“You must come back,” Jacob said. “Benedict would want you here.”

  “Give me a few more weeks, Father.”

  Jacob had eyed him, finally nodding. “Something is eating at you. Have you prayed about it?”

  “Just a few more weeks,” Maddox said, while looking away.

  Father Jacob sighed, “Very well, a few weeks, but no more. Afterward, you must decide.”

  “Yes, Father,” Maddox said. “Thank you.”

  “I suggest you pray about this.”

  “I hear you.”

  “You’re a stubborn cuss. There’s no denying that, but I think your heart is good. I hope it’s good, Maddox.”

  As Maddox entered the tavern, he hoped his heart was good, too. It would be an awful thing to have a wretched heart after all the good people who had helped him.

  People looked up, a few staring at him.

  Maddox wore a brown robe with a hood, and even clutched a staff. He had a pouch at his side tied to his robe belt. Like always, he was barefoot.

  The clientele were much different. The men wore legion uniforms. The women had provocative attire, sometimes wearing outrageous heels. A few of the men had holstered sidearms. He suspected more had flick-knives hidden in their pockets.

  “This is the wrong place for you, monk,” a man in back shouted.

  Maddox nodded politely before heading to an empty table. He sat down, leaning his staff against an empty chair.

  A big-bosomed waitress approached. She had a saucy smile and rouged lips. “What do you want?” she asked, amused.

  “A tankard of light ale,” Maddox said.

  “You have money, monk?”

  Without looking up, Maddox put a double-weight copper on the table.

  She raised her eyebrows, taking it and leaving.

  Maddox waited. He wondered if a man’s essential nature remained the same over the years. He’d seen one of the killers: the man who had yelled in back. As Maddox closed his eyes, searching his memories, he saw the former thug lifting and stabbing a bloody blade. That one hadn’t started things, but he’d had a hand in the killing.

  The waitress clunked a wooden tankard onto the table before him.

  Without looking up, Maddox grasped the handle, sipping the watery beer. He waited, listening to the muttering around him, the harsh laughter and the occasional womanish squeal.

  Soon, three men approached his table. One of them was the former killer. He had a bloated face with pimples and a mean look. He was a sub-centurion with scarred knuckles. It would appear the man still liked to fight.

  “Do you mind if I sit with you, monk?” the man asked.

  Maddox didn’t answer.

  The killer glanced at his friends, grinning. He knocked aside the staff, pulling out that chair and plopping down. The other two followed suit.

  “You don’t belong here, monk,” the killer said.

  Maddox raised his face, finally allowing himself to look in the killer’s eyes. He found that he remembered. That surprised him. He’d thought that after all these years—

  “What are you looking at?” the killer said.

  Maddox pointed at him.

  One of the others laughed.

  That made the killer scowl. “You’d better leave,” the man said.

  “You leave,” Maddox said, possibly with more bite to his voice than he realized.

  The conversations around them stilled. People stared at them.

  “Let him be,” a waitress said.

  “Shut up,” the killer told her without looking up. “Did you hear me, monk?”

  Maddox allowed the faintest of grins to twitch the corner of his lips. How he’d longed for this moment. He’d never believed it would go as scripted.

  “We’re going to teach you a lesson,” the killer said.

  Maddox stared at him.

  The killer leaned toward him. “You don’t think I don’t recognize you, punk? You don’t think I know about the monk asking stupid questions. Grab him!” he shouted.

  The two friends rose, lunging at Maddox, each one grabbing an arm. They hoisted him to his feet. The killer stood, hurling back his chair.

  “Now you’re going to learn!” the killer shouted. He stepped close and drove a pile driver right at Maddox’s stomach.

  It connected, making Maddox double over and cough explosively.

  “That’s enough,” a man said.

  “No, it ain’t,” the killer said. He grabbed Maddox’s hair and jerked up his head.

  While the other two held his arms, Maddox launched upward with his legs. It was an explosive, chi-driven move, causing Maddox to shout one powerful yell. At the same time, he drove his left knee with deadly force. The leap took him high enough so the knee cracked against the bottom of the killer’s chin, snapping the head back with incredible velocity. Violently, the killer rocketed backward, falling, the back of his skull knocking against wood.

  The two men holding his arms let go in shock.

  “He ain’t moving,” a man said.

  Maddox saw the killer staring up in dazed wonder.

  “What did you do to him?” one of the killer’s friends asked.

  Maddox debated his options. If he hadn’t killed the man with the blow, he couldn’t openly murder him now. Maybe he could still goad the others into attacking.

  With gentleness, Maddox moved to the staff, bending down and retrieving it. He’d purposefully left himself open, but neither had taken advantage of him.

  Maddox regarded them. Only one watched him. The other one knelt by the killer.

  “I think his neck’s broke,” the kneeling friend said. “We don’t dare move him or he could be paralyzed forever.” He looked up at Maddox. “How did you do that?”

  Maddox shrugged as an oily feeling swept over him. He didn’t understand it. He should feel good. He’d partly paid back the killer for killing his master. Why would he feel soiled? It didn’t make sense.

  “He had it coming,” a watching man said. “You don’t pick fights with a man of God.”

  Maddox frowned. Is that what he was? He didn’t feel like a man of God. Did one go around hunting the guilty?

  “I must go,” he said, quietly.

  “Where are you going?” a big man said. By his uniform, he was a centurion of the Fifth Cohort, Tenth Legion.

  “I will be at the monastery,” Maddox said.

  “Do we let him go?” a man asked the centurion.

  “Unless you think he did that on purpose,” the centurion said.

  The crowd eyed Maddox, trying to imagine that.

  “No,” a man said. “They attacked him first. That was a lucky kick. He’d never be able to do that again in a thousand years. Ferris is right. Let the sad sack go. We know where to find him if the MPs ask.”

  Bewildered, feeling his stomach beginning to churn, Maddox stumbled out of the tavern. He headed for the monastery. He needed to think this through.

  -30-

  The body of the real Captain Maddox lay in medical aboard Victory as he continued to dream about life as a young man named Garth on the planet of Remus. Yet…something troubled Maddox about the—it was more than a dream. He didn’t know how he could know this. Even as he continued to dream, he struggled for coherence about the situation.

  There was a process at work in Maddox, something he was beginning to perceive even while dreaming. Balron the Traveler had developed new abilities in him. The spiritual power he’d absorbed from an Erill gave him the energy to “see” things that should have been impossible for him to view in this condition.

  There was a device partly embedded in his forehead. It was a cerebrater—a device that caused him to relive these memories as dreams. The cerebrater received power from a satellite or machine outside of Victory. The activated cerebrater kept him unconscious and played these Garth memories in his mind as if they were his own.

  That…was…not…right.

  I will not let anyone or anything dictate my thoughts to me.

  Using the new Balron-given ability, the extra spiritual energy and his resolve, Maddox began to struggle against the cerebrater in his forehead. He began to block the ongoing dream of Garth on Remus.

  It was a long, slow process, and in response, the cerebrater in his forehead rerouted its dream message. At the same time, depressants cooled the captain’s resolve as his awareness of the situation began to fade.

  That caused sudden alarm in him.

  I must overcome this now, or it will be too late for me. Yet, how can I counteract the cerebrater? What can I do?

  Did the new ability give him the answer? In the citadel of his subconscious, as Maddox paradoxically acted consciously, he summoned fierce emotion, letting rage wash through him. The rage grew exponentially as he accessed the part of him that allowed feats of strength, as in the frail woman, say, who saw a car-jack give way and the car crush her working husband, leaping forward and lifting the car with momentary superhuman strength. The same process granted Maddox superhuman energy to employ a part of his brain, guided by the Balron-given intuitive ability. Was this a form of telepathy or telekinesis or the fire-starting power…pyro-something-or-other?

  Maddox did not know. He simply used a power of the mind that used his body to reject a thing the way flesh rejected a splinter of wood, creating pus and other processes that ever so slowly pushed the splinter out of the flesh.

  In this case, the partly embedded cerebrater in the captain’s forehead oozed upward until it ceased connection to his mind or body.

  The dream abruptly ceased. That caused a convulsion so Maddox twisted and jerked. He woke up groggily as the cerebrater fell off his forehead and clattered against the medical-room deck.

  “Maddox!” Meta cried, as she leaped to her feet from where she’d been sitting.

  Maddox’s eyelids fluttered. Then, disorientation struck as he opened his eyes and as a heart attack threatened.

  “No,” Maddox said, using his berserker mental energy to soothe his tripping heart and inadvertently counteract the process the alien cerebrater had triggered upon its removal.

  This happened in seconds as Maddox looked up to see Meta worriedly staring down at him.

  “Are you all right?” she whispered.

  “Fine,” Maddox said, attempting to sit up. That caused sweat to break out on his face. He collapsed back against the medical cot, breathing hard.

  “What are you doing?” Meta cried. “Relax. I’ll get the doctor.”

  “Meta,” he said.

  She’d turned to go. Now, she faced him again.

  From the bed, Maddox smiled. “I’m fine. Don’t worry the doctor. Give me a second. Then, I can get up.”

  Meta searched his eyes. She must have seen something hopeful in him, for she dropped upon him, holding his face and kissing him repeatedly.

  Maddox laughed, enjoying his wife’s ministrations. He kissed her in return. Then, he found his arms around her as he sat up, hugging her to him and kissing her in earnest.

  “Maddox,” she finally protested, struggling to free herself from his embrace. “There are others present.”

  “Don’t mind me,” Riker said. “Good to see a man loving his wife so.”

  Maddox released Meta and slid off the cot. He frowned, looking around the room. “Why am I in here?”

  “You don’t remember?” Meta asked.

  Riker bent down and scooped up the cerebrater that had fallen out of and off Maddox’s forehead. “This has been on you. It rendered you unconscious.”

  “What?” Maddox said, as she stared at the thing Riker held.

  “Listen,” Meta said, and she began to explain what had happened to him.

  -31-

  Grutch the Morag in his small teardrop-shaped scout ship seriously disliked the extra-dense Glenna Nebula.

  He’d been stunned when Victory had plunged into the nebula. Couldn’t the stupid humans see how garn-energized the gases were here?

  It was only after the third jump through the compacted gases that it dawned on Grutch that the humans and ghostly Adok analog probably could not detect the garn-energy. That had been a revelation indeed. The humans were retards in technological sophistication, meaning they were even stupider than he’d realized.

  That had galvanized Grutch. Perhaps a smash and grab would be possible then. Victory was all alone in the garn-charged gases. They had no way to—

  A klaxon had wailed in the scout ship.

  Grutch had quickly found the small satellite memory stick and seen how it beamed or transmitted toward the starship’s bridge. Some quick and careful scanning had soon uncovered the situation.

  Captain Maddox was in an unconscious trance, replaying—

  That was the thing. Despite Grutch’s best efforts, he could not pierce the memory stick’s shield. After a time, he grew aware that the little satellite had already sent a pulse through the garn-energized gases. That pulse traveled faster than the speed of light!

  All thought about smashing into Starship Victory and grabbing Maddox faded at that point.

  Instead, Grutch went on high alert, and he nearly aborted the mission, fleeing this part of the Orion Arm. Several reasons kept him from doing so. One, he did not want to flee just yet. Two, the humans were so pathetically low-tech that three, it should prove easy to grab Maddox and earn all those bars of tellurium.

  The Morag mercenary decided to play a careful waiting game and see what the pulse-signal brought to Victory.

  The presence of the alien memory stick showed that a highly advanced species was at work in the nebula. Grutch did not know who these aliens were, and knowledge was power. Learning who they were might be worth more than the bars of tellurium.

  He had several theories already about the memory-stick building aliens. They were mentalists of sorts, the reason they took such an approach with their “mousetrap.”

  What did these aliens want with Victory’s crew? Would the aliens come to collect, or had they designed the mousetrap to bring the victim to a certain locale?

  The question was intoxicating, as Grutch and Morags in general loved a puzzle. One reason they loved a mystery was that they thought of themselves as the cleverest species in existence.

  Thus, it came as a rude shock to see Victory use a tractor beam, drawing the little satellite into a hangar bay. According to Grutch’s calculations, such a move should cause cardiac arrest in Maddox’s person, and if the tractor beam continued, an explosion in Maddox’s head.

  Grutch’s antennae and tentacles stiffened with outrage. The tractor beam had likely caused Maddox’s heart to give out and brain to explode, killing the man. That was going to cost him many bars of tellurium. This was an outrage, a gross affront against rationality.

  “How could they do this to me?” He worked quickly, tap-tapping consoles and readjusting screens. Four eyes viewed four different screens.

  Then, they redeployed as Grutch studied other screens. “How can this be?” His leftmost eye viewed a screen where Maddox sat in his captain’s chair on the starship’s bridge. The human moved and spoke, giving commands.

  Using a tentacle to adjust a holographic control, Grutch zoomed in on the captain’s forehead. There were slight marks there, showing where the cerebrater had been embedded.

  How had Maddox divested himself of the tele-placed cerebrater? That should have been impossible.

  Grutch slapped two of his tentacles together, sounding like a performing seal on Earth. The action showed his indignation and fear.

  He’d almost smashed his way aboard Victory to snatch Captain Maddox. But the human had removed the memory cerebrater. How had Maddox done that?

  Grutch swelled with fear. Could Maddox be a wizard?

  A Morag did not mean the same thing as a human did when he spoke about magic. For a Morag, it was a psionic meaning rather than magic in the strictest sense. Still, a wizardly Maddox might be more trouble than he was worth.

  Yet, why otherwise would my sponsors offer so much tellurium? Clearly, Maddox is extremely dangerous. Given the sum my sponsors are offering, he is much more dangerous than I originally realized.

  Once again, Grutch debated aborting the mission. Greed stayed his tentacle from redirecting the scout ship. Yes, Maddox had unknown powers or abilities. In the end, these powers could not possibly match the cleverness and technological wizardry of a high-class Morag like himself.

  Grutch’s tentacles began to tap holographic controls as his four eyestalks whipped about here and there. He created a subtle link to the starship, and he opened a new sensor to keep tabs on the alien memory stick the humans had taken aboard.

  The humans may have made a critical mistake doing that. The aliens owning the memory stick…they must reside in this frightening nebula.

  What had Maddox seen on the memory stick? Grutch dearly wanted to know. Should he grab the stick if he managed to kidnap Maddox?

  That was an interesting question.

  In the end, Grutch decided on a more cautious approach. He had time, and this was an odd nebula with secrets and a giant ship holding a person of flesh and bone worth many bars of wealth. Maddox would make a mistake soon in this lonely place. Then, Grutch would grab him and run like mad back for his sponsors.

  “You’re mine, Maddox,” Grutch said. “So, go and play your little game for now. When you least suspect it, I’ll make you my captive. And none of your wizardly powers will be able to help you against me then. That I know to be true.”

  -32-

  Maddox remembered the Remus-Garth dreams in detail. There had been a reference in them to Manhome. Could that have been Earth?

  He asked Galyan on the bridge, “Do you have any records about any Earth colony ships heading this way?”

  Galyan’s eyelids fluttered for quite some time, until, “I do not, sir.”

  Maddox thought about that. Garth had definitely been a man, a Homo sapiens. An hour later, still unable to stop thinking about it, Maddox sought out Ludendorff in his science lab.

  As Maddox approached, Ludendorff set down a hot wire and sonic welder, removing dark goggles from his eyes, perching them on his forehead. “What troubles you, my boy?”