Chapter 19: Ess-Chad

"Do these coordinates look familiar to you?" Neal smiled at Charley. "I think you've been there before."

Charley peered at the control panel where Amy was carefully moving knobs and dials into the proper configuration. Behind him Phil, Rowlf and Ka-Kachima waited impatiently for the portal window to clear, while Jewel, as always, stood close by Neal's side.

"Ess-Chad?" Charley shook his head as though to dislodge unpleasant memories. "Yeah, it makes sense that Jordan would go back to that place. At least he'd know something of what conditions there would be like. This is that planet of dinosaur people I was telling you about," he explained to Phil, Rowlf and Ka-Kachima. "The one where Jordan tried to screw things up for us."

Amy flipped a switch and the surface of the portal went from blue to crystal clear. Before them, below them, one hemisphere of the planet came into view as she manipulated her controls. The colors weren't quite right, as the spectrums shifted slightly due to differing time rates on the two sides of the portal, but they were close enough so that things were recognizable.

"This setting shows magnetic lines of force." She changed the setting on another knob, and suddenly the image was overlaid by glowing line that traced irregular shapes across the face of the planet. At one point, Phil thought that it was close to one of the poles, a knot of stronger lines pulsed and faded. "There, that's a portal in action."

The image before them grew to more than fill the portal's opening as Amy dropped it lower, centering close to where they had detected the use of a portal. Finally, she held it steady a couple dozen feet above the surface. In the distance, Phil could make out a clump of somewhat regular objects, probably a handful of buildings. Amy brought them closer, and they could see that the magnetic disturbances were centered on one of the buildings, one that was noticeably larger and sturdier than the others. The land around them looked dry and barren, a far cry from the swampy jungles Charley remembered, with few signs of life other than tiny lizards darting between clumps of wispy ferns.

"Can you block their portal?" Amy nodded an answer to Phil's question. "I doubt that there are more than a few dozen people in the building that houses their portal."

"Hold it," Neal cautioned. "We'd better scout things out a lot closer before we make any moves We want to catch Jordan, not just round up another bunch of his thugs"

"Yeah, you're right," Phil agreed wryly. "Sorry, I got carried away there for a moment."

Once more the portal opening shrank down to a tiny circle, drifting forward until it was just inside the largest building. A spy-eye held to its opening relayed an image of the scene on the other side, showing a large central room with several doors opening off from it. In the center of the room a clumsy construction of rods and coils had to be one of Jordan's portals, a control panel mounted on a desk by its side. There was nobody in the room at the moment, the portal quiescent. The only sounds to be heard were from a small generator outside the building as it recharged its heavy bank of batteries.

Amy eased the portal opening forward once again until it hovered within the other portal's framework. A quick clip of a wire cutter insured that the portal would not function again until the accidental-looking damage was repaired.

One of the doors out of the central room led to what

had to be Jordan's office, containing mainly a desk piled with paper work and an executive-type chair, but of the man himself there was no sign. An adjoining room held a bed and dresser, along with a closet partly filled with an assortment of clothes, but there was no sign that Jordan had been there recently. Several other rooms held boxes and shelves of supplies, but still they found nobody.

"Check out the other buildings," Neal decided.

The nearest building was a mess hall, but again it was empty. The stoves and ovens were cold and the refrigerators empty, but the pantry and freezers were well stocked with foodstuffs.

The next building they checked was a combination recreation hall and barracks. Again it was empty, but the barracks still had some personal belongings in its lockers.

The fourth and last building was a mostly empty warehouse, but Amy found a small room at the back that was locked and bolted. She eased the portal window through a wall...

"Luana!" Phil leaned toward the portal. "That's Luana in there! Open the portal wider, get her out of there!"

Luana jumped up from the cot where she had been lying and shaded her eyes, squinting against the light coming through the portal.