torg 01 - Storm Knights by Bill Slavicsek, C. J. Tramontana
Authors: Bill Slavicsek, C. J. Tramontana
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head was bent and he stared at the ground. When he did not answer, Baruk Kaah motioned to the stalenger. It reached out with its long tentacles and attached them to the human's head. Then, gently, it raised the head so that the human was forced to look at the Saar.
"I ask you again, are you an optant?"
The human shuddered, then tried to compose himself as best he could. When he spoke, his voice sounded weak and frightened.
"I'm Eddie Paragon," he finally managed. "I'm just a rock'n'roll singer. Please don't kill me."
"No, singer Paragon, I will not kill you," Baruk Kaah said as soothingly as he could, "at least not while you serve me."
The two edeinos placed their hands on Paragon's shoulders and forced him to his knees. But they really didn't need to. The singer got the idea. He bowed his head to the Saar of the edeinos and choked on the words that escaped his lips.
"I ... will serve you."
Baruk Kaah smiled his lizard smile at the ravagon, totally pleased with the ease of this conversion. He didn't see the tears that streamed down Paragon's face, though.
But the ravagon did.
33
All the colors of the rainbow played over the grimy-rain-streaked bubble canopy of the air sled as it slid on its anti-grav units through the crowded streets of Cape City. The colors emanated from flashing, glowing, gas-filled tubes and liquid crystal displays of signs and building-sized screens that advertised everything from laxatives to prayer. Mara stared through the streaked colors at the collapsed, ruined section where the maelstrom bridge once arched from the sky. The sled whined along the street that paralleled the miles of tumbled metal that had fallen and crushed a half-mile wide path through the city, making a jumbled trail of cyclopean wreckage all the way to the bay.
"I hear the council wants to leave the bridgehead as a monument," said the driver as the sled passed the one section that still stood at the abutment of the bridge.
Mara turned away from the twisted metal. Even though it was ruined, its surface still seemed to ripple like the surface of a deep pond. And below the surface, she imagined she could still she the tortured souls that gave the metal its shape.
"A monument to my stupidity and all the torture and deaths it caused," she said miserably.
"The council cleared you. They said it was simply coincidence."
"Yeah," she said and remembered her vain, childish pride when her paper hypothesizing the cosmverse model of extradimensional space was published. She had propounded that the universe was but one cosm in a cosmverse composed of infinite reflections of an infinite number of realities. Her mathematics had been without flaw, and her conclusions irrefutable, if un-demonstrated. Undemonstrated until the maelstrom bridge had crashed into the city and the Invasion War had begun, a war carried to Mara's world by armies from one of those reflection worlds she had mathematically established as being in existence. Tangible proof of her proudly proposed theory brought her bitter shame and guilt as she began to believe that she had caused the Invasion War by acknowledging the possibility of the worlds from which the invaders came. That they flowed through the hole she opened with her cosmscope.
So, she had plugged in the multi-dimensional physics chip and the cosmverse logic chip into the slots behind her ear and immersed herself in her math. When her conclusions forced her up for air, she wrote another paper, taking full blame for the Invasion War. But curiosity urged her to look into the cosmverse again, and this time she saw another world. And the Sims, her calculations told her, saw it too. If they could not have Kadandra, they would conquer the unsuspecting world called Earth.
Mara proposed that an advisor be sent to this Earth to help it fend off the Sims the way Kadandra had. She had mathematically described a method for traveling through the cosmverse using the power that certain Kadandran's had demonstrated in
"I ask you again, are you an optant?"
The human shuddered, then tried to compose himself as best he could. When he spoke, his voice sounded weak and frightened.
"I'm Eddie Paragon," he finally managed. "I'm just a rock'n'roll singer. Please don't kill me."
"No, singer Paragon, I will not kill you," Baruk Kaah said as soothingly as he could, "at least not while you serve me."
The two edeinos placed their hands on Paragon's shoulders and forced him to his knees. But they really didn't need to. The singer got the idea. He bowed his head to the Saar of the edeinos and choked on the words that escaped his lips.
"I ... will serve you."
Baruk Kaah smiled his lizard smile at the ravagon, totally pleased with the ease of this conversion. He didn't see the tears that streamed down Paragon's face, though.
But the ravagon did.
33
All the colors of the rainbow played over the grimy-rain-streaked bubble canopy of the air sled as it slid on its anti-grav units through the crowded streets of Cape City. The colors emanated from flashing, glowing, gas-filled tubes and liquid crystal displays of signs and building-sized screens that advertised everything from laxatives to prayer. Mara stared through the streaked colors at the collapsed, ruined section where the maelstrom bridge once arched from the sky. The sled whined along the street that paralleled the miles of tumbled metal that had fallen and crushed a half-mile wide path through the city, making a jumbled trail of cyclopean wreckage all the way to the bay.
"I hear the council wants to leave the bridgehead as a monument," said the driver as the sled passed the one section that still stood at the abutment of the bridge.
Mara turned away from the twisted metal. Even though it was ruined, its surface still seemed to ripple like the surface of a deep pond. And below the surface, she imagined she could still she the tortured souls that gave the metal its shape.
"A monument to my stupidity and all the torture and deaths it caused," she said miserably.
"The council cleared you. They said it was simply coincidence."
"Yeah," she said and remembered her vain, childish pride when her paper hypothesizing the cosmverse model of extradimensional space was published. She had propounded that the universe was but one cosm in a cosmverse composed of infinite reflections of an infinite number of realities. Her mathematics had been without flaw, and her conclusions irrefutable, if un-demonstrated. Undemonstrated until the maelstrom bridge had crashed into the city and the Invasion War had begun, a war carried to Mara's world by armies from one of those reflection worlds she had mathematically established as being in existence. Tangible proof of her proudly proposed theory brought her bitter shame and guilt as she began to believe that she had caused the Invasion War by acknowledging the possibility of the worlds from which the invaders came. That they flowed through the hole she opened with her cosmscope.
So, she had plugged in the multi-dimensional physics chip and the cosmverse logic chip into the slots behind her ear and immersed herself in her math. When her conclusions forced her up for air, she wrote another paper, taking full blame for the Invasion War. But curiosity urged her to look into the cosmverse again, and this time she saw another world. And the Sims, her calculations told her, saw it too. If they could not have Kadandra, they would conquer the unsuspecting world called Earth.
Mara proposed that an advisor be sent to this Earth to help it fend off the Sims the way Kadandra had. She had mathematically described a method for traveling through the cosmverse using the power that certain Kadandran's had demonstrated in
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