“Moving scout ship away from the Eschaton. Prepare for faster-than-light transition in thirteen minutes,” Roxanne stated.

  10 detection

  Liduma ran ahead of Lindsey, Joel, and Jacob. The puppies were bouncing all around the children as they walked out of the forest and into the space between the forest and the edge of the world. They could see a long ways down the open space where they loved to run. The grass was about knee high and the air was sweet with the aroma of blooming cherry bushes.

  “Liduma is on the scent of something,” Lindsey commented. “She always bends her front leg up like that when she is hunting.”

  “I have seen her do that too!” Joel added.

  “So since Jamie and Michael are off in space flying somewhere, I think the pups need official names. How about we each name one of them, and then decide on the last one’s name together?” Jacob asked.

  “Okay! I have this figured out. We set the puppies over there, and the first puppy that comes to one of us, that person gets to name that pup,” Joel added. “That way the puppies decide who names them.”

  “They will never stay in one place long enough. They are way too wiggly.” Jacob stated as he looked at the puppies who were indeed very wiggly.

  “No, I think this can work,” Lindsey said. “I have some dried goat meat in my pocket. I will rip it to small shreds and scatter it in the grass. The pups will smell around for it and eat it. We stand over there and do not say anything, or call them, or anything. Okay? The first dog that comes to each of us, we get to name.”

  The brothers agreed.

  Lindsey scattered the ripped up dried-out meat. The puppies headed right for it. They were sniffing all around and stopping every once in a while to chew up the small bit they found. Lindsey then walked over to stand near the brothers.

  “We sure have seen a lot of stuff in this running corridor,” Joel said. He was impatient to have one of the puppies come to him.

  “We did find the frog-monster up by the Knobs,” Lindsey stated. “Only it was not a frog, nor a monster.”

  “And we got attacked by Shammai,” Jacob said recalling his own injuries.

  “Jamie and Michael chased Sinclair somewhere out here too!” Joel said with his eyes on the puppies.

  “Do you think they will find some bad people out in that space stuff where they are going?” Jacob asked.

  “No one could ever be worse than Shammai,” Joel answered.

  The three got very quiet as one of the puppies looked their way. The children held their breath but then the puppy went back to looking for more of the scattered meat.

  “I am not sure if Jamie and Michael will meet any people on their mission,” Lindsey stated. “They are going to look at a world to see if we can all go there.”

  “But we already got a world, right here,” Joel said as he stared at the puppies.

  “I do not understand it all. It has something to do with what Goliath showed me, and with Tamar, and even with those new people, the Marathoners,” Lindsey said. “They are from a different world, but also from the same world as we all came from, I guess.”

  “Brink could have explained it all,” Jacob said. “I sure wish he had not died.”

  “Me too.” Joel wiped a tear from his eyes.

  Lindsey began to cry as well. She squatted down and put her hands over her face.

  One puppy came bounding over to Lindsey. He was nearly coal black in color, and his yellow eyes shone brightly at her. When he got next to her he leaped up and began to lick her face.

  “You are named Koer!” Lindsey said as she hugged the puppy. Koer wagged his tail happily. “So you like your name?” He licked her face some more.

  Lindsey led Koer away. She sat on a log and stroked the back of Koer. The puppy loved the attention.

  The next pup to notice the children was the girl pup which was mostly dark gray with white fur on all its legs. She ran over to Jacob who reached down and stroked her back. She twisted and turned so she could lean into his legs. Her long tail was thumping against his legs.

  “You are Abimee!” Jacob declared. She barked several times as he said her name again. He then led her away where he sat down and took Abimee into his lap. She was chewing on his hand while he laughed.

  Joel stood there waiting, but the other two pups seemed more intent on sniffing the ground and chewing on grasses than anything else. Then in the distance, there were two sharp barks from Liduma. All the puppies were instantly alert and still. Their heads up, and their ears tipped forward. Then they suddenly raced away down the grasses toward where their mother, Liduma was.

  The medium gray colored female pup stopped just after starting to run. She looked over at Joel, and then jumped toward him and bit at his pants and pulled at him. She growled and pulled hard.

  “Ogima, is your name. And I will run with you!” Joel said and he raced away following the puppy he named. “I will beat you all there!”

  “No you will not!” Jacob yelled as he took off running.

  “Oh those boys,” Lindsey muttered under her breath. “I can outrun both of them easily.” She waited to a count of twenty and then she sprinted after them.

  The pups were outrunning the children, as they raced toward Liduma. Their tails were straight out behind them and they were running faster than the children had ever seen them run. The grasses were easy to run through and Joel, Jacob, and Lindsey all had many hours of running here. They knew almost all the animal trails, and where there were thorny bushes, or fallen tree branches, or itch weed, or the occasional hole down in the dirt.

  Soon they were approaching the Knobs. Liduma was standing in the grasses not far from the hard metal ground that was in front of the Knobs. Once the Knobs had just been a hard metal place with knobby parts sticking out of the edge of the world. But now, there was a solid wooden door that had been placed into the side of the world. They knew that behind that door was a new stairway which led down to a bunch of halls and places.

  “What do we name the last puppy?” Joel asked through panting breaths as he ran. Lindsey had just passed him and was about to pass Jacob.

  “Look!” Jacob said as Lindsey pulled alongside him. He was nearly spent of energy, but Lindsey was in her stride.

  The puppies were all devouring a dead hare that Liduma had laid before them. They were each grabbing a part of the hare and pulling it away from the others. Soon the hare was divided among the ever hungry puppies.

  Lindsey stopped running as she approached Liduma. She squatted down and began to pet her. Liduma loved the affection. “You are such a good mother. Always feeding your puppies.”

  Out of breath, Jacob then stopped and bent over trying to pull in enough air. “I do… not know… how you… can run… so fast.”

  Lindsey shrugged her shoulders.

  Joel ran up a moment later. His side ached a bit from the hard run. “But what do we name the other pup?”

  They discussed several different names, but could not agree on a final name. The puppies had completed snarfing down the hare. Suddenly, there was a bright blink of light from in front of the Knobs.

  “What was that?” Joel asked.

  “It was really bright,” Jacob added.

  They walked over toward the hard metal ground and wooden door which was now the Knobs. Lying on the hard metal, right near where the grass started was a small device of some kind.

  “Oh wow!” Joel said. “Look what someone left there.”

  “Is that a Willie Wacker?” Jacob asked as he and his brother walked toward it.

  “No, I do not think it is. That emblem on the side is the symbol I have seen on the Marathoner’s equipment,” Lindsey said. “I think that is one of their weapons.”

  “Father said their weapons are very powerful,” Jacob recalled. “They were fighting monsters, I guess.”

  “We better take it back to the legionnaires. They will know what to do with it,” Joel said as he walked right toward the edge of the hard metal.

  Joel was just reaching for the weapon when the reddish colored puppy with a white head and dark ears growled low in his throat. His ears were back, and his teeth were bared.

  “What is it dog?” Joel asked as he turned away, his hand moving back from the weapon. “Just go eat some more.”

  The dog growled again, its ears laid back. It was glaring at the weapon.

  “Do not be afraid,” Joel said. “I will just pick it up and take it back to Antioch.” He reached again for the weapon.

  The reddish pup growled even more. Joel tried to ignore the growling pup and leaned forward. Just then he felt a nip at the back of his leg, he turned and saw that Ogima, the medium grey pup, had latched onto his pants and was pulling him backward. He stumbled a bit as he stepped back.

  Liduma pushed in front of Joel which caused him to actually fall onto his side the pup still pulling at his leg. Liduma had a stick in her mouth. She tossed it toward the hard metal where the weapon sat. There was a blinding blink of light. When they opened their eyes they could see a dim yellow grid fading in the hard metal. The weapon was gone.

  “Maybe the weapon exploded and that is what made the flash of light?” Jacob said. “Better not touch that spot I will get another stick,” Jacob said and looked around until he found one. He walked back to the edge of the hard metal.

  “That was really weird,” Lindsey said. “Liduma seemed to know that something was about to happen.”

  “So did the puppies! Ogima was pulling me away from that weapon.”

  “And the other one was growling at it. We should name that reddish one Naidik!” Jacob added. He peered at the place where the weapon had sat. “There are no burn marks, nor any fragments of the weapon.” He pushed the stick toward where the weapon had disappeared.

  Nothing happened.

  The pups all began to growl suddenly and were staring at the hard metal at a place a bit closer to the wooden door. Then a sickly yellow colored grid appeared in the hard metal and a bright blink of light happened.

  Sitting there was a bowl of thick hot soup.

  “What?” Joel asked. “That is food.”

  The pups growled ever more viciously and the fur on their backs was raised.

  “I have never seen them so angry,” Lindsey said.

  “Where did that food come from?” Jacob asked. “I can smell it from here. It is chicken and vegetables. How can a bowl of soup hurt you?” He started to step toward the bowl. Naidik, the reddish pup began barking ferociously. The other pups were growling. Liduma pushed Jacob over and away from the hard metal. As he fell, he dropped the sick and it fell onto the bowl of soup.

  The was a very bright blink of light. The bowl of soup was gone, as was the last third of the stick. The yellow grid faded from view in the permalloy.

  “Hey!” Joel yelled. “Is someone playing a prank?”

  “Huh? What happened?” Jacob added as he picked himself up off the ground. He picked up the remains of the stick where it had fallen in the grass. It was only about two-thirds are long as it had been. The end that was missing was cut straighter and cleaner than any cut he had ever seen made in wood before. “What kind of game is this?”

  “I do not play games anymore,” The Voice said.

  Liduma gave two quick and sharp sounding barks. The pups stopped growling and they all looked at the permalloy walls around where the wooden door had been installed.

  “Who is that?” Joel asked.

  Jacob and Lindsey looked at each other in fear. Everyone had heard the stories about ‘playing games’ and how the adults had been terrified of that.

  The dogs all began to growl again and glared at the permalloy.

  “I am telling the Rector,” Lindsey said and took out her combox. “I believe all I have to do is turn this button, and speak the name of the person I need.” She turned the button and said, “Rector Conner?”

  “Yes, Lindsey. Is this important? There has been a terrible accident,” Conner’s words came from the combox.

  “What has happened?” Lindsey asked.

  “Lindsey, just tell me what you need,” Conner was unusually abrupt.

  Lindsey explained what they had seen. Conner’s attitude changed nearly immediately. He asked many specific questions and wanted as much detail as possible. He asked several times about the disappearing Marathoner weapon, and the soup, and the severed branch. He also asked about what she had heard said.

  “Rector, what is the matter?” Lindsey asked as more fear seeped into her.

  “So you are out in the habitat now?” Conner asked with trepidation in his words. “You are not inside one of the tunnels are you?”

  “Yes… no… I mean we are in the grasses by the Knobs,” Lindsey replied. It was not the words Rector Conner was saying, but the way he was saying it that scared her. “We are not inside anywhere.”

  “Lindsey, listen to me very carefully. Come back to Antioch immediately. Do not go into any of the tunnels or places like that. Stay away from anything permalloy. Stay away from hard metal places. And be sure to bring the boys and those dog hounds back with you. Do you understand? Do not go in any tunnels or anywhere inside the walls of the underground. Will you do that?” Rector Conner asked.

  “Yes. We will come right home. But what has happened? I am very afraid. What did we see?” Lindsey pleaded.

  “Lindsey, I will explain when you come back.”

  “Please tell me now. Not knowing is making me more afraid. Are my parents hurt?”

  “Oh, no. No, Lindsey, your parents are not hurt. They are fine. I am not sure exactly what is happening. But there was a… an incident. It was out in Media,” Conner paused for a moment. He was unsure how to go on. Finally he just said it directly. “Lindsey, Willie has been killed. I am so sorry to tell you like this.”

  Lindsey was surprised and puzzled. “But you said at first there was an accident, but now you make it sound like something else. Did this have to do with what we saw?”

  “Willie was inside an unknown tunnel system in Media. He contacted Major Gonzales on one of their helmets he found in that tunnel. She had no idea how it got there. Sounds like that weapon you saw which then disappeared. Willie said he found a kind of bomb, and that was the last she heard from him. The soldiers came to get him. Levi and Gideon had already begin cutting through the permalloy to find him. With the soldiers they were able to cut him out of the tunnel system. But when they found him he had died.”

  “So he died from a bomb?” Lindsey asked, remembering the stories she had heard about explosions.

  “Lindsey, Major Gonzales told me that there were two soldiers who also died in a strange way. Their equipment was missing, but parts… Excuse me. Willie and those soldiers seem to have died in some strange way,” Conner was trying to avoid being graphic, but it was hard.

  “Like that stick? Oh, I think I am going to be sick,” Lindsey said. Then she turned and looked at the brothers. They had heard the entire conversation and had gathered up the pups and moved them away from the permalloy which was in front of the Knobs.

  “Lindsey? Lindsey! Are you there!” Conner was yelling through the combox.

  “Yes, Rector. I am here.” She swallowed hard trying to calm her inner fears. “I heard it say, ‘I do not play games anymore.’ We all heard it say that. This is very bad,” Lindsey was quaking, “Was it The Voice?”

  11 toward westerhuis 23

  “We have reached minimum safe distance,” Roxanne stated. “Faster-than-light system engaging.”

  “Here we go again!” Jamie yelled in elation. “This tine into an even great unknown! A whole different world.”

  “The Eschaton was really different,” Michael muttered.

  Even though they had been through this before, both Michael and Jamie still expected to feel something. They did not. They were still harnessed into their chairs, in zero gravity. The transition to FTL was unfelt, but not unseen. They saw everything through the transparent permalloy.

  Just as when they had left the Earth’s solar system, again the whole universe looked like it shifted. The black background which was filled with stars, including the edge of the blue and red nebula, was replaced by a dull grey emptiness.

  The grey emptiness seemed be right against the exterior of the clear permalloy, and yet it also seemed to have endless depth. It was hard to focus on the grayness.

  “It looks as bizarre as I remember,” Michael said.

  “The shades of grey are weird. The darkest grey is straight ahead of us. Roxanne what makes the grey I am seeing? Why is it darker straight ahead, and lighter at the fringes?” Jamie asked.

 

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