Whatever Gods May Be (39 page)

Once again, the tired drive shaft of the starship was switched on, and within seconds was propelling its disabled bulk over the choppy surface of this alien sea.

Though primary focus was devoted to isolating and navigating on the buzzing transmission, the Rover was still not incapable of performing a variety of other functions.  It presently became very intrigued with the atmospherics above.  Curious, the Rover sent out an electronic probe to one of the black segments it had earlier noticed floating against the grayness overhead.  The sky seemed to be littered with the things, though they were clearly not part of a natural cloud formation.

A message returned.

The Rover gulped in electronic horror.  The ship issued another probe to verify the initial findings.  But the reply was the same.  As the coastline appeared ahead, the ship could discern the mottled ruins of the ancient city sinking into the beach.  No probe was needed here, for the ship instantly recognized the rubble from its historical and demographic tapes taken back on Earth.  A dreadful puzzle quickly came together for the battered ship.  There was no mistake.

The Hall had brought them back to Earth.

Suddenly, the buzzing pulse ceased.  This did not perturb the already shocked Rover, since it had already gauged a transmission location.  This almost became of secondary importance, though, as the ship meditated on its recent discovery.  The ramifications were dreadful to contemplate, but nothing so unpleasant as what the Rover imagined Zolan's reaction to the news would be once he was told.

That is, of course, if Zolan was still alive.

He was suddenly so tired, barely able to keep his eyes open.  He studied the Birdog next to him; she, too, was weak and lethargic.  She had tried to fly across the craters, but her strength had diminished within only a few minutes.  She could not even have supported Zolan on her back; consequently, both the Birdog and the man had walked along the edges of the great craters for several hours.  At last, they were forced to rest; in fact, they could do nothing more than collapse.

Zolan slept; so did the Birdog.

An hour passed and Zolan bolted up to a resting elbow.

He stared into the darkness.  Next to him, the giant Birdog remained asleep.  He reached over and pat her head.

"Zolan!"

The voice called out from only inches away.  Zolan froze.  Zolan glanced at the Birdog to she if she too had heard the beckon.  But the exhausted animal was oblivious to everything.

Was this still part of the dream, Zolan wondered momentarily.

"Valry?" Zolan questioned unsurely.

She appeared out of nowhere, more beautiful than at any time Zolan remembered seeing her in his cloudy visions.  He rubbed his eyes, to make sure that even now he was not still sleeping, then pinched himself for good measure.  Most definitely, he was awake.

He could not recall when he had been so happy to see anyone in his entire life.

And he could not, for the life of him, explain why.

Rising slowly to his feet, Zolan could feel his legs tremble beneath him.  Valry held her hands out to him.

Zolan approached her slowly.  Then, very slowly he touched her face, sighing audibly when his fingers made contact with living flesh.

Valry smiled then closed her eyes.  Zolan leaned over very carefully and kissed her.  She fell into his arms, and he held her tightly.

"You're real," he whispered, his own eyes closed and tearful.

He didn't want to let her go.  Nothing else mattered but her; if only this embrace could last forever, he thought in wild desperation.  How perfect: Yet, he knew that somehow it could not, and slowly he released his hold of Valry and looked into her eyes.

"I love you," he said, not believing what he was hearing himself saying.

Valry was crying.  "I love you, Zolan.  I always have, from the first moment I saw you.  That's why I came."

"Don't go again," Zolan found his voice.

"I'm not even here.  What I am now is something you could not understand."

Zolan took her hands and squeezed them.  "But I feel you; I see you.  What-"

Valry put one finger to his lips and smiled.  "Yes, I'm real to you, Zolan.  Because you love me.  And," Valry closed her eyes in gratitude, "because I prayed for this brief moment with you, and my prayer was answered.  Soon, that part of me which is no longer mortal will love you in a different way -- a much better way, Zolan."

Zolan shook his head in bewilderment.

"What do you mean?" he asked plaintively.

"You will understand in time, my love."

"Stay here," Zolan insisted desperately, "I want to learn about you.  I don't even know you."

"Yet you love me." Valry said.

"Yes," Zolan replied, a little startled.  "I do.  I don't know why, but I do love you." Zolan said with childish sincerity.  "Tell me about yourself.  Where do you come from?"

Valry laughed gently.

"So many questions, Zolan.  If only you could accept me as I am as easily as you accept the fact that you love me without reason.  Ah, my love, if you only had that kind of faith."

Zolan stared intensely at her for just a moment, then laughed himself.  "Alright.  I don't care.  Don't tell me anything.  Just," he said quietly, "don't ever leave me."

Valry's smile was suddenly replaced with an expression of gentle sadness.

"I never will, Zolan, if you always remember me.  Keep me in your heart -- and your dreams -- and I shall always be with you."

Zolan wanted to say something but Valry again put her finger to his lips.

"Now," she said measurably, "you must help me as you promised." Zolan nodded slowly, once again touching Valry's face lightly with his hand.

"Tell me what to do," he said.

Valry was silent for a moment longer as she stared into Zolan's eyes.  The innocence and weakness of humanity glimmered faintly now, but they did so with the 'sparkle of a young girl's first love.  Then, a stronger light twinkled in her eyes; one that was equally loving, but infinitely powerful.

"My time here is almost finished, Zolan," Valry began slowly, "Now that I have found you.  I will no longer be needed." Zolan shook his head, baffled.

"Found me?" he sputtered incredulously, "But what can I do? I haven't even found Thalick for you."

Valry again smiled.

"He's about to find you, Zolan.  That much I was able to arrange.  When he arrives, you must tell him that a great danger is approaching the tribe, much greater than he imagines.  You will show him what is in the crater there," Valry said, pointing to the edge of the ridge where the Birdog still lay curled and asleep.  Zolan was about to turn to go, but Valry stopped him.

"The Resistor is there.  He is very powerful now, and will want to destroy not only my people, but Thalick as well.  He must be stopped.  Will you tell Thalick this?"

"Yes," Zolan replied meekly.

"I know everything that has happened to you so far seems so strange and confused, Zolan.  Your escape from the war, the crash, and the loss of your ship -"

Zolan released Valry's hands and stared at her.  His mouth suddenly went dry.

"How do you know about that? About...Earth?" he asked tonelessly.

The expression of almost infinite sadness again crossed Valry's face.

"I know everything about you, Zolan." He believed her.  How could he not? "Valry," he began nervously, "will I ever leave this world?"

Valry nodded, again smiling that gentle, loving smile.  "One day, Zolan.  I promise you," she said, then added, "Remember what to tell Thalick."

The Birdog suddenly barked from behind him.  Zolan turned around to see the mother panting happily, and then yawn at him.  She was obviously quite pleased with her rest.

"Valry, we're very tired; some kind of sick-" Zolan began, then stopped when he had turned around again.

He found himself talking to darkness.  For Valry Phillips was gone again.

FORTY-TWO

The Birdog had switched from a bark to a whimper within seconds.  For she discovered that she could not stand on four legs without experiencing incredible fatigue.  She tried three times to approach Zolan, but each attempt brought her to the ground again with a disheartened and confused growl.  Zolan stared on sympathetically.  He, too, was barely able to remain standing; he felt as though the life was quickly being drained out of him.

The atmosphere of this world was obviously too thin or contained detrimental properties that were somehow slowly poisoning him.  Yet, Zolan realized that the same sickness that was affecting him was also coincidentally including the mother Birdog as well.  Zolan gulped unhappily at the other probability which came to mind; a worldwide plague of some kind, incredibly powerful, and evidently transmitted through the very air itself.  Zolan reflected back on the past few hours; if the rate of weakness and lethargy increased geometrically within their bodies as it had since departing the Birddog’s cave, than both he and his furry companion would be dead before another day passed.  Yet oddly, Zolan's reaction to this probability filled him with despair for very different reasons than that of merely losing his life.  Most horrible of all, rather, was the fact that he would be utterly useless to Valry, and her mysterious friend Thalick.

This last thought was unbearable to consider.  Breathing deeply, Zolan staggered over to the edge of the crater where Valry had indicated and stared into the valley.  The Birdog pulled herself near the man and looked as well.  Visibility was dreadful in all directions, but below, in the crater itself, an odd, redolent glow seemed to emanate upwards.  At first, Zolan thought the millions of flickering lights bobbing up and down as they moved laterally were torches of some sort.  As his pupils adjusted to the horrendous darkness, however, he could see that the myriad flashes belonged to quite a different source.

The flame red glow of countless eyes extended to all parts of the crater interior, stretching from one slope to another.  Zolan could barely make out the figures of a smaller population of giant rats traveling with the scarlet-eyed demons.  Zolan instinctively cringed backwards, as did the watching mother Birdog.  Zolan whispered under his breath.

"Where in all the heavens, Rover, did you bring me this time," he whistled tiredly.  Thoughts of his destroyed starship made him close his eyes with grief.  If he could only see the drowned Rover once more, he would have gladly faced an army of long-tailed vermin.

The horde of creatures inundating the crater floor must have numbered in the thousands.  Like bees glued to a hive, the aliens crowded every inch of ground below.  Shrieks and howls pierced upwards, making both Birdog and Zolan shiver uncontrollably.  The great rats like the ones he had battled yesterday were far easier to make out for Zolan, but the smaller, vaguely shaped monsters with the hellish eyes were almost impossible to identify.  Zolan and the Birdog were two hundred feet above the crater valley, and had so far remained undetected by the masses below, but their anonymity thus far gave Zolan very little comfort.  He now had the distinct feeling that he was regarding the very evil Valry had mentioned to him earlier.

Zolan grabbed the giant Birdog by the scruff of her neck and scratched.  The attention helped to alleviate the animal's unease, thought Zolan noticed she did not shift her hateful gaze away from the eerie specters below.  Zolan's own attention shifted to the crater itself.  It was one of several he had noticed earlier that fit prominently into the landscape.  Natural comet or asteroid debris could not have been responsible for these substantial impacts; the probability that more than one had come down within such close proximity to the others was farfetched at best.  Furthermore, they bore unmistakable and glaring resemblance to that kind of damage incurred from bomb blasts.  With a sigh of great sadness, Zolan could not help but conclude that this was yet another world victimized by war's great folly.  Judging by the extensive and pummeled ruins near the Birddog’s cave, some massive disaster - most likely artificial - had surely been responsible for this planet's crippled state.

What a ghastly coincidence, Zolan thought; he had just recently escaped one such scenario of doom.  Within hours, he had possibly traveled light centuries only to land on another planetary candidate for extinction similar to Earth.  Perhaps, he thought morbidly, this was some great cosmic joke on him.

Zolan leaned on one elbow and turned away from the nightmarish scene within the crater.  Still scratching the Birddog’s nervous ear, he looked at his recent friend and chuckled.

"Are you all that's left? You, and Valry and her people, and those things down there? Has all civilization been buried so completely?" he whispered gently to his canine companion.

These answers wouldn't matter much to him if he didn't find food and water soon.  Zolan was suddenly aware that he had not eaten in days.

Snatching her head away from Zolan's affectionate grasp, the Birdog twisted her limp form around herself and growled into the dark.

Startled, Zolan also peered into the night.  His first thoughts were those of Valry.  A smile of joy came over his face.  Had she come back after all?