It had been one remarkable session, for more than one reason.

  Chapter 6:

  Blue Heaven

  They met at the usual time and place next day. Blue and Miss Demeanor were waiting. “I’ve been thinking,” Felony said. “Where did our familiars come from? I’ll bet it’s one of those pomegranate seeds.”

  “True?” Ike asked.

  Blue hissed once, and the parrot nodded. “We are from other worlds, yes.”

  “Any passes there?”

  “Yes. But we don’t recommend those ones.”

  “We’re down to how many passes remaining?”

  “Three, including the one at Awful Tower.”

  “And two may be in your realms?”

  “Try for the one that isn’t,” Demeanor recommended.

  “All three could be in one of your worlds.”

  “They could be,” Demeanor agreed reluctantly. “But your best hope is to get one that isn’t.”

  Ike sighed. “This does not seem promising.”

  “We’ll have to try one, even if our familiars don’t like it,” Felony said. “What choice do we have?”

  “None we can think of at the moment.”

  “So which one?”

  Ike spread his hands. “We have so little information, its a pure guess. Let’s try Blue’s seed.”

  Blue hissed twice.

  “I know,” Ike said. “But we are left with unkind alternatives. Will you help us there?”

  The snake hissed once, resigned.

  The line formed, showing the way, and they hiked to the Blue Seed. Here the line turned everything to shades of blue, monochrome. The grass was blue, the foliage blue, the sand blue, but each was distinct so there was no confusion. Apart from that, the vegetation seemed normal; Ike recognized an oak tree, and a dandelion weed.

  The guide line ended at the entrance to the blue domain, but there was a neat path leading on. “If this is part of the exam,” Felony said, “that path should lead toward the pass, as the other path did. Why am I not much reassured?”

  “Because we don’t know that there is a pass here,” Ike said. “And if there is, we don’t know that someone else has not already claimed it. And if it remains available, it may be because anyone who tried for it before is dead.”

  “That’s a more comprehensive answer to my rhetorical question than I care for.”

  “But it will do,” Demeanor said. “This place makes me nervous.”

  “There is more,” Ike said. “If others have used this path, the predators of thus realm may have caught on, and be lurking by it, waiting for us to walk into their lair.”

  Blue hissed once.

  “So maybe we should avoid the path,” Ike continued. “We can use it as a guide, but not actually walk on it. That way we can see where it goes, without being complete targets.”

  Blue hissed again, approving the strategy.

  “But let’s have sword and shield ready,” Felony said. “Maybe both together, for both of us. That may be clumsy, but halfway safe.”

  Ike got both laser stubs in his hands. “Works for me.”

  Another hiss. Blue seemed less worried than he had been before.

  Fully armed, they entered the blue domain. Even before they stepped off the path, Blue hissed warning. A huge blue serpent slithered from the side, flying at about head height, mouth open wide, fangs leading. It encountered Ike’s shield and writhed in pain. It had indeed been lurking in ambush, and been surprised by a prepared foe. It contorted and sank to the ground, then slithered away when out of pain.

  “Just so,” Felony said, satisfied.

  “You were lucky,” Demeanor said.

  Ike smiled. “Luck favors the prepared.”

  “And now we know: we face flying serpents here,” Felony said. “That gives me the creeps. No offense, Blue.”

  Blue hissed, amused.

  They stepped off the path and made their way slowly through the forest. “I see familiar trees, bees, squirrels, butterflies,” Felony said. “This seems to be an entirely normal world, except for a couple of details.”

  “Blue color, flying reptiles,” Ike said. “Some details!”

  “And no birds,.” Demeanor said, shuddering.

  “No birds,” Felony agreed, surprised. “What can account for this?”

  “I’m working on it,” Ike said. “Maybe the snakes took out the birds, who have no place to escape them.”

  “That makes unfortunate sense.”

  They came to a clearing. There was a deer grazing. It looked up as they saw it, seeming unalarmed. They advanced on it, and it considered, then bounded away without panic.

  “At least there’s a mammal,” Ike said. “It did not seem much concerned about us. I wonder whether our human species exists here.”

  “It’s concerned about giant flying serpents.” Then she considered. “But this still bothers me. How is it that we have a normal deer, and presumably normal other animals, at the same time as flying serpents? How could this realm be so familiar, yet so different in that one respect?”

  “That doesn’t seem to make much sense,” Ike agreed. “Surely the reptiles would have evolved differently, if they could fly all along. Why have a body designed for slithering through the crannies, when you rule the air? Unless—”

  “Unless?”

  “Unless it happened recently, geologically. Like maybe in the last million years. All the animals evolved as we know them, then something changed for the reptiles, enabling them to fly. With that advantage they took out the birds, but they haven’t yet conquered the mammals or insects. Probably they took out the birds by raiding their nests, as they always have, only now no nest is safe. To the mammals it doesn’t make much difference whether what flies in to attack is a hawk or a snake; they can handle it, or at least hold their own for a while.”

  “And what happened to make the reptiles fly?”

  He had to struggle to come up with an answer again. “Maybe a magnetic change. Like a collision with a blue meteor that didn’t destroy the world but did lend its color to the air and seriously mess up its magnetic field, so that the snakes were able to use it to repel the ground and in effect nullify gravity.” He held up his hand in her stop signal. “I don’t know why it affected only reptiles; maybe there’s something in their cold-blooded makeup that relates. So they took to the air and now govern it, and are on the way to eliminating other species. But at least that would explain them, and Blue, here.”

  Blue hissed once.

  “Now we’d better find that pass,” Ike concluded.

  “Not quite yet,” Felony said grimly, as Blue hissed and Demeanor squawked.

  This time it was a crocodile. It was swimming slowly toward them, alert in case they dodged. It looked pretty sure of its prey.

  “My guess is that no one has been here before,” Ike said as he oriented both sword and shield. “That thing is too cocksure; it hasn’t encountered lasers.”

  “Just as the deer hadn’t been hunted by our species,” Felony agreed.

  Ike aimed the sword and extended its range. It struck the croc’s armored hide and glanced off. “Uh-oh,” Ike said. He had assumed that the beam would penetrate flesh and generate intolerable pain.

  “Aim inside the mouth,” Felony suggested.

  He did. The beam passed between the teeth and struck the interior, probably the tongue. Now the croc reacted, whipping back.

  Blue hissed warning.

  The croc whipped back, with redoubled fury. Ike barely had time to put the shield on max before the teeth snapped on it.

  For a moment the croc froze, jaws still wide. Then it lurched back, evidently blinded by pain. This time it fled.

  “I agree with you, Blue,” Ike said. “We don’t want to stay here any longer than we have to. Even with our weapons, it’s really not safe for us.”

  “Amen,” Felony said.

  “Let’s get on the path, since the snakes know we’re here anyway. We can move faster on it.”

  They got on the path, and did move faster. No snakes attacked them. Either they had handled the ones local to this area, that might regard this as their territory, or word had gotten around that they were not easy prey.

  They came to a kind of pasture where sheep were grazing between widely spaced giant pine trees. “I wonder if this herd belongs to the croc?” Felony mused. “So it came after us not because it was hungry for our flesh, but because we were intruding on its domain.”

  “That could be,” Ike agreed. “I haven’t seen any sign of mammal predators; they may have been driven off by the reptilian ones.”

  “Look!” She pointed.

  Ike looked. There, high in a pine, was a nest. From the nest projected the end of a pass. They had found it.

  But there was a problem. The nest was a good thirty feet high, and the trunk of the tree below it was limbless. With proper tackle Ike could have climbed it, but of course he lacked that equipment. How could they reach it?

  “Don’t tell me, let me guess,” Ike said. “That pass is going to be anchored in there so that neither familiar can fly there and pull it out, right? We have to fetch it ourselves.”

  Blue hissed agreement. “You got it,” Demeanor said. “We’ll help all we can, but we can’t do it for you.”

  “Maybe I can knock it out,” Ike said. He looked around and spied several loose stones and branches. He picked up a short but solid branch, took aim, and heaved it up at the nest.

  It scored. The branch struck the nest, knocking part of it loose. But the pass remained in place.

  “Uh-oh,” Felony said.

  Now he saw the occupant of the nest: a flying rattlesnake. It was about six feet long and looked annoyed. It probably didn’t care about the pass one way or the other, but did care about getting its nest molested. Even if Ike could climb the tree, he could not have a hand free to work the laser to defend himself.

  There needed to be some other way. It had to be possible to get that pass down; he just had to figure it out. Hitting the nest with branches would probably not get it out, and would further annoy the rattlesnake. He saw no deadwood long enough to make a pole to reach the nest. He could not fly up there himself.

  Unless the laser shield had another setting. Could it nullify gravity? He toyed with it, but got nowhere.

  Then he tried the laser sword, having a wild idea. It was controlled partly by the squeeze of his fingers, and partly by his mental guidance. Suppose he focused on what he wanted it to do?

  “You’re getting that look,” Felony said. “What’s on your devious mind?”

  “Tractor beam.”

  She laughed. “That’s impossible! A beam might push a little, from the impact of the photons, but that’s strictly one way. It can’t pull.”

  “Not in our universe,” he agreed, continuing his focus. “Help me, Blue. Tell me when I’m getting warm.”

  Surprised, the snake curled around his arm, tuning into the laser he held. He hissed.

  “There?”

  Two hisses.

  “You mean I overshot it?”

  Hiss.

  Ike backed off a bit, mentally, searching for the particular mental setting he had passed.

  Hiss.

  He concentrated, amplifying the particular feel of it. “Show time,” he said trying to mask his doubt.

  The beam shot out. He oriented it on the nest, then on the visible part of the pass. Make this work! he prayed.

  He felt a tug. It was doing it! Carefully he pulled on the beam, and slowly it drew on the pass. It started to come out of the nest.

  “I’ll be double damned!” Felony breathed.

  He continued to pull, like a fisherman on his line, carefully so as not to let the fish slip the hook. Slowly the pass emerged.

  Then it snapped free of its anchor and flipped into the air. The beam lost its hold, but it didn’t matter, because the pass was drifting town to the ground. Felony ran to fetch it as it landed.

  Ike shut off the laser, amazed. It had actually worked!

  Then he looked around. Blue and Demeanor were both quite still, staring. They were obviously as surprised as Felony, though Blue had helped him do it.

  “You did the impossible!” Felony said, returning with the prize. “You got the pass!”

  “I got the pass,” he agreed weakly.

  “Warning,” Demeanor said. “She’s in kissing mode.”

  Then Felony flung herself on him and was kissing him out of sheer exuberance. He kissed her back as they rolled on the grass.

  “Take your pass,” she said as they broke.

  “You take it. I know where’s there’s another.”

  “But you got it, I didn’t.”

  “We’re a team, aren’t we? It’s yours.”

  “If you don’t stop me, I’m going to make love to you.”

  “I’d love that. But what about that rattlesnake?”

  “I’m not going to make love to it.” She paused. “Oh. Is it coming after us?”

  They looked. The rattlesnake was hovering not too far away, evidently trying to decide to what extent they were guilty for violating its nest. They lost their interest in romance and drew their lasers, just in case.

  The snake flew back to its nest, but the mood had changed. “We’d better get back to campus,” Ike said.

  “You’d better,” Demeanor agreed. “You riled the snakes, and they’re not stupid.”

  That reminded Ike of another thing. “You Familiars—you’re way smarter than normal creatures of your kind. Why is that?”

  “Where I come from, birds dominate,” Demeanor said. “Some are big, some are fast, some are poisonous, some are smart. Different survival strategies. Same for Blue Heaven here: Blue is smart, to compete with the larger brutes, and it seems he has a special feel for lasers. The atmosphere may enable our special powers too. But mainly, Blue and I are enhanced and trained to comprehend human ways and speech, so we come across as smarter than we are.”

  “You’re telling a lot, now,” Felony said.

  “You figured out a lot. We’re just confirming it.”

  “Enhanced?” Ike asked.

  “They’ve got ways. Pomegranate’s more than it may appear.” Blue hissed agreement.

  Ike and Felony exchange a glance, but did not pursue that farther. The more they learned about Pomegranate, the more interesting it became.

  They moved out, alert for other flying reptiles. They followed the path back.

  Blue hissed warning. Ike and Felony oriented their lasers.

  “Damn! Ambush!” Demeanor said.

  Then a virtual platoon of serpents erupted onto the path ahead of them. They were huge, pythons twenty feet long, and more. They were coming in from all directions, and down from above, jaws gaping. They were clearly organized.

  Ike saw no easy escape. “Shields on maximum pain!” he exclaimed. “Stab with the swords.”

  Blue hissed warning again, but of course Ike was already aware of the threat. “It’s not what you think!” Demeanor called. “Be alert.”

  They were both warning him of something, but Ike could not take time to analyze it. Any pause, and the serpents would overwhelm them.

  They fought with swords and shields, but the pythons were wary of the beams, constantly swerving so that it was difficult to score. Three of them evaded Ike’s thrusts and piled into his shield. It flickered and dimmed, overcome by the sheer mass of them, probably not hurting them much. So there was a limit to its power, unsurprisingly. Was that what the familiars meant?

  Ike stepped back, aiming his sword at the head of each impinging python. This was point-blank range, easy to score, and it was effective; each snake tagged reacted by quivering, and ceased attacking. In moments Ike was clear.

  Then he saw that Felony had been less fortunate. She had fallen on the ground and was being overpowered by the serpents.

  He dived to her rescue, stabbing each from behind. But then his shield came up against her shield. Light coruscated where they touch each other, and both shorted out. Maybe that was what the familiars had meant.

  “Hang on, Felony!” he cried. “We’ve got to align the shields.” He grabbed her shield hand, put his shield hand next to it, and turned his shield on again. “Do yours too!”

  She did. Now they were in the center of two shields, one larger than the other. The serpents were getting tagged in two places. That caused them to writhe clear, to escape the pain. It might be less from each shield, but two places were worse than one. Ike’s sword encouraged them to retreat farther as Felony rolled to her feet.

  The pythons drew back, watching warily. They were not giving up. That was not a good sign. They knew that they faced pain if they tried to penetrate the shields, and possible death if the laser scored scored on their heads. They had already taken losses, and now the humans were better organized for defense. There was no easy victory here. Yet they persisted. What was in their minds?

  “Let’s see if we can move like a tank,” Ike said. “Grinding slowly forward, our shields doubled, our swords read to stab any snake who forges through despite the pain. Keep going long enough, and we’ll reach the exit.”

  “Works for me,” Felony agreed breathlessly.

  They stood together, hip to hip, then stepped forward together. The serpents retreated before the doubled shields. It was working!

  Then the pythons charged again, plowing in from behind. The big head of one knocked Felony forward. She stumbled, tried to catch herself, but fell to the ground. The pass flew out of her pocket and landed on the ground. Blue hissed.

  Felony grabbed for the pass, but another snake forged through the shields and took the pass in its mouth. It slithered on, injured but determined. Ike aimed his sword at its head, but another python collided with him, knocking the beam skew. The one with the pass made it out of the shields and collapsed.

  Another python took the pass from its mouth and slithered up and away, rapidly ascending into the sky.

  The the other serpents withdrew. In moments all of them were gone.

  Felony was crying. “Damn! Damn! Damn! I lost it!”

  But Ike was more amazed than chagrined. “The pass! All they wanted was the pass! They organized to distract us until they could get it. They weren’t after us at all.”