George Brown and the Protector (20 page)

George spotted his father at the edge of the
crowd, being shoved and kicked by the Grak. He tried in vain to
call out to him. Then George’s eyes widened. There was a small
spaceship there, hardly noticeable in the dark because of its black
paint. The Grak were pushing his father inside it.

His father turned and looked at George. There
was a piercing sadness and a yearning, pleading look in his eyes.
In the split second their eyes met George recognized the Dad he had
known, who used to laugh and joke and make their home so pleasant.
It was as if his father were reaching out to him with his eyes,
pleading for understanding, for forgiveness, for hope. George knew
in that instant that his father would never betray him, but had
been used and controlled by the Grak.

And then the connection was broken as the
Grak shoved his father through the doorway and slammed the hatch.
In a matter of seconds the spaceship hummed, then roared into the
sky and out of sight.

The Grak in the clearing were running back
and forth, grunting to each other urgently, preparing for some
unknown event that was about to happen. Suddenly George was picked
up and tossed toward the fallen star. He landed next to it with a
crunch, his legs buckling beneath him in pain. He felt the
communicator ring fall from his ear.

A Grak standing next to the fallen star
laughed, then roughly lifted him up and without warning, swung a
large, curved knife straight toward his heart.

CHAPTER 26: Despair

It seemed as if
time stood still as the knife blade came slowly toward George. The
Grak’s eyes gleamed red and cruel. Then the blade struck home—not
into George, but across the bindings on his hands and feet, which
fell loose on the ground. The Grak grabbed George and forced his
hands apart, then pointed at his right hand. Looking down, George
saw in alarm that he was still carrying the bag which contained the
glowing Uth stone.

George quickly closed his hand over the bag,
but the Grak pried it open again, and held it open. Then another
Grak gingerly lifted the bag, wincing in pain as he did so, and
turned it over so that the Uth stone fell into George’s palm. The
stone was hot, and seemed to be throbbing. When George closed his
hand over the stone the Grak grunted in relief.

George was twisted around again, and his
other hand was forced up, onto the hook of the fallen star, where
the Grak deftly tied it in place with a stout rope. Then it looped
a scabby, brittle belt tightly across George’s hand that held the
Uth stone, so that he couldn’t open it or drop the stone. The
binding was so tight and the stone so hot that George winced in
pain. The Grak laughed in his face, its putrid breath nearly
overpowering him.

A Grak at the side of the clearing suddenly
barked an order, and Grak from around the clearing started running
toward him. In that instant George realized that there was another
black spaceship behind them. All but two of the Grak boarded the
ship, which quickly roared to life and lifted into the sky.

One of the remaining Grak ambled over to
George, and smiled cruelly down upon him. Spittle dripped from its
open mouth onto George’s leg, stinging him like a wasp where it
landed.

“Thank you,” the Grak said unexpectedly with
a mock bow. “Thank you for helping us destroy you.” Then it laughed
a course laugh that sounded like breaking glass, and walked to the
other side of the clearing.

There was sudden, unexpected silence. The two
Grak stood quietly at the side of the clearing, watching, doing
nothing. No one else was in sight, and nothing moved. George
struggled vainly against the bindings that held his hand tied to
the hook of the star. He also tried to stretch his other hand, to
shake off the belt that held his folded hand carrying the Uth
stone. He tried to bite off each of the bindings, and to twist his
feet up and push against them to pry them lose, but it was all in
vain. The bindings were simply too tight. The Grak at the side of
the clearing laughed with evil pleasure.

And then, a brilliant shaft of light split
the air as if the sun itself had come down to the clearing. In
shock and amazement, George saw that the shaft of light extended
from somewhere north of him in space, and came down to his hand
holding the Uth Stone. It enveloped the hand with a brilliance that
made George shut his eyes, temporarily blinded. Yet, amazingly,
there was no burning or heat. The stone in his hand now felt cold,
like a small lump of ice.

The earth suddenly shook and reeled, knocking
George off his feet. Staggering, he tried to stand up. The beam of
light did not change, but continued constant and steady. The Uth
stone in his hand was growing warmer. Looking around, George saw
that the Grak had taken shelter behind a large rock at the side of
the clearing. They seemed afraid of the light, yet remained there,
watching George. The earth rocked again.

And then, in horror, George understood.

He was the link. He and his father, and their
two stones. The powerful beam of energy needed to grasp the hooks
and stop the earth’s rotation was not from a power source on the
Grak’s ship. It was a link between the stone his father held in his
hand on the Grak ship far above him in space, and the stone he was
holding himself in the clearing. That was why the intergalactic
police had found nothing on the Grak ship. The energy was from the
Uth stones themselves. And George had no doubt that the same link
had been made between Jiu Na in China and her father on the Grak
ship, and between Donna Tereza in Portugal and her husband Jose.
The protector had said only the pure in heart could touch or use
the Uth stones. Therefore, the Grak could not use them, although
they had somehow discovered their secret. The purity of he and his
father and the others was being used by the Grak to destroy them
all.

George tried to call out, but gagged again on
the cloth in his mouth. He choked in despair, his eyes filling with
tears. He fell to his knees, shaking uncontrollably in horror and
hopelessness.

The shaft of light continued, uninterrupted.
The earth swayed again, stronger this time, twisting George around
to hit the fallen star. His eyes glazed at the impact, and for a
second things went black. The Uth stone in his hand was growing
slowly warmer. George felt dizzy, and sensed that consciousness was
fast leaving him.

In a last desperate surge of despair he cried
out with all his might for relief and for help. Once again his cry
caught in his throat because of the gag. But then three things
happened in rapid succession.

First, George heard a cry of pain nearby, as
if from a creature under attack. He heard angry shouts and the
sound of fighting.

Second, he noticed the beam of light waver
shooting up into space from the fallen star twist as if it were a
snake.

And third, he heard a clear voice in his
mind, speaking directly to his soul, a voice so soft and gentle it
seemed completely foreign to what was happening around him. It was
a voice he had never heard before.

“What is it you want?” the voice asked
simply.

“I need help!” George answered in his own
mind. “The Grak are using me to destroy the earth. I need a way to
stop them!”

“Why?” came the voice again.

“Because if I don’t stop them, everyone will
die!” George answered in frustration.

“And what price are you willing to pay for
help?” came the voice.

“I’ll give anything!” cried George again in
his mind. “Anything!”

“Anything?” asked the voice again, gently.
“Even your life?”

George hesitated. He thought of his mother,
no doubt awakened by the shaking of the earth. She was probably
beside herself at not finding George in his room. He thought of
Janet and the fun times they had had together in earlier years, in
spite of how obnoxious she sometimes was now. He thought of his
father, so kind and gentle, who seemed to always know just what to
do. He thought of his friends, Alex and Michael, and other people
he knew in Bartletville. Was he willing to give them up? Yet, if he
didn’t what would happen to them?

“There is hope, if you decide quickly,” came
the voice again, in a peaceful whisper, almost like laughter. “I,
too, am being used to destroy. I am the stone in your hand.
Together we can act, but only if we both are united in our
sacrifice and act quickly. Neither of us can hold back, and neither
of us can do it alone. We must both be willing to sacrifice
everything in order to achieve success. Are you willing?”

And then George understood completely. The
person he least suspected who might betray him had not been the
protector or his father or anyone else. It was he, himself. His own
hesitation and unwillingness to act would betray not only him, but
all those he held dear. This was why the Ziphon had kept saying he
had to act quickly. If he stopped to think, if he hesitated, the
opportunity to stop the Grak would pass.

“Are you ready?” the voice asked again,
simply, yet urgently. Without being told, George knew that he could
no longer hold back. The decision had to be made NOW.

George closed his eyes tightly. He could feel
tears stinging his eyelids. “Yes!” he cried in sudden anguish. “Of
course I will. Yes! I will! I WILL!!”

A gentle ripple of laughter echoed through
his mind. “Well done,” said the soft voice. George could feel the
earth reeling again beneath his feet, and knew even though his eyes
were closed that the beam of light and the energy connection
between the Grak spaceship and the fallen star was still there. He
could still hear sounds of distant fighting, and was aware that the
earthquakes were growing more frequent and more violent. Yet he
strangely now felt no fear. He had descended below fear.

“Come,” said the voice, softly. “Let us
journey together.”

CHAPTER 27: The Journey

And then George
was flying. As if pillowed on a cushion of velvet, he found himself
rising gently into the sky, away from the clearing, away from his
city and from California. His eyes were still tightly closed, yet
he could see with a greater sharpness and clarity than he had ever
seen before. Colors were before him, colors with a texture and
beauty that he had never seen. They tickled him with a radiance of
light as he lifted gently through them, making him laugh in spite
of himself.

And then he was soaring into space. Stars
littered his vision in all directions, so many that he could not
number them. They seemed to be endless, growing in number and
brightness the farther he went. And in the quiet of his inward
vision he realized with a start that the stars were singing. The
melody was beautiful and lifting, a tune so sacred and simple that
George knew he would forget it the instant it stopped, yet it would
haunt his memory forever.

He was picking up speed. Instead of the slow
movement past clusters of stars he had experienced at the beginning
of his journey, the stars now seemed to race alongside him for an
instant then disappear, leaving a faint trail at their passing. The
kaleidoscope of stars shifted around him, as if each one reached
out with invisible hands and rocked him gently onward through their
midst.

And then he suddenly saw something black and
cold. It seemed to arise from nowhere, then loomed larger and
larger with alarming speed. While the heavens around George were so
full of stars that he felt like he was in the middle of a black
ball full of bright holes, this dark mass blocked out all signs of
light in the path it occupied. Yet, while it loomed ever larger and
colder before him, George still felt no fear. The humming melody of
the stars whispered comfort to him, and bore him onward.

“This is what those on your world call a
black hole,” came the gentle voice again in his mind. “Our only
choice now is to throw ourselves into it.”

“Why?” asked George in a detached voice. He
strangely felt no alarm at this unexpected announcement. He felt
only peace. His fear had been left behind. He regarded the black
hole as a bird would look at a rock; passive, disinterested.

“Because the journey we have taken is of our
minds only,” came the reply. “Our bodies are back at the clearing,
attached to the fallen star. By throwing ourselves inside this
hole, our minds will be consumed, and the energy link destroying
your world will be broken, for it cannot exist without our minds to
sustain it. Then the Grak will be stopped, and all will end.”

George looked calmly at the black hole,
pondering what the voice had just said. Finally, he asked, “Can’t
you just use your power against the Grak? Why was it necessary to
journey here?”

“Because you are holding me,” came the simple
reply. “You are between me and them, so I could not act against the
Grak unless I destroyed you first. And that is something I could
never do, since you are pure in heart.”

“Our only alternative was this journey, and
this sacrifice. But it must be a joint sacrifice to be effective. I
must also sacrifice myself to stop the energy link on earth. Your
sacrifice or my sacrifice alone will not work.

“It is still not too late to change your
mind. Even now, your sacrifice must be voluntary, not forced by me.
And mine must be voluntary as well.”

George looked disinterestedly at the black
hole looming before him, hovering like an evil mouth of cold, ready
to swallow them. Then he asked, “And what is inside the black
hole?”

“I do not know,” came the voice again. “I
only know it is black. If we go in, I do not believe we will ever
come out.”

They stood on the edge of the hole for only
an instant. Then in complete calm, the voice again said, “Are you
ready?”

“Yes,” responded George without any
hesitation.