Chapter 610

The Prison Planet

Although the adults were worried about her, Selina’s personality was soon back to what was normal for her as she laughed while helping the women, and she also fed the chickens for them. Even though Selina was a genius, she was also a child who loved to ride Lobo and Lila, and the wolves seemed to enjoy it as much as she did.

The portal had followed Selina around until she turned to stare at it. A moment later, it moved to an area along the wall where it remained.

When Selina went to assist the women in getting everything ready for bed, Junior eyed the portal as it hung in the air. It was just hanging there near the wall doing nothing that he could see, but curiosity got the better of him and with the assistance of his wings, he hopped up and pecked at the, to him, simple white ball that moved around on its own. The portal that had looked so insubstantial only moments before was suddenly so hard that his beak slid off. Junior didn’t like that, so he tried landing on the sphere.

That should have worked. After all, the ball was only six inches or so in diameter, so his long toes tipped with claws should have given him easy purchase when he landed. But ... the portal was intelligent and directed by its AI that decided now would be a good time to have a near-frictionless surface. Junior’s grip turned out to be nonexistent. Since he had been so confident that his short flight would land him on the sphere, he slipped off and slammed into the wall. Only with his excellent reflexes did he manage to recover before landing with a flutter of wings, albeit a bit harder than he intended.

Now Junior being Junior, his temper began to show itself. After all, he had no intention of damaging the thing that seemed to hang there with nothing holding it up. He was just curious. This time, he circled, and at the last instant, beat hard with his wings so that his taloned feet extended before him. He would show this thing who was boss rooster around here.

The ball was suddenly three feet to the side, and Junior, feet extended before him, hadn’t planned on missing, and he didn’t miss ... the wall, that is.

Since he had squawked loudly as he attacked, all the hens were watching as he hit the wall butt first before sliding down to land ignominiously on his rear.

“Junior, what in the hell are you doing?” Morales yelled out.

Junior sheepishly untangled himself and strutted off, his body language screaming out, “I meant to do that. I meant to do that.”

“That rooster is nuts,” Jasmine said as she tried to stifle a giggle.

“At least Lobo and Lila are smart enough to leave that thing alone,” Ashley commented as they watched the two wolves, with Selina aboard Lobo, go farther into the cave.

Late that night

Selina lay in her bed, deeply asleep. She had been having a nonsense dream where she was explaining to Diana how she was now well past old enough to marry Jeff. Her logic was dream logic and would have made no sense had she been fully awake, instead though, she was in a dream state where reality could coexist with unreality and all would still seem reasonable to the dreamer. As often happens with dreams, the scene shifted from her discussion with Diana to something else. Now, she and Jeff stood somewhere/somewhen staring out at the billions of stars spread out before them. With a startling abruptness, Selina realized that the glowing lights weren’t stars, or not just single stars, but rather entire galaxies spread among the heavens – countless millions of light years across. And something moved out there.

She/they saw something that seemed to fold the fabric of space as it moved at a very high rate of speed. Somehow, what came out of the fold didn’t seem physical – entirely – but instead was something else. Something not made of matter, but perhaps of something intangible. Were thoughts visible? Was she watching thoughts escaping physical ties? How could that be? Why did she even think that?

One of the... (thoughts?) flashed toward them at a speed beyond belief as it crossed a whole galaxy before jumping the unimaginable gulf between, only to come flashing directly toward them.

“No!” Selina yelled into the darkness. Had it not been for Jeff’s sound suppressing technology, she would have awakened everyone in the cave, but no one heard as she sat up, her body covered with sweat and shaking.

Frightened more than she could ever remember, she came to her feet, and without conscious thought, pushed past the sheet and into the area where her Prime and his Clan Queen slept.

Jeff, who always slept lightly, sat bold upright, ignominiously dumping Diana off his shoulder as he turned toward the crying child genius. “What’s wrong, Baby? Are you hurt?” he hissed out in the subdued lighting of the cave.

“My Prime, My Queen, I must...” And Selina crashed into the couple. Since they were staying the night with the Morales family, Diana had worn a modest set of pajamas, and Jeff had on a pair of walking shorts for which he was now extremely glad because, when Selina had crashed into them, she had jerked the sheet partway off him.

“What’s wrong, Baby?” Diana asked as she pulled the child into her lap.

“I ... a dream, I ... suppose,” she stumbled out as if she weren’t certain. “A quite unpleasant dream, but it was astonishingly real.”

“It’s okay, Baby. You’re with us now. Nothing is going to harm you,” the Clan Queen assured the seven-year-old as Jeff brought the lighting up enough in their area to see comfortably.

Selina clung to Diana, something that was not common for the very adult-like child genius. After a while, her shivering tapered off and eventually stopped. “I ... must apologize. I have been acting as if I were a child. Please forgive me. It is just that the ... dream was so real, and when that ... thing crossed the nothingness between the galaxies and jumped at us; I suppose I awakened screaming. I do not scream. It is a childish thing to do.”

“It was just a dream, Baby,” the Prime assured her. “We all have nightmares from time to time...”

“No,” Selina insisted. “It was real. It was coming after me – after us,” she insisted.

“Us? What was coming after us?” he questioned.

“It. It was coming toward us – toward you and me. It crossed an entire galaxy and then jumped the tremendous gulf between that galaxy and ours as if it did not exist.”

“Baby, it was just a dream. You’re fine now,” Diana insisted.

Selina was shaking her head even as she wiped her eyes and sniffed. “It ... was real. I am certain it was. Some day you shall believe me.”

Fully awake now, the Clan Queen’s motherhood gene was in full force. “Jeff, would you get Selina some water? And bring back a dampened washcloth and a hand towel also, please.”

Moments later, the Prime was back, and Diana had wiped the child’s sweating brow and encouraged her to sip some water.

“Logically, you both assume it was only a child’s nightmare, and I suppose to some extent it could have been, but there was reality as well,” Selina insisted. “Something is threatening us – something malevolent.”

“Baby,” Jeff began, “It was just...”

Diana locked eyes with her husband where Selina couldn’t see. “We believe you, Hon, but we don’t understand.”

Selina, now sitting in Diana’s lap, turned to stare at her Queen. “I assume that you do believe me, at least to some degree,” she quietly said. “Thank you. I am positive that this was not just a child’s nightmare.”

“Do you think it’s tied to the entity back there?” Diana asked as she nodded in the direction of the ice cave.

Selina considered for a moment before saying, “That is entirely possible, but somehow, I do not believe it is. This felt different. Where the entity back there just wanted to be rid of us, this thing, whatever it was, projected malevolence. I could sense its hatred. It scared me,” she finished in a whisper.

“Do you think it has anything to do with the portal?” Jeff wondered.

Selina shook her head. “The portal is just a ... tool. A very sophisticated tool, but a tool, nonetheless. The thing that jumped the gulf between galaxies seemed entirely different. However,” she added, “I was asleep. Part of what I saw could have been because of the dream state, but I am also certain that at least some of it was real. I have never been that frightened in my life. There is something out there that ... wants something from us –that wishes us evil. Maybe it even wants to kill us.”

Selina stared at Jeff for a moment, then Diana. “May I sleep with you? I do not wish to return to my bed at the present time.”

“It was only a dream. There’s nothing to be afraid of, and you are less than a dozen feet away with only a sheet between us,” Jeff tried.

“Certainly,” Diana responded, overriding her husband. “Here, we have an extra pillow, and you can sleep beside me,” she said as she moved Jeff’s pillow and hers over to provide room.

“I finally get a chance to sleep with my Prime,” Selina teased while fighting back a giggle, “even if my Clan Queen is between us to protect my virtue. However, I must apologize because I need to use the outhouse first.”

“I need to as well,” Diana told her. “My husband will be glad to escort us so we will be safe.”

Fifteen minutes later, they were back in bed with Selina snuggled to Diana, but Jeff couldn’t get Selina’s nightmare out of his mind. She is confident that it was more than just a dream. I’ve never heard her mention having bad dreams before. She can teleport and use telekinesis. Now she has linked with that portal thing. There is no telling what goes on in that wonderful brain of hers. Could this have been more than just a bad dream?

He must have drifted off, because he was eventually awakened when Morales’ wives turned the lights on in the kitchen area.

At some point, Diana had turned over and again snuggled into her husband’s shoulder. Since it was cool as the result of the airflow from somewhere deep in the cave, Selina had also snuggled against Diana’s back.

Jeff lay there thinking about what had happened. Was it merely a child’s nightmare, or was Selina right to worry? Crap, it was just a kid’s nightmare, he tried to convince himself. But this is Selina with her logical mind – and she was worried – very worried. Hmmm, I’ll mention it to Ship and see what her reaction is.

“Deep in contemplation so early in the morning, My Husband?” Diana whispered into his ear.

“Just thinking how lucky I am to have you for my Clan Queen,” he responded.

“Liar,” she teased, “but you can lie to me any time you want, as long as you say nice things like that.”

“Good morning, Selina,” the Prime said.

“That is not fair, My Prime. How did you know that I was awake?”

“By your breathing, Sweetie.”

“But I deliberately continued to take long, slow breaths. It isn’t fair that your hearing is so sensitive,” she grumped.