Artifact 10/10
by Nancy Smith and Linda Garrick
XVII
"I'm not an Undergrounder! You're crazy!" Candy Montez sobbed the words for the hundredth time. She had long since given up hope that she would be believed. Two grim patrolmen held her by the arms and before her stood the gigantic form of a bejeweled Jilectan Lady, her red hair wet from the rain and straggling across her face and shoulders. The Lady's hands were scratched and bruised, her nails broken. Her clothes were torn and dirty, but it didn't matter. She was terrifying. Behind her stood the green-gold form of an Arcturian, clad in the uniform of a Jilectan's chauffeur, and around them stood several more black and scarlet clad Terrans: Viceregal patrolmen.
The Jilectan's expression did not change. "Do not lie to me, Terran. You have mind shielding. Drop it."
"I can't! I don't know what you're talking about!" Candy screamed, furiously. "You have no right to do this to me!"
The Jilectan slapped her. It was a carefully gauged slap, but it snapped her head sideways.
"What was your mission here?" the Lady asked, coldly.
"Nothing!" Candy shrieked. "I'm a student from Midgard Planetary University! I'm on my Practical!"
"And what is a Practical?" the Lady inquired with mock courtesy.
"It's a survival course final exam," she sniffled. "I was here with five other students. We found our way into that crazy fortress ..."
"And met the Terran psychics. You have said that before. I do not believe you. Drop your shielding, Terran."
"I don't have any shielding!"
"Do not think me a fool, Terran! I can sense your shielding clearly. It is not perfect by any means. I will go through it if I must. I am not in the mood to argue."
Candy used a four-letter word that she had learned from her brothers. The Jilectan did not change expression. She struck Candy again.
Candy gave a scream of mingled pain and outrage. This was unbelievable! She had told this ... this female the truth and the Jilectan had not believed her! The creature had treated her with no courtesy at all after she had returned the injured Jilectan to them. How could this be happening?
She'd arrived with the Jilectan, brought to the Lady by the patrolmen she'd encountered earlier, and told her story. The Lady listened quietly and, at the conclusion, dared to call her a liar! And then this started!
The Lady was regarding her narrowly. "Do not be a fool. You are here to pick up Philips and Cane. You are a member of the Terran Underground --"
"I'm not! How dare you do this to me! I'm a citizen of the Terran Confederation! I have rights!"
The Jilectan laughed in her face. "An animal has no rights, Terran. Your government cannot and will not protect you against me! You are no less an animal to me than the lowest of vermin, the trenchcrawlers that inhabit the sewers of Shallock. Never believe otherwise." She glanced at her patrolmen and switched to Basic, which Candy spoke fluently. "Hold her carefully. I shall attempt a mind probe."
Candy struggled, anger and humiliation burning within her. An animal? Was that how Jilectans thought of Terrans? It couldn't be! But somehow, underneath her denial, Candy knew it was true. She could read it in the imperious, contemptuous face looking down at her.
Another slap. "Do not dare to read my mind, Terran!"
"What?" Candy only half heard the words, her ears still ringing from the slap.
The Jilectan regarded her venomously. "A Terran psychic! I should have realized it at once." She broke off and placed a white, six-fingered hand against Candy's temple.
Candy tried to twist away, but the grip of the patrolmen was unbreakable.
It was like a knife in her brain! It drove in and in, as her mind fought instinctively to block the Jilectan's probe. There seemed to be a barrier against which the Lady's mental blade slashed and then a burst of pain such as she had never experienced.
Candy screamed.
The Jilectan's scream echoed her own.
Candy found herself lying on the floor of the Lady's tent while the patrolmen and the Arcturian chauffeur clustered around the Lady. The Jilectan was lying full length on her face, attempting to push herself up on her forearms. Their attention was on the Lady. Candy made for the exit.
Another patrolman appeared in the entranceway. He caught her easily, spun her around, and she felt the cold metal of restrainers click onto her wrists. Then she was shoved unceremoniously back into the tent.
The Lady was sitting up now, a frown of interest on her handsome features. She said nothing about Candy's attempted escape. Instead, she rose majestically to her feet and approached the girl.
"A natural shield," she said, softly. "An untrained psychic, capable of working through her own shields, with automatic defensive capability. I felt great power. You are indeed a prize. My esteemed brother will be delighted."
"You're crazy! I'm not a psychic!"
The Jilectan paid no attention. The patrolman who held Candy cleared his throat. "M'Lady--"
"Yes?" She glanced at the man sharply.
"There's something you should see outside."
The man's tone apparently caught her attention, for she raised her brows, questioningly. "What is it, Patrolman?"
"There's something going on in the air above the canyon. You'd better come see for yourself, M'Lady."
The Jilectan nodded in a surprisingly Terran fashion. "Very well. Guard the prisoner." She turned and left.
Candy turned to the patrolman beside her. He was human. Perhaps she could convince him to let her go. She had always been good at charming the male of the species. She opened her mouth to speak. One of the other men glanced at her indifferently.
"Don't waste your breath, baby," he said.
Candy tried to jerk away, and surprisingly the man behind her let her go. She stumbled and fell to one knee, unable to catch herself with her hands fastened behind her.
One of the men reached down and caught her by the elbow, lifted her unceremoniously to her feet. She was about to thank him when he pulled her around close, one hand cupping her right breast. Another man laughed. Candy tried to yank away; it wasn't difficult to tell what was in the minds of this batch.
The patrolman who held her laughed, too, and removed his helmet, grinning at her in anticipation.
"Careful," one of the others remarked, casually. "M'Lady don't want her too messed up."
"I won't 'urt 'er." He seized her blouse with both hands and yanked. The fabric tore. Candy screamed, trying to fight. The patrolman restrained her without effort and grasped her bra.
M'Lady re-entered the tent. She glanced matter-of-factly at Candy.
"Later, Patrolman," she said, briskly. "I need her now."
"Yes, M'Lady." The man released Candy and picked up his helmet.
"Bring her at once." The Jilectan turned and strode out. Candy was dragged after her.
**********
Matt Philips looked down as their craft skimmed out into the open air. They were perhaps a hundred meters from the ground and below them spread the grass-covered area of the canyon. Ahead tumbled the river, swollen by the rain, which was coming down in sheets. But it wasn't touching them. It was as if the top of their craft was covered with a dome of crystal clear glass that could not be felt. He tried to touch the force field that enclosed them and could feel nothing, but his fingers could go no farther.
Apparently the Centaur aircar, like the controls of the fortress, was directed solely by the mind of the driver, with no external controls, and Lyla was directing this one. She headed them down river at breakneck speed, gaining altitude as she went. Looking back, Philips saw, with no surprise, the side of the mountain slide open again and another disk, identical to their own, emerge. It came after them.
No one had, so far, caught more than a glimpse of their opponent, but now they got their first clear look. The Centaur was a giant, standing on four huge, muscular legs. He was covered with thick, shaggy, black hair, out of which two big lower tusks gleamed whitely. The two pairs of clawed hands gripped some kind of heavy rifle, braced against the massive shoulder, for a huge, broad chest rose from the semi-equine body. They were too far away to discern more details, but those that Philips could see were enough, and he wasn't given time for a better look. The Centaur came after them, deadly purpose in every line of its body. The weapon on its shoulder spoke, ejecting a flaming ball at them, which passed through the Centaur's force field as if it didn't exist. Belatedly, Philips realized the force field must stop matter, but not energy.
Lyla spoke, her voice unnaturally tight. "Keep down, kids. Matt, I'm the pilot; you're the gunner. For God's sake, shoot straight."
Matt flipped his blaster to needle beam, gripped the stock in both hands, took aim and fired. The beam missed the Centaur's car no more widely than he had missed them. Lyla directed their craft into a wildly irregular course, and Matt recognized, suddenly, the techniques of a stunt tag player. Lyla, who had been the star of her team, was applying her knowledge to a much grimmer contest.
The two alien aircars looped and spun, ducked and turned and dove. It was an incredible sensation to see ground, sky, trees and river flashing by at tremendous speed and yet have no sensation of motion on his body whatsoever. The artificial gravity field of the Centaur engineers was more efficient than anything he had ever seen in either Terran or Jilectan ships. The thought was chilling.
The Centaur was evidently skilled in the art of aerial combat, for his craft matched theirs move for move. He neither gained nor lost distance, and his shots were close. So far, Lyla had managed to keep from being hit, but that couldn't last. Matt fought to zero in on their pursuer with his needle beam. The blaster, as he had told Lyla the day before, was primarily a short range weapon, although it could be adapted for long range with its telescopic sights and needle beam, but what the Centaur carried was almost certainly long range, which put them at a strong disadvantage.
But they did have another sort of advantage. The Centaur had to both control his craft and shoot. They could divide the tasks. Lyla's moves were almost instinctive, her eyes fixed on the space ahead of them. Matt kept his attention solely on the Centaur.
At first he feared their pursuer, intent upon destroying the discoverers of his fortress, would attack them mentally. Lyla, her mind wide open, controlling the aircar, would be defenseless; but it didn't occur. Cautiously, he opened his own shields.
Instantly, he became aware of something odd. Although his senses could reach out of the force field surrounding them, the aircar with the Centaur was a mental blank to him. He could see the creature with his eyes, but to his clairvoyant sense, and telepathic one, it was not there! The force fields on the cars were one-way mind shields, evidently meant to protect the minds of Centaur pilots from other Centaurs. What a competitive species they must be to require such protection from each other!
They swooped low over the trees near the area of the slide. For an instant, out of the corner of his eye, Philips caught the impression of a gaudy maroon and gold tent with pennons limp and soggy in the pouring rain, and of people running, but he could not take his attention from their pursuer. The disk turned on its edge and accelerated in a zigzagging spiral almost straight up. Lyla was apparently trying for altitude. Philips remembered vaguely that in aerial combat the first principle was to get above your attacker.
Up they went toward the cloudbank, the Centaur hot on their tail. Matt, standing upright on the surface of the disk, was able to fire directly back at the alien commander and had the satisfaction of seeing him duck, then use one of his four arms to beat at a spot on his fur. Singed him!
It struck him suddenly and incongruously that, for the first time since this incredible chase had started, he wasn't in the least afraid. He glanced at Lyla and saw a fierce grin on her face. Lyla Cane was engaged in the stunt tag game of her life, with all their lives hanging in the balance, and she was enjoying herself hugely.
The students, too, though crouched on the surface of the disk, flattened out to provide the smallest target for the Centaur's weapon, and helpless to assist, were bright-eyed, and excitement showed on every face. At long last they had ceased to run and were on the offensive, even if the Centaur didn't know it. Philips fired again, then ducked as a shot whizzed through their force field. He returned fire.
"Yeah!" Hildebrand shouted. "Get him, Doc!"
Again he fired and missed, then the cloud cover closed around them, blanketing them. He wondered for an instant how Lyla could see to navigate, then saw that in front of her on the heretofore-invisible surface of the force field, ghostly images moved. Evidently, then, the Centaurs were not clairvoyants -- or not all of them were, he amended. They could take nothing for granted about their mysterious foe. But at least some must not be, or they would not need navigation instruments.
*Get ready, Matt,* Lyla's voice said in his mind. *I'm going to dive.*
The ghostly images shifted; the disk was standing on edge again. If it had not been for that, in the blank grayness with no sense of motion to guide him, he would not have been able to tell if they were rising, falling, or standing still. Then they burst through the clouds in a screaming dive toward the mountain range below. They tore past the Centaur before the creature could act and Philips, peering back, saw him brake his momentum and dive in pursuit.
The huge panorama of the Utgard Mountain Range could be seen below them, then Hel's Canyon became visible; details grew clearer. A shot streaked past them and Philips almost imagined he felt the heat on his scalp. He fired several shots in return, still with that odd sense of exhilaration gripping him.
The river and giant evergreens opened up beneath. He saw the water rolling and tumbling, swollen by the rain into a raging torrent; then the ground was rushing toward them. He gritted his teeth, keeping his gaze firmly fixed on the Centaur. If he couldn't trust Lyla to pilot now they might as well give up. They were down in the canyon. It was funny how their thoughts seemed to work in tandem. He knew somehow what was in her mind and so he was ready when it came.
They were barely six meters from the ground when their disk came up in a steep climb, up, past the Centaur and over. Matt fired once, twice, three times and saw his shots go home. The Centaur's weapon fell to the floor of the alien aircar and slid off to the ground. The force field itself had been damaged! The disk, trailing smoke, staggered away through the air across the river, obviously making for the cave from which they had first entered the complex. Philips held his breath as the unsteady craft nearly collided with the cliff wall, then it vanished into the dark mouth of the opening.
The students were jumping up and down as Lyla brought the disk to a soft landing on the sandy riverbank. Hildebrand pounded him on the back, yelling incoherently. Maureen grabbed Lyla in a hug that must have knocked the breath out of the little doctor.
Then Gary stopped, his expression changing.
"What about Candy?" he said.
Behind them the line of dark trees moaned softly in the rain and wind.
**********
Candy Montez was dragged from the tent out into icy rain. She shivered, her teeth chattering. Darn these trenchcrawlers anyway! They could at least give her back her coat!
The Jilectan was looking skyward with a pair of distance viewers, and, despite herself, Candy squinted in the same direction, trying to see what so fascinated the alien.
Two disks, about the size of credit pieces, from her position, swooped and circled in the sky to the north, coming rapidly nearer. As she watched, a streak of fire erupted from one, tracing a trail of red past the other. Then the one in the lead lost altitude suddenly, rushing toward them. The disk swelled rapidly to a circle three meters in diameter as it reached the bottom of its hyperbola. For an instant, Candy got a glimpse of her former companions' faces, then the strange craft was racing back into the sky. Behind it came the second. It, too, reached the bottom of its path practically over them. Candy got, for the first time, a clear look at the huge, shaggy black thing riding it and screamed, reflexively. One of the patrolmen fired a blaster at it. Then her mind was rocked by a savage blow that shook the landscape about her. Candy found herself on her knees, stars of all colors fading slowly from her vision. Gradually, the trees and the river and the rain swam back into focus. The
Jilectan was still standing, looking shaken. The Arcturian chauffeur was hurrying toward them from the tent. But the patrolmen --
Candy blinked, not believing what she saw. The patrolmen lay quietly about on the ground, unmoving. It did not take extraordinary perception to know that they were dead. Candy screamed, the cry rasping her already raw throat. The screams seemed to keep coming, out of her control. She turned to run, sheer, mindless panic in full charge.
Scaled hands grasped her by the arm and she fought in a frenzy of terror, but she was no match for the iron muscle behind the hands, especially manacled as she was. A slap caught her across the face, then another. She caught her breath between a sob and a whimper and stared up into the face of the Lady.
"Control yourself." The Jilectan's voice was dispassionate, unaffected by her distress.
Candy shuddered; the horror of all that had happened today seemed to engulf her. She could not think coherently; all she knew was that she must somehow escape from this ruthless being.
M'Lady spoke to the Arcturian, who held Candy firmly by the arm.
"Bring her. I wish to see the end of this sky battle."
"Yes, M'Lady." The pseudo-reptile from Ceregon paid no attention to Candy. He strode to the luxurious aircar that was parked at the edge of the camp clearing, dragging her inexorably by her upper arm. Candy walked perforce. The Arcturian deftly opened M'Lady's door, stepped back to allow his employer to enter, and shut it, never releasing his grip on Candy's arm. Candy was pushed, less gently, into the seat beside the driver's, and the Arcturian took his place. He started the engine, and they lifted quietly into the air.
**********
"I've been hearing Candy." Gary Montez spoke quickly. "I've been hearing her talking to someone, ever since we found that room with the crystals. She's been getting scareder and scareder, then it was like somebody was hitting me, only I think it was Candy that was getting hit. This is the weirdest thing that ever happened to me --"
"Why didn't you say something?" Philips asked.
"I didn't dare distract you." Gary's face twisted. "But she's still in trouble. We've got to help her!"
"That we do." Philips nodded briskly. Perhaps, with the use of the crystal he could locate the girl. The chances were extremely good that she was in the hands of the Viceregal Patrol; at least the description given by Gary sounded like it. "What direction, Gary?"
Gary started to point. At the same instant Lyla cried, "Matt!"
A needle beam hissed past, missing him be centimeters. The cold, crystal voice of Lady Tranthzill said: "Do not move, Terrans, or she dies."
Gary Montez cried, "Candy!"
"Drop the blaster, Dr. Philips," the Jilectan continued, icily. "You, too, woman."
The blasters thumped to the floor of the disk.
"Turn around, Doctor."
Philips turned slowly, his hands carefully in sight. The Jilectan was standing between two large trees and beside her stood Candy Montez, her hands cuffed behind her. An Arcturian in the uniform of a Jilectan's chauffeur gripped her by the upper arm. The girl, her blouse half ripped away, stood docilely, her head bowed, a look of defeat in every line of her body.
The Jilectan was smiling faintly. "I must thank you, Doctor, for ridding me of that creature," she said, conversationally. "Where has it gone?"
"Back to the fortress," Philips said. "He isn't dead, and it might interest you to know there are four more in there, too."
"Really." Tranthzill appeared unimpressed. She gestured with the blaster, taking in all the persons who stood on the disk. "Off. Move slowly."
Reluctantly, they obeyed. The Jilectan never took her eyes from them.
"Stop." Again Tranthzill spoke. She surveyed them grimly. "I am not interested in the non-psychics," she informed them, icily. "Zaggar, cover the female. At the first suggestion of resistance, kill her."
"What are you going to do?" Maureen whispered.
The Jilectan moved her blaster fractionally. She didn't answer. "Cane and Philips," she directed, "walk over to Zaggar." She smiled frigidly at the students. "You are free to go. Consider yourselves fortunate."
Philips knew what was going to happen next. Tranthzill had no intention of allowing inconvenient witnesses to go free. As soon as he and Lyla were out of the line of fire, she would incinerate all five students with emergency maximum. Already her thumb was creeping toward the setting switch.
"No!" Candy's shout was a hoarse, half-scream. "You're going to kill him!" With a sudden, totally unexpected motion, she flung herself, cuffed hands and all, straight at the Jilectan, half-dragging the Arcturian with her. Thrown off balance, he grabbed at her. She fought like a demon, kicking and biting in her mad frenzy to get at Tranthzill. Philips moved then, not physically, but mentally.
The Centaur aircar sat innocuously on the ground to his left. The alien could not know how it was controlled and doubtless still had her shields up as a protection against the Centaur. It was a chance he had to take.
As Candy lunged frantically for the Jilectan in a hopeless attempt to save her psychic partner, Philips dropped his screens, shot a mental command at the car, and threw himself flat in the same instant, dragging Lara Hammond with him. The disk plunged straight at Tranthzill.
The alien reacted with the lightning reflexes of her species. She hurled herself flat as well, as the aircar tore over her head, but by then, other things were happening.
The Arcturian's blaster writhed like a living thing, wrenched itself free and arched through the air into Lyla Cane's hands. The Jilectan twisted, bringing her weapon up, but Lyla was moving too, and as Tranthzill's weapon cracked, so did the Terran's. The Jilectan's shot missed by a hair. Lyla's did not. Her bolt took the alien square in the side, sending her rolling across the pine needles and sand to bring up hard against the trunk of one of Midgard's giant trees. The blaster went spinning, checked in midair and arrowed straight to Philips. He grabbed it and slewed around on hip and hand to cover the Arcturian, who was bounding toward them. With one motion, he flipped it to stun and fired. Zaggar plowed up the riverbank with his nose.
For an instant nobody moved. Then, Lyla walked over to Philips and extended a hand to help him up. He got to his feet, still shaking internally. Quite matter-of-factly, Lyla handed him her blaster and went to check Tranthzill. Philips moved quietly to pick up the two jeweled blasters that now lay on the ground. The Arcturian would revive quickly. There was no purpose to leaving deadly weapons lying around to tempt him.
"How is she?" he asked at last, amazed at the steadiness of his voice.
"Alive." Lyla sounded slightly surprised.
"No kidding?" Philips was as surprised as she.
"Nope. Throw me your first aid kit."
Philips unfastened his muddy cape and slid out of the small backpack. He tossed her the little kit, removed one of the thin emergency blankets from his pack and went over to Candy Montez who was sitting on the ground some distance away, looking blankly at the Jilectan. The doctor's experienced eye told him the girl was in mild shock. Quietly, he burned the lock of the restrainers away with his blaster's needle beam, removed the device and draped the blanket about her shoulders. Gary appeared beside him as he did so. Candy gulped suddenly and burst into sobs on her brother's chest. Matt moved over to Lyla, who was working on the damage she had inflicted. The Jilectan did not stir.
The Arcturian moaned and began to retch. Philips let him revive and then gestured at him to sit up. The alien did so, a look of acute misery on his scaled face. Matt didn't blame him. The first few minutes after awakening from a stunbolt were sheer torture. He sat in silence, covering the being, while Lyla finished her work.
"How is she?" he asked.
Lyla sat back and wiped her hands on her muddy cape. "She'll live if our friend here can get her to a doctor. I'd say that's more than she deserves."
"Much more." Philips quelled his instinctive empathic sympathy for the Jilectan. Tranthzill had been about to murder five innocent people. She was damned lucky he and Lyla were empaths.
Maureen Hammond opened her mouth to speak.
An incredible roar shook the ground beneath their feet. The trees swayed and tossed. Philips sat down hard.
"Quake!" Maureen screamed.
It seemed that way. The surface on which they sat rolled and vibrated as if the very rocks had turned to liquid. He heard Candy screaming, and cries from the others, and reached out to grasp Lyla tightly. The woman didn't scream. She merely wrapped her arms around him and held on.
The shaking increased. A piece of the cliff, two kilometers away, came loose and crashed down.
"Look!" Maureen cried. She was staring over Philips' shoulder, pointing across the river. He twisted about.
The canyon wall was cracking, rocks, dirt and plant debris showering down. The whole cliff was collapsing! No! It was rising! It --
"It's a ship!" Hildebrand shouted.
He was right. The rock was falling away in hundreds of cascades of boulders, shaking off of the starship that it had sheltered for two million years. The huge vessel rose out of chaos in a thunder of mighty engines, dust and gravel exploding outward as it tore its way free of its stone prison. It roared skyward with a tremendous blast of sound and vibration, split the clouds and was gone.
As they watched, the boulders reached the ground. The chaos quieted. Again, the sheets of rain fell undisturbed on the canyon. All that was different was the huge gap in the cliff, the signs of freshly bared rock where the mighty fortress had been.
Epilogue
"Then we all climbed on the disk and came home," Philips concluded, "stopping on the way to collect Lewis, Marv and Jose'."
They were sitting in the study of Aaron Waters' sprawling ranch house. The six students, Lyla and he were freshly bathed and dressed in warm, dry clothing. The disk was hidden in Waters' barn, covered, at least for the present, with hay. Harris Cane lay in front of the fire, his head pillowed on Willis' side. Brenda Wilcox, Lewis Stevens, Marvin Krebbs and Jose' Alvarez were seated in armchairs. Everyone was drinking coffee.
"We'll send somebody out for the aircar," Colonel Waters said. "I'm going to have a word with my mechanic about it. And, of course, we'll compensate Sheriff Harcourt anonymously for his aircar. That should clear up the loose ends." He grinned at Lewis and the two former patrolmen. "I'll bet it was quite a shock when you three saw what Colonel Philips was going to give you a lift home in."
"No kidding." Lewis helped himself to another cup of coffee, loaded it with cream and laughed. "Man, what a ride!"
"So, what do we do now?" Hildebrand Watson interjected. He was sitting on the other side of Willis, soaking up the fire's heat. "I don't see how we can go back. That Jil knows we were there, and she can find out who we were fast enough if she wants to."
"I'm afraid you're right," Aaron Waters agreed regretfully. "Lady Tranthzill is the Viceroy's sister and Assistant Chief of Viceregal Intelligence as well. She has a lot of power, and she isn't likely to let the thing die. And after she's well enough to make her report, they'll certainly be after the Montez family." He glanced at the silent form of Candy Montez, seated beside her brother on the sofa. "At least one, and possibly both of the parents must be a psychic, and the other brothers may also be. My new Team arrived barely an hour before you got back, and I sent them out as soon as I got Colonel Philips' report about Miss Montez. With luck, the family will be safe before the Jils can move. As for the rest of you --" he shrugged ruefully. "It looks like you're inducted into the Terran Underground whether you like it or not. You'll go back to base with Colonel Philips and Colonel Stevens. It's the only place you'll be safe.
"As for the fortress --" Waters changed the subject. "You're sure the entrance of the tunnel into the older section was completely buried in the slide?"
Lyla nodded. "We checked. Half the cliff landed on it. No one could possibly tell what's there."
"Good. And you say there's nothing left of the new fortress?"
"No. It was all the ship."
"That's fine." Waters took a swig of coffee. "Then the Jils will think it's gone, I hope." He grinned. "For your information, Midgard Space Defense tracked the Centaur ship. They're all over Hel's Canyon now, trying to figure out who it was and what it was doing there. So far all they've found is a Jil aircar, a bunch of dead 'trols, and no clues. If they don't find the fortress we'll wait until the interest dies down, then we'll go in. There should be some things there that'll interest the Science Division a lot."
"That's for sure," Philips said. "We only found a small part of it, I'm certain."
"It's too bad you didn't find out more about the ship," Waters said. "I doubt we've seen the last of your Centaurs."
"So do I," Lyla said, "but we didn't have much time to look. I did pick up some things out of a desk. I think they might be important; at least that's my hunch. Here." She reached into a pocket.
Waters raised his eyebrows as Lyla placed fifteen little silver cubes on the table, and beside them a small, silver oval and a metal box.
"The box has a built-in psychic screen," she told him. "That should be worth something. I don't know what the other things are."
"Just a hunch, huh?" Matt said, smiling at her. "We'll take it all back to Nova Luna and give it to the research boys. They'll have a good time with it."
"Man!" Harris sat up. "I wish I'd been there! You have all the fun, Mom!" He turned to Lewis. "I told you she'd take care of him, Colonel Stevens."
"Yeah, you did, Harry." Lewis had the grace to look shamefaced at the glance Matt gave him. "But it sounds like he did all right on his own. Maybe I was wrong, Matt."
Philips laughed. "About me not being Alan Westover? Well I'm not. But he's got quite a rival with Lyla, I'd say." He looked at her proudly. "She's some of the best luck the Underground has had in years. If it wasn't for her, we wouldn't be here to report all this, that's for sure."
"Without you, we wouldn't be here, either!" Lyla said indignantly. "Neither one of us could have handled it alone!"
"You're right, of course," Philips agreed, amiably. "We make a pretty good team, don't you think?"
He saw Lewis hide a grin. Lyla turned red; another characteristic she shared with her famous nephew.
"But, of course," he added, "psychic partners usually do make good teams."
Lewis burst out laughing at her expression.
"I realized it there at the last," Philips said, speaking directly to Lyla now. "When you stopped Tranthzill. We worked together like a single unit right from the start. We always knew what the other was going to do ahead of time, because each of our minds is part of the other's. Psychic links are a permanent condition, you know."
Lewis chuckled. "Looks like your fate is sealed, Lyla."
Lyla's flush was beginning to subside. "Oh well, I can think of worse ones."
"So can I," Matt said. "I guess Alan will be pleased."
"Why?" Harris asked. He was regarding Matt with a look of intense speculation.
"He's been trying to match Matt up with just about every new female at the station," Lewis said. "He'll say it's about time."
"It is," Matt said, firmly. Lyla's gaze met his, and he lifted his coffee cup to her in a silent toast. "It's definitely about time."
The End
