Planet America (15 page)

"Wow!" Pater Tomm whispered, as 33418 gently pushed both piles of rubble over the cliff, sending them tumbling back into the deep valley again. 'That certainly
was
educational."

"It surely was," Zarex said. "I just learned that I don't want to be here when the five million
other
tin cans on this rock decide to rise from the dead again."

"I'm with you there," Hunter said, visualizing the entire planet in the throes of a relentless mechanical struggle. It was not something to be caught in the middle of. "But now what?"

"Well, that's the problem," Zarex said, scanning the smoky sky above them. "Now, we just have to wait. If the people who know how to get to the Home Planets from here want anything to do with us, they'll have to let us know."

Pater Tomm needed no convincing. He collapsed to the seat of his pants, as if all the energy had suddenly been sucked out of him. Zarex, too, found the most comfortable rock to sit down on. Hunter was at the point of exhaustion as well. The long trip added to so much uncertainty didn't help the condition. What lay now in the future? It had taken them so long and so much effort just to get to this place, it seemed like such a dead end now that they'd finally arrived.

Could they really find their way to the Home Planets from here? At the moment, it seemed very unlikely.

Hunter finally sat down and rubbed his weary eyes. The wind blew again, and it sounded like another thousand voices screaming in agony. The robot stayed rigid, his head again sweeping back and forth, constantly scanning. But definitely slower. The hum coming from his insides had taken on a mournful note.

Pater Tomm looked at the sullen group gathered around the fire and just shook his head. "What a merry band are we," he sighed.

The night came quickly.

Setting in the west, the dull blue sun cast the weirdest shadows as it died away. Purple, aqua, hints of bloodred flooded across the wreckage-strewn plains. Then came complete darkness. There were no moons to glow and precious little starshine here. Once all light was gone, the wind began to absolutely howl. Now it sounded like
tens
of thousands of people screaming in pain. There were even more horrific cries rising up from the valley below, more chilling than the wind. Low-pitched, mechanical, guttural, like some gigantic danker trying to catch his breath. Every once in a while, a bone-rattling electronic moan would float up from the ancient killing fields, causing the humans to stir. Hunter found himself constantly feeling for the handle of his blaster pistol. Zarex had a massive ray-gun rifle resting on his knees. Pater Tomm sat between them and tended the fire. The robot simply kept scanning.

Hunter tried to pass the time, as always, by staring up at the heavens, but the night sky here was uncomfortably devoid of stars. In almost every direction he looked, he saw only the blackness of space with just a few pinpricks of light shining through. If they needed any further proof just how far out they were, this was certainly it.

The only wash of stars at all was off to due south, looking back into the Five-Arm. Hunter tried to play his game again, tried to see right past this thin band of light, hoping if he squinted hard enough, maybe he'd be able to see right through the center of the Galaxy and beyond.

To where Earth lay.

To where Xara was.

But it didn't work too well this time. Her face came to him as always. And her near perpetual smile. But her hair—what color was it again? More brown, than blond? Or the other way around? And her eyes—they were blue, right? Or were they green? Hunter shook his head sadly, his gaze still fixed on the lonely patch of starlight to the south. The truth was, Xara's image barely registered in his memory. Even now, her face began to fade. He fought a silent battle to retain it, but it was no good. She was just too far away.

The hours dragged on. The howling below became more intense, the sky even scarier in its near emptiness.

After a while, Zarex slowly eased his way closer to where Tomm was sitting.

"May I have a private conversation with you, Father?" Zarex asked once the wind had died down a little.

"Do you mean a confession, my son?" Tomm replied, his tone clearly indicating that he would rather forgo such a thing.

Zarex almost laughed. "We'd be here an eternity for that, Padre."

"I feel we might be here that long, anyway," Tomm replied.

Zarex nodded in Hunter's direction. The fighter pilot was fast asleep. Or so it seemed.

"Who
is
he, Father?" Zarex asked. "Do you know?"

Tomm looked over at Hunter.

"I'm not exactly sure," he replied carefully. "He is a different sort, that much I will grant you. But a likable chap. And an honorable one as well."

"He seems that way, which is no little relief," Zarex said. "But how can we be sure?"

"For several reasons," Tomm answered. "His compulsion to find the Home Planets is genuine ... of this much I am certain. And the Freedom Brigade were honorable men. This 1 know from the few months I spent with them—though at the time they were all very reticent to discuss where they came from exactly, which I now realize was understandable. Finally, I just stopped asking."

"But where is the connection then, Father?"

"It's simple: the men I knew from the Freedom Brigade were all very much like Mr. Hunter over there. They were different from anyone else I'd ever met out here—and so is he. And he keeps some things close to the vest, just as they did. Makes me think that he actually
is
connected to them somehow and that this calling-home stuff might be real. He's on a quest—a soul-quest of sorts. I just think it's my priestly duty to help him."

Zarex paused for a moment. A strange green light went streaking over their heads. Finally he asked, "Another question Padre: Do you believe in all this Empire nonsense?"

Tomm shrugged. It was not the first time he'd been asked the question.

"I'm not sure," he replied. "I mean, an immense galactic empire, out there, somewhere? It seems we would've run into some of these people by now if it was true. But then again, maybe we have, and we just don't know it. These Empire types are supposedly very talented at concealing themselves, and the legends say they are very careful in selecting which planets they choose to reveal themselves to. Either way, they are covered insofar as keeping their presence among us mute, until it is our time to know, that is."

"Yes, but couldn't that simply be a convenient deception, proof that it's all a fabrication?" Zarex asked. "I mean, if we've never met them, does that mean they aren't really there? That's the only either/or in the equation."

"Then it's probably an unknowable thing," Tomm replied. It was his favorite saying. "But why did you ask me that in the first place, my son?"

Zarex shrugged and again nodded toward the sleeping pilot. "Because I, too, think Hunter's quest is legitimate. He also saved my life, thus I am bound to help him."

"And?"

"And I think it is odd that Mr. Hunter seems so much like these mythical people from the Home Planets yet... I believe that if there really
was
a big empire out there, slowly but surely making its way toward us, Mr. Hunter would be just the type of person to be the first off the ship, to greet us. A benign invader. The combination really becomes a very mysterious thing."

Tomm nodded in agreement. He knew Hunter well, yet then again, knew very little about him.

"I saw some very strange things happen during the war on Zazu-Zazu," Tomm confessed. "And I will tell you that Mr. Hunter certainly has some unusual acquaintances, with some very unusual weaponry, not the least of which is that flying machine of his."

He paused. "But is he from this mythical Empire we keep hearing about?" he asked in a whisper. "Maybe that's an unknowable thing as well."

It was just a few minutes past midnight when 33418 suddenly stopped scanning again.

The sound of his electronics changed so abruptly, Hunter woke up immediately, blaster pistol in hand, ready for anything. Other things had changed on the mountaintop. The wind had ceased howling. The air had become thick and pungent; And the restless spirits of the mechanical soldiers below had become quiet as well.

Too quiet
? Hunter thought.

Tomm and Zarex were quickly awake, too. They'd also detected the new hum coming from the danker. The robot was now frozen in place, looking off to the west.

"Is this what happens when he's spotted something?" Pater Tomm asked Zarex.

The big explorer just shrugged. "I'm never really sure what he's up to." He's a good bodyguard, but beyond that, who knows?"

The humming grew louder. Then the robot lifted his arm and pointed to the west. They all looked in that direction, but it was very dark, and the smoke made it difficult to see very far. But then, through the murk and gloom, Hunter spotted something way off in the distance flying above the war-torn fields.

Tomm and Zarex saw it, too. It was a single, glowing orb.

"What is this?" the priest asked Zarex worriedly. "I thought everything out there was supposed to be dead."

"On this place, you can never know," Zarex replied.

No sooner were those words out of the explorer's mouth when the object was suddenly right on them. It looked like a ball of light at first but just a few feet away from the edge of the cliff, it morphed into the image of a horribly disfigured woman. Eyes, blood red and bulging; a nose crooked and long and covered with growths. Teem black and dripping, long hair trailing like a tangle of slime. The skin was a sickly corpse gray.

And it was coming right at Hunter. He saw its mouth open to gigantic proportions, its teeth turning into a mouthful of tiny daggers. He quickly dove to his right. Had he waited a second longer, this thing would have bitten his head right off. Instead, the apparition rocketed right over him, dragging a trail of foul-smelling smoke behind it.

"Is this the person you made your blaster deal with?" Hunter yelled over to Zarex.

"
Hardly
!" the explorer replied to the grim joke.

They watched as the apparition turned over and dove on them once again. This time Zarex was its target. Two bony hands with razorlike fingernails suddenly appeared out in front of it. Hunter could see the gleam coming off the pointed tips—they were that sharp.

Zarex waited until the last moment, then dove away as well. The banshee was just inches away from perforating him when he fell to the ground and rolled to the left, a powerful blast from his rifle going right through the demon. The apparition let out a horrible screech and turned once again. This time, Pater Tomm was in its sights.

The hands now became gigantic pincers intent on carrying the diminutive priest away. But Pater Tomm was quicker than he looked—an occupational necessity. He let the apparition swoop down on him, and at the very last second, stepped aside and let it streak past him just as Hunter and Zarex had done. But as the banshee went by, Tomm unleashed a small billy club he'd taken from his back pocket and cracked it over the demon's hindquarters.

The resulting howl echoed right around the planet. Hunter was forced to drop his blaster pistol and put his hands to his ears—still he could not keep the blood-curdling screech out of his head. The apparition flew straight up into the dark, smoky sky. But then, with the finesse of a Starfighter pilot, it looped over and performed a wide-out, high-velocity arc. About halfway down, there was another bright flash. The demon had mor-phed into something else.

This new form came to an abrupt halt right in front of them. The transformation couldn't have been more dramatic. Gone were the ugly features, the razor nails, the hairdo of snot. In its place was a stunningly beautiful woman, dressed all in white. She was floating, or more accurately, things were floating around her. There was a thin haze covering what they could see of her body, almost like a gathering of miniature clouds. And behind her was not the murky sky of Myx but the sky of someplace else entirely. It was deep blue, with a bright sun shining. And stars were sparkling in this sky, even though it was obviously daytime, wherever it was.

Hunter had never seen anything like this. The Galaxy was filled with strange things, yet every one of them related back to the universal laws of physics somehow.

But this... this was something entirely different.

"By the very stars!" Zarex exclaimed. "It's a poof..."

"I'm almost afraid to ask this," Hunter said. "But what is a poof?"

"A spirit, sometimes holy, sometimes not," Pater Tomm replied. "No one is sure where they hail from. They are supposed to come first in the form of a demon, then transform. The question always is: Which form is the right one? Demon or cherub?"

Throughout this, the angel stared at them, face expressionless, everything floating around her. And they stared right back.

"Well, you're the expert," Tomm said to Zarex. 'Tell her why we are here."

The explorer gulped once, then stepped forward.

"Forgive us this intrusion," he said slowly, trying to remain calm. "But we came here with a purpose."

The apparition didn't reply. Its expression didn't change a bit.

Zarex pointed to Hunter. "My friend here wants to go to the Home Planets."

Still nothing.

"He feels he might be one who is being 'called back'...

The spirit took its eyes off Zarex and glanced at Hunter.

"Show her," Zarex told Hunter.

Hunter withdrew the piece of cloth he always kept in his upper left breast pocket. The angel's eyes went wide at the sight of the red, white, and blue flag. Suddenly there was another flash. It was so bright, all three humans were thrown to the ground. When they looked up again, the apparition had morphed once more. This time, the shape was hovering just a few inches above the ground in front of them. It was dressed in a brightly colored outfit. Red, yellow, and green striped jacket, bright purple and yellow pants, a strange hat, with two peaks and bells hanging from them.