Dark Vengeance (15 page)

“Well, there goes the every man for himself option,” said R.J. “I had no idea there were children aboard.”

“She’s almost Tinkerbelle,” I replied.

“I wonder how many there are.”

“Suddenly our dilemma seems more urgent. I screwed off last night and fell asleep, damn it. Did you come up with anything on the word Gaglion?”

“I too must confess. I woke up with my face buried in the keypad. The monitor was covered with capital A’s and it took ten minutes for the key imprints on my left cheek to fade away.”

We reached the counter along the border of the masses. I waited for Fantasia to break away while R.J. immersed himself into the crowd. There was an immediate reduction of voices and within minutes every person there was listening intently to R.J.’s conciliatory explanation of the situation. I doubt than any other person engenders such trust as quickly as he. And, as Fantasia and I paused to watch, people began to break away and head home. In a matter of minutes there was a quiet dispersal with only a handful of people left talking among themselves.

“Do you think he could teach me that?” asked Fantasia.

“It’s not a science. I’ve always secretly suspected he’s a mage or something.”

R.J. returned. Elachia joined us.

“Ladies, has either of you ever heard the term ‘Gaglion?’” I asked.

“Oh, that’s mine, Adrian,” replied Fantasia. “Captain Mars asked me to research that. I’m just about through all the ship’s libraries.”

“Have you found anything?” asked R.J.

“I’m sorry, almost nothing at all.”

“Then you did find some reference?”

“Well, it’s hardly anything meaningful. It was in a book of children’s nursery rhymes. It’s a poem of sorts, a rather grim one at that.”

“How does it go?”

“I’m sorry, I do not know. There wasn’t a copy of it the library, just a reference. There is supposed to be a copy on board in a printed children’s book. Governess Zee is our resident child care specialist. She maintains the nursery and play area in the Enuro section. She tends to the children while their parents fulfill their staff duties. According to the records, she has the book.”

“Can we speak to her?” I asked.

“Well, she’s stationed back in the Enuro section. Guests usually do not venture back there. I could see about borrowing the book.”

“We may need to ask her a few things,” said R.J.

“Then I can take you back there. When would you want to do this, exactly?”

“It depends on how soon you want that crowd showing up back here,” I said.

“We should go right now.”

Fantasia nodded to Elachia as she left the counter and motioned for us to follow. She led us forward past Medical and past the lift to the flight deck. At the very front of the gallery’s alcove were two sliding doors I had wondered about. They slid open as she approached. Ahead, a small vestibule led to a large, very colorful arched door with a closed viewing port built into the center of it.

Fantasia paused to look back at us. “Prepare yourselves for a bit of a surprise.”

She pulled open the ornate door revealing a different world beyond. A very wide pathway was so adorned with plants and curious artwork, it took a moment to adjust. As we walked, there were entrances along the way. They were no more than five or six feet high, arched so much that they were nearly round, all painted in a variety of colorful designs. They were entrances to vibrantly engraved huts. There were small round windows on either side of the doors. Live ivy was growing at random on the walls. Beyond the huts, huge murals had been painted on the walls to look like hills and villages in the distance. Overhead, low cumulus clouds were pictured against a deep blue sky. I looked at R.J. and no words were needed. We were in perfect agreement. We were in Hobbitville.

The path was wide enough that up ahead a simulated wooden pedestal with still more ivy had been placed in the center with two street signs attached. To the left was Bandor, and to the right Arbouro. There were more hut shaped residences along the way in both directions.

Fantasia led us along. The path soon opened to a wide, cobblestone roadway. Ahead, off-duty staff people dressed in colorful casual attire paused to study our arrival. I expected signs of displeasure but instead felt immediate warmth and welcome from them. Some distance ahead, the village seemed to end with a large red habitat on the right, a complex yellow structure on the left, and an open area between that was a large playground complete with green grass. We walked across the simulated grass and around play gyms made for very small people. The air had a forest smell to it. There were no children to be seen, but ahead a very old woman was sitting in a snow white gazebo. She looked up and was momentarily startled as we approached, but quickly broke into a smile. She wore the sheer green and blue robes some of the others had, and her silver hair was wrapped in an exotic design above her head.

“Fantasia, my darling! Please come and sit. You’ve brought guests! How wonderful!”

We entered the Gazebo, bowed slightly in greeting and took seats.

“There is something I can do for you, of course,” she said.

“Yes, Governess,” replied Fantasia. “We have serious problems aboard the Star Seven. We need your help.”

“I am well aware of the darkness, Fantasia. It threatens us all. What can I do?”

“We think you have a book of poems that might offer us some understanding of the danger. It is a very old book and in it there is a poem about the Gaglion.”

“Oh no! You are not suggesting there is a mythical creature here, are you? Please tell me you are not! It is only a legendary creature, after all. It is not real!”

“Governess, these are our friends, Adrian and Rowland. They are trying to help. Can you tell them what you know about the legend of the Gaglion?”

The Governess eyed me directly. “You risked your life to save Azur today. Your story is already being told here. It will be a legend among the legends of the Enuronians.”

She turned to R.J. “You are the wizard who solves riddles. Your story is still being written but is already known by all.”

The sudden notoriety put us off balance for a moment. Finally R.J. spoke in earnest. “Governess, please tell us about the Gaglion.”

The Governess nodded. “It is from a legend of war. It is a story of a land that no longer exists. Some of the old ones used to tell stories of two planets always at war with each other. Nothing could satisfy their thirst for supremacy. They would fight to near total destruction, then rebuild and begin again. Finally, in a bid to win once and for all, a prince from one of the worlds had his alchemist design and create a weapon that could not be stopped by anyone, even those who had created it. They believed they had designed the weapon in such a way that after destroying their enemy it would never return to attack them. With great danger to themselves they released the first Gaglion on the planet of their enemy. The Gaglion attacked and took over the very first person it found and in doing so gave birth to a second Gaglion. The second creature attacked the next person it found and in doing so gave birth to a third Gaglion, and so on and so on. In that way no matter how many had been attacked there was always only one new Gaglion. Finally everyone on the planet had been attacked and taken over by a Gaglion leaving just one Gaglion with no one to attack. Each of the Gaglion and their captured hosts could exist for only a few suns and then both the Gaglion and its host would die. In the end there would only be the one Gaglion left, endlessly searching for a victim. Those who had created the Gaglion planned to leave the last Gaglion to search in vain until it too died. But their plan had a terrible flaw. They had given the Gaglion the ability to move through other planes of existence so that there would be no place for the enemy to hide. No walls or barriers could stop the Gaglion, only slow it for a time until it found a path through some other plane that gave access to where the prey was hiding. And that became the creators’ undoing. The very last Gaglion searched relentlessly for a victim and finding none, began to search other realities. In its persistence, it found a path back to the planet where it had been created and the deadly chain of events immediately began once more. In the end, the Prince of the first planet hunted and eventually found the single predator Gaglion and destroyed it, but too late. There was no one left. Both planets had been made barren. The Prince then, to rejoin his family, took his own life. And as he had hoped, the war was ended for all time.”

We sat stunned, unsure of what to say. Finally R.J. again broke the heavy silence. “Governess, is this the story that is told in the book of poems?”

The Governess shook her head. “No, Rowland the Wizard. This is the story that was passed down for generations to teach children that hatred does not reward its bearer.”

“Was there anything in the story that told how the Prince destroyed the creature in the end?”

“I have told all that there is,” said Governess Zee. “But there is the poem.”

“Could they perhaps borrow your book for a time, Governess?” asked Fantasia.

“Of course,” replied the Governess. She placed her work aside and slowly rose. Gracefully she left the gazebo and disappeared into a large colorful structure nearby.

“I believe I did not enjoy that story so much,” said R.J.

“Who would ever believe there might be some truth to it?” added Fantasia.

“The lizard man seemed to believe quite completely,” said R.J.

“I think I’ll reserve judgment if you two don’t mind,” I said.

A few moments later the Governess returned with a small, thin book in her hand. The cover was blue with different pictures of Enuro children on it. It was so old the binding was barely intact. I guessed it to contain 10 pages at most.

She wiped the cover with the palm of her hand and gave the book to R.J. “I will pray you solve the riddle, Wizard. Else it may be the end of us all.”

We thanked her and made our way back through Hobbitville. Back at Fantasia’s counter, she grabbed my sleeve and looked at me with a new touch of fear in her eye. “The Governess has never been wrong, Adrian.”

“You are not allowed to be worried,” I replied. “When the crowd shows up again, if you look afraid they’ll go through the roof. If Ambassador Beltran panics and falls down, we’ll never get him up.”

For a moment she looked taken aback but abruptly broke out in such uncontrollable laughter that she had to wipe away a tear.

“Hold that thought,” I said.

R.J. and I headed for our staterooms.

“Kind of surprising we haven’t heard from Mars yet.  You’d think Engineer Azur would be talking by now,” I said as we walked.

“Azur’s debriefing may be a long and difficult task.”

“In what way?”

“I do not envy the Captain. With all that has happened, we warned him to get those engineers out of aft engineering. It was just too much for him to grasp, so he gave them the option, maybe even told them to get ready, but in the end left it up to them. Things must have gone very bad in aft engineering. One of the engineers used the coolant flush to escape. The other probably did not get that far. Now the Captain has to second guess himself for not ordering those men out of there. They would both probably be alive if he had.”

“Well that’s an ugly little way of putting it.”

“But very likely an accurate one. Now they are stuck upstairs waiting to get the cameras in aft engineering working so they can try to figure out what is back there.”

“So where does that leave us?”

“We need the time to decide who we are in the Governess’ story.”

“And regardless, it’s not good,” I answered.

We used my stateroom. R.J. ordered up two cups of my coffee mix and joined me at the information station. He flipped through the small book and sipped as he read. He found the page with the Gaglion reference and turned the book so that we could both see it.

With lorn and sloth Targ dared the gate

The borg dire still wisted with fraught

In shadow and blind he stalked his fate

Longsword high and burning wrought

In sulk and sway the Gaglion gurgled

Mindless dread a scrounging leacher

To cut and lay the ogre hurtled

Skull and bone a grim beseacher

At last the graven foe he found

To fires edge the demon fell

Deathly silence the world around

Targ charged the blade to end his hell

“Well, I know what I get out of that. What do you get?” I asked.

“You first. I don’t think the translator glasses are doing it justice.”

“Our little twerp the Prince had some kind of special weapon to slay the Gaglion, but even then it was iffy.”

R.J. sipped his coffee. “Looking at this and considering everything the Governess told us, would you like me to summarize where we must be?”

“Before you do, let me remind you that all of this is pure conjecture. There may be no Gaglion. Everything that has happened may have a perfectly logical explanation. You and I may be carrying on in a fantasy world of Dungeon and Dragons.”