It was like going down a waterslide as a kid, vacationing with his parents at a theme park dedicated to the South Seas, back home in Indiana. Gareth couldn’t see anything except the sides of a golden tube of light, but when he put his hand out to touch, they pulled back.
He couldn’t fall any slower, or faster, regardless of what he did. And it felt like he was simultaneously the size of a mouse and of a whale.
Screaming like a little girl didn’t seem to help, either. Or rather, nobody was listening, which was probably good. Gareth wondered if he was going to keep on falling forever.
There, in the distance between his toes, Gareth saw something. Darkness, perhaps. A gap. Maybe the end of the tunnel, thank God.
He seemed to be slowing down. Or something.
Yes. The tunnel ended there. He could sense a room just beyond it.
Gareth felt his brain and his soul drop back into phase with the rest of the universe. What the name of Heaven was that?
He found himself standing in a clearing. Surrounded by trees out of the worst nightmares the ancient artist Dali had ever dreamt up: bark the wrong color, trunks somehow the wrong shape, and with leaves that looked like nothing so much as feathers.
The space here was that same golden hue of his cabin, and the tunnel.
Standing in front of him were a pair of three-foot-tall lizards, dressed in pants and t-shirts, standing upright and eyeing him like dinner. Gareth would have given a month’s salary to be holding his Sonic Stunner right now, but it was safely locked up, back at The Arsenal.
Wait, lizards?
The room howled as well. Gareth considered joining it, but one of the lizard-men hopped into the air and tossed something into his mouth, rather like a jelly bean.
Jelly bean? What the hell is wrong with you people?
Gareth went to spit it out, but the bean had already dissolved and melted itself to his tongue, like the best peanut butter on a PBJ sandwich.
Gareth chewed frantically, trying to escape its clutches.
“That work?” the closer lizard-man asked.
Gareth turned, utterly shocked that these things spoke English. Had somebody slipped a Mickey Finn into his drink at dinner? Was this all some sort of hallucination as part of a failed seduction attempt? Who would he wake up next to in the morning?
He chewed, unable to speak. The one who had spoken wore a logo on his shirt, but it honestly looked like an old, ratty concert T-shirt, rather than the more stylized Sky Patrol SP on Gareth’s chest.
“You can understand me?” the lizard asked. “Just nod.”
Gareth complied, nightmares of Alice and toadstools haunting him. He scanned the feathered trees nearby for Cheshire Cats.
“We need to get gone,” the other lizard-man told the first. “Somebody’s going to remember us.”
“Okay,” the first said, staring hard at Gareth like he was a badly-trained puppy. “You need to come with us, so we can get someplace private and I can explain everything. This is not a dream, but it could become a nightmare, without too much effort. Are you safe to touch?”
“What?” Gareth managed around the peanut butter. “What’s the meaning of this?”
The lizard-man sighed and his shoulders slumped. A twinkle came into his eyes after a second and he smiled.
“Humans are the most dangerous, lethal species in the galaxy, okay?” he said. “You’ve been kept confined in your solar system until you matured enough to not be a threat to everyone else, which is not today. Except one of your kind got loose, and it threatening to destroy all galactic civilization. Nobody can stop this killer, so we took a gamble and kidnapped you. You might be the only person who can save us.”
Gareth felt a surge of pride rush through him. Earth Force Sky Patrol. The Good Guys.
Field Agent Gareth St. John Dankworth, ready to serve.
He stood taller, shoulders back and head up. Which kind of ruined the scene, since these two might have been three and a half feet tall.
“Who is my foe?” Gareth announced boldly. “What do I need to do?”
The two lizard-men shared a glance, and a smile, it seemed.
“Marc Sarzynski,” the first one said. “Called Maximus.”
“That bastard’s here?” Gareth growled in shock. “No wonder he escaped me. Where are we?”
“The planet is named Orgoth Vortai,” the second one said. “Home of a species known as The Grace.”
“Species?” Gareth wasn’t sure he heard the word right.
“You got it, pal,” the first said. “There are over a dozen sentient, technological species in the Accord of Souls. The Grace are not quite the weirdest, but they’re close. And when one wants to talk to you, and they will, be prepared to be touched. Now, can we go get some tea and hide out?”
“Maximus is here?” Gareth reiterated.
“Not on this planet, but we know where he is, once you’re ready,” the tiny lizardman said.
“And I’m not stoned out of my mind on Bennies and Smack?” he continued.
“On what?” the second one asked.
“Mind-altering, hallucinogenic narcotics,” Gareth explained. “Humans take them as an escape from everyday life.”
“Nope, we need you sober, pal,” the first lizard-man said. “It’s already going to be weird enough as is.”
“What was that thing you put in my mouth?” Gareth asked, finally having swallowed the last bits. Or maybe they had dissolved completely.
“A transform virus programmed for humans,” the little man said. “It inoculated you against most diseases, as well as programmed your brain to be able to speak our language. You don’t think the rest of us spoke English, do you?”
“Oh,” Gareth said. “Maybe I do need a drink.”
“Tea first,” the lizard-man said. “I’m sure we’ll need something stronger later. Ready to join us?”
“Yeah, I think so,” Gareth said, pretty unsure of all of this, but willing to stay put. Maybe.
“Good,” the first said. “Now, we’re going to exit this park, cross a couple of blocks, and hit a tea shop nearby. If anyone asks, you’re just a runt Vanir, okay? Humans are the absolute embodiment of evil, as far as anyone knows, but nobody really knows what a human looks like, and you’re close enough to pass for a Vanir for now. We good?”
“What are your names?” Gareth asked. “I am Field Agent Gareth St. John Dankworth, of the Earth Force Sky Patrol, Missile Division, 6th Cavalry Troop.”
“Yeah, and if you ever mention that again, your ass will be in a jail cell so fast your head will spin, pal,” the one said. “Ours right beside you. We’ll never see the light of day again, and Maximus will end up Emperor of the Universe. So keep it quiet. We’ll just call you Gareth, for now. I’m Morty, and this is my egg-brother, Xiomber. Let’s go.”
Gareth found himself following the first little lizardman. He had been so focused earlier he hadn’t even really processed the fact that he was standing in a small clearing of an arboreal forest of some sort, next to a thing that looked remarkably like a bizarre garden maze, except the walls were only four feet tall and made of a weird mix of metal, wood, and flowering plants, with lots of open spaces allowing sunlight and breezes through.
He glanced up, trying to measure the time, and stopped so fast that Xiomber ran into him from behind.
“Hey, friend,” Xiomber barked. “Little warning next time?”
“The sky…” Gareth’s words tapered off.
It was close enough to noon, with the sun more or less overhead. But the sky was pink-orange, somewhere between cotton candy and first-run salmon from back home.
THERE WAS NO BLUE, ANYWHERE IN THE SKY!
“Quieter, please, Gareth,” Morty smacked him on the thigh, breaking the hypnotic spell that had fallen over him. “You’re not on Earth anymore, m’kay? This is Orgoth Vortai. C’mon.”
Right.
Gareth fell in behind Morty again, walking in a calm daze. Alien planet named Orgoth Vortai. Sure. Surrounded by talking lizardmen. Why the hell not?
The trees ended suddenly and Gareth was on a sidewalk. Maybe. Whatever the local, planetary equivalent was.
And it was moving. Both of them. Wow. There was a path moving to the right, with a second one, closer to the street, moving to the left.
And people.
People? Sure, why not? I’m completely stoned now. Whatever they gave me has gone all the way in and now I’m riding the lysergic acid all the way to the end of the rainbow, where I’ll find the leprechaun level monster, waiting for me to fight him to the death for his pot of gold.
Gareth must have stopped walking again. Xiomber just stepped up and took his hand, like a child leading a parent around a theme park.
They got on the moving sidewalk, and Gareth smiled politely at the woman in front of him as she turned and studied him.
Except it wasn’t a woman. Or, maybe it was. She had curves. A fantastic bottom, narrow waist, ripe bosom contained in some sort of silky wrap that looked like a fairies’ cocoon.
But her skin was green. And her eyes had slits, kinda like Morty and Xiomber, rather than irises. Like a snake, or a cat. Except she looked like a snake, with long, green-black hair. Except that wasn’t hair. Those were snakes.
She was a medusa.
Gareth nearly screamed again, but Xiomber jerked his hand hard enough to nearly make him fall over. He rounded angrily on the little man.
“You’re staring,” Xiomber growled quietly up at him. “It’s impolite. And she might take it as invitation to talk. Those tentacles on her head? You know, where you have hair and I have a bone crest? Those are sensors pods that combine touch, taste, and smell. The Grace are a very tactile species. Let’s not today, okay?”
Tactile. Right. All those snake-hair-thingees slithering over his skin?
If he ignored the tentacles, she was an amazingly beautiful woman.
Medusa.
Something.
Maybe she’d turn him to stone, if he wasn’t careful.
Or if he was lucky.
Gareth smiled weakly at her and turned his attention to the rest of the city.
Oh My God!
Earth had nothing like this. It was like a fairy tale, with impossibly tall buildings of all shapes and colors. Some were stone. Others were glass. A few appeared to be forests that had been transformed, like a giant’s banzai tree experiment, plopped down in the middle of a city.
The woman behind them on the sidewalk smiled as he accidentally made eye contact.
Gareth managed not to scream. And pulled his mouth shut and held it there by grinding his teeth. She was a cat. No, a lynx, covered over with cream and gray fur, standing more than five and a half feet tall, wearing harem pants and loose top in matching baby blue silk. The face was close enough to human that it might be a mask, once he got past the magnificent, muttonchop sideburns and the ears on top, except that her ears moved, one rotating towards him like a radar dish as he watched in awe.
“Morty, we need to debark,” Xiomber said loud enough that the other turned. “Now.”
Xiomber tugged his hand and Gareth stumbled briefly as they landed on the sidewalk.
The lady-lynx kept riding by, but handed him a business card written in vermillion ink as she passed him with a hopeful smile. The smell on the card was almost enough to make Gareth chase after her.
“What are you?” Xiomber groused in awe. “Bottled animal magnetism? Morty, we gotta get this one undercover quick, before we’ve got a mob of horny women after us. That’s two already.”
There was a break in the traffic going the other way. The one called Morty bolted through it. Xiomber followed, dragging Gareth along numbly.
He was still holding the card, sniffing her scent. She made him feel all tingly inside, and kinda goofy. But it also let Xiomber pull him easier.
Traffic magically seemed to part around them, and Morty ducked into a shop, the other two in quick pursuit.
Now he’d gone blind.
Except, not blind. Sun blind. There. Man, it was dark in here. Okay, table. Bench. Sit. Good. Sniff card. Wow.
“Put that away,” Morty snapped. “I need you coherent. Not dunk on the scent of a Nari in season.”
“A what?” Gareth asked weakly.
“That woman on the slidewalk,” Morty pointed back over his shoulder. “She’s a Nari. She gave you a scent marker. Didn’t think Nari did that, outside of their own kind. It’s frightening, the power you have over women, pal. In other circumstances, we’d put that to use, but right now we need to hide.”
Reluctantly, Gareth pulled out his wallet and slipped her card in with the others he had accumulated from scientists and politicians he had met. It was sized close enough to fit.
The two lizardmen were eyeing him when he looked up.
“What?” he asked, nervous.
“Nothing,” Morty said.
Gareth watched him signal to a waitress. She was another of The Grace, although not as voluptuous as the first. If she were human, Gareth would have guessed her to be a teenage girl, perhaps. Petite and thin.
This one smiled, too, but Morty growled for her to get the tea if she wanted a tip, so she just winked at Gareth and sashayed away. She also had a mesmerizing bottom.
“Hey, pal,” Xiomber cracked wise. “Eyes over here, please.”
“Right,” Gareth reluctantly turned to the others, trying to figure out why he was here. Wherever here was. “So the two of you are criminals, engaged in a major felonious enterprise, and somehow I’m both the crime and the prize?”
“A little louder next time, maybe?” Morty snapped. “I don’t think the cook heard you in back. You wanna be in jail?”
“Sorry,” Gareth dropped to a murmur. “A little excited here. I’ve never been on an alien planet before. What’s next?”
“Now, we hide you from Maximus until we can get you to a lab and make some improvements to you,” Morty said. “Maximus has been doing the same to himself, but I don’t think he dreams big enough. At least not yet.”
“Maximus,” Gareth growled, remembering he was a cop. “What’s he doing now? And how do we stop him?”
Gareth watched the two share a guilty glance silently for a moment. Morty shrugged.
“So until about ten minutes ago, we were members of a criminal gang,” Morty began in a voice so quiet Gareth had to lean all the way down close to hear. “Our old boss, Cinnra, was a Warreth scientist, with aspirations of taking over the whole criminal underworld, across the entire Accord of Souls.”
“What’s a Warreth?” Gareth asked carefully, trying not to talk so loud that he got arrested just when the little man got to the good parts.
Xiomber leaned in and cut his brother off.
“Think birdman, Gareth,” he said simply. “Earth has lots of bird species, so imagine a humanoid a little shorter than you, about half your mass, covered with feathers.”
“Birdman,” Gareth acknowledged. “Got it.”
Sure. Why the hell not?
“So Cinnra had us build a very illegal, psionic wormhole generator, and locate him a human assassin,” Morty continued. “This would have been about, uhm…”
He paused, apparently doing some math in his head, eyes fixed on some strange spot on the ceiling.
“Maybe five Earth months ago?” Morty asked. “I think.”
“That was when Sarzynski escaped me,” Gareth snarled quietly. “We had him holed up with his gang. He escaped, and they all swore it was some weird gold light that did it. Oh, shit. Gold light. You guys.”
“Yup,” Xiomber noted with pride. “Boss nailed down the shape of the psionic signature he wanted in a human, and had us program it into the scanner. Bada-bing, bada-boom, and Bob’s your uncle.”
“Uhm, what?”
“He said we located our target and extracted him, one step ahead of the arm of law enforcement,” Morty explained. “You, given all the bitching Maximus has done about you since then.”
“Oh,” Gareth said with his own surge of pride. “So you recruited an assassin?”
“Yeah, but Cinnra thought he could control the human,” Morty said. “Found that out the hard way when Maximus turned on him.”
“What did the rest of the gang do?” Gareth asked.
“Went along with it,” Morty said. “The human’s a freaking killer. Our choices were pretty stark here. Your kind are not known for being the forgiving types, you know?”
“We’re not all like that,” Gareth replied.
He wanted to say more, but the young girl with the tentacles returned with a cast iron tea pot and three mugs. She set the pot down in the center of the table by leaning past Gareth.
He flinched and nearly screamed when several of her tentacles caressed his hair and neck.
“Hey,” Morty snapped. “You want me to get the manager out here?”
“Sorry,” she purred, withdrawing dreamily.
Gareth watched her face turn nearly umber with blush as she stepped back.
His subconscious couldn’t decide if the feeling had been feathers caressing him, or teeth looking for a place to bite. Or both.
Xiomber poured a mug and handed it to him, before serving them. Gareth sipped carefully, but the taste was yummy.
“So that thing you put in my mouth,” he asked after a moment. “How’d you know that would work? You said Maximus and I were the only humans here.”
“We reprogrammed him the same way,” Xiomber explained. “We can do that with humans, because they aren’t part of the Accord of Souls.”
“What do you mean: reprogram?” Gareth felt an uneasy tide nibble at his toes.
“The Chaa uplifted all the species to sentience a long time ago,” Morty said. “Before they left, as a matter of fact, and turned most of their own kind into the Vanir. Those Left Behind. But they also fixed everyone’s genetics pretty hard. We can eliminate disease and all that, but nobody can be improved past where the Masters left us all.”
“Except humans?” Gareth guessed. “And Maximus is upgrading himself? Like bad?”
“He’s improved his brain, so he’s way smarter than he used to be,” Xiomber explained.
“That’s bad,” Gareth replied. “Marc Sarzynski was a renegade from the Sky Patrol. Part of my class of Agents, before he went bad. Turned criminal. But he was already at the top of the pack, then. If he’s smarter now, you’re in trouble. We’re in trouble.”