Amphitrite found the dolphins on her way back.  It was deliberate.  They were in such a playful mood she could not resist.  She loved to go down with them into the depths and shoot straight for the surface and leap out of the water.  Of course, she could swim faster and jump higher than any of them, but that was not the point.  And the fact that she had on her mermaid tail instead of legs was not the point, either.  She did not care who saw her.  The point was it was fun, and she was feeling rather playful.

             That may be why she swam right to the shore in her mermaid form and let the dolphins crowd her out of the water.  The beach was filled with vacationers by then along with all the locals who served and preyed on the vacationers.  There was a collective noise when Amphitrite’s tail vanished and she stood up on her own two feet.  Every eye on the beach was on her, and rightly so.  She was beyond beautiful, as all goddesses are, and she glowed just a little, as all goddesses should. 

            To be honest, there were two sets of eyes that did not see any of what happened.  They belonged to the two policemen who were trying to get a passport from Alice and Pumpkin, who naturally had reverted to her big form so as not to attract attention.  They were also wondering why a United States marine in combat fatigues was lounging in the sand.  Josh and Wilson, who saw the policemen coming, had gone into hiding by the food stand.  When Amphitrite came up to the group, she smiled for the one policeman before she turned to the other.

            “Excuse me.  Perhaps I can help straighten this all out.”

            The eyes of the man she smiled at got very big and he quietly breathed one of her many names.  He did not dare to say it too loud.  “Calypso.”

            Amphitrite frowned.  Presently she thought that name made her sound like a left over Disney character.

            “One minute, missy.  I need some answers first.”

            “Oh, Great Lady, I am so glad you are here.”  Pumpkin was hiding behind Sergeant Thomas’ big shoulders.

            “You need to call your government or home office or whatever you have.  We were all cleared at the airport on special visas.”  Alice the lawyer argued.

            “Alice, dear.  Do you mind if I have a turn?”

            “What?”  Alice paused and squinted before she spoke.  “Be my guest.”

            ”Pumpkin, you can get little if you promise to stay on my shoulder.”

            “But everyone is watching.”  Pumpkin was uncomfortable under the gaze of so many human eyes.

            “You can hide in my hair just like Periwinkle.”

            “May I?  Oh, yes Great Lady.  Thank you Great Lady.”  And without another thought, Pumpkin resumed her natural fairy form and shot straight to Amphitrite’s shoulder where she easily hid in those luxurious black locks.

            “Um.”  The policeman articulated.

            “Josh and Wilson!”  Amphitrite called and the two appeared like the fairy had once appeared.  Wilson stood like a statue and stared.  Josh made a circle where he stood as he tried to figure out what just happened.

            “Um.”

            “Just a minute.”  Amphitrite spoke in her girlish best while she wiggled her finger toward the sea.  A three year old was getting too close to the waves, unobserved.  The boy left the ground and floated safely back to his mother’s arms before Amphitrite turned to the policemen.  “Now, I understand there is a problem here?”  She smiled and at least one of the officers looked like he was going to faint from this vision of loveliness.

             The other officer shook his head, vigorously.

            “Well, good.  If that is all cleared up, we need to go.”  With that word they vanished from the beach and reappeared in the tight quarters of the Kargill cockpit.  Pumpkin screamed.

            “Now, Miss Pumpkin.  It hasn’t been that long since we have seen each other.”

            “Sorry, good Mister Smith,” Pumpkin said.  “I thought you were an ogre.”

            “She says that every time.”  Mister Smith assured everyone.  They were all staring at him with uncertain eyes, Alice in particular.  Amphitrite felt it best to proceed immediately with the introductions, and by the time she was finished, she could see that Mister Smith had won them over.  A Zalanid, it was said, could sell a drowning man a glass of water or a mother her own baby.  Fortunately for the universe, the Zalanid turned their talents toward negotiating peace and harmony in the universe.

            “Pumpkin.”

            “Yes Great Lady.

            “Have you had a good visit?”

            “Oh, yes.  I’ve made lots of new friends.”

            “But I think Moira may be missing you, don’t you think?”

            “Oh, I hope not.  That would not be good.”

            “I think you should go and see, don’t you?”

            “Yes.  Oh, but—“

            “Be good, Pumpkin dear.”  It was hard to say exactly how, but somehow the goddess managed a kiss on that little fairy cheek.  “Say good-bye for now.”

            “Good-bye for now.”  Pumpkin intoned the words exactly like the goddess, and then she vanished.  Amphitrite also vanished and Glen returned to sigh in Amphitrite’s place.  Everyone looked at him.  “It was too crowded in here.”

            “But she was so little.”  Wilson said it.

            “Yes, but I was afraid she would start touching things.  By the way, don’t touch anything until I tell you.”

            Mister Smith laughed quietly so Glen had to ask what he was laughing about.

            “With you, it is always a circus.”

            Glen felt that sounded about right.

            The beach in Bermuda was lovely but sad to say, that was not what they were there for.  Alice had her shoes off to wade in the waves and wet sand.  Josh and Wilson were too nervous to relax.  Josh was going to have to learn how to pilot an alien craft and Wilson was going to be the weapons officer.  Sergeant Thomas was silent and stood near attention.  Sadly, Glen knew there would have to be some military presence, not to mention the Sergeant might be needed as a bodyguard after all, even if not for him.  At least Pumpkin appeared to be having fun.  She had settled on Alice’s shoulder and was talking all about the salty wets blowing in her face, as she called the fresh sea breeze.

            Glen just stood and stared out at the water.  He had no idea where the ship was except that it was somewhere in the triangle.  Amphitrite would know, when he was ready.

            It was very early in the day.  There were a couple of joggers on the beach, but otherwise they did not appear too far out of place, being fully clothed.

            “You see, the thing is,” Glen said for anyone who happened to be listening.  “The gods have always been severely restricted in what they are allowed to do, even for the Kairos to perform his duties.  Since the time of the dissolution of the gods, that restriction has come to cover almost everything.  Danna was allowed to correct an indiscretion of one of her children.  Amphitrite was allowed to punish a poor Mereman and take a Sea Serpent back into the land of legend, so-called.  But as for human interaction, that is strictly forbidden.  Not to say that I have behaved perfectly over the years in that respect, but still.”

            “I don’t follow you.”  Sergeant Thomas spoke up at last since Alice was preoccupied with Pumpkin and Josh and Wilson were trying to figure out what was impossible for them to know anything about in advance.

            “I need to borrow Amphitrite.  The Kargill is at the bottom of the pond somewhere and only she can get to it.  At least the Kargill ship is there.  I fear the Kargil may have already been taken up and left the planet.  That is why Mister Smith has not been around.  That is why the Kargill has not sent him to protest the Vordan presence.”

            “The alien Mister Smith.  I read the briefing.”

            “I am sorry, Sergeant.  Please keep everyone here for as long as it takes.  I will be back.”

            “I understand,” he said, and even as he spoke the Stealth Bomber turned company jet flew overhead and waggled its wings.  Fyodor was taking Lockhart and a very disappointed Boston back to Washington.  Glen looked up and waved, though he doubted anyone up there noticed.  Then he went away and Amphitrite came out of the deep past to stand in his place. Amphitrite said nothing.  She walked straight into the waters of the Atlantic.  She dove or flew over the last curling wave, forty feet out into the deep where she disappeared beneath the foam flecked sea.

            Amphitrite instantly knew where the Kargill ship was parked, down in a trench where even the strongest human robot vessels would fear to go.  But that was not her first concern.  She had to find Melanie, and she did that in short order when she discovered the Gaian nano-chits made her stand out like a flood light on a dark night.

            Amphitrite reveled in the sea.  It was not just because she was once Queen of the sea—Queen of all the waters on the earth, but because in a real sense, the sea was her—part of her very being.  The wind and waves moved in her soul like the blood moved in her veins.  She knew every creature that lived in or on the sea or off of the bounty of the sea, intimately.  She knew them from the smallest plankton at the bottom of the food chain to the lumbering whales that sang of life.  And all of it could be moved and bent or changed as she decided it needed to be.  It was a very heady experience when she thought about it, so she tried not to think about it.

            Amphitrite knew every ship that sailed and every sailor and fisherman that ever labored by name.  She knew all divers and even the most casual swimmer, from the boy in Georgia jumping into a pool of fresh water to the thirteen-year-old girl on the beach in Malibu who only hoped that Mickey would notice her.  She tweaked that one.  Mickey would notice.  But really, she never had a say over people.  She never tested and tried men’s souls with the gods of old.  Being human and mortal in most of her lives would have made that too weird, even for her.  Besides, she had her own job: to keep the waters of history flowing in the right direction, and to watch over the sprites that lived and worked behind the scenes everywhere upon the earth.  Even now her water sprites, her liquid babies were gathering around her making bubbles of sheer joy.  Amphitrite could have stayed and played and been perfectly content for a thousand years, but instead she sighed.  She was a mile down, but still she sighed and left her waters behind.

            She appeared in the Kargill ship, in the control room, and saw that it was expanded in size to accommodate a visitor—not that the Kargill ever had a visitor.  It would be a tight squeeze, but manageable.  The Kargill was gone, as Glen had suspected.  Amphitrite made lights come on and freshened the air with a thought.  Then she sighed once more and got out of the way so Martok could get his hands on the machinery.

            “Thought control.” Martok pronounced after only a few moments of examination.  “I figured as much.”  There would be some adjustments to be made.  After an hour, his nimble, educated fingers having played with the systems sufficiently to make a working model, he turned to the life-support system.  Mister Smith was in cold storage, as Martok put it.  He needed a good thaw.  The process, probably done well over a hundred times during the last few hundred years, went flawless.  The Kargill was not nearly as advanced as some thought, and certainly Martok found the equipment fairly primitive, but it built well. 

            “Traveler.”  Mister Smith came out of his sleep rapidly.  “I see we are alone.”

            “But not for long,” Martok assured his friend.  “I have adjusted this equipment so we can have a human pilot and a human weapons officer.  I will fetch them in a minute along with a marine and Missus Pumpkin.  You remember Pumpkin.”

            “I do.”  Mister Smith smiled.  He had picked up a lot of human expressions over the years, though if he did not wear a heavy coat over his wasp shaped body, he would never pass for a human.  Even then, though his face looked reasonably human, it also looked like he dunked it a few times into a bucket of acid.  Some found him pretty hard to look at.

            “I will also be bringing a lawyer.  She has been studying the Kargill-Reichgo treaty concerning earth.”

            “Because?”

            “There are three Vordan warships parked out in New Mexico.  They need to be convinced to let me send them home.”

            “Vordan?”  Mister Smith rummaged through his photographic memory.  “I do not know these people.”

            “Reichgo space.”  Martok replied, and he shared the light distance from Earth which made Mister Smith whistle—a nasal sound of surprise.

            Martok shook his head.  “Technologically, they are not much beyond the human race.  They had help getting here and I need you and Alice to deal with them while I deal with the helpers.”

            “I see.  What exactly would you have us do?”

            Glen woke up on the aircraft in a sweat, but at least this time his mouth was not bone dry.  Alice, Boston and Pumpkin hovered over him with worried looks on their faces.

            “Was I talking in my sleep?”

            “You were tossing and turning.”

            “A few moans and groans.”

            “You were having nightmares,” Pumpkin spoke up and flitted around the inside of the craft on her fairy wings.  She looked like a trapped and agitated bird.  “I don’t like nightmares.  They’re scary.”

            “I don’t like them either,” Glen agreed, but this one had a point.  He gratefully accepted the coffee Wilson brought, blessed the young man many times over, and then he shouted toward the cockpit.  “Are we there yet?”  He put a good whine into his voice.

            Lockhart shouted back.  “No, son.  Read your comics and stay away from your sister.”  That got Sergeant Thomas to lower yesterday’s newspaper.  He shook his head before he went back to reading.

            “What are you, the three witches of Macbeth?”

            Pumpkin flew up to hover between Alice and Boston.  “Oh, I don’t like witches.”  Alice and Boston joined her on the conclusion.  “They’re scary.”

            Glen sipped his coffee and grinned.

            “Seriously,” Alice said.  “You were getting pretty agitated.”

            Glen sat up.  He called to his clothes.  They disappeared from the back of the chair and reappeared around him.

            “Neat trick,” Alice said.

            “Yeah, if only I could get a shower and my hair brushed the same way.”  He pushed his hand across his head to be sure no strays were sticking up.  “I have so little hair at my age you would think it would behave.”

            “I could brush your hair,” Pumpkin offered.

            “No thank you.  But maybe Alice will let you braid her hair if you ask nice.”

            Pumpkin put her hands behind her back, looked down and rubbed her toe in mid air like a little girl might turn her toe on the ground.  “May I, please?”  She asked in her sweetest voice.  Alice could not say no.

            “Makes me wish I had long hair,” Boston said.  She twirled a curl she had beside her ear, but the rest of her naturally red locks were cut rather short.

            “So what was the nightmare about, if I can ask?”  Wilson came over again with sweet rolls, danish and more coffee.  Glen grabbed the coffee pot and had to be convinced to give it back.

            “Well, let me ask you a question first.  What do you know about parallel universes?”

            “About what?”  Alice asked.  She was a bit distracted with little hands flying around her face.

            “Alternate realities, different dimensions, other earths.”

            “Oh, I know.”  Boston piped up.  “Like every time a person makes a decision, like going left or right, the universe divides and one universe goes left and the other goes right.”

            “That would make a lot of universes,” Wilson said.

            “Oh, infinite,” Boston agreed.

            “Wrong.”  Glen smiled when he said it.  “That is such a silly theory when you think about it—like we have this god-like power to create whole universes whenever we think or move or breathe.  No.  The choices we make are real, universal choices, cross-universal choices and we are responsible for our actions.  I mean, there isn’t a good Boston here and a bad Boston somewhere in some other universe balancing each other out.”

            “So then there aren’t other universes?” Alice  wondered.

            “Oh, yes there are, by the trillions.”

            “So there were trillions of universes from the beginning?”  Wilson was not following either.

            “No.”  Glen smiled and shook his head.  “Imagine reality as a tree.  The Norse understood something like this ages ago.  God planted the roots deep so the tree would grow firm and tall.  We don’t see that part.  But then the tree started to grow and mostly at first it was just trunk, like one reality.  But then branches started to grow, and branches of branches and so on down to the smallest twigs bearing the leaves.  God said, any branch that does not bear fruit will be cut off and thrown into the fire, and I believe that.”

            “But something had to make the branches, didn’t it?”  Boston sounded a bit defensive.  “If not our daily decisions, then what?”

            “Time travel, the H. G. Wells way.”  They did not get it.  “I mean with a time vehicle of some kind.”  They still did not get it.  “Okay.  Let’s say you decide that Hitler was the most evil creature that ever lived.  So you invent a time machine and go back to some point before his rise to power, and you kill him.”

            “Doesn’t that change history?”  Wilson asked.

            “No.  You come home and find out Hitler never got killed.  So you go back again, even earlier, and this time you make sure and leave the body mangled and in pieces.”

            “Gruesome,” Boston said.

            “Yes, but you come home and find out Hitler still did not die.  So what is going on?”

            “Oh, wait.  Wait.”  Wilson got excited.  “I get it.  You’re saying that every time you kill Hitler, you actually make a new timeline, I mean branch.”

            Glen nodded.  “But when you come home, you always return to your own timeline, regardless.  It’s a good way to avoid two of you in the same place at the same time.  There’s some law about conservation of something or other.  Actually, time can be stretched like a rubber band, but you will return with or without a ship.  There are all sorts of calculations as to energy expenditure to breach time and how long one can stay in the past and all that.  You don’t need to know all that.  The point is after three or four or a dozen tries, someone figures it out and technology as a means of time travel is abandoned.  But you figure it out.  Small changes make no difference, but if you change history in some significant way, you change the whole universe, not just your world.  And with all of the species from all of the planets in all of the galaxies, even if most have not yet reached that level of technological ability, it still means trillions upon trillions of alternate realities.”

            “Wait a minute, ouch!”  Alice jumped.

            “Sorry.”  Pumpkin was sitting on her head enjoying herself.

            “But you time travel.”

            “I do.”  Glen admitted.  “But I am just moving the same basic genetic code with some equivalent flesh and blood back and forth through time, like I call it, trading places.  There is enough relativity in time, as Einstein said, so I don’t disturb the timeline with my actions.  The Masters, now that is a different story.  They do want to change history and that makes for serious problems.”  Glen stopped talking for a second.  “You don’t need all that information.”    There was silence until Wilson spoke again.

            “So what does this have to do with your nightmare?” 

            “That is for you to not know and for me to find out.”  Glen said, and he lay back to look up at the ceiling of the airplane.  His eyes were on the ceiling tiles, but his mind was somewhere out in the asteroid belt.

            “Oh.”  Melanie sat up.  “I sent for Jillian and my brother immediately on realizing what we were dealing with.”

            “Okay.  We can wait for them.”  Glen sat down on a chair while Melanie lounged on the couch.  After a while, Glen’s stomach grumbled.  “So, does she ever feed us?”

            “I wish you would stop calling it a she.  It is an it, and no it hasn’t yet.”

            The wait was not long.  Melanie and Glen heard the subtle whine of Gaian guns trained on the Nelkorian, seeking to break down the defensive, mental shield, wanting only to leave a stain on the earth where the Nelkorian once stood.  In this case, the Nelkorian did not have an army or the kind of sophisticated weapons needed to return fire and being as young as it was, it probably needed all of its strength to ward off the weapon.  Glen had his ears open and more importantly he had his mind open.  He heard the cry when it came.

            “Mama!”

            Immediately Glen left that place and Kartesh, his resident expert in abominations arrived and smiled for Melanie.  Melanie shivered in awe, but just a little.  Kartesh was only a lesser goddess after all, and not a natural born one at that.  All the same, Melanie felt blessed when Kartesh took her hand and they vanished from the locked room to appear on the street.  The whole front of the building was dust and they could see the Nelkorian struggling to fight off the attack.

            There was a white, shimmering light in the sky no bigger than a doorway, the only sign of the presence of the Gaian.  A beam of intense blue-white light came from that door, but it stopped a few feet from the Nelkorian like it was being held back by an invisible shield.  It did appear to be inching closer, however.  Meanwhile, the people in the street were stumbling about.  Some were unconscious.  Some were screaming.  The Nelkorian could not maintain possession of those hundred or more people and defend itself at the same time.

            “Ah, here she is,” Kartesh said the words as if she was waiting for this very thing—a thing which scared Melanie half to death.  Mama came.  There was a hole torn in the air where before there had been nothing to see, and the creature descended to stand beside her child.  Immediately, the beam from the Gaian ship began to push back.  Poor Ethan and Jillian looked to be in trouble.

            “Help them,” Melanie breathed.

            Kartesh merely smiled and patted Melanie’s hand to reassure her.  She raised her voice.  “Everything and everyone stop right where you are.”  Everyone, Gaian, human, Nelkorian, and everything including even the beam of power being projected from the Gaian ship froze in place.  “Not you, Melanie dear.”  She patted the girl’s hand again and the girl moved.

            Kartesh walked right up to the Nelkorians, and Melanie followed, but stayed one step behind just to be safe.  “Now, let’s see,” Kartesh said, and her hands went up.  Slowly, but with absolute, surgical precision, everything Nelkorian that was above and beyond a normal, human genetic type was removed and vanished, like it never existed.  Melanie watched as the bulbous heads shrank to normal size and faces formed, not like the out of sync, fake face of the girl, but real, live, normal and even average human faces—though Melanie thought the girl might be called cute. 

            When she was finished, Kartesh turned to Melanie and whispered.  “Michelangelo, eat your heart out.”  She grinned, but honestly worried.  She would not violate their minds by implanting a reasonable life story.  The violation of the mind was precisely the objection to their former existence, so what they did with their life at this point would be up to them.  Kartesh did not necessarily see that good would come of it.  Maybe this idea was a mistake.

            Melanie tapped Kartesh on the shoulder and pointed to a police car at one end of the street. lights flashing, siren blaring though they could barely hear it.  The police looked stymied, like there was a giant bubble of force around the whole block that they could not break through.  “Okay.”  Kartesh patted Melanie’s hand once more and they vanished from the street to appear in the Gaian ship which was itself parked in a different dimension.  The Gaian weapon turned itself off, on Kartesh’s instructions, and everyone moved again.

            Jillian went to her knees and pulled Ethan down with her.  Melanie took a second to orient herself and ran to the others.  “Jillian,” she said as she hugged the woman.  “It’s alright.  She’s a friend of mine.”

            Kartesh paid them no attention.  She watched and listened to the Nelkorian mother and daughter as they realized what had happened to them.  They were ordinary humans now, just like everyone else.  The young girl’s eyes got big, but she said nothing.  The mother wailed.

            “Alone.  All alone.  How can anyone live like this?  How can you be so cruel?  Curse you, forever.  Help me.  I am so alone.”

            Kartesh envisioned the mother committing suicide in the near future.  She could not see enough to know if the girl would ever talk.  She was only a lesser goddess, after all, and time she went home.  She turned.  “The Nelkorians across all of the worlds in every parallel dimension will all be restored to normal, human stature as we have done here.  We have been the nexus.  As we have done here, so I will do in all worlds.  God forgive me.”  There was a little tear in her eye when she vanished and Glen came back with the same small tear.

            “Well,” Glen said and he clapped his hands in an effort to change the mood.  “Good to see you again, Jillian.  Would you folks mind taking me up to Chelsea?  I parked my car up there and I don’t feel like walking.”

            Melanie fell back on the couch and began to thrash about.  Glen jumped up.  He wanted to hold her and tell her everything would be alright, but he hesitated.  Finally, he consented, went away and allowed Bridget to take his place.  She went straight for the girl and hugged her.

            “Hold on,” Bridget said.  “I’ve got you.”

            After a while the thrashing subsided.  Melanie was full of sweat and tears, but she seemed in her right mind until she realized the man was gone and there was a woman beside her brushing her hair and wiping the sweat from her brow like a mother hen.

            “What happened to Glen?  Where did he go?”

            “He is right here.”  Bridget tapped her head.  “But he decided the way you were suffering and half out of your mind it might be best to leave you in a woman’s hands.  My name is Bridget.”

            “Bridget?”  Melanie scooted back from her touch.  “Are you an alien?  A shape shifter?”

            “No.”  Bridget laughed.  “Just the worst case of split personality in history.  And it is terribly difficult to keep things straight.  You see, I haven’t been born yet.”

            Melanie was back to shaking her head.  “Weird,” she said, but she appeared to be fully recovered and in record time, like she had help on the inside, which she did.  The Gaian were filled with nano-chits, not silicon nightmares, but organic, microscopic chits which acted like little computers but without the ability for self-awareness.  They could heal a Gaian from the most grievous wounds as well protect their minds from unlawful intrusion.

            “I get called weird a lot,” Bridget confessed.  “But I have dealt with an abomination like this one, or will in the future.  Anyway, this is a new design for me.  Tell me about this, what did she call herself, Nelkorian?”

            Melanie took a deep breath.  “James Nelkor experimented with the genetic code like Doctor Frankenstein.  He made a monster who promptly killed him and replicated itself in both male and female forms.  They feasted on their poor earth and that should have been the end of it, but one of them discovered how to rip open the dimensions and move from earth to earth.  That was when the Gaian went to war.  The war was officially over more than a hundred years ago, but obviously some Nelkorians escaped.  Now they are multiplying again and starting to seed the worlds like they wanted to at first.  The poor human race won’t stand a chance in any universe unless we do something.”

            “Yes, but do what, precisely?”  Bridget fell deep into thought to consider her options, or was it Glen considering his options since it was his life.  Did it amount to the same thing?  Bridget left and Glen returned, and to her credit, Melanie only gasped a little.

            “You must be that one,” Melanie said, but Glen did not listen.  Through Alice of Avalon he was in contact with himself in trillions of worlds, alternate earths, not like individual contact, but like a consensus of voices that came together rather quickly.  He spoke again when he came out from his introspection.

            “I’m glad the number of alternate universes is still limited, though that number is growing every day.

            “Why is that?”

            “I mean, I am glad there is not some evil Glen out there in the worlds.  I appear to be a pretty consistent fellow.”

            Melanie’s eyes got big.  “You are.  You just talked to all of your other selves across trillions and trillions of alternate realities?”  She could not believe it.

            “Yes, well, no, not really.  It was more just a general point of agreement.  And by the way, this is a different James Nelkor.  You know he appeared in multiple earths as well.  Most were not advanced enough for him to do his work, but a few were.  I don’t know who interfered with his work in most places.”

            “The Elders,” Melanie suggested.

            “More than likely,” Glen agreed.  “Anyway, we get to play nexus.  So let’s see what we can do.”

            Glen was escorted roughly to a house where he found the thing sitting in a  Lay-Z-boy.  It had a head three times normal size, designed to accommodate all the additional genetic information and enhancements, and it had no features on that face, no eyes, ears, nose or mouth.  Glen guessed all of the sensory apparatus, anything that would distract the mind had been removed.  She wore gloves on her hands, probably special gloves designed to limit contact.  He guessed she needed some nerve endings in her hands to be able to properly manipulate things, but otherwise all nerve endings were likely removed as well.  She had a terrible bruise on one leg and did not appear to be suffering from it.

            Glen paused.  Something touched at the corners of his mind and moved across the surface of his thoughts.  Alice assured him.  “Don’t worry.  The gods themselves could see no deeper than the surface of your mind.  That was one of the privileges given when you were declared to be counted among the gods.

            “Good to know.”  Glen responded out loud, but he was sorry he did not have any apparatus or special gifts of his own to throw the thing out of his head altogether.  It felt creepy, like fingers running across his brain.

            When the creepy fingers left his mind, he saw a face form on the outside of that bulbous head.  It was an illusion, it looked misshapen and the picture looked fuzzy like an old worn out photograph, but it did look like a cute little girl’s face of perhaps thirteen years.  Glen figured the girl got deposited here when she hit puberty.

            “Why can’t I touch your mind?”  The girl asked.  The mouth did not quite work in sync with the words.

            “Just lucky, I guess since you don’t touch minds, you take them.”

            “They are mine.  They all belong to me.  You belong to me.  I have looked at your insides and you are just an ordinary grub.  There is nothing special about you.  Why can’t I touch your mind?”

            “Kind of disconcerting, don’t you think?”

            The girl paused.  She had to look up the word before she said, “Oh, yes.  Very disconcerting.”

            “So there are maybe a hundred or millions like me that you can’t touch.  Maybe you should just go back to your own earth and leave this one alone.”

            “Oh, no.  Mama said there was nothing on this earth that could stop me from having my way.  I want my way.  I deserve my way.  I am Nelkorian.  You are just a grub.”

            “So maybe your mama did not know.”  Glen suggested, and he found his feet off the ground.  He shot back into the wall with enough force to crack the wallboard and it was painful.

            “Mama knows everything,” the girl said.  “You can wait with the other one while I think.”  Two men picked Glen up off the ground and dragged him to a back room.  They unlocked the door and threw him in.

            “How many of your empty shells do I have to kill before you leave me alone?”  The woman in the room stood.  He hands sparkled with some kind of electrical charge.  Glen quickly scooted his back to the wall and threw up his hands.

            “Wait, wait.  I’m not a zombie, I promise.  That thing can’t touch my mind.  I assume you are not a zombie either.”  He closed his eyes and expected to be electrocuted any second.

            “How do I know this isn’t a trick?”  The woman paused and asked.

            “Because.  Because.  I don’t know how.”

            With that the woman sat down on the couch.  “The thing would have had an answer for that easy question.”  The electrical charge vanished from her fingertips, and Glen breathed.

            “I take it you are the other one the girl mentioned.”  Glen rapidly changed the subject.

            “Don’t call it a girl.  You give all girls a bad name.”

            “Glen,” he offered.

            “Melanie,” she responded.

            “So how is it you’re not—“ they both started to ask the same question.  Both wanted answers but each was reluctant to give their own. 

            Glen studied the woman—young woman.  She was pretty, but maybe a bit too young to be out and about on her own in the city.  He finally had to break the silence.  “What are you, about fourteen?”

            “Nearly fifteen.”  She responded with an I’m all grown up attitude.

            “In high school?” 

            Melanie dropped her eyes.  “I’m a Freshman.”

            “No, that’s good.  Thinking about college?”

            Melanie shook her head.  “I have access to more information than any college graduate on this earth could ever have, or I will once I graduate.”

            “No college?”

            Melanie shook her head again.  “Well, my brother and sister-in-law are talking about the Gaian academy, but I don’t know.”

            “Why?  It could be fun.  I’m still thinking about college myself. Still trying to decide what I want to be when I grow up.”

            “No,  But you have to be thirty—near thirty.”

            This time Glen shook his head.  “Not that old, please.  Wait.  Gaian?”  Glen had to think and Melanie got a look on her face that suggested maybe she said too much.  “Gaian.”  Glen thought out loud.  “A technologically advanced civilization from a parallel earth that became concerned about some of the people learning how to move across the dimensions.  They started planting guardians in the worlds to defend those worlds from intrusions like this creature—oh, yes.  Now it makes sense.  You are the guardian for this world.”  He looked up at her again.  “A bit young for a guardian, aren’t you?”

            “Jillian’s sister, Diana picked me.”  Melanie defended herself.

            “Jillian, of course.  I met her, you know.  World War II in London.  She said she wasn’t supposed to interfere, but she was a great help to me at one point.”

            “Wait,  How?  You said you weren’t thirty yet.”

            “Twenty-eight,” Glen confessed.  “Well, it was Doctor Mishka who met her, but that still counts as me.”

            Melanie looked confused.  “Jillian is my sister-in-law.  She married my brother, Ethan.  She is sweet, though.  I can’t see what she sees in my doofus brother.”  Melanie paused then threw her hands to her head.  “No, no!  Get out!  Get out!”

            The Traveler walked slowly through the village.  She tried not to see but was unable to turn away.  These were not people.  They were animals, screwing in doorways, cutting themselves to feel the pain, killing animals to drink the blood and taste the raw meat, killing each other to taste that meat as well.  Kartesh walked slowly in the cold and misty morning, ignored by the locals until she reached the well.  Then everyone stopped whatever they were doing and turned their heads to look at her.  More than a hundred dead, staring eyes to haunt her dreams for centuries.

###

            The Traveler pulled the Polos behind him, not that it would make any difference.  Mafeo was already grabbing at his head.  There was a mind, a genetically enhanced alien mind reaching out to possess them and Lee could do nothing to stop it.  It had hidden from its own kind to survive, but now that the alien cyborgs had abandoned the planet, it had awakened, and it was hungry for experience.  Thirty of  its own people came staggering out of the cave.  Lee’s own battle weary troops abandoned their horses to run toward the cave.  The mind wanted to play war, and the Europeans were in the middle, helpless to resist.  If Marco Polo never arrived at the court of the Kahn, history would be irrevocably changed.

###

            The Traveler had crashed on the planet.  Well, she had taken out three enemy ships before her own had taken a fatal blow.  She got her people away on the shuttles and escape pods, but her own escape pod was damaged.  So she crashed on a planet with a small human colony.  That should have been her salvation, but a genetically designed mutant mind had reached out to possess all three hundred colonists.  Why would anyone create such a thing?  Bridget, though, was untouchable and the thing was frustrated.  She was strapped to a table and about to be drugged.  That could not happen.  She had to be conscious to stop the mind from breaking out into space, from creating a super race of super minds to possess the galaxy.

###

            Glen blinked.  Alice of Avalon stood in front of him and he was not even looking in a mirror.  She was the most intense, unattainable, untouchable beauty in the universe, he thought.  He could not help what he thought next, but it felt so weird.  She was him in another lifetime after all, and she frowned.

            “Sometimes I don’t like myself very much,” she said.

            “Me neither,” Glen said.  “I mean, me too.”  He had imbibed a bit on Saturday night and though it was Sunday morning he still felt it.  He was going to feel the hangover when he woke up, too.

            “Pay attention.”  Alice snapped her fingers in his face.  “An abomination has come into Manhattan, ninth street, your old stomping grounds.”

            Glen attempted to pull himself together but he was not altogether successful.  “Is it human?”  He asked.

            “Mostly.”  Alice gave a very unsatisfying answer.  “It does not belong in this universe.”

            “What, some alternate reality junket?”  Glen joked.

            “It is a child.  A rough guess would be twelve-years old.  Apparently the mother was strong enough to shred the fabric of reality and deposit the child here to incubate.”

            “What?”  Glen was not laughing now.  “But what can I do about it?”

            “You are the only one who can.  This is your life.  Others can help, but you must decide what is to be done.  Only you must decide quickly.  People are already possessed and some have already been discarded.”

            “Their lives drained and their bodies thrown out like empty husks.”  Glen understood. 

            “People are dying, and all of New York City is the playground.”  Glen sat up in his bed.  He was sweating yet his mouth felt bone dry and his head hurt.  He stumbled to the bathroom and managed not to throw up.  Then he could not get back to sleep.  It seemed to him that was the strangest dream he ever had.  He decided since it was Sunday morning, he might go to church.  Given the way he felt and the dream he just had he probably needed to go to church.

            Glen drove all the way down the Garden State Parkway, but when he got to the turnoff for home, he turned toward the city instead.  He drove in via the Holland tunnel and went uptown to the north end of the Village where he found parking in Chelsea.  He had a ten block walk to ninth street, but Glen did not mind walking in the city.  It was the driving that wrecked his nerves.  Besides, he needed the air.

            He started out serious, though he had no idea how he was going to find a psychic monster in the midst of so many people.  Half the people he saw could be possessed already and he would have no way of knowing.  Possessed people behaved normally enough because the abomination usually used their minds and memories in order to explore their lives.  Glen supposed it was entertaining for a while.

            After five blocks, Glen decided that it was just a dream after all.  It had to be.  He remembered a short story he wrote for a class at the New School about an abomination—his word.  It was an abominable story, but surely he made the whole thing up.  I mean, he confronted the abomination with a goddess.  Okay, so Kartesh was a lesser goddess, and forced to become one at that—she wasn’t born a goddess, but that did not make it any better.  The critiques he got all said he took the stupid, easy way out.  There was no tension.  It was no contest.  Of course Supergirl was going to defeat the cub scout, one person put it.  Honestly, Glen had to agree with them.

            By the time Glen arrived at Ninth street, all he really wanted to do was go by the Lion’s Head and have a drink and a bite of lunch, if they were open.  Still, he had come that far so he decided he might as well check things out, stupid as the whole idea seemed.

            Glen went by the New School, but it was locked up on Sunday morning.  He took a few courses there several years earlier, but they were night classes.  He supposed most of the classes at the New School were night classes.  He shrugged and moved on.

            He stopped at the eternally locked door that was the entrance to Electric Ladyland Studios.  That name was a stab from the past.  He wondered if the ghost of Jimi Hendrix was still haunting the place.  He decided he did not want to know.

            This is stupid, Glen finally objected to the whole enterprise.   Alice, if you want to stop some abomination, you do it, he thought.  He was a bit surprised when he heard her voice, just as he remembered it from the night before.  It rang loud and clear in his own mind.

            “No.  This is your lifetime.  You are the one who has to do it.”

            He shrugged it off as his imagination and turned into a side street.  It was one of those narrow streets in the village just barely big enough for one car.  The people there were all in the street and Glen imagined it was a block party going on until he got into the midst of them.  The people all stopped what they were doing and with one motion, all heads turned and all eyes stared at him.

            Glen swallowed the lump in his throat.  Maybe he would throw up after all.

            “I hate the killing part.”  Glen repeated himself.

            “I lost track,” Boston admitted.

            “That was not much of a story,” Alice said.  “You were handed the timer, like that wasn’t too easy, and the rest was pretty much just blood and killing as far as I can tell.”  She looked at Lockhart in his wheelchair.  He had something on his mind, and responded to her stare by looking up.

            “I always liked the name Cassandra, though I know better than to call the Princess that.”

            “You better not,” Glen said and a little smile touched the corners of his lips at the thought.

            Fyodor interrupted.  “I do not speak with a Russian akzent.”

            “I don’t like the killing either.”  Pumpkin shivered and shook herself like a dog shaking off water.

            “No one does.”  Sergeant Thomas spoke but it was almost too soft to hear.  The next word they heard clearly and it came from the weapons room up on the flatbed.

            “Incoming.”  Farquanded came to the door and shouted.  Bill had his eyes on the gauges. 

            “Where away?”  Glen asked.  He was thinking of Captain Hawk at the moment.

            “Thirteen from the west and another thirteen coming down from the north.” 

            “Alice.  Quick.  How many ships on a typical Vordan cruiser.”

            “Warship,” Alice corrected and she scrunched her face like she was accessing unfamiliar information, which she was.  “Thirteen attack craft, three shuttles and one or two auxiliary ships.”  She un-scrunched her face and smiled.  “One has a garbage scow.” 

            “Garbage?”  Boston sounded surprised.

            Glen nodded.  “You don’t think the human race has cornered the market on garbage, do you?”  He rubbed his hands together while he thought.  “Half of their resources and two thirds of their attack craft.”  Glen concluded.  “Sergeant Thomas.  You need to find Colonel Veber and prevent him from calling in F-15s.  Tell him he can keep them over the capitol just in case but we don’t need that bloodbath here.  Fyodor, you need to turn on the screens I installed on the Stealth and warm it up.  We will be leaving shortly, I hope.”  He looked at Alice, Boston and Pumpkin in turn.  “Pumpkin, you can get little again if you stay here for now.  I may need you to carry a message quickly at some point.”

            “Oh, thank you.  Thank you.”  Pumpkin resumed her natural fairy form and zoomed up to Alice and Lockhart before she settled on Boston’s shoulder.  It was hard for a fairy to remain in their big form for long, and Pumpkin had dutifully stayed big for long enough.

            “Lockhart, you get the women.  Sorry, but someone has to do it.” 

            Sergeant Thomas saluted and ran off.  Fyodor waved as he ran in the opposite direction.  Glen ignored them both as he crawled back up the side of the trailer and entered the room where Farquand and Bill were studying their consoles. 

            “Estimated time of arrival?” Glen asked.  Both men shrugged.  Bill, who watched the long range scanner as well as the disposition of the protective screens had no idea how to read a Kargill police chronometer.  Glen got a headache figuring it out.

            “Five minutes from the West.  Seven from the North.”  He paced a lot.

            When the western group arrived, they took up a formation where three ships attacked from each of the primary compass points while the thirteenth came in low, about six yards off the ground.  That ship crashed into the screen and exploded.  It temporarily pushed the gauge into the red zone, as Glen and Bill were calling it, but only for a second or two.  Meanwhile, the Vodan weapons were having no effect on the screen, but Farquanded was having his way with them.  Just by using the secondary weapons as instructed, he targeted and took down four Vordan attack craft before the group arrived from the North.

            With only eight craft remaining, the western group pulled back and let the northern group have a turn.  They had evidently been talking because a half dozen ships took off for the heights and came hurtling back in a tight formation, their main guns on full power, concentrated on one spot.

            “Damn!”  Glen remembered a bit late.  He jumped over to the back wall where he left his escape pod communications ball connected up to the laptop and the main system.  He switched it on and instantly every Vordan communications device on the planet got a rendition of the theme from Star Wars.  He jumped back.

            “We are hanging in the red zone,” Bill shouted.  Glen only needed a moment to target the main gun.

            “Ready to switch off.”  He yelled right back at Bill though the man was right next to him.  Bill nodded.  “Now.”  Bill switched off.  Several peripheral Vordan shots hit the ground but the concentrated shot of the group of six never came close.  Glen fired the main gun.  The beam was as wide as a skyscraper and it simply disintegrated six Vordan fighters—turned them to dust while on its way into the heavens.  Down below, humans covered their eyes against the brightness.  Some thought the shot might not stop until it knocked a hole in the moon.  In the air, the Vordan anywhere nearby had a difficult time staying aloft as the shot created a terrible vacuum.  The fighters wobbled, and two crashed.  By the time the Vordan were ready to resume the attack, Bill had the screens back up and Farquanded had resumed picking off fighters with the secondary weapons, weapons that now seemed like no big deal.

            Glen kept his eyes on the visuals.  “Damn,” he said it again.   The eight from the West must have hobbled together some sort of communication because they headed out as a group, not back the way they came, but for the secondary target, Washington.  “Hit the scrambler.”  Glen ordered, and Farquanded hit it.  Every Vordan fighter still up and in range started to trail smoke and came down.  The two out front in the group headed for the capital, however, managed to stay aloft—not to say they were undamaged.  Glen ran to the door.

            “Pumpkin.  Find Colonel Veber and tell him two Vordan fighters are headed for Washington and he can F-15 to his heart’s content.”

            “Got it,” Pumpkin said, and it almost looked like she saluted before she vanished in a flash.  If you blinked you missed her.

            Of the eleven ships that were brought down with Vordan still alive, only four Vordan were taken prisoner, and these only because they were badly wounded and did not have the means or chose not to kill themselves.  That meant twenty-four Vordan were casualties.  A dozen humans also made the list.  Two F-15s went down outside of Washington, and ten marines and Men in Black lost their lives in the roundup effort, three when a Vordan surrendered and blew himself up along with his escort.

###

            Two hours later, as the sun went down, Glen, Alice, Boston, Lockhart, Pumpkin and Sergeant Thomas stepped up the ramp and into the stealth bomber—company jet.  Josh and Wilson, the two young men Glen and Alice had met on that first day were there along with Fyodor who had the jet gassed up and ready to go.  Bobbi was mad that she had to stay behind this time, but she had work to do consoling the President, among other things, and making sure Colonel Veber got back in the hole he crawled out of.  Miriam, the marine, turned out to be a great help with that problem.

            “Where are we headed?”  Fyodor asked the obvious.  “You said Cape May.”

            “We need to go a bit further than that, but certain ears don’t need to know.”  Glen walked to the cockpit while Josh took up the co-pilot’s seat.  When Boston wheeled Lockhart aboard, Wilson welcomed her home with a stack of papers. 

            “Thanks a lot!”  Boston complained, but everyone else laughed except Pumpkin who volunteered to help.

            “No, no.”  Glen discouraged the Pumpkin helping with the paperwork idea and turned back to Fyodor.  “We need to go to Bermuda,” he said.  “Right to the heart of the triangle.”

            “You know,” Alice perked up.  “Two days ago I would have said you were out of your mind.”

            “And you would have been right,” Glen responded with a grin before he got serious.  “It has been a busy day, people.  No story tonight.  Everyone needs to get some sleep.”  Of course, no story did not prevent Glen from remembering a pressing story in his dreams.

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NOTE: To read this story from the beginning or to read any of the stories of the Traveler please click the tab “Traveler Tales.”  You can read the stories on the right independently, or just the Vordan story on the left, or the whole work in order as written.  Your choice.  –Michael.

            Martok was only out for a minute or so, and he was never completely unconscious.  He roused himself when he spied two men with shopping bags scurry out a back door.  He moved, but very stiffly, and by the time he got to the door and looked out, the men were gone.  It was a back stairs that lead down to the loading dock as he surmised.  He imagined they had a van or something down there and were already gone. 

            There were sirens in the distance and Martok decided not to try the stairs.  He hoped those men would be caught, but meanwhile there was a battle still going on in the warehouse.  He shut the door and turned to see the suitcase bomb had become so much scrap metal.  He thought, thank God they had not yet attached the conventional bomb.  If that had been there and set off by the grenade, it might not have been an atomic explosion, but the warehouse and probably the whole block would have become so much debris.

            Martok took a good whiff of air.  A natural gas pipe was leaking somewhere.  There was a hole in the floor of the room where the grenade had gone off, luckily on the door side of the trunk bomb.  He crawled over and looked through the hole.  God!  There was no crack in a gas line.  The main pipe was busted wide open.  When the enclosed space of the warehouse filled with enough of that gas, any spark would set it off.

            Martok got to his feet and went out the door and to the walkway railing as fast as he could.  He opened his lungs and roared and roared as loud as his bruised ribs would let him.  The gunfire below did not stop completely, but it stopped enough for Martok to shout at top volume.  His deep, alien voice garnered some close attention.  “Gas leak!  Get out!”  With that, he jumped off the side of the walkway.  He landed on the floor, two stories down like a cat.  Normally, that distance would not have hurt him, especially on lower gravity Earth, but in this case he said, “Ouch.”  He was pretty banged up.

            “My turn.”  Diogenes came back and Martok left that time and place.  Diogenes called to his helmet which was reminiscent of the ancient Greek style.  In his armor, with his sword in one hand and long knife in the other, he looked like someone off a Greek vase or out of Ancient Rome.  Two men ran up with guns drawn.  They pointed their guns but never got to fire them as Diogenes did quick work.

              Diogenes turned the corner and felt a rapid fire thumping in his chest.  The man had an automatic.  But while Diogenes staggered back one step, his miraculous armor repelled the bullets.  He could not roar like Martok, but he could growl, Macedonian style, and the look in his eyes, the only thing visible, must have said death.  The man dropped his rifle and ran.  Diogenes left the man to his fate and picked up his own feet.  He ran to the side of the warehouse, down the aisle against the wall, past the open window they first came in where he had to pause and kill one man, and back into the room where Fyodor and Lockhart were bleeding again.  Fyodor took another bullet, this time in his shoulder.  Lockhart just looked like all his energy was gone.

            Diogenes picked up the floor lamp and smashed it base first against the window to the sidewalk.  The glass broke on the second try, and the wood from the window snapped, but there was an iron mesh over the outside and it merely bent out.  Martok grumbled in Diogene’s mind.  “Once more into the breach, as your Shakespeare said.”  Diogenes left and Martok came back once more with a word.  “I liked that Shakespeare fellow, and the woman, too.”

            Martok threw away the floor lamp and picked up the bookcase.  He shoved it through the spot with enough force not only to open the window and tear away the iron mesh, but to take some of the building with it.  He turned and threw Fyodor over his shoulder, picked up Lockhart by the belt and leapt through the hole in the wall.

            The men went to the sidewalk as Martok fell.  But then he went away again and the Princess returned, dressed in her black suit as she had been at the beginning.  Doctor Mishka protested.  The men needed her attention.  But she was overruled.  Martok saw the police, everywhere.

            “Hold it right there.”  Two officers ran up with guns drawn.  They looked scared.

            “FBI,” the Princess shouted.  “These men are injured.  Help me get them away from the building.”

            The policemen looked at each other, holstered their guns and helped.  They had to carry Lockhart while the Princess let Fyodor lean on her.  Once behind a police car, the Princess gave Fyodor into the hands of another policeman and climbed up on the hood of the car.

            “FBI,” she shouted and started pointing at policemen.  “You, get the gas turned off in this building.  You, get the fire department here, now!  You, get these men to the hospital, stat!”  She was sure it was the right word, but no one moved until a man in plain clothes said, “Do it!”

            Policemen scurried everywhere, and that man came up to offer a hand for the Princess to get off the car.  “Your name?”  The man asked.

            “Princess,” the Princess responded.

            “Your real name.”

            “Princess.  I don’t like my real name.”

            “You have identification.”

            The Princess patted herself down which likely gave the plain clothes man some thoughts.  “Just the Princess,” she said. Her eyes were on her friends.  Lockhart was on a stretcher and being loaded into an ambulance.  Fyodor was crawling into the same vehicle.

            “You will have to come with me,” the man said.

            “Princess.”

            “Your highness.”

            Billings and Radcliff ran up.  They had survived.

            “Did everyone get out?”

            They all turned their heads toward the warehouse in time to see the fireball.  It was not really an explosion, but it was strong enough to kick out the front windows of the building.

            “Agent Billings!”  A woman came up dragging a man in spectacles who obviously did not want to be there.  “Your expert finally arrived.”

            “Yes, well.  May I see the piece in question?”

            Radcliff took it out of his jacket pocket and handed it to the man.  After a few hums and haws, the man came to a conclusion.

            “It’s a timed trigger of some kind.  I don’t suppose you know what it goes to.”

            “Time!”  the Princess checked the sun which she could tell as well as anyone with a watch.  “I have to go.”  She waved before she disappeared right in front of everyone and Glen returned in his suit, tie and disheveled shirt.  “That was interesting, but I have to go.”  He turned around and no one dared touch him.  He turned again to walk backwards for a minute.  “Oh, and you leave me alone and let me forget about all of this and sleep nights.  Oh, and if any of you says anything about what you just saw, the Princess said she will have to send Martok or someone to haunt you.”  Glen stumbled on the curb.  He was glad he did not fall before he turned and walked off, briskly.

            By the time he got back to his car it was two-thirty, going on three.  The regular commuter traffic around Atlanta was going to start soon and Glen knew he wanted to miss that.  By the time he pulled into his own driveway and his wife asked how the conference went, he said fine but he really could not remember anything about it—or about anything else.  Two days later when they heard someone set off a bomb in Olympic Park, Glen thought that was just terrible.  I mean, who would do such a thing?

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NOTE: To read this story from the beginning or to read any of the stories of the Traveler please click the tab “Traveler Tales.”  You can read the stories on the right independently, or just the Vordan story on the left, or the whole work in order as written.  Your choice.  –Michael.

            Lockhart took a bullet in the back as he dove behind some crates.  Fyodor grabbed his leg as he fell back into a tarp.  The Princess felt a bullet bounce off the shoulder pad of her armor, but all that just made her mad.  One arrow took out the man on the walkway, two stories up on the left.  A second arrow took out the man on the walkway to the right, but this one had the bad sense to behave like he was in a stupid movie.  He grabbed at the arrow in his chest, groaned and fell off the walkway, two stories to the concrete floor.

            A man came barreling out of the front office—the one by the front door with tinted boss’ windows that could look out on the warehouse floor.  He had a gun in his hand, but got the Princess’ long knife in his chest before he could fire a shot.  The Princess looked at her bleeding friends, struggling to fire at the men who arrived from some room at the back of the building.  She put the bow and arrows back in her cape, though it still appeared to be simply a free-flowing cape.

            The Princess left that place and let Martok the Bospori, her other alien life take her place—the armor adjusting automatically to his short but broad shape.  Bospori were not the swiftest runners even in Earth’s low gravity, but they were strong as a gorilla on Earth thanks to that same gravity difference. 

            Martok put one arm around Fyodor’s waist and helped him to his feet.  He practically picked Lockhart up off the floor with his other arm.  He had to drag Lockhart, but Fyodor limped and hopped and even managed a shot or two behind them as they stumbled into that front office.  Immediately Martok threw the office chair through the inside window so they could return fire on the men that poured out of the back.  Then he tipped the desk and shoved it to the window so they could have more protection against incoming bullets than just the thin fake wood wall beneath the window.

            “Prop me up.  Prop me up.”  Lockhart was on his stomach complained and tried to use his hands to get himself up to where he could fire his gun.

            “In a minute.”  Doctor Mishka’s voice made him pause.  Martok had left and let the good Doctor fill his shoes.  Lockhart felt his shirt rip and some cool ointment spread on his back where he was busy bleeding to death.  Doctor Mishka clicked her tongue but said nothing as she helped Lockhart sit up by the window.  She used a small knife from her boot to cut open Fyodor’s pants leg.  She spread some ointment on his leg even as she spoke.

            “I must go.  The bomb,” she said and she stepped up to the door and shouted in Russian.  “Colonel Nadia Illiana Kolchenkov, KGB.  Throw down your weapons and surrender.  This is madness.”

            “Very good,” Fyodor commented.  Of course, no one surrendered, but about half of the enemy stopped firing for a moment.  Mishka took advantage of that moment, but of course it was not Mishka, it was Diogenes of Pella who leapt, dove, slid to the dead body and dragged the body by the foot to keep the dead man between him and the shooters until he reached the back side of some crates near the wall where a steel girder went up to the ceiling. 

            Diogenes called, and the Princess’ knife vacated the dead man’s chest and jumped to his hand.  He wiped it clean on the tarp and put it back in its sheath while he considered his options.  The girder attached to the walkways two stories up.  There were rooms at the back of the warehouse, probably attached to the loading docks, but the little army of some twenty men had come from the downstairs rooms.  Diogenes surmised the bomb was likely  in one of the rooms above, off the walkways, and without a second thought he let Martok return.

            Martok jumped as high as he could and grabbed the steel girder.  He held himself up merely by his steel-like grip and the strength of his arms.  He reached the top quickly, but paused.  There was a man with a rifle who had come down that walkway with the hope of finding an angle to shoot down on Lockhart and Fyodor.  That, however, was not why Martok waited.  Come on!  He thought, and he was rewarded as Billings, Radcliff and a dozen agents came pouring in the front door.  Most made it to crates for cover, but two never got passed the door.  The enemy had some automatic weapons.

            Martok knew he would be exposed, but he hoped the people down below would be too occupied to look up.  He swung like an ape from the girder to the walkway rim where he hung and inched his way along to the man.  He grabbed on tight, actually bent the steel lip of the walkway with his right hand while his left hand reached up.  He grabbed the shooter by the ankle and with one good Bospori roar, he pulled the man right under the railing and off the walkway to plummet to the floor.

            Martok flipped himself up to the walkway and scurried along on his belly for a distance to get away from that spot.  No one fired on the spot, but any number of heads looked up at the roar.  Then it was Diogenes’ turn again.  He did a lot of this sort of stuff for Alexander, and he knew his job well.

            There were two men on the walkway in front of the most likely room.  The Princess wanted to come back and get out her bow.  Diogenes said, no.  Killing was his business.  He got out the bow himself.  Maybe he was not as good as her—no one was—but he was best in his class at the Academy in Pella.  From his angle, it only took two shots, and he did not even have to check  when he arrived and put his bow away.

            The door to that room was cracked open but Diogenes knew his job.  He pulled out his sword and long knife and readied himself.  He kicked the door open but stayed behind the wall.  There was a burst of automatic gunfire that stopped when the shooter saw no one in the doorway.  The instant the fire stopped, Diogenes let his long knife fly.  He caught the man in the shoulder, leapt into the room and finished him quickly.  The man in the white lab coat stood up and Diogenes cut the man’s head off with one back swing of his sword.

            The bomb was right in front of him.  It looked more like a trunk than a suitcase.  Mohammed was on the floor, dead, a monkey wrench in his hand.  He must have damaged it, but the man in the white coat said it was repairable.  Diogenes frowned.  They did not teach atomic bomb making at the Academy in Pella. 

            For the third time, Martok returned.  Even he was stymied for a minute by the bomb, not because it was so sophisticated, but because it was so primitive.  He decided there was only one insurance.  He uncoupled the radioactive material and threw it out the door as quickly as he could in an attempt to limit his exposure.  He heard it fall to the warehouse floor below, but then he noticed someone else in the doorway.  He leapt to the corner of the room behind the bomb, squatted down to his smallest size, put his face to the wall so only his cloak over his head and back faced the room.  The grenade still gave him a pretty good concussion, and he passed out where he squatted.