The Secret of Excalibur (28 page)

She must've forgotten she wasn't THAT kind of doctor, because as she turns, and gets a good look at the bloody mess, she makes a gagging sound. Her hands fly to her mouth and she bends, hurrying off to the side. It's not long before her double helping of the Major's SOS, and all Tober's souped-up tea spews in a torrent. She's on hands and knees going through uncontrollable retching. It looks as though she's going to continue vomiting, even after there isn't anything left in her stomach. Then she fazes into the dry heaves.
Poor kid.
But I can't blame her, not at all.

The human body contains lots of nasty, smelly fluids, although most people don't realize how much. Not just blood and urine, but other fluids with different thicknesses and even different colors. But one thing they have in common, they stink. The smell is so overpowering my eyes start watering, so I hastily shut off the olfactory receptors of my nose.

Ruth is still having dry heaves, so I focus into her brain. I gently touch her pleasure center, and she not only stops heaving, but she has an orgasm, falling face forward into the whole fucking mess.
Oh shit, that's not what I meant to do. I'm like a walking comedy of errors.
Shaking my head at my ineptness, I notice she's just lying there, so I carefully focus on her again.
I'll be damned, she's asleep. Well, she always could go to sleep at the drop of a hat.
I lean over and pick her up, gently sitting her on the floor against the wall.

Concentrating on her force-field, I carefully expand it. As her force-field expands, all the foreign substances fall from her body. I even expand it to the ends of her hair. I settle it back into place.
Too bad you missed this one, kid; you just had a nuclear expansion shower.
I check her again. There's a fine line between deep sleep and a coma. She's right on the edge. I push her gently, continuously, until she's simply deep asleep, dreaming of her father.
Good, kid, sleep it off. You've earned the rest.

Turning my attention back to the live sailors, I receive a small shock. Something I hadn't noticed before, two are men, the other one a woman. I didn't know the Russians had female sailors on their subs. That must be great for morale when you're sitting under a polar icecap.

As I mentally scan them, I discover they have very little physical damage. The woman has a broken leg and a few broken fingers. She was at the bottom of the pile of bodies in the corner.
Were they trying to protect her?
The two surviving men are in worse shape. One has fractured ribs, and the other one has a badly fractured pelvis.

As I study the female, I see the reason for her being at the bottom of the pile. From her uniform, I recognize that she's the sub's Captain. And the two men on top of her were her Executive Officers. That must be why they were trying to protect her. But I bet it didn't hurt she was female either.

All three surviving Russians are in deep comas. The youngest of the men, with blonde hair, is in the deepest coma, and I doubt he'll ever regain consciousness.
Well, maybe in many years, with lots of care.
The other two are in traumatic shock, like Dobie had been. I'll try to help them first.

Kneeling on the floor by them, I notice part of a severed head lying on the Captain's foot. The head is severed diagonally starting at the forehead above the right eye and ending with part of the nose and right cheekbone, the bloodshot eye staring out. Brain fluids are dripping from the head. I pick up the partial head by the remaining hair and toss it across the room to the pile of bodies. Pieces of fingers, arms and legs are lying over these two survivors. I throw the severed body pieces over with the bodies. What a mess.

Both of their conscious minds are tamped down hard, like a vacuum-sealed package. But the female Captain's conscious seems calmer, more organized, if you use plenty of imagination, you might be able to call this mess organized. The brain synapses in her conscious mind are moving very slowly. I'll have to get into her subconscious, but I don't really want to. I focus into that level.
Oh, shit.

I'm caught up in a whirlwind of thoughts and flashes of memory, but scattered and disjointed. To me, it's like trying to gather a handful of coffee grounds scattered on a long, white, sandy beach, a tiny black speck here or there.

Her EGO is solidly in place. It's busy giving her dreams that make no sense. I'll have to go back to the conscious level. In there somewhere should be a thought or memory that might pull her back. She'll still be in shock, but her mind will at least be functioning again. And I need that. You can't obtain any information you can trust from someone's flighty and weird subconscious, not in a situation like this. At least her subconscious mind shut her down. That's probably why she's still sane at all.

Thoughts don't use language, any more than feelings do. The only time you have a language problem in the conscious mind is when the person is thinking of a sign, or something that has symbols on it. And here, she's doing just that. I recognize the symbol, the leaf we saw on the diver suits and the spaceships. Then, a flash of memory blasts through. I jerk back fast, too much pain there. That memory contains part of the rapid exit of the spaceships, with the sound I remember from the beach, the bass fiddle again. The rest of the memory is so jumbled, I can't make heads or tails of it, even with my powerful scanning abilities.

It could take weeks before I'll be able to get any useful information from her. Everything now is pain and that awful sound. If I push her too hard, she could go insane, and I don't want that. You get no useful information from the insane, except what the disjointed EGO plays with, and that's some really strange shit. I'll have to leave them for now. At least they're stable. After Tober and the medics heal their physical injuries, I'll try again. I foresee many long hours of trying to get into their minds and bringing them back. It's going to be a long summer trying to get the information we need from these two.

Rising, I expand my force-field out to clean me. From everything I've touched, plus kneeling on the floor, there are pieces of gore and bloody things stuck all over me. As my field expands, everything falls to the floor. I settle my field back into place and carefully step around the mess.

Again, the probe comes in a rush. At first, I thought it was the Russian woman's memory still running. Then, the feeling settles down to pain and weird picture feelings, a flower, and mixed in and over is metal, alive, and not moving. Stepping over close to what has to be the control console for the aboveground listening devices, I concentrate hard on the probe. Blurry. Close, but nothing else. It's still blocking me.

I sit in a chair, very much like those new fiberglass ones you see everywhere. So, the aliens have to be a lot like us physically. And there's no doubt the console isn't of Russian origin, all the buttons and touch pads have the same symbols the boxes did, and on the top of the console is a silver maple leaf.

Pain! Metal!

The probe pulls away, and I follow right after it.
Damn. It flew off in two directions.
One trace went over towards the subs somewhere or maybe near the UFO.
Could one of the alien bodies still be alive?
No, I scanned them too carefully to miss that. They were dead. The other trace went towards the cell where the Russian bodies are. No. Next to it. There, where a door is set into the rock wall. Yes, there. But I'm getting interference. The interference is similar to what the Russian woman's subconscious had put out, all strange and disjointed. The coffee grounds in the sand again.

I scan Ruth as I stride to the door. She's still sleeping, but very close to waking. The door looks like wet plastic, but feels like metal, dull, gray metal. Ruth stirs, opening her jade eyes. She's talking at me, but I'm concentrating on the door. I don't see any controls, no apparent way to open the door, unless the controls are on the inside. My scan reveals the door is more than three feet thick. Whatever material the door is made from won't respond to my powers. No matter what psychic abilities I try, the door remains shut. After a while, I begin to get a headache.
Damn, I want in there. Of course you idiot, teleport in there, just beyond the damn door.
I concentrate hard, and BLIP!

OH. My. GOD.

I slump against the door. The mind probe slams into my mind, solid, silver metal smashing up against me like a physical restraint. It's trying to squeeze my mind back out, all of me out, right through the damn door.

Metal! Silver! Alive!

I'm fighting against it as hard as I can, but I can't defend myself against this awesome, terrifying power. It's hammering at my mind, making me helpless, losing the battle, losing my mind
. I have to get out of here. NOW.
BLIP!

I fall on the floor, panting. All the fears I've ever had or imagined, and some I've never imagined, assault my brain. I distantly become aware of Ruth holding me, but I can't feel her. I'm shaking so uncontrollably my muscles are twitching and jerking. My mind is screaming at me, like a separate entity. “We're dying.”

Yes, I think its killing me, and I can't stop it.

* * *

Ruth is staring at Arthur in fear and shock, trying to understand what happened. She'd seen Arthur at the door, hands pressed against it, deep in concentration. She was trying to tell him that she was sorry for being sick, and how embarrassed she was, when suddenly he disappeared.

A throbbing vibration started, and the whole wall and door began to tremble and glow a bright, silver color. In a flash of light, Arthur reappeared and fell over. Now he's lying here in her arms, eyes wide open but not seeing anything, and he's twitching around like he's holding a live, hot wire. All she can do is cradle him, tears sliding unnoticed onto his face. Then, the most frightening scream she's heard starts pouring from his open mouth.

The scream vibrates all over her body. It's so loud and awful, so full of pain she almost drops Arthur, running away in blind terror. The heartrendering, heart-stopping scream seems to come from the depths of Arthur's soul. It goes on and on, echoing off the unseen walls in that vast, lifeless cavern.
No one should be able to scream that loudly, or for that long
. His whole body suddenly stiffens, and as the scream fades, his body goes limp in her arms.

Frantically, she checks him for a pulse, finding that he's still alive. He seems to be asleep, or in a coma.

“Oh, God. No. Not Arthur. Please.” Ruth lowers her forehead onto Arthur's forehead and weeps, rocking back and forth in anguish. That's all she can do. Hold him, cry, and pray. Her tears drip onto Arthur's open, unseeing eyes, and of their own accord, they close.

“Oh, Arthur, please wake up. I love you. Please come back,” Ruth softly pleads.

The only noise in the huge cavern is a soft gentle sobbing, echoing off the walls, around the forgotten subs, the forgotten UFOs and out into the tunnel.

Silver! Cold, hard, silver! Driving me deeper into myself; pushing me out of existence. I can't stop it. I'm being killed by it. Soon, my mind will be gone.

Silver. Metal. Pain like I've never imagined or felt. The core of my being is almost gone now. I won't last much longer. Then, I feel something else, something that's covering the silver. So now, I'll finally be able to see what's going to kill me. What I don't have the power to stop.

A flower. A big flower, like a daisy, but with a blue center. The flower settles over the silver. Suddenly, I realize I'm screaming. The flower's shutting out the silver. Somehow, the flower placed a barrier around me and the silver can't pass through it. I'm surrounded by the flower. The silver floats away, and with it, the pain. Then, blackness.

After a few minutes, I slowly regain consciousness, realizing I've been listening to a sound. The noise echoes around the cave, soft and close.
It's Ruth. She's crying.
I open my eyes, and there's Ruth, lying over me, sobbing softly. I can feel her trembling.

“Hey, kid,” I croak through a dry, sore throat. “You're getting me wet down here.”

She straightens in surprise. “Arthur! Oh, Arthur. Don't you ever do that to me again, do you hear me?” From crying to scolding, just like that.

“Don't worry, kid. I don't ever want to do that again. Ever.”

Not strong enough to stand yet, I'm content to lie here, feeling the uncomfortable floor beneath me. That means I'm still alive, so go ahead, hurt. Ruth helps me up and assists me in walking to one of the console chairs, where I plop into the seat. As I'm sitting there, recovering, I realize part of my mind is roaming over every inch of the cavern. Everywhere, but that door. I will never go in there again.

Ruth kneels on the floor in front of me, gazing up at me. “Arthur? What happened?”

My mind recoils from the memory, not wanting to relive the intense pain and my terrifying near death experience. But another part of me does. That part wants to go over every little detail of that terrible ordeal. Because I can't stop the reliving of it, I begin to tell Ruth everything that happened, and what I learned.

“When I realized my powers couldn't affect the damn door, I decided to teleport inside. It wasn't ready for that trick, Ruth, so I caught it unawares, but only for a second. It threw up a solid wall of silver power, smashing up against me so forcefully, I had to escape. But it came right after me, and I couldn't stop it. None of my abilities worked against it. It had more power than you can imagine. And it was killing me, squeezing my mind out of my body.”

On the verge of hyperventilating, I stop for a second to compose myself.
Sure wish I had a beer, any kind.
A can of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer Blips! into my hand. It happens so unexpectedly I almost drop the can. Of course, it doesn't help that my hands are trembling from the shock of my near death. I stare down at the very real, round can of cold beer. I didn't really want a beer, it was only wishful thinking.

Oh oh, something's wrong.
I can't make something appear unless I'm focusing on it. And I wasn't. I pop the top, making sure I don't wish for anything else. That's when I feel it, the other part of me that's out searching the cave.
Of course, that's the part of my brain my powers come from.
My other mind felt the desire and summoned a beer.
Damn, Arthur, now you can't even control your own mind. Better be careful. But, the beer sure tastes good.
I finish the beer in one long swallow.

“Do you want to go on with your story?” Ruth asks with concern. “Or is it too painful?”

I pat her hand, replying with weary resignation, “I have to, Ruth. If I don't tell you what happened, and keep these emotions bottled up, a part of me will never be the same.” Ruth nods her head in understanding, waiting patiently.

“After I teleported to the other side of the door, for that second before it attacked me, I clearly saw what it was. Ruth, your damn sword is not only real, but it's behind that fucking door. It's in a room that looks like a shrine, standing on an altar, surrounded by a solid gold canopy. The sword is there, and by God, it is alive. It has an entity of its own, and that's what jumped out at me.

“The sword is made of silver, but not like our silver. The color is the same, but the metal composition is totally different. Somehow, eons ago, a Lady from a different galaxy had the power to force this entity into the sword. The entity is imprisoned in the sword, but it desperately wants to escape. This entity has to serve, or obey the Lady. I don't know who, what or where she is, but she's the one who designates the caretakers allowed to either touch or get near the sword. Believe me; I learned what happens when you try to get near the damn thing.” I have to stop as I'm shaking again.

Ruth rubs my leg. “But, Arthur, why? I mean, for what reason was an entity imprisoned in Excalibur? The sword's only been used once, that we know of, and that was long ago. Why is the sword still here?”

“I can't even begin to explain that to you, Ruth. The entity has a definite purpose, I could feel that, but what it is I have no idea. It's waiting for something, but again, I don't know what. My impression is that this entity, whatever it is, used to be a great and terrible force, and ran amok somewhere in the universe. This Lady, whatever she is, but definitely a female presence, was powerful enough to trick and trap this terrible force into the silver sword, and there it remains. It can't escape the sword, and it can't fight her. It's imprisoned, and so full of hate, it scares the shit out of me. It really does, Ruth.” I'm really shaking now and want another beer.
Maybe I'll get drunk. Damn, I can't get drunk anymore.

“But, Arthur, Excalibur was used for good. Don't you remember?” She's looking at me with concern, biting her lower lip.

“No, Ruth. Somehow the name 'Excalibur' is keeping the entity contained in the sword, like a spell, or curse. As long as the name 'Excalibur' is remembered or talked about, it keeps the entity contained. The Lady is the only being strong enough to control it. I can't imagine how you can control something with such brutal power. I also felt this Lady isn't nearly as mentally powerful as I am, and the two of us combined, are not close to the power this terrible force wields. Yet, she controlled and contained it eons ago. That's about it, kid, I can't tell you anything more other than my impressions.” I wearily slouch in my chair.

Ruth turns and looks at the door in terror. “Excalibur, it's real. Oh, my God.”
If Arthur is terrified of it, how powerful is it really? What if someday it escaped its containment in the sword?
Her mind and body shudders in fear.

I watch Ruth turn and stare petrified at the door, and the fear coursing through her body. I didn't scan her, I don't want to know.

Instead, I glance around the cavern. Somewhere in that vast cavern, a part of me is drifting, searching for something.
But what? Is there somebody or something else here, maybe in another locked room like that one?
I really don't want to go exploring. Any alien life-form that has the power to push the silver away from me isn't something I want to mess with.

But whatever it is saved my life. Did it do that intentionally? Is it a good power, kept here to override the terrible evil of the entity in the sword?
Imagine an entity like that, running free in the universe, so powerful and evil. And I thought I was strong and powerful. Compared with the Excalibur entity, I'm like a gnat on the ass of an elephant.
Holy shit.

I continue looking around the cave. The two Russian subs closest to me, and by the rocks, are tied off together. The third sub is over by the far wall, with cables running from it to some big boxes, the reactor running, but on low power. I thought reactors built like these ran at full power, then used mechanical connections to convert the power to whatever wattage needed. So much for what I know.

I turn my attention to the partly dismantled spaceship.
Imagine, here I am, looking at a real UFO. We even have three alien bodies, plus another UFO. But it's overshadowed by the evil power of the entity locked in that room.
The Russian subs, the UFOs and the three alien bodies don't mean anything, compared with what's trapped in the sword. I can't shake the mortal terror of what I'd encountered.
Nothing in our world, hell, maybe any world, would be able to fight off that amount of power. Yet, something had
. Some force from right in here, and saved me in the process.

At first, I feel it, then I hear a noise. My mind's zeroing in on something it found. Yes! Pain, then raspy breathing, a soft and low sound, from over by the farthest sub by the wall. It's a man lying under wet, plastic-looking boxes. He's alive, but hurt.
Oh, my God. He's one of the aliens.
Images flash through his mind, which makes me jump up fast. I'm up and running, with Ruth yelling at my back.

Standing over the alien, I study the boxes lying on him. He's dressed like the other three aliens, in what looks like diver suits, with a rubbery helmet on his head. I scan him again, very carefully.
Yes, yes, he's alive, but unconscious, and in pain.
Except some strange flashes in his mind, his brain isn't any different from ours. Although his brain seems larger, and his thought processes are moving faster.

It seems he purposely made himself unconscious. He's badly hurt, and by inducing a sleep state, he's able to conserve energy until help arrives. He mentally reaches out to me, showing me too many images, blurring together. I pull back away from the contact, shaking my head.

“Ruth, he's alive, but hurt. He's put himself in a self-induced state to slow his metabolism. He has broken ribs and a broken leg, but he's alive. You have to fetch Tober and Breckenridge, and some medics.”

“Can't you telepathically call them?” she asks, without taking her eyes away from the alien.

“No, honey. There's too much magnetic interference for me to do that. Besides, he's a live alien, and I want to scan him. He may not live long, and I want to gather whatever information I can read from his mind. Go, honey, hurry, and keep away from those webs.”

She gives me a frightened, sad look, jade eyes glimmering with unshed tears. Before I can ask what's wrong, clutching her necklace, she pivots on her heels and sprints out the cavern.

Now what was that about?
I give a mental shrug
. I don't have time to worry about her. I have an alien to save.

Peering back down at my patient, I open my mind, and he immediately grabs onto my thoughts, even while unconscious. Incredible. Our mental contact is so tight some of his pain is my pain, and I feel my muscles tighten, trying to fight off the pain. As I scan his random thoughts, I try to remove the crates lying on top of him, but I'm causing more pain. One of his gloves is off, and I notice five fingers like ours, but very pale, with no nails and webs all the way out to the big knuckles. In his mind he's reliving some event from his childhood, something about children. And there the image is again, the daisy flower with the blue center. It's giving, or telling him something. Something about gray something. Too fast. Yes, there, that flower is his mother. No, it's her mother. He is a she. And now, somehow she's the daisy flower. It makes no sense to me. The images are flashing by too fast for me to follow. Then they fade to brown, then black. She's still alive, but shut herself back down after giving me the message.

What? Does she realize I can't understand her?
She's slightly trembling, maybe from the pain. I focus and soothe her, even touching her pleasure center with a gentle caressing stroke, just like Ruth's pleasure center. She moans and starts breathing faster, then when her breathing settles down, her trembling stops.

Looking over her suit, I can't find any zippers or snaps to open it, so from her tool-belt I take a knife, and start cutting her suit. The suit fits loosely, and cuts easily, like paper, but it looks like rubber. I slice across her stomach area and down her broken left leg to her foot. Then I remove her boot, seeing again, no nails but webs. Under the suit she's wearing a silky garment that's more difficult to cut. Then, bare skin, alien skin. Her skin looks like a human beings, just a very pale white. She has tiny hairs on her leg, soft, like kitten hair, and the skin, warm and very soft. I notice where her broken leg bone is bulging up against the skin.

I focus on the fracture. Bad break, almost in two. I know I can't telekinetically heal a broken bone. I've tried that before, too many mechanics involved in healing a bone for me to figure out. The best I can do is set the bone and let Mother Nature knit it together. So, I telekinetically move the bones and align them as straight and smooth as possible. I concentrate on her blood vessels. These, I can repair. Her vessels look like ours; even her blood looks like type O. Her vessels are mending nicely.

I receive a shock. The blood vessels not only heal together, the broken bone is also repaired. I watch the bones as they knit themselves together, right before my eyes.
Unbelievable
. Sitting back on my heels, I reflect on what I just witnessed.
I didn't do that. Is she helping me somehow?
That would mean she's more than telepathic. She must be helping me, because I can't heal a broken bone. And even if I could, it would be far too complicated for me to repair the bone in just a minute.

Moving up to her chest, I slice her suit open. The silky garment runs up to her throat, so I cut that carefully to the top. I pull the suit open to reveal beautiful white skin, and a bra, with silky panties, and a belly button. Even an innie, like mine. I don't know why, but seeing her belly button surprises me. I could be looking at Ruth's body for all I know, only paler.

I scan her ribs.
Three badly fractured ones, one hanging and touching what? Yes, stomach.
The other two ribs are lying on what looks like a pair of human lungs. If she had moved, those two ribs would've been shoved right into her lungs. There's also a large pool of blood from all the broken vessels. So, that's why she slowed her metabolism, to stop from bleeding to death internally.