Several ship systems shut down. Likely, that was due to the heavy radiation soaking them.

  Maddox opened his mouth. He already felt itchy. That was the radiation; he was sure. The Entity had tricked him. Why had he fallen for such an obvious ploy? Why had the Triad wanted him to do that?

  A new light source appeared as the crystal, the Eye of Helion, floated through a bulkhead. Had it just passed through a solid object? The Eye floated into the control cabin and pulsated, sending rays throughout the chamber.

  The itchiness left Maddox as the most critically shutdown ship systems came back online. Dravek stared in open-mouth wonder at the glowing thing in the center of the chamber.

  Maddox blinked repeatedly. Was he hallucinating? It didn’t feel as if he was. Yet, the crystal struck him as surreal. How had it passed through the bulkhead? Had it healed them from radiation poisoning?

  Maddox wasn’t sure, but it felt as if he was on the verge of an amazing revelation.

  -24-

  “The nuclear warhead has done great damage to our vessel,” the pulsating crystal said in a hypnotic voice. “Radiation damaged my material cells. Radiation was killing you. I have deleted the radiation and repaired cellular damage to your two forms.”

  Maddox found it difficult to think as the crystal spoke.

  The floating crystal didn’t turn, but it seemed to focus on Maddox. “The radiation has damaged the ship’s engine and generators. You must repair these defects, as I have done all that I can for the moment.”

  “I don’t understand,” Maddox said. “What did you do and what just happened?”

  “It is more than what I have done. I am still doing a great deal. As to your question…” The crystal pulsed and seemed to take a second to ingest whatever it found, as if the pulse had been a sensor. “Ah. My speech has impaired your cognitive abilities. I did not foresee that. Here, I have fixed that problem, too.”

  Maddox swayed in his seat, feeling more alert.

  “The Entity has mined the gas giant’s gravitational system,” the crystal said in its hypnotic voice. “By this, I mean it has used some of its spaceships to place nuclear warheads into preplanned locations around the various moons. By answering the Entity’s call, you let it pinpoint our ship’s precise position. The Entity detonated a selected warhead. I have dampened the blast’s effects to the best of my ability. Now, though, the Entity is no longer stupefied as it had been previously. I was…dampening its intellect would be the easiest way to explain it. The energy I used for this is now dedicated to preventing other warheads from detonating and destroying us.”

  “We passed more nuclear mines?” asked Maddox.

  “Several others, yes,” the crystal said.

  “Can we escape?”

  “Your question lacks precision,” the crystal said. “That is unusual for you, as we have escaped the Entity and the ice moon. We are in the process of escaping the gravitational pull of the gas giant. It is questionable whether we can escape the six Leviathan warships, however.”

  “The warships will take time to reach the gas giant,” Maddox said. “I suspect the Entity has plans against them.”

  “Quite so,” the crystal said.

  Maddox forced himself to focus, to think more clearly. “I detected earlier the Triad wanting me to speak to the Entity. Or was that your doing?”

  “Your comment is absurd and thus senseless and thus not worth answering.”

  Maddox frowned. If the crystal could block nuclear explosions, if the crystal could dull the Entity, could the crystal affect his mind negatively?”

  “It is wrong for you to suspect me,” the crystal said. “I am a friend indeed.”

  “What are you?”

  “The Eye of Helion.”

  “Are you a telepathic tool, or are you an alien being in your own right?”

  “My, that was too the point. I’m impressed, Captain.”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  “True,” the crystal said.

  “Why are you here?”

  “Why are you?”

  “Someone kidnapped me and took me from the Orion Spiral Arm,” Maddox said, “and brought me to this spiral arm.”

  “Who committed this treachery?”

  “I don’t know. Do you?”

  “How could I know?”

  “Please answer the question.”

  “Given that I can answer, why should I?”

  Maddox rubbed his forehead. His tongue felt thick and his mind sluggish. He was having troubling focusing.

  The crystal did not turn but continued to float in the air. The light in it seemed to focus on the ship sensors.

  Maddox turned to the sensor screen.

  “Six attack vessels of Leviathan have arrived,” the crystal said. “Leviathan means to finish this then. I’m surprised they sent so many warships through the vortex. I’m sure the Soldiers aboard the vessels view this as a suicide mission. Do you recall that I told you that those of Leviathan dislike sending ships into the Heydell Cloud?”

  “Naxos told me that.”

  “In a manner of speaking,” the crystal said.

  “You were aboard the parked free trader then.”

  “Was I?”

  “Is that a trick question?”

  “If you’re going to be rude about it, never mind. Those of Leviathan decidedly hate the Heydell Cloud. How they discovered the location of the Entity is a puzzle, one I’d like to solve. I’m unsure I can survive this, though.”

  “You, as the Eye of Helion?” asked Maddox.

  “I do not know who is going to win the coming contest. It would be best if our enemies destroyed each other. By this, I mean the Entity and the six attack vessels of Leviathan. The Entity is presently a greater immediate threat to us. Leviathan is clearly the greater long-term threat. If one of them wins, that one will attempt to track us down to capture me.”

  “Wait a minute,” Maddox said, as he rubbed his forehead. “Are you talking about you, the crystal, or you the three humans who control you?”

  The floating crystal once more focused on Maddox. “Naxos and the others weren’t humans. They were manifestations of human appearance.”

  “Ah, how does that work exactly?”

  “I comprehend your confusion. Despite your accomplishments, you are of limited intellect and do not understand the greatness of my species. We are a crystal alliance of great age and mental capabilities. We have been gaining coherence and energy throughout the millennia. You say you are from a different spiral arm. I believe you. I can help you return there. First, Captain, you must take me to—”

  The crystal spoke words Maddox heard but didn’t understand.

  The crystal repeated itself. “Do you comprehend the designation, Captain?”

  In his mind’s eye, Maddox saw a system with a massive red giant star. There was a blue terrestrial planet in a Jupiter-like orbit around the red giant. There were deeper blue manifestations upon the planetary surface. Maddox had a feeling the manifestations were crystal lattices of incredible complexity.

  The star system—Maddox’s view of it expanded. The system was on the edge of the Scutum-Centaurus Spiral Arm. That edge was nearest Omicron 9 in the Orion Spiral Arm. The distance was over seven thousand light-years. In some manner, the crystal indicated it could cross the vast distance fast, in less than a month.

  “If that’s true,” Maddox said. “Why do you need my help to get to your star system?”

  “That is an excellent question. I won’t answer it now, but there is an answer, I assure you.”

  Maddox stared at the weird floating crystal. There was too much he didn’t know. Yet the thing had helped them survive a nuclear mine that should have already killed them. Okay. He knew what to do.

  “I’ll help you,” Maddox said.

  “You swear it?”

  “Yes, if it’s in my power, I’ll take you to your planet,” Maddox said.”

  “Then we are allies.”

  “Sure,” Maddox said.

  “The probability of our survival has just climbed several percentage points.”

  “From what to what?” asked Maddox.

  “There is now a thirty-eight percent chance we shall reach the planet Gath.”

  “And then?”

  “I cannot foresee more than that.”

  “Thirty-eight percent chance of success?” asked Maddox.

  “That is better than thirty-five.”

  “Not by much.”

  “Perhaps that is so. Now, it is time for me to tell you the next part. Prepare yourself, Captain, for a download of data.”

  -25-

  The floating crystal flashed several times. At last, Maddox cried out, covering his eyes.

  “Do you comprehend?” the crystal asked.

  “What?” Maddox said. “You almost blinded me doing that.”

  “You must surely understand after I explained so much and in such detail.”

  “You just flashed light, brighter light each time.”

  The crystal floated up and down as if studying Maddox. “Oh my, this is bad. I believe I almost overloaded your biological circuitry. I forget at times how extremely limited you are. You didn’t understand that just now, did you?”

  Maddox rubbed his forehead. As he did, he happened to glance at Dravek. The clone lay unconscious, draped over the piloting board. Maddox suspected he remained awake due to his Erill spiritual energy and Balron-trained senses. Even so, he felt sluggish. Something was very wrong, making no sense. It was something the crystal had said earlier.

  “Uh,” Maddox said.

  The crystal floated serenely as if waiting.

  Suddenly, it struck Maddox. “You said before that Naxos and the other two were material manifestations.”

  “That is correct.”

  “Do you mean to say that they no longer exist?”

  “Not as you think of it.”

  “What do you mean by manifestations?”

  “Material things formed by my thought,” the crystal said.

  “You formed Naxos and the others?”

  “As temporary shells of exploration,” the crystal said.

  “What Naxos said about himself…was a cover story?”

  “That is a good way to say it.”

  Maddox massaged his forehead more vigorously than he had earlier.

  “I gave each form the semblance of life. Until they returned to me, I could not drain their essence back into me and recharge my energies. Now I am ready. I have been dormant for a time, you see. I have been resting. But I fear—ah!”

  The light in the crystal dimmed.

  Maddox realized the crystal had been shining with an unbelievable brilliance. But no longer. “What’s happening?”

  “I have stopped another mine from detonating in our path,” the crystal said. “The nuclear mine would have obliterated this vessel and all of us. I will release the explosive energy once the trader ship is far enough away to survive the detonation.”

  “How can you do that?”

  “Through transcendent power, Captain. We crystals of Helion have gained mastery such as you humans can only fathom in your dreams.”

  Maddox shook his head. “To me, it sounds like you’re bragging, just like all the other aliens I’ve met.”

  “You may consider that bragging. I think of it as a simple stating of fact. I have regained my lost energy, but I am fast losing coherence.”

  “Why is that?” Maddox asked.

  “I, I now perceive that the Entity was cleverer than I realized. It has directed a beam at us. The beam is unique and drains me of coherence. The Entity must have studied the three forms I sent. Dear me, I believed I’d fooled the Entity all this time. It is not as dense or as arrogant as I had supposed, but has…”

  The light in the crystal flickered.

  “I fear I shall not achieve my dreams,” the crystal said in a quiet voice. “I fear I have failed. This is a sad moment. I’d hoped to meet those of your society. Captain Maddox, I am going to shut down. There is a bare possibility that if I hibernate for the rest of this time…”

  “What time?”

  “The time, the time—if I re-engage later, you will understand.”

  “Do you happen to know Balron the Traveler, by any chance?”

  “That is an irrational question,” the crystal said. “I know of no such entity named Balron. Are you attempting trickery, Captain?”

  Maddox shook his head.

  “There,” the crystal said, “that is the last of the mines I need to dampen. Once the ship is far enough away, they will explode. Perhaps a whiteout, I believe you call it, may be able to help you hide from the ships of Leviathan. I urge you to go to Gath. I believe it unlikely you will make it there, as those of Leviathan have the upper hand against the Entity. Those of Leviathan will have spotted your vessel, I am sure.”

  Once again, the light in the crystal flickered and flickered again. “Goodbye, Captain Maddox. Thank you for bringing the pieces of formed matter back to me, where I could reincorporate them into my whole. I may possibly survive until you reach Gath. If not, I bid thee adieu, and may the Creator grant you your greatest desires.”

  The light blinked off and the crystal fell, hitting the deck with a thud.

  “What in the heck?” Dravek said, rubbing the back of his neck as he sat up. He looked at Maddox and then the crystal on the floor.

  The lighting in the control cabin had switched back from red to normal.

  Explosions showed on the sensor screen. Dravek stared with incomprehension. A moment later, Maddox stared at the screen in the same way.

  “What happened?” Dravek asked.

  Maddox manipulated the board, trying to make sense of this. The flashes and detonations they witnessed occurred fifty million kilometers from their previous location. The explosions all occurred among the moons of the gas giant—fifty million kilometers from their new position.

  Had the trader ship teleported? Or had the crystal held time in abeyance as the trader ship traveled the fifty-million-kilometer distance?

  Maddox shook his head and immediately massaged it. He had a splitting headache. It must have come because of the mental communication with the Eye of Helion.

  “I’ve got to sleep this off,” Maddox said softly. “I have the headache of all headaches. We should probably use our velocity for a time to increase our separation from the gas giant.”

  “The engine is offline,” Dravek said. “I’m assuming you want to use velocity alone, so we don’t reveal our position to the six Leviathan vessels heading for the ice moon.”

  “Yes,” Maddox said, but he could say no more. He staggered off to try to sleep the headache away.

  -26-

  As Maddox staggered through a ship corridor, the headache worsened. It was a pounding in his brain and made his eyes water.

  He stopped walking and leaned against a bulkhead as he panted. What had just happened? How could a crystal cause the trader vessel to move fifty million kilometers? Had it manufactured a star-drive jump?

  He hadn’t felt any of the usual aftereffects of such a jump that he experienced on Victory. Yet, he did have this pounding headache.

  It struck him as odd that the Entity hadn’t realized that the three humans—Naxos and the others—had been mere illusions, forms of flesh.

  Maddox glanced at the closed hatch to the cabin where Naxos and the others had gone. The Eye of Helion said he’d created them through mere thought. That struck Maddox as preposterous. It seemed more probable the humans had been aliens in disguise.

  Yet, the crystal had oozed out of a bulkhead and done something to keep a nuclear blast from killing them. It had also moved the ship fifty million kilometers.

  Although his head hurt badly, Maddox pushed off the bulkhead and staggered to the closed hatch. He manipulated the control and the hatch opened. He wasn’t sure what he expected to find in here.

  Upon entering the cabin, what he found made Maddox halt in shock. He saw Naxos and the others lying on the floor unconscious. Their chests rose and fell. They were breathing. They were very much there and alive.

  The crystal said it had formed each of them. The Eye of Helion had gone dead, so to speak. Shouldn’t that mean an unraveling of the three forms?

  Wondering if he was hallucinating, Maddox staggered to Naxos, bent on one knee and dared touch the man.

  The flesh was warm.

  The headache throbbed, but it wasn’t intensifying. Licking his lips, needing to find the underlying cause of this, Maddox shook Naxos.

  The man groaned, smacking his lips.

  “Naxos,” Maddox said.

  The man’s eyes flashed open. They were incredibly black, inky; the normal whites of the eyes were as black as the pupils.

  Naxos seemed blind, unseeing of Maddox. As if to confirm that, the man asked, “Is anyone there?”

  “It’s me, Maddox. What’s wrong with your eyes?”

  Naxos closed his eyes and appeared to concentrate. When he opened them again, his eyes looked normal. The darkness was in the pupils. The whites of the eyes were white as they should be.

  “Captain Maddox,” Naxos said. “Why are you in our cabin?”

  Maddox stood.

  Naxos sat up and looked around. The other two remained unconscious. Naxos looked up at Maddox. “Did you take the Eye of Helion?”

  “No,” Maddox said. “The Eye came to us in the control cabin.”

  Naxos stared at Maddox as if accusing him of lying. The rat-faced man concentrated, and his eyebrows rose. “The Eye is in the control cabin.”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “Did it…speak to you?”

  “A great deal,” Maddox said.

  Naxos closed his eyes as if in pain. When he opened them, he climbed to his feet, staggered to a chair and sat in it. He seemed unconcerned with the two lying on the deck.

  “Are you real?”

  “Eh?” asked Naxos. “What kind of question is that?”

  “The Eye said it formed you, you and the others from its thoughts.”

  “I see.”

  “Did it?” Maddox asked.

  “No.”

  “How can I know you’re telling the truth?”