery that the lizards can assume the form of those they kill, at which time he resolved not to trust us. I guess he decided he'd rather die alone and trapped than become lizard fodder.'

There was a telepathic plate alongside the concealed door, which Lucian dusted off with his sleeve. ‘I wonder if the system will recognise me?' The captain placed his hand on the plate and mentally commanded the door to open. When it did, he was startled. ‘I really didn't expect that.' He gazed a second at his hand in wonder. ‘Could I be so like my past incarnation as to have the same hand print?'

‘The system is responding to your mental command,' Taren corrected his thinking. ‘You share the same soul-mind.'

‘Now, that's clever.' Lucian awarded the Chosen respect, and then led down the steep stairway beyond.

At the base of the stairs, large sections of the ceiling in the long access tunnel were lit up with a subtle mauve light.

‘Impressive,' Zeven commented, hot on the captain's heels as he strode toward the far end.

‘How did you discover the Orions' shape-shifting powers?' Taren asked Jazmay as they followed the long corridor at a more leisurely pace.

Jazmay conveyed what had happened to Kestler, with the least amount of words and emotion. She carefully avoided mentioning what had happened to Mythric, in case Zeven overheard their conversation.

‘So the Orions killed Kestler.' The news weighed heavily on Taren's heart, but back in the past he was also still among the living.

‘My guess is that the creatures needed his knowledge to modify Khalid's weapon.' Jazmay was a realist and no doubt correct in her assessment. ‘But as these creatures can only overcome us humans in our fully mortal state, they will never be able to inherit our psychic talent … if that is any consolation.'

‘You can link to their hive mind, you said?' The very idea made Taren's skin crawl.

‘I can,' Jazmay confirmed, ‘but I suspect that when I do, their leader must detect it, if not the entire hive.'

‘Best kept to a minimum then,' Taren conceded.

‘I completely concur.' Jazmay shook off the dread she felt every time she revisited the idea.

At the end of the corridor there was a double set of Charichalum doors — this lightweight black metal was the strongest and densest known substance in this universe.

Zeven was agog at the security measures, but put a hand out to command the doors open — he was startled when they held firm. ‘What the? I can't penetrate them?'

‘The Chosen use Charichalum because it can't be psychically manipulated,' Lucian explained and Zeven nodded as the information rang true to him.

‘Now I remember …' The pilot frowned, caught up in the recognition of being governor of Kila himself once.

‘But not to worry, there is only a secure boardroom beyond; the grand security measure is just a decoy.'

‘So it is,' Zeven mumbled, still preoccupied with his thoughts, as Lucian turned about in front of the doors and began counting the large panelled sections of the floor as he moved past Taren and Jazmay back up the corridor.

Taren was amused. ‘Nothing wrong with your memory —'

But Lucian held up a finger to beg her silence, not wanting to break from his count. ‘Twenty-seven, twenty-eight! Here we are,' he announced, facing the tunnel wall on his right. ‘Okay,' he felt a little silly addressing a wall, but his super-conscious memory urged him on. ‘Open.' When a section of the wall disappeared to reveal a transporter plate, Lucian froze in shock.

‘It's all good, captain.' Zeven slapped Lucian's shoulder and gave a laugh to end his shock.

‘It's all
true
,' Lucian said in astonishment, as if he were only now waking up to the fact that he had once been one of the Chosen Ones.

‘You didn't think the Chosen had been lying to us?' Taren followed Zeven onto the transporter plate. ‘And that this was all just a big cosmic coincidence?'

‘No.' Lucian knew the Chosen were honourable in all regards. ‘I just thought I might have been remembering what I learnt from Noah's historic orbs the last time we were here. But being granted access to
this
,' he referred to the entrance to the top secret government bunker, ‘could be no accident.'

Jazmay forced a grin of comfort as she passed the captain and entered the annex to join the others.

‘So if I remember this correctly …' Zeven looked to Lucian as the captain stepped onto the transporter plate and the annex sealed closed, leaving only the light coming from the iridescent plate at their feet. ‘We just request to be taken —'

‘— to the pit,' Lucian and Taren chimed in with Zeven, whereupon the small annex filled with light and they were all teleported deeper into the complex.

 

The operations base located beneath Chaliada's city centre was not just a bunker, but a major communications, research and defence complex. The control centre, or ‘the pit' as the Chosen had dubbed it, housed a multitude of inactive psychokinetic databases, all of which were switched off at present — the place appeared to be running on minimum power and lighting. The ceiling of the control centre was several levels high, and there were windows overlooking the command centre on the upper levels.

‘If I were hiding out,' Zeven whispered to his colleagues, as they huddled against a wall in the darkness on the outer rim of the room. ‘I'd be up there somewhere.'

‘Well, if it isn't my lofty parents.' Rhun's voice came over the loud speaker and startled them all. ‘Finally, you arrive. Avery has been foretelling of your return for weeks!'

‘Oh, shit. Sounds like Azazèl has been doing some communicating on our behalf again,' Taren muttered under her breath. The governor was as angst-ridden as Noah had been when they'd first encountered him, but where Noah was a scholar, Rhun had always been more comfortable as a warrior than a diplomat. ‘He sounds really pissed at us … not that I blame him.' Taren knew how circumstances must appear to the defeated ruler.