Spud leaned his lanky torso against a marble column and sighed. “My dear Shiloh, it pains me to temper your fervid disposition with logic. Our own universe, our brane, is nearly infinite in space and time. For the last two years, utilizing the vast resources of the Zygan Federation and Zygan Intelligence, mind you, you have had no success in finding your brother. If, as you so imply, John survived the transport and is in another brane, and if we could somehow succeed in travelling to that dimension alive ourselves, we would likely have neither the assets of Zygint, nor our Ergals to aid us in our quest. Our very own survival would be in grave doubt.”
“It’s crossed my mind,” I returned. “But we don’t have a choice. It’s like in that old adage. ‘I’ve been looking in the wrong place—our universe—just because –‘“ I did the quote gesture with my fingers—“‘the light’ here is better’. We’ve got to bite the bullet and search where it’s dark—in the other brane. Even if we do so without our allies or our tools.”
Spud offered a small wave in the direction of a group of black-robed students that strode by us heading towards the Chapel, then resumed stroking his chin. “Leaving for a moment the question of how we can find something if we can’t see it,” he whispered, “how do you propose that we travel to your universe without ‘the light’. As I recall, not only your brother, but even a keen terrorist like Theodore Benedict needed a Somalderis to succeed in such a trip. And the last Golden Fleece I have seen was draped over Yeshua Bar Maryam’s shoulders at the Temple of Eshmoun.” He opened his hands, palms up. “In ancient Phoenecia.”
“Exactly,” I said. “And, I’m sure Yeshua will let us borrow it for a day or two. After all, we’re not criminals fleeing this universe and trying to storm the gates of heaven like Benedict and his Andart guerillas. We plan to come back—with John.”
“I’m not entirely convinced Benedict-- if he survived the trip to Paradise--may not be planning to return to our universe himself someday. Especially with the Omega Archon still reigning over Zygfed. But, despite your good intentions, I doubt Yeshua and the Keeper of the Temple are willing to take the chance that we might not return and lend us their Somalderis.”
“You never know until you try.” I insisted, feeling over my pocket for my Ergal. “I’m going back in time to the Temple of Eshmoun to find our young prophet and his mentor. Coming?” I added, my tone impatient.
Spud scanned the school grounds to ensure we were out of sight of probing eyes, but the crowd’s attention had once again focused on the spectacle in the arena, where poor Neville had just tasted the first fiery sting of the birch. I shivered again, remembering the agony of the Omega Archon’s hellish punishments when I had violated Zygfed’s rules, the figurative flames ‘burning me alive’.
Spud sighed and shook his head. “Yes, I shall join you. If only to keep you once again from the blazes of the Omega Archon’s Hell.” He grabbed my forearm and pulled me behind him under the shade of a stone parapet.
I slipped a hand inside my robe and found my Ergal.
* * *
Sidon, Phoenecia—two thousand years ago.
A wall of dust whipped up by the wind blinded us momentarily. As the gusts paused to inhale, we were able to make out the outline of the path we had taken a few months before towards the city of Sidon in ancient Phoenecia, circa the second decade ACE. “No temporal vector shield,” I coughed, reaching out to find Spud’s hand. The force field had been installed by Zygint Central to protect young prophet Yeshua Bar Maryam from Benedict’s assassins. It should also have blocked us from breaking into Yeshua’s time and space. “Wow. I don’t know how, but we made it.”
“Obviously,” Spud’s hoarse voice returned through the haze. “I expect Zygint Central was convinced that with Benedict’s successful departure from our universe, the Keeper of the Temple would be adequate protection for young Yeshua and the temporal vector shield would be no longer necessary.”
I felt a tug on my black robes. No need to change costumes into white togas with this weather. The sand was already bleaching our clothes.
“This way,” said Spud, “stay with me.”
“On your tail--your tails,” I teased, grabbing his penguin suit as, my free hand shielding my eyes, I followed him gingerly through the sandstorm.
Spud stopped us in front of a large stone gateway which heralded a stone path lined by juniper trees. Once sheltered slightly from the gale, I could make out the ancient temple up ahead, only a few steps away, and wondered if the Keeper would, as he did on our last visit, greet us warmly as we approached.
Our arrival seemed to go unnoticed this time, however. We climbed several steps onto the front landing and stood before the door. I looked at Spud, his black robes polka-dotted with flecks of beige sand, and shrugged. “Nobody’s home?”
I reached over and knocked on the door. Loudly. Again. And again. At last, I thought I heard the ‘clip-clop’ of wood sandals on stone on the other side of the portal. The door opened slowly with a squeal, and revealed a grey-haired scalp followed by a wizened face that peered back at us with a frown.
I nudged Spud who was much better at Phoenician than me, Ergal translating or not. “I am Akbar,” he began with less enthusiasm than I’d have expected, “and this is my brother Danel. We wish to speak with the Keeper.”
The old man gave us the once over before responding, “I am the Keeper.”
“No, no,” I interjected, lowering my register. “The other one. ‘Bout your height. With a beard.”
The frown didn’t disappear. “I know not of whom you speak. There is no other Keeper.”
“Then this isn’t the Temple of Eshmoun?” Even Spud wasn’t infallible.
“Yes, it is.” The door started to close.
“Wait,” I cried, “Yeshua. Yeshua Bar Maryam? Young, thin, black beard, student?”
Spud shook his head as the elder slammed the door shut. “It is futile. They, and the Somalderis, are gone.”
“Gone? Wait! Gone where?” My knocks, and then bangs, on the stolid door went unanswered. I plopped down on the steps in frustration; my eyes, stung by the wind, once again brimming with unshed tears.
“It is a mistake to theorize before one has all the facts,” was Spud’s only response as he set off back towards the gate.
* * *
Hollywood—present day
We M-fanned in the present—my present—looking like a pair of ragged exiles from Harry Potter’s Hogwarts. As we waited in the Hollywood garbage bin to enter Zygan Intelligence’s Earth Core Station, I could swear the guards from the planet Chiduri, disguised as rats by our feet, were snickering at us. Not quickly enough, the hidden door on the side of the bin opened to let us in to the deserted warehouse corridor, and out of range of their snarky squeaks.
“Empty handed. Now what do we do,” I said to Spud as we passed our WHO scan and entered the housekeeping closet/hidden elevator. I leaned against the wall, and, during the jarring descent to the Earth’s heart, closed my eyes to call back the sense memory of the inner peace I had felt with the soft touch of Nephil Stratum’s tendrils massaging my aching muscles, the soothing caresses that had eased my physical and psychic pain. But that inner peace had vanished--along with Nephil Stratum. The Syneph, a cloud-like being, had been the one classmate of ours at Mingferplatoi Academy I’d never have suspected would have betrayed us. Nephil Stratum’s awesome talents as a living Somalderis had allowed her to channel energy from a sun in galaxy M81 to Theodore Benedict’s planet ship, finally propelling him and his minions into that other dimension (John’s dimension?) far beyond our reach.
“Nephil Stratum is not the only Syneph in our universe,” Spud said softly, as the lift accelerated down towards Earth Core Station.
How did Spud always know what I was thinking? If we couldn’t get the Golden Fleece from Yeshua and the Keeper, yes, maybe we could talk another Syn
eph into being our booster rocket into John’s brane.
“You think Ev could get us a meeting with the Syneph ambassador?” After Gary’s death—and Wart’s “disappearance”, catascope Everett Weaver had become the new Chief of Earth Core, but he wasn’t exactly a power player millions of light years away on the Zygan Federation’s home planet of Zyga, where representatives from the thousands of Zygfed planets gathered to pompously rubber stamp the Omega Archon’s edicts. Even calling in markers wouldn’t guarantee us an audience with Syneph big-wigs; the cloud-like Synephs were a notoriously cryptic and cloistered Zygan Federation species. Their home world, a treacherous nebula-like sector at a distant edge of the Milky Way known as the Plegma, was off limits to most Zygans.
“Or, we could go to the Plegma ourselves,” I offered, as we stepped off the lift into the barren receiving room. I chose to ignore that few who had visited the nebula had ever returned.
Spud didn’t seem enthused.
“I’m in pretty good with the Gliesers,” I continued, referring to Zygfed’s maritime Border Patrol. “I know I could get us in.”
“Then they’d have to send a search party to rescue us,” Spud returned, squeezing shut his eyes and shaking his head as the NDNA screening scan washed over us both. Before I could respond, the room transformed into the plush reception suite of Earth Core Station, and Fydra’s welcoming open paws.
* * *
Zygan Intelligence Earth Core Station—present day
“Have you ever been to the Plegma, Ev?” I tried to sound casual, picking some lint off my sweater and jeans.
Everett Weaver’s chubby cheeks puffed out as he gagged on the large bite of club sandwich he had stuffed into his mouth. I handed him a bottle of water I’d Ergaled up back in the Costume Department, and waited politely while he cleared his throat and brushed the crumbs off of his wrinkled shirt and portly abdomen. “What’re you up to now, Rush?” he finally gasped, catching his wheezing breath.
I blinked my baby blues. Nice to be out of my Dickens dude costume and back to being femme again. “Nada. Just wonderin’.”
“No, I’m not going to give you permission to travel there, even if I could. Bad enough I’m ignoring the little unauthorized excursions to Berkshire and Phoenecia you just took.” He took a deep breath, adding in a higher pitch, “The Plegma? Are you out of your mind?”
Spud, now sporting a leather jacket, black turtleneck, and black trousers, joined us, nodding and rolling his eyes. Thanks a lot, partner.
I didn’t have to call on my acting skills to bring out the tears. My voice cracked. “Please, Ev. It’s for John.”
Ev had trained with John as a Zygan Intelligence cadet at Mingferplatoi Academy—surely they’d be brothers in arms and all. I saw Ev’s expression soften and a question bloom in his eyes. Good. “John…Rush? Your brother John Rush?”
“I saw him, Ev, and he needs my—our—help.”
“Whoa.” Everett held up a hand. “He’s alive? Give me the whole story—and start at the beginning.”
“You know more about the beginning than I do.” Ev had already been assigned to Earth Core as an agent when John had disappeared, years before my and Spud’s time.
“No, I mean about my helping.”
The words poured from my lips. “Yesterday. I was home in Maryland, having supper, and I saw him. He was like a holo, not all there. Half alive. Half dead.” I took a shaky breath. “He was trying to tell me something. ’Save me.’”
“Rush believes her brother is alive in another brane, perhaps a prisoner,” explained Spud. “She wants to find a Somalderis, a Golden Fleece, to channel enough solar energy to cross over to that dimension so she can go rescue him. Unfortunately, Yeshua Bar Maryam and the Keeper as well as their Somalderis are no longer…available.”
I expected Ev to whistle, or even to burst out laughing, but, to my surprise, he rested a hand on my shoulder, and sighed. “Just because Nephil Stratum helped Benedict transition doesn’t mean that other Synephs will—or can--serve as Somalderees, derises, whatever.” His brow furrowed. “You could end up empty-handed, and lost—forever--in the Plegma.”
“I have to do something!” I cried out, brushing him away. Didn’t either of them understand? Standing and waiting, my brother’s hallowed motto of “patience”, was no one’s best friend.
Ev patted my arm. “Okay, okay. I have an idea. I’ll do my best to set up a meeting for you on Zyga with the Syneph ambassador. You can explain the, uh, situation, and see if the ambassador can get you someone with the skills to channel the energy needed for a crossing. It’s not like all the Synephs can do that anyway. Your old classmate might have been…special.”
I looked away, my heart skipping a beat at the memory of Nephil Stratum. Yes, she was…
“Even if we recruited a Syneph who could facilitate the transition,” Spud interjected, “how would we know where to begin our search? Assuming that this parallel universe John may be in is as infinite as ours.”
“Ev, you still got the comm logs from Gary’s Messier Sportstar we used to escape Benedict’s planet ship, right?” I interrupted. “There’s something I remembered.”
The Chief of Earth Core nodded and ran his fingers across an adjacent holo screen to pull up the files.
I smiled at Spud. “I have an idea.”
“What’re you looking for?” asked Ev, curious, as I played my own fingers across the holo seeking a particular, very compelling, message.
“Ha,” I exulted as the grainy image of Agriarctos the Ursan, a hulky polar bear, came up lifesize on the screen. Fleeing Theodore Benedict’s planet ship, we’d gotten an interstellar missive from one of his guerillas sent just before their transport to the other dimension. Agriarctos turned out to be undercover Zygint agent Wart in disguise, who’d made sure that we’d escaped Benedict’s “Death Star” safely.
Spud inched closer. “’Tis the message Agriarctos—Wart--sent us just before Benedict disappeared into--”
“The other brane,” I finished. “Turns out I was right. Wart wasn’t only trying to give us a heads up about the fusion torpedo Benedict sent our way.”
Both Spud and Ev looked at me, puzzled. I smiled and nodded at the screen. Agriarctos’ furry holographic body seemed to be sprouting from a sparkling base, the core of the melon-shaped communications module. “Notice anything down there?” I pointed to the sparkles under the Ursan’s feet.
“Regular flashes, impulses, on-off, off-on, on-on—“ Spud broke into a grin. “Why, ‘tis a digital code!”
“Exactly. We were a little too shaken by our close call with Benedict’s bomb to notice at the time.”
“Running analysis,” Ev shouted as his fingers danced next to the flashing lights. “Looks like contact metrics…at…got ‘em. Son-of-a-gun, Wart gave us a trace.” The translated signal was now readable as a series of multi-dimensional coordinates, for both a portal and a universe beyond.
I favored Ev with my warmest smile. “Make that call to the Syneph embassy, Boss. With my new Zoom Cruiser, Spud and I’ll be halfway to Zyga before you’re done.”
* * *
Planet Zyga, Andromeda Galaxy—present day
The journey to Zyga took less than the three hours we’d been used to only weeks before. With its upgraded hyperdrive system, my replacement ship was able to navigate through wormholes as well as curved space, cutting our voyage to Zygfed’s home planet by a full hour. Spud had barely had time to peruse one of his dusty old monographs before we were entering Andromedan space.
Unlike most ambassadors to Zyga who chose to spend their leisure hours in the Enclaves that mimicked the comfort and familiarity of their home planets, the privacy-loving Syneph contingent preferred to hover over Zyga’s Capital City of Mikkin in the rainbow-colored sky. Up in the Zygan stratosphere, visitors were unlikely to wander through or loiter in the clouds. Ev apparently did have some
pull with Juan De La Cruz, his boss at Zygint Central, because Juan had arranged for me to meet Cirra Stratum in the private conference suite on the 53rd floor (base twelve, of course) of Zygint Central Headquarters. Spud eagerly accepted Juan’s invitation to “navigate the nexus” or something equally nonsensical, abandoning me in my quest for the Syneph ambassador’s merciful aid. Great. Thanks, Spud.
When I entered the suite, the Syneph ambassador greeted me politely with an extended tuft. Her cloudlike mist felt cold against my skin. Where was the warmth I’d always felt from Nephil Stratum when we’d physically connected?
Cirra Stratum’s smoky tendrils reflected the afternoon light from Zyga’s setting suns shining through the panoramic window. I envied the freedom she and the other Synephs had to coalesce into a cottony mass or disperse into streaks of haze. Did she have to take the elevator up here, as I did, or had she diffused directly into the conference room from the sky outside through the porous glass?
“How may I assist you, Shiloh Rush?” the ambassador asked as she pointed a tuft towards the empty room’s only chair.
I shook my head. “Thanks, but I’ve been sitting for two hours on my ship. I’ll just tell you about John.”
As succinctly as I could, I related the story of my brother’s work for Zygan Intelligence and his disappearance three years ago while he was working alongside the terrorist Theodore Benedict—undercover like Ward Burton, I insisted.
I told the ambassador about my painful discovery that my brother John had apparently partnered with Benedict in his unsuccessful quest to travel to a lost Eden in another brane with the help of a Golden Fleece to channel energy for the transport.
“He didn’t return. And we’ve heard nothing since.” I couldn’t disguise my bitterness. “Before he left our universe, Benedict denied knowing where he was, but—someone,” thank you, Wart, “has left us a trail of crumbs to follow.”
“What is it that you wish from us?” Cirra Stratum’s tone blew a wintry chill into the room.
I pursed my lips. “John himself never brought the Somalderis, the Golden Fleece, back to our brane. Otherwise Benedict wouldn’t have had to,” the words caught in my throat, “to brainwash a Syneph, Nephil Stratum, to serve as an energy conduit to fuel his own flight to ‘paradise’”.