Chapter 13: Regroup

Darkness! Chad's bones ached with cold. Was this death? He tried to move, to sit up. His stiffened muscles screamed in protest. He drew on his anger for strength. His stomach protested, heaving, trying to turn itself wrong side out, but there was nothing in it to come up. His head seemed to spin in the darkness. Waves of weakness forced him to lie back.

"Rest, oh Man of Black," the familiar high, thin voice of The Goddess came softly to him from somewhere in the darkness. "Rest, now. Rest and grow strong. You have fought well. Fought very well indeed. Now you need to build back your energies before it is time for you to return to the fray."

"The war... Charis and Ahlenya, Mike and..." His lips were stiff, his tongue swollen behind his clenched teeth. He wasn't sure that the words were even spoken aloud.

"Your friends are all here where it is safe. Nothing more is going to happen to them," the voice soothed, and he let the darkness reclaim him.

The next time he awoke he felt wonderfully rested. His body was as warm and comfortable as though he'd never know what it was to be cold, but deep within him was still the hard kernel of rage that he'd long ago learned to hide behind a screen of commonplace thoughts and actions. He flexed the muscles of his arms and legs, opening his eyes to find that he was lying on a padded shelf. He was in a small bare room that might have been carved out of solid rock. It was lighted by subtly glowing panels set flush against the ceiling. A low pedestal next to his shelf held a flagon of cold water and some ripe fruits, and suddenly he was ravenously hungry.

There was barely enough to slake his hunger and thirst for the moment, and he got up and looked out of the door to his cubicle. Peering both ways, he found only an empty corridor lined with closed doors and illuminated by more rows of the glowing ceiling plates. He sent probing tendrils of thought in all directions, but all he could sense above and below and to all sides was a seemingly endless progression of deserted rooms and dusty corridors. At least the air of age about them was such that they seemed like they should be dusty, though the air smelled fresh. When he touched his finger to a nearby wall it came away clean and unsmirched.

"You are awake at last!" The highpitched voice of The Goddess broke the dead silence from behind him. "That is good."

He whirled to face Her, but only a deeply crimson plate about a yard square glowed from the far wall of the corridor. On its face was outlined an image of The Goddess, lightly sketched in swirling traceries of golden fire.

"Where are my friends?" he demanded, voicing the concern that lay heaviest on his mind.

The glowing lines and their crimson background faded. He looked through a crystalline window into another room from somewhere near the ceiling. It was much like the one he'd awakened in, though somewhat larger. On low stone pallets lay the crumpled, unmoving bodies of Ahlenya, Charis, Zarinthe, Mike and Stan. They seemed unharmed at first glance, but no breath of air stirred their chests and the light that reflected from their hair and skin held a familiar glassy sheen.

"They are here, as I said before. They have been touched by the weapons of My Brother, but they are safe from harm for all time, here in My dwelling."

"But why the Hell didn't You pull us in before they got tagged?" Chad blazed, his fists clenched in helpless fury as he fought to keep from screaming the words at Her. "You've admitted that you can't bring them back. They might as well be dead as the way they are!"

"Not so." Her voice was still calmly remote. Billowing clouds of crimson blotted out the image, and the lines of golden light returned. "While they still live, there is always the hope that they may some day be revived. Until you regained your powers you were of no more use to Me. It took the shock of seeing your symbiotes struck down to break the mental block that had been set up by the pain of your previous experience beneath the Great Temple."

"And just what good can I possibly be to You now?" Chad reined in his emotions to an icy calm that almost matched that of The Goddess, storing up his rage for when it could do him some good. "I'm only one man. All of Your people have been wiped out. The Landsmen's soldiers are unopposed, or they soon will be. Here You sit, hiding all by Yourself somewhere inside a damned mountain. You might as well knock both of us out with one of Your Brother's damned ray guns and give up right now!"

"The soldiers of the Landsmen count for less than nothing in the conflict that is to come. They have had their day in the sun. The field of battle has at last been cleared of all minor pieces. Now the real contest begins in earnest!"

"That sure enough sounds good," Chad retorted sourly, lounging disgustedly against the door frame. "But it looks to me like Your side just took one Hell of a licking. Unless You've got some mighty good tricks up Your sleeve, I still say we've had it."

"Tricks, indeed!" The Goddess shrilled, her voice showing strong emotion for the first time. "I have resources that even My Brother does not dream of, and they are not mere tricks! He may put His faith in the brute strength of unliving machines, but He shall find that the mind and its powers can defeat any device that He can dredge up from His vaults."

"Yeah, I've heard about people who thought that way back on Earth," Chad told her glumly, massively unimpressed. "Mostly, they've wound up working for coolie wages, starving to death in mud huts because they didn't have any skills worth paying for. They found out damned quick that the 'enlightened mental powers' they were so proud of weren't worth shit in the real world."

"You know not of what you speak! I will show you what is to be done. Follow the blinking lights down this hall."

The glowing plate went dark, as did the room behind him. In the corridor outside of his room, one of the light panels to his left was blinking. He walked down the long hall, following along as each panel ahead of him blinked in its turn. Behind an open door far down the hall was a bare room, just slightly larger each way than the span of his outstretched arms. As he entered, the door slid shut behind him. Smoothly, with not even the faintest sound, the room started to rise.

"Ha, all of the latest conveniences," he grinned to himself. "I'll bet this elevator bit really wows the natives."

He couldn't even guess how far he had risen toward the surface when at last the door slid open and he stepped forward. He was in a vault that stretched away before him, cluttered with cabinets of all sizes that held incomprehensible devices. Most of the room was in semidarkness, its farthest reaches lost in the gloom, and the faint scuff of his sandals only emphasized the silence.

Some distance ahead of him, a cluster of glowing panels set into the high ceiling created an island of light around one set of glassfronted cases. The front of one case had been swung back to expose what resembled a set of sophisticated stereo equipment. On a shelf inside the case rested six small black plastic boxes, connected by heavy cables to a larger central console.

From each case hung a silvery circlet, dangling at the end of a slender ribbon of transparent, veined plastic. The central cabinet was some four feet tall, two feet wide, and about a foot and a half deep. It had six small knobs in a row across its face, each below its own dial, with a single, larger knob and dial above them. A single circlet on a heavier ribbon depended from the top of the cabinet.

"It looks like You share Your Brother's dependence on machines." Chad spoke to the empty air, his deep voice seeming to lose itself in the vastness of the room. "It's very impressive looking, all right. Does it really do something, or do You just keep it on hand to impress visitors?"

"That is the device that will enable Me to defeat My Brother." The voice that sounded from the empty air was smugly vindictive. "Whether or not it succeeds in doing so depends entirely on you."

"Okay, I'll bite." Chad tried to sound unimpressed, but deep within him a flicker of hope arose. "What does it do?"

"It is a mental coordinator and amplifier. When six compatible minds are linked through its circuits, a seventh mind can direct their combined energies. It is as though all seven were but one mind. This manifold grouping should be powerful enough to defeat any single unassisted mind, even that of My Brother!"

"Sounds good, I guess," Chad admitted dubiously, trying to keep Her talking. "I suppose Your People built this, or else brought it with Them when They came to this planet. Are You sure that it will still work?"

"Yes, and yes. Yes, they brought it with them, and yes, it will still operate. Each of these storage units generates a field that halts the passage of time within its boundaries. Nothing within them can come to any harm, no matter how many ages pass them by."

"Then why in the HELL didn't you use it sooner?" Chad glared about truculently as hope and anger alike burgeoned within him, but there was no sign of The Goddess.

"Patience, youngster, have patience. It takes an exceedingly strong mind to control the energies channeled through this device. You are the first to appear who might be able to do so, and until now you were not ready. I may not use it Myself. The minds harnessed to it must be very similar, both to each other and to the controlling mentality. More similar to yours, if indeed you are the one fated to use this device, than any among the humans of Gardhe. Even those two others from your Earth will not do. They have not the powers, nor are they closely enough attuned to you. Their minds would not mesh with yours, though the one called Mike would come close indeed if he but had the power."

"Then there ain't nobody on this planet who can help me work this gadget?" Chad's voice was level, sounding almost uncaring against the silence. "So, how am I gonna get it to work? Just tell me that, will you?"

"I am telling you, if you will only be quiet long enough to hear Me out! By the power of My mind, you shall be returned to your own world. Once you are there, it will be your task to find six minds of power who are compatible with your. You will persuade them to return here with you. With them, you will defeat My Brother. Now, have you any more questions before you go?"

"Yeah, a whole bunch of them. Here's three big ones right off the top of my head, just for starters. Number one, how am I going to find these 'compatible' minds, back there where my mind powers don't work? Number two, if I do find them, how do I con them into coming back here with me? What's in it for them if they do? Or for me, for that matter? Number three, how do I manage bringing them back here with me? I don't have no portal machine or nothing, and I ain't heard that You have, neither."

"Finding them will be a simple enough task. With your new powers of mind, you will know them when you meet them. And, yes, the powers I have given you are yours to keep. You will not lose them when you return to your own world. As to how you persuade them to return with you, that is your problem to solve. You can offer the ones who return with you rich rewards. This world has precious metals, and many gems that are rare and valuable in your world. As for you, if you are victorious you will certainly be reunited with your friends. It is simple enough for Me to send you back to your own world, because of certain basic affinities your body's substance has with it, but I have no way of reaching out to bring you back. The only help I can give you with your third problem is to tell you the name of the man who operated the machine which brought you here in the first place. Stan was heard to say that this person's name was 'Bill Tucker of Springfield'."

"And what about the rest of the Followers? Their bodies are scattered all across Gardhe. That is, if they haven't already been eaten by wild animals."

"No animals will bother them. Only by the rarest of violent accidents may they be harmed. If the means ever becomes available, and anyone thinks that it is worth the effort, they may be revived. To them, it will be but a fleeting moment out of their lives, no matter how long a time may have passed in the world around them."

"All right, Goddess. You've got yourself a deal!" Chad exerted a rigid control over his true thoughts as a plan began to take shape in his mind. He had enough contact with Her mind to be sure that Her words were the exact and literal truth. Even so, there was still far too much that The Goddess wasn't telling him, but this was no time to argue with Her. "Give me a few hunks of gold and some jewels and stuff to take back with me to pay my way, and I'm out of here."

Even as he spoke the dimly lighted vault spun before his eyes. He sensed mighty forces swirling about him. Once again, he felt the sense of formlessness as he was transported by Her powers. For an eon, seemingly, he could feel the presence of the uncounted multitudes of strange worlds he had glimpsed in his dreams, then he landed on his back with a jarring thud.

Blinding sunlight made him blink painfully as he got to his feet and looked around him. He was home! His feet rested with reassuring solidity on plowed ground as he brushed clods of muddy dirt from his clothes, and the sun was a comforting yellowwhite ball of fire in a familiar clear blue sky.

He picked up several fistsized lumps of gold and a bag of roughcut gems that lay at his feet, studying the landscape spread out before him. He was back on Earth! Wasn't he? One minor detail jarred, then another and another. The fields looked all right, except that the air felt like early spring. It had rained recently, and the fields were freshly plowed.

That couldn't be right! Not if he was where he should be. It had been late in the fall, almost into winter when he'd fled Chicago, and he had spent many months on Gardhe. He hadn't kept track of the short days, but he was sure that he hadn't been gone for over a year. Just how long had he been in the citadel of The Goddess?

Another thing. The barns and other buildings looked normal enough as far as size and shape went, but he was sure that he'd never seen anything quite like the brilliantly painted geometric designs that were liberally splashed over their walls.

"Standing here ain't getting me nowhere," he finally told himself. He trudged through the furrows to the nearest fence row. It looked normal enough, twisted wire strands stapled to wooden posts. Shaking more mud out of his sandals, he followed the fence to where it crossed a rutted path. He walked warily up to the front of the barn where an elderly human in rough work clothes was tinkering with a piece of farm equipment.

"Greeting, stranger." To Chad's infinite relief the words were in English, though with a thick accent. "Vare you coom from?"

"Back that way." He waved an arm vaguely behind him. "I'm sorry about having cut across your fields. Say, I've been kind of out of touch for a while. Could you tell me what day it is?"

"Yah. You must have been in one of dem Earther communes back in the hills, hah? It iss de tventythird. Dat iss of April."

Only four months? That couldn't be right. He had to have been gone at least six or seven, not even counting the time he'd been out of it back in Her stronghold. Well, at least five and a half, considering the shorter days on Gardhe. Could he have been gone for over a year? No, he'd better not ask what year it was. He could figure that out later, pick up a newspaper or something. "Which way is it to town from here?"

"Down de road a piece." The farmer waved his arm in a broad arc. "Tventy, thirty mile to Carlisle, de county seat. Dot's a goot liddle town. If you vant to stay to supper, Mamma vill be glad to have somevun to cook for, and I giff you ride to town after."

"If you're sure it's okay, I would like that very much. Are you and your wife running this whole farm by yourselves?"

"Yah. Ve can't get help like ve used to, mit effryvun running off to vork on dese new planets. Dey bring in foods and stuff from dere, too, but mit der Social Security money coming in effrey month and taxes going down a leeddle bit, ve make out." He sighed heavily and pushed himself to his feet. "If ve could only get help, ve make it all right."

Chad followed him to the back of the neatly painted farmhouse. A nondescript dog got up from where it lay soaking up the afternoon sun and approached warily. It sniffed suspiciously until Chad reached out with a soothing pulse of mental energy, then wagged its tail at him and came over to have its ears scratched.

"Vilhelm likes you," the old farmer smiled, visibly relaxing. "He iss goot judge of men. Ven der sheriff coom, Vilhelm not let him get out of his car. I not vote for dot man, you bet you." He held out a callused palm. "I am August Gearing. My friends call me Gust."

"I'm Chad Douglas." He returned the vigorous handclasp. "I was raised in the city, but I've been living out in the hills for a while. If there are any chores I can do, I'll be glad to pay for my supper that way."

"Yah, you Earthers don't use money too mooch of de time. Dere iss alvays vood to chop, even in dese modern times."

After a few tentative swings with the doublebitted ax to loosen up his muscles, he slipped off his tunic. Clad only in pantaloons and sandals, he was soon making the chips fly with a will. He was relieved to find that his mental powers, though not quite as clear and sharp as they had been back on Gardhe, were still useful in picking out the grain of the wood, helping it to split evenly and flipping the pieces to where they would be easy to stack. This activity might not be getting him further along on his quest, but he still felt that it was time well spent. This was no time to be rushing off halfprepared. When Gust came back out to tell him to wash up for supper, he had an impressive pile of wood neatly cut and stacked.