Aurona, page 58
Ah, something finally gave. Encouraged, Adam pushed harder. He’d been concentrating mightily, tunneling inside the recesses of the Scarred One’s diseased, deranged mind. There weren’t many thoughts to work with except a few torn, scattered glimpses of self-centered reality confined inside a dark, tight little space. He tunneled deeper, pushing against a tangled web in the motor cortex area.
Involuntarily, the knife fell from the Scarred One’s hand. Seizing his last chance at freedom, the hostage wrestled free and fled. Finding himself defenseless, the Scarred One wavered, desperately trying to reform his thoughts. As Adam pushed on his motor cortex with greater force, he staggered backward, groping for balance. Enraged, he jerked his head up defiantly.
“So this is it?” he screeched. “This is what it’s come down to? You think I’m finished? Well, just try to stop me!! I’ll be back with my great army, and….”
Suddenly, Adam felt no remorse. Absolutely none. It was time for this one to go. The Scarred One had been a major stumbling block to his entire mission, a danger to the future of Aurona and a threat to the Bandor’s civilization. He was a mutant species, a peril to everyone and everything in his path. Bracing his feet, Adam drew his head back, summoned all his strength, and blasted mightily toward his target.
In a rolling cloud of sand, a moving wave of energy smacked into the darkly clad figure and sent him flying head over heels. With a puff of smoke anpd the smell of burnt flesh and cotton, the demented creature crumpled, raised one arm weakly, and then succumbed to Adam’s massive mind-stun. He was gone.
Chapter 31: THE UNEXPECTED
Adam lingered in the shadow of his starship for a long, silent moment, staring at the madman’s crumpled body. He never dreamed his min-stun could be so powerful. Maybe it was because of his extreme frustration and anger, or from the deep resentment he felt at being duped by such a long-term, clandestine operation. No matter, he’d finally put this insane egotist out of the way and he could pick up where he left off. He was eager to get to a few remaining, tantalizing mysteries on Aurona.
As he turned on his heel to face his crew, he was met by a fearful, wary silence, like a stonewall. No one could return his gaze, not even Elena. He turned to Duron.
“A-Adam,” the old Bandor stammered. “Do-do you realize what you just did?”
Elena’s fearful eyes met his for a split second, and then turned away.
He clenched his fists. “That thing was insane and had no remorse; its diseased brain was incapable of such a concept! It-it was just plain evil, inside and out!”
“And evil begets evil,” Duron agreed. “It brings out the worst in its companions.”
As the crew murmured their agreement, Elena’s bottom lip started to quiver.
Duron brightened. “Adam, do you have any concept of how you have forever changed Aurona’s history? How you have become an instant legend among the Bandor people? We will be forever grateful; you are a good man, a hero!”
“What?” Adam recoiled in surprise. “Me? No way!”
“Yes, you are!” he insisted. “And the news of your ultimately powerful mind-stun has just spread over the entire planet! I myself still cannot grasp how far and how fast you have progressed! Your telepathic capabilities have gone way beyond our feeble attempts and you have pioneered a whole new mind-dimension! You have….”
“Wait, wait, hold on here!” Adam held up his hands. “Ah, actually no, Duron.”
“No?” He blinked. “How can you say that?”
“This isn’t new,” he shrugged. “It’s been done many times before. Razahs have been throwing mind-stuns for millennia, so why not humans?” He paused, reflecting. “But I was mad, and I put way way too much juice into that first stun…. Hey, to tell you the truth, I was just hoping I had enough energy left after my, ah, saber-dance.”
His crew broke into hesitant smiles. “Oh, by the way, guys,” he shrugged, “the shields are finally down. I must have zapped the remote in his pocket when I fried him.”
With that news, the jubilant Bandor warriors couldn’t wait another minute. A diamond-shaped phalanx of SpeedSleds swept toward the stolen starship in a tight military formation and rushed inside to search for any remaining mutineers.
Shouts and laughter arose behind them. Cheering at the top of their lungs, Tavan and a group of enthusiastic Bandor youths rushed past the crew and started to search the sand, remote metal detectors beeping in their hands. Shortly, they’d collected the entire array of the crazed Bitron’s stilettos: the poison-tipped knives were physical proof of the momentous event, and would be displayed in a new national memorial. Donning gloves and facemasks, a few warriors lifted the madman’s stinking black-robed body; gagging, they tossed it onto an antgrav barge to haul it off.
As the commotion died down, Elena reached out hesitantly and nudged Adam’s arm. He glanced down into a pair of round, fearful eyes. “Adam?” She quavered. “I’m still scared of you. Most of us are. We-we don’t understand what you just did.”
He let out a long breath. “Well,” he breathed, “I don’t think I do either.”
“Talk to them.” She motioned with her head toward the gathering crowd. “They…. We all need some kind of explanation, some kind of reassurance.”
Giving her hand a squeeze, he raised his translator button a notch and turned to the crew. “I was protecting you,” he began. “Yes, all of you, our Bandor friends here included. I had to stop that crazed lunatic. Aurona is our home, hopefully forever. And yes, I did take a huge chance,” he grimaced. “I-I do that. A lot.”
Smiles of agreement riffled through the crowd: he’d nailed that one.
“But guys, things were totally different this time around; there was no chance involved. I knew exactly what to do when I probed inside his diseased mind….” His voice tapered off as he saw their eyes widening again. “Guys, guys! Hold on!” He waved disarmingly. “Hey, it was almost an empty shell up there! There really wasn’t much to work with; the whacko was only workin’ on two cylinders!”
A snark erupted, somewhere in the back of the crowd. Ah, they were almost his. Encouraged, he brightened. “Just think of that lunatic as a rotten apple, totally rotten to the core! You know, the kind of rot that spreads from the inside out? That guy….”
He stopped short as distant, powerful memory jolted him to his toes: another piece of the Aurona puzzle just shoved itself into place. A blurred connection to his past was suddenly becoming a lot clearer.
“A-Adam?” Elena hesitantly touched his arm. “Are you okay? What’s going on?”
He mumbled in a daze. “A rotten apple, Elena. My-my grandfather warned me about this kind of guy before I ever thought about pulling a crew together!”
“Huh?… Apples?” She obviously didn’t understand.
“Yeah, rotten ones. Listen, these are his exact words: He said, ‘If a coupl’a bad apples sneak into your pile, don’t worry about ‘em; you can root ‘em out when you get here. Don’t ask me how, you wouldn’t understand right now.’”
He turned to the crew. “Whaddaya think, guys? We found out who the rotten apples were in our pile, and you just saw me, ah, root out the rottenest one.”
Tola rolled his eyes. “Wow, you sure got that right!” He fanned the air with his hands. “Whooeee! That dude was stinko! Ready for the compost pile!”
Peter nodded vehemently. “And his rot was spreading into some of our guys!”
Adam held up a cautionary finger. “But wait, that’s not all there is to it; there’s far, far more involved in what my grandfather said, a whole, hidden dimension!”
Duron tilted his big domed head. “Dimension, Adam? What is…?”
He shrugged. “The timing, Duron. It’s crazy. We’re talking about seven hundred years here. How could a regular guy like my grandpa know all this stuff was gonna happen before we left the Earth? This isn’t prophecy. Could there be more to it?”
“Adam, I….” As Duron raised his voice to speak, the Elders suddenly, urgently pulled him aside. Shrugging apologetically to Adam, he joined into their mind-conversation. After a moment of thoughtful silence, the twelve nodded in unanimous agreement. The old Bandor caught Adam’s eye and beamed him a hasty mind-message.
Adam listened carefully, and then straightened up with sudden purpose. “Of course! That’s a long shot, Duron, but you know me: I tend to go for the long shots.”
“Yes, Adam,” he conceded, “we are well aware of your, ah, ‘long shots.’”
Adam raised a hand. “Hey, you know what? This time around, I’d like you to present this crazy idea to my guys.” He turned and glanced at the crew, grimacing. “I’m afraid they’re startin’ to think I’m the only nut in the bowl.”
Duron looked startled. “But I-I….”
“It’s okay, go ahead. I think it’s high time that we all get a chance to bend our minds with some serious mental gymnastics.”
Duron hesitated a moment, sighed, and then conceded. “You are correct, Adam. Now is the time; we have all become one today, every being on this planet.” He turned to the crew and tapped up the volume on his translator button.
“Before I start, I need to give you an update and put things into proper perspective. You may not know this, but we have been monitoring your Adam for a long time. We have been astounded with his brilliant intellect and innate wisdom, and have found him to be a superior vessel. Therefore, abiding by our unshakeable Law of Mind-Superiority, your young leader has been chosen to be the one to decide the future of Aurona. In a unanimous vote, we have elected him as our Supreme Leader.”
The crew was floored. Did they hear Duron correctly? Their Adam? They elected him as Supreme Leader of the whole planet?
The Old One waited patiently for the astonished clamor to settle down, and then continued smoothly. “Yes, it is true: we Elders have gladly and willingly stepped aside. I am sure Adam will, as he says, ‘fill you in later’ on the details of this unprecedented and historic transition of power.”
Overwhelmed, Adam shrugged. “Yeah, later. We’ve been kinda … busy.”
“Busy?” Duron chuckled. “A few minor details, right?”
A large, diverse group broke into laughter: Bandors of all ages had been mingling into the crowd with the humans, listening in rapt attention.
Duron raised his skinny arms. “Now, right to the point: there has been a totally unexpected development and I have a thought of pure conjecture to share with you. I am hoping our combined intelligence may help solve this mystery.” He glanced nervously over his shoulder. “But Adam, this may only be, as you say, a ‘dead end’….”
Adam made a hurrying motion. “Mental gymnastics, Duron?” he prompted.
“Oh, right.” The old Bandor resolutely took a breath and continued, forming his words carefully. “Thirty Earth-minutes ago, as our armed warriors swarmed aboard your starship and confirmed there were no more mutineers, they also took the time to assess the extent of the damage and report their findings.” He paused to exchange glances with the Elders, then turned back to the crew.
“Now, let me try to phrase this correctly: your sleep pods are a vital component of these starships, and we carefully monitor and refresh them after long journeys such as yours. Our warriors counted twelve remaining pods on your starship. When we added this number to the great pile of pods that had been discarded in the desert, the resulting total was correct.” He paused, holding a cautionary finger in the air, searching for the right words. “But just as our record keeper was closing his books, he discovered a disturbing mathematics problem: an entry had been altered at the bottom of the previous page! What am I saying?” He paused, waiting expectantly. “One pod, just one pod had been erased and the total had been changed!”
Tola shrugged. “So why’s that such a big deal? One pod?”
Duron was adamant. “This tampering and erasure occurred over six hundred years ago. You may draw your own conclusions….” He coughed nervously, waiting.
There was a sea of blank stares. What in the world could he be inferring?
Duron studied their expressions. Yes, they were struggling mightily to piece this one together. After a long pause, he raised a finger. “Any guesses?”
“Let’s see,” Tola mused. “You might be thinking someone, ah, stole a pod?”
Adam couldn’t wait another minute; this was taking far too long. He spun impatiently toward the old Bandor. “Duron, we gotta hurry this up! If this theory is true, there’s a chance that he might be alive somewhere out there in the jungle, and….”
“What?” Elena interrupted. “He? Who’s he? And what are you two talking about? Please cool your jets, you’re going way too fast for us! Who’s still alive?
He glanced at Duron. “Um, we’re both guessing my, ah … grandfather?”
There was a collective gasp from the crew, and Tola quickly cut in. “But that’s impossible, sir: you told everyone your grandfather was dead! You went to his funeral!”
Adam shook his head in exasperation. “I know, Tola, I know! But listen, all of you! I may have been just a kid, but right from the minute I arrived at that hokey funeral, I had my kid reservations: something wasn’t goin’ down right,” he scowled. “That whole dopey production was awful, worse than Vegas: chintzy, gaudy, and way overdone! That weird body in the coffin looked like a superficial version of my grandfather….” He let out a long breath. “Listen guys, I’m being real here. I grew up with him; I knew the man inside and out. His real personality was the total opposite of that funeral: he was a quiet man with big ideas who loved to work from behind the scenes!”
Elena sighed, finally dropping her guard. Yes, this was her familiar Adam, back to his exciting, spontaneous ways. She grabbed his arms for attention, then stared him squarely in the eyes. “So who, or what do you think was in the coffin?” She prodded. “The, ah, body had to match medical and dental records close enough to fool everyone.”
“Okay, okay.” He let out a sigh. “Here’s where I’m going with my crazy idea: Remember Kron’s operation? Remember how quickly that Hyper Stemcell solution worked on him? I’m saying that the body in the coffin was a clone of my grandfather, but grown extremely fast in controlled lab conditions!”
The crew caught on immediately. A clamor of questions began to fly.
Adam raised his voice. “Hold on, guys! Think about the possibilities: If Kron healed from a bullet wound in less than 15 minutes, then a whole human body should take no more than a few months to grow, right?” He pushed his wild conjecture to the limit. “Of course, it would just be an empty shell of my grandfather, with no memories….”
“Gross!” Elena interrupted, scrunching up her face. “That’s totally disgusting!” In a second, she reconsidered. “But very interesting!”
Tola’s hand flew to his chin. “So what you’re really saying is…. You think your grandfather’s still alive, but sleeping in a pod and hidden somewhere on Aurona?”
“Yup.”
Peter jumped in excitedly. “Well if he is, we gotta find him!”
Tola turned to him. “But how? It’s a huge jungle out there!”
“You got that right,” Adam agreed. “But knowing him like I do, he’s probably holed up somewhere in one of his AnchorPlank surface dwellings, totally camouflaged with FlexNet. There’d be no way we could visually spot him from the air, unless….”
Elena pulled back. “Uh-oh, Adam. What are you hatching up now? Don’t keep us all in suspense.”
“Hey,” he shrugged. “I’m keeping myself in suspense, too! Listen, this might be only a half-baked idea, but it might work. I’d need the Phantom Cruiser to pull it off.” He spun toward the crew. “So who wants to come with me? We’ve got a lot of unfinished business to take care of, and I’ve only got room for fifty!”
The shouts of approval were unanimous. Once more, his self-depreciating humor and lame jokes had broken their final restraints of doubt. Young and resilient, they bounced back with him all the way.
“Whoa, whoa!” He held up his hands. “I appreciate your enthusiasm, but first we’ve got some other unfinished business to take care of.” He motioned with his thumb behind him. “We all need to climb into that, ah, quite dinged starship of ours and salvage our personal stuff. Those rotten apples had bigger fish to fry; I know they were in too much of a hurry to pry open any of our lockers in the hallways.”
Peter scowled suspiciously. “Ah, how do you ‘know’ that, sir?”
He shrugged, raising a brow. “My e-helmet’s still in my locker. I used it to commandeer… the starship’s controls….” Suddenly, his eyes clamped shut.
“Eeeow-w-w-wch!” He grimaced in pain, his hands flying to his head.
The crew made a half-step toward him in alarm: What was happening? Was he having a stroke? Had his mind-stun been too much of an ordeal? Had he been nicked by one of those poison daggers? Peter and Tola grabbed his elbows, steadying him.
“Whoa!” he choked. “That was super intense!” He blinked, shaking his head.
“What happened, sir?” Tola queried.
“Another unexpected development: I just got a very urgent mind-message. It-it kind of, um, blasted through. This long day of surprises is about to take on a new twist.”
Confused, the crew waited, their heads spinning with the rapid clip of events.
Adam took a breath. “I just heard from Roson,” he gushed. “She was eavesdropping! Believe me guys, her message popped totally out of the blue! She just offered us a vital ingredient to toss into my half-baked search-and-rescue mission!”
Too fast. Way too fast. Nobody could keep up with him.
“Well?” he exclaimed, waiting impatiently. “Guess what it is?”
Tola was game and gave it a stab. “An ingredient, huh? Some kind of radar?”
Peter took a breath and added his two cents. “A telescope? A camera?”
