Doomsday Warrior 19 - America’s Final Defense (12 page)

“Yes,” Rock admitted. “I have dreamed of my old Glower friend. More than that: I think he got me out of a hole on my trek just a few days ago. Maybe I dreamed he helped me. I suppose I
am
sealed to him, for I carry the last gifts he gave me, gifts I do not understand.” Rockson was referring to the wire coat-hangers and box of common aluminum foil that Turquoise had given him as a parting gift a year earlier. Turquoise had made Rockson promise never to be far from the gifts. Rock carried them in his backpack even now.

“AH, YES,” Remaroo smiled mentally. “I DO NOT KNOW THE REASON FOR THIS GIFT, EITHER. YET . . . WE TOO DREAM . . . OF
HIM.
TURQUOISE’S INSTRUCTIONS TO US ARE FAINT, AND UNCLEAR. THAT IS WHY WE HAVE CALLED YOU HERE: TO HELP US HEAR HIS VOICE FROM THE BEYOND. AND TO SHARE HIS BEINGNESS WITH YOU.”

“I have come to get your help,” Rockson stated.

“YES, WE KNOW THAT. AND YOU SHALL HAVE IT,” Remaroo thought-spoke. “AFTER WE BOOST ONE ANOTHER’S DREAMS OF THE TURQUOISE GHOST, YOU WILL GET WHAT YOU NEED. BUT YOU MUST BE BOOSTED WITH US ALL. YOU, ROCKSON, ARE THE MISSING LINK. WE WILL ALL HAVE THE DREAMING POWER IF YOU JOIN OUR DREAM-CIRCLE. NOW SIP ONE MORE SIP OF THE DREAMING-ESSENCE, THEN COME AND BE SEALED AND ANOINTED.”

“Is this—er—dangerous?” Rock asked, as if he would be told.

“NO,” a mental laugh followed. A strange laugh, to say the least. Remaroo stood up; so did the other Glowers gathered about. “COME,
KNOW
WITH US. KNOW THE WAY OF OUR ANCESTORS. IT IS POWER AND JOINING, THAT IS ALL. YOU AND I WALK TOGETHER.”

Rock didn’t like the sound of all this, but he followed. They went to an octagonal pale pink tent, one made of the stretched and cured skin of a Narga-beast. The water-seeking beast was a sacred animal to the Glowers. This tent, therefore, was a temple. They entered it.

Inside five Glowers were already gathered, seated on rocks in a circle. Remaroo introduced Lynorac, Zafazanok, Harf, Menem, and Rydoc. Remaroo took an empty stone seat, Rock another. One stone was unoccupied. “ONE IS YET TO COME,” Remaroo said. And then a gong sounded.

Rock sat there and waited expectantly, looking around him. He felt dizzy. The liqueur? He sure didn’t like the looks of this place. The tent was filled with animal skulls, carelessly hung on the tent walls. Glower ceremonies can be difficult, if not damned dangerous ordeals. Rock knew that from previous encounters with the superbeings that were descended from American astronauts caught in space by radiation bands ejected from Earth during World War Three.

He felt the oppressive heat of some sort of steam emission coming from vents in the floor. Dizzy. The bodies of the Glowers about him seemed dangerously close to Rockson. They pressed in around him, way too close for comfort.

“DO NOT WORRY,” came Remaroo’s thought-transfer. “WE DO NOT TOUCH YOU. WE MUST BE CLOSE, TO HAVE THE ‘ANOINTMENT BY THE NAJJ.’ ”

“What is the Najj?”

“THE TRIANGLE OF ALL KNOWING, ROCKSON.” The Glowers started chanting. “IN THE NAME OF THE UNBORN, THE BORN, AND THE RIVAL. WE CALL THE PRUZAC EPHEDRINE TO ENTER AND DELIVER TO US THE KISS OF THE NAJJ.” The Glowers all shouted that in unison in Rockson’s head, making a low, barely audible hum with their big lips. Then, trembling in anticipation, Remaroo said, “OH, GREAT KEEPER OF THE NAJJ, LET THE DREAMS COME! LET THE DREAMS HEIGHTEN OUR AWARENESS. WE ARE READY. LET THE NAJJ LINK US ALL, AND GIVE POWER TO THE WEAK. LET THE STRONG GROW STRONGER IN THE DREAM CONNECTION TO THE DEAD. LET IT ALL HAPPEN
NOW.”

A gong sounded and the tent flap opened. Rock was surprised to see a beautiful, if abundantly
full
woman come in. She was a human, and almost nude. The Rubensesque blonde maiden floated instead of walked. And her form faded, blurred.

Rock rubbed his eyes. No mistake. Now she was transformed into a Glower woman! Maybe the green liqueur, Rock thought, had caused him to hallucinate. She was human again, smiling at him.
God.

She flickered now, from human beauty to multi-colored Glower-shape. This flickering creature held a staff, he noted—a staff with a red triangle glowing at its upper tip. “BEHOLD SHE, PRUZAC EPHEDRINE,” Remaroo chanted mentally.

Rock was confused, and said as much, regarding her true shape.

“DO NOT BE DECEIVED,” came Remaroo’s reply. “THIS CHANGING IS NO HALLUCINATION. YOUR EYES ARE NOT WRONG, ROCKSON,” Remaroo went on. “PRUZAC EPHEDRINE IS BOTH A GLOWER AND A HUMAN. SHE FLUCTUATES BETWEEN THESE STATES. THERE IS A TIME-SPACE WARP BETWEEN THE REALM OF THE DEAD, AND THE HERE-AND-NOW. HER HISTORY IS UNIQUE AND WONDERFUL, ROCKSON. PRUZAC WAS A HUMAN BABY, BORN IN A SILVER COWL TO A GLOWER WOMAN. SHE HAS BEEN RAISED ASIDE FROM US OTHERS, SO THAT SHE MAY BECOME THE KEEPER-OF-THE-NAJJ.
ALL HAIL THE NAJJ.”

Pruzac raised the glowing red metal triangle on the end of the pole. “ALL HAIL THE NAJJ,” Remaroo insisted. “ROCKSON, REPEAT THE SACRED WORDS, ‘NAJJ, RETNUCNEE, NESTRAVYS. NAJJ, RETNUCNEE, NESTRAVYS.’ ”

“Najj, Retnucnee, Nestravys! Najj, Retnucnee, Nestravys!” Rockson shouted over and over, for lack of any alternative. He wanted to leave. He had a sense of foreboding about all this. But Pruzac was the most fascinating woman Rock had ever seen, filled with power, flickering between the world of the dead and the yet-living. A voluptuous, full-figured naked woman, and a Glower of ugly, throbbing, blue-skinned essence at the same time! It was mesmerizing. For an hour they recited the mantra.

When the chanting finally stopped, Remaroo slapped his webbed hands together and a pale blue Glower—a woman, to judge by the breasts near her inside-out liver—came in, holding a second red stick with triangle attached. She exchanged this pole with the identical one Pruzac was holding. Pruzac waited until she left, then walked over to Remaroo. She touched the red metal triangle at the end of the stick to Remaroo’s forehead, then went on to touch everyone’s forehead in turn. Because of the battery-acid-like essence that flowed on the Glowers’ skin, the triangle hissed and flared briefly in flame at each touch. Finally, Pruzac came over to Rockson. “Will the triangle—” he stuttered, “burn me?”

Surprisingly, she answered in a soft, sweet voice, like an angel’s. “Oh, not much. It must be done. Lean forward and do not fear.” She touched the tip of the triangle to Rockson’s forehead, between his eyes, above the bridge of his nose. Instantly, burning erupted on his skin, but not for long. He winced as she withdrew the triangle. A glow spread on his forehead.

“THAT IS ENOUGH. THAT IS PROPER. THAT IS TOTALLY
RAD,”
they all yelled out, mentally. The chant was so powerful that Rock held his ears with his hands—in vain. He could not block out the volume in his mind. A heat grew in his forehead as the chanting continued. Rock soon saw before them, in place of beautiful naked Pruzac Ephedrine, another figure: the Turquoise Spectrum. The ghostly figure’s mouth was moving. No sound.

“GOOD, YOU DREAM WITH US ALL,” said Remaroo. “NOW LISTEN TO TURQUOISE. HIS VOICE IS FAINT. LISTEN AND YOU WILL RECEIVE HELP FROM THE OTHER SIDE.”

Remaroo was right. The ghost did speak.

“I WILL HELP,” Turquoise Ghost said in a hollow voice. “I WILL HELP YOU SAVE . . . EARTH . . . THE ROCKET WILL NOT BE ENOUGH . . . YOU WILL NEED TO DREAM OF ME, ROCKSON. DREAM OF ME . . . FROM TIME TO TIME . . . IT IS GOOD THAT YOU DREAM OF ME NOW . . . LISTEN! THIS IS IMPORTANT!”

And then the Turquoise Ghost was gone, and in his place stood Pruzac. She was leaning over Rockson in her human form. She kissed his forehead. The kiss seared again, like the red triangle. Rock had what could only be described as a mental orgasm the second her soft lips touched his skin.

Then everything was blurry and vague. Later, Rock would remember only that they chanted again, and the heat in his head slowly subsided.

Rock came to his senses in the main Glower dome. He sat up and was handed a cup of ordinary tea, which he sipped slowly.

“WHAT DID YOU EXPERIENCE, ROCKSON?” Remaroo asked.

“We . . . we . . . Pruzac and I—had sex. Mentally.”

“YES. GOOD. ALL HAVE TO BE JOINED TO PRUZAC IN ORDER TO DREAM. NOW YOU HAVE PART OF THE HELP YOU NEED.”

Soon feeling his normal self, Rock stood up and asked, “Did anyone hear what Turquoise said? He was about to tell me something critically important when—”

“THE LINKING, ROCKSON, THE ORGASM, IS WHAT HE SAID TO YOU. NOW, YOU CAN DREAM OF HIM WHEN IT IS NECESSARY. CONTACT IS ASSURED. YOUR UNCONSCIOUS MIND HAS REGISTERED HIM. THE CONNECTION TO THE LAND OF THE DEAD IS COMPLETE IN YOU, ROCKSON. DEATH AND ORGASM, DEATH AND ORGASM. IT IS GOOD.”

“Damned.”
Rock was disgusted with this confusion. He wanted to leave, but felt strange and wobbly as he moved. He finally staggered from the dome, and breathed in cool, western night air, which gave some relief. What had all that been about? Pruzac has been a wonderful experience, but he didn’t feel like he’d been helped; not at all.

“NOW, COME,” Remaroo said, “WE HAVE ARRANGED FOR YOUR NEW SPACE VEHICLE. WE HAVE SOMETHING BETTER THAN YOUR PATHETIC ROCKET TO FLY YOU TO KARRAK.”

“That’s more like it,” Rockson said.

Twelve

R
ock went with Remaroo, across a barren plain, and behind a spike of red sandstone glowing in the moonlight. Was this a dream? Was Pruzac a dream? Had she made love to him by touching him? Was the interdimensional female real? What did the ritual and the liqueur do to him? Anything?

He felt his forehead and winced. There must be an awful burn on his skin. The sound of his boots on the ground seemed exceedingly loud.

Remaroo stopped Rockson before a blank sandstone wall. They waited a brief time, like two men waiting in the lobby of a hotel for an elevator. But there was just the wall.

The wall of stone flapped open. Rockson heard the gracious invitation to “COME SEE YOUR NEW SPACECRAFT,” from Remaroo.

They entered the dark, square hole in the rocks. There was some sort of cocoon-like object in the vast open interior of the cliff. Rockson supposed that it was a cover on the space craft. The cocoon was lit with an inner light of bluish hue, and he could see the shadows of moving figures inside. He saw the outline of some sort of scaffolding around the shadow of a dirigible-shaped object.

“COME.”

They went to an area of the cocoon that seemed to have a shutter-like door, more like the lens of a camera than a door, actually. Remaroo raised his hand palm forward and the sphincter of blue plastic started to expand. The cocoon opened. They stepped onto a ramp leading to the spacecraft.

Rockson glanced at the ship’s contours just before he entered. He hardly believed what he saw. This was no rocket. It was, instead, something from the imagination—the most peculiar spacecraft he’d ever seen.

“WHAT DO YOU THINK?” Remaroo asked.

“It’s—it’s shaped like a saucer,” he exclaimed.

“YES. THE BEST DESIGN TO USE THE LABARRE MAGNETIC FIELD-FLUX DRIVE WE HAVE INSTALLED. IT WILL GET YOU AND YOUR MEN TO THE ASTEROID AND BACK. HOWEVER, THE CONTROLS ARE QUITE DIFFERENT THAN WHAT YOU ARE ACCUSTOMED TO. I WILL HAVE TO FLY IT FOR YOU,” the Glower stated. “BUT YOU DO NOT JUST RIDE ALONG. I ONLY FLY IT UNTIL YOU CAN BE TRAINED ADEQUATELY IN THE METHOD. NOW, ROCKSON, WE TAKE OFF. SIT DOWN OVER THERE—THE SMALLER CONTOUR COUCH. WE MUST GO.”

“Without my men?”

“NO. YOU WILL TELL YOUR MEN—ON YOUR LITTLE BROADCAST WATCH—THAT WE ARE GOING TO PICK THEM UP AT THE SAME COORDINATES THAT YOU WAITED FOR MY SANDSHIP. TELL THEM TO BE THERE, AS QUICKLY AS THEY CAN RIDE.”

Twenty minutes later, after a thorough inspection of the internal mechanisms of the Glower spacecraft, Rockson sat next to Remaroo as a hidden mountain door opened on silent hinges. The saucer was glowing blue as Remaroo turned up the power, and the very air hummed. Through a visi-screen Rock could see the Glower ground crew step back. Then there was a slight tilting of the floor. To maneuver the saucer Remaroo moved his hands in a glovelike control device. Rock found they were lifting up off the ground, and moving out of the hangar into the cool night.

Remaroo said, “YOU WILL SEE THROUGH THE VISI-SCREEN THAT WE ARE MOVING ABOUT TEN FEET OFF THE GROUND. HEAR THE HUM? THAT IS THE INTERACTION OF THE LABARRE FIELD DRIVE I TOLD YOU ABOUT WITH THE EARTH’S GRAVITY! THE POWER WE GENERATE IS TO SHIELD THE EARTH’S GRAVITY FROM THE SHIP. IT IS IMPORTANT NEVER TO FLY THIS CRAFT UPSIDE DOWN, FOR IT WOULD DROP LIKE A STONE, OUT OF CONTROL. I WILL EXPLAIN MORE AS WE FLY.”

Effortlessly, the saucer shot up into the starry black sky.

The Rock team rode hell-bent-for-leather over the ridge and reached the coordinates where they were to meet the Glower spacecraft. The sky was gray with predawn light in the west, though plenty of stars were still out. The air was intensely cold, and the ’brids exhaled clouds of hot mist as they rushed through the darkness. The chariot horses were groaning with strain to keep the nuke-loaded chariot up to speed.

“Hey, one of the stars up there is moving,” McCaughlin exclaimed, shooting his hand out and pointing as he rode. The others followed with their eyes where he pointed.

“I don’t see anything,” Archer growled. “Just
staaaars!”

“I
do,”
said Detroit. “I think that it’s a plane. It’s definitely getting brighter and descending. Looks like it’s coming this way.”

The Freefighters reached the top of the ridge and pulled their ’brids up short. As the sky object got closer and took form, Detroit’s jaw dropped. He exclaimed, “Holy Smoke . . . it’s not a plane at all. It’s a fucking flying saucer. Rock’s got us a flying saucer!”

They all watched in awe as the softly glowing craft, which was the size of a baseball diamond, set down on the ground on a tripod extension. When the saucer stopped spinning and the blue glow died down, McCaughlin’s and Chen’s wrist radios squawked to life: Rock’s voice blasted out, “Come on down and get in! We don’t have much time to get to Karrak. And wheel that nuke-chariot down that hill
gently!”

When the men came riding up on their ’brids with the chariot rolling behind, Rockson was already outside the saucer craft, ready to greet them. He stood at the foot of a ramp leading up into the saucer, wearing a very iridescent blue jumpsuit. Rockson’s hair seemed to bellow out from his head as if electrified.