“I saw it. You killed it.”

  “I did? Good. What was it?”

  Horst took out his flashlight, flicking it on. Then, he advanced upon the dead giant frog.

  I followed him and saw that I’d shot its head. It lay stretched out grotesquely.

  Horst drew his machete, and in three swings, he opened its skull and revealed a metallic object inside the gray matter, the brain.

  I thought about the adepts and the mechs. Was this another creature belonging to Styr Mordel? The metal could be a control device. Maybe the scimitar cat had had a similar thing in it. Maybe it wasn’t telepathy like psi-masters, but something mechanical. Maybe the shrikes had had these installed in their brains as well.

  Horst wiped the blade of his machete on the grass before sliding it back into is scabbard. “We must hurry if we hope to remain free.” Again, he gave me a searching look.

  “Let’s get out of here,” I agreed.

  Under the moon, we broke camp and packed up, using the canoe and launching back onto the lake as starlight shimmered off the waters.

  -30-

  As we paddled, I began to wonder if I’d made a mistake. Perhaps I should have studied the mutated frog-monster. The terror radiating from the thing must have upset my mental balance.

  “Horst?”

  He grunted from the back of the canoe.

  “Did you take the device in the frog’s brain?”

  “Why would I?”

  That struck me as wrong. “If nothing else, to give to Mentor so he could study it.”

  “Why would Mentor want it?”

  I ceased paddling and half twisted around. “That’s exactly the sort of device Mentor would want. It must have…something to do with the mechs.”

  “How? Mechs use human brains. This thing had a device in its brain.”

  I twisted fully around, peering at Horst. He looked like the Horst I’d known before. I frowned. The flashlight—Horst hadn’t had a flashlight earlier. Horst hadn’t been distrustful of me either. What had changed?

  “We need to keep moving,” he said.

  I nodded slowly.

  “Is something wrong?” he asked.

  I opened my mouth, and closed my mouth, facing forward. Doubt seeped into me as it had last night. And then it struck me. Maybe the terror waves from the mutated frog had done something to awaken me back to reality. The terror waves had shaken my mind. Anyway, the man sitting back there wasn’t Horst. I’d seen him as he really was last night, before he’d done something to appear Horst-like again. This man had a flashlight and he’d let the Shrulls know he was hiding in the forest by the lake. The hetman of the Shrulls had let me go. The story they’d told me—

  I bent my head as if in thought. As I did so, I readied to apply the mental effort I’d once used against Psi-master Spencer when I’d discovered how to sever his telepathic link to my mind.

  I heard a sound, a shout, and I groaned. I almost forgot what I’d been about to do. I concentrated again, and there was another loud shout. I frowned, and I tried to turn around. There were several loud shouts and a sense of unease and worry struck me. What was happening? Why couldn’t I concentrate anymore? And who was doing all the shouting?

  “We must hurry to Eldon,” Horst said from the back of the canoe.

  I shook my head. It hurt now, and it pained me to think, to attempt to reason this out. I groaned again.

  “Listen,” Horst said. The canoe rocked. I heard him climbing over the bundled stuff between us.

  I understood in that second that Horst wanted to touch me, to gain physical contact. The physical contact would help him in some manner. I tried to turn around to see what he was doing, but found that I couldn’t.

  “No!” I shouted.

  Horst kept coming—only it wasn’t Horst behind me. I knew that finally. The idea was fuzzy in my mind, though. It was fuzzy because Horst was a mind-bending bastard. It wasn’t really Horst. The man looked like Horst—

  Because he made himself look like Horst in my mind. You were so damned tired last night because you did all the paddling. He’s just been pretending to paddle. He lacks real physical strength like a true outdoorsman.

  “You’re Styr Mordel!” I roared.

  And since I couldn’t look back, I grabbed the gunwales with my hands and began to rock the canoe side to side like crazy.

  He shouted in panic.

  I laughed manically and rocked the canoe so water slipped in from both sides when they dipped low.

  He shouted worse, and I knew he’d lost his balance. “Help me,” he shouted, and he splashed into the dark waters of the lake.

  As if I were the one falling into the nighttime lake, a sensation of cold washed over my mind. It left me numb, shocked and unable to move. I heard splashing, but the canoe didn’t rock anymore.

  Fighting the cold, realizing my mind was still under a psionic mental assault, I strove to use the cut-off switch in my mind. It had been some time since I’d used it, and the mental attack had been more overt back then, not as subtle as this time.

  It felt as if I was in a dark room, groping and searching, my fingers numb and thus making everything more difficult. It seemed as if my cold numb hands grasped a lever, a stiff one. I yanked it with every ounce of strength I possessed; and ever so slowly, the lever in my mind moved until it clicked.

  The sensation of cold departed. I regained full use of my body. I turned, and I saw a man swimming strongly for shore. He’d divested himself of his jacket and splashed as he swam.

  “Styr Mordel!” I shouted.

  I felt tendrils of mental energy brush against my mind. I would not give him any access, though. I snarled, picked up the paddle and turned the canoe. Then, under the stars, I began paddling after Mordel, the sly master-adept of the Brotherhood.

  I felt that I understood his strategy then. He’d made it to the Shrull camp, and he’d used his great psionic power to mold events around him. The Shrulls might have told me the truth, and Mordel had slyly fit that into his master plan.

  I had a feeling that the ziggurat—the teleporter that would let me leave Kaldar—would be in the city of Eldon. Thus, Mordel pretending to be Horst would have raced to Eldon with me, and convinced me to let him go back to Earth with me.

  Mordel must have come to fear openly showing himself to me. I wasn’t sure why, but I was sure he knew the reason.

  “Horst,” I said to myself. What had happened to the real hunter? Had Mordel found him?

  “Yes,” I told myself. How otherwise had Mordel gained access to the canoe’s whereabouts and the hunter’s buckskin garments? It was likely Horst was dead—

  “Or a prisoner of the Shrulls,” I muttered.

  During all this, I continued to paddle like a madman, chasing the swimmer as he neared the wooded shore.

  The frog beast, it must have been there for a different reason. Mordel might have wanted to mold my mind in some way, using the frog’s power to do so. Or, if the Shrulls had the right of it, the mechs might be chasing Styr Mordel and the frog belonged to the mechs.

  I shook my head, pausing in my paddling, as the bottom of the canoe scraped against rocks.

  In the waning moonlight, I saw Mordel wading as fast as he could go with the water up to his knees.

  Without a thought, I slid out of the canoe and waded after Mordel. I found the Colt in my hand and a painful grin stretched across my face. I was going to kill me a master adept. I was going to get revenge on his slaying poor Horst.

  “Mordel!” I shouted, and I laughed like a Marine ready to commit some serious mayhem.

  Mordel must have realized he couldn’t reach shore in time. He turned, and he threw his hands up into the night air.

  “I surrender, I surrender,” he sobbed.

  I kept wading, and I expected a trick. My weapon was aimed at his center mass. At the slightest sign of treachery or weirdness, I would fire, pumping him full of lead.

  “You’re mistaken,” he said.

  I stopped ten feet from him. “How am I mistaken?”

  “I’m not Styr Mordel.”

  “Sure you’re not. But I don’t even care about that now. What happened to Horst?”

  “The Shrulls have him. They caught him and kept him apart from you.”

  “Horst is alive?”

  “The last I saw him he was.”

  “If you’re not Mordel, who are you?”

  “Thal Dillan.”

  “You’re in the Dark Brotherhood?”

  “That should be obvious. Can I lower my hands?”

  “Sure. Any time you want me to fire, go ahead and let them down.”

  Thal Dillan, if that was his real name, jerked his hands higher into the air again.

  “Mordel attacked my shrike. He caused its death. I heard what you told him about his wanting to escape from Kaldar. By that, I finally knew the truth.”

  “That Mordel wants to escape Kaldar?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “And now you’re trying to do it in his place?”

  “Yes, yes. I can’t keep my hands up much longer. I’m not a musclebound clod like you and Horst. Please don’t kill me.”

  I had a dilemma with Thal Dillan. He could be using his telepathy to call others of his kind. If I went to sleep, would he be able to launch a mental assault against me? The best bet would be to gun him down in cold blood and head to Eldon on my own. I should be able to find the last city on Kaldar easily enough.

  “I’m willing to make a trade for my life,” Dillan said. “It will be worth it for you, I promise.”

  “How can I possibly trust you?”

  “You have a strong mental block. I’m impressed.”

  “Answer the question,” I said.

  “If we keep standing in the shallows like this, predators are going to eat us. I can sense a glizzard beginning to become interested in us. Soon, it will strike.”

  Was he lying? Should I just shoot him and be done with it?

  “I can help you free Horst,” Dillan said.

  “Is that so?”

  “It won’t be easy. We could both die in the attempt. But if that’s what you want, we can do it.”

  I had an epiphany. “Did I kill your scimitar cat last night?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Dillan, do you want to live or die? It’s your choice. Silence means you’re opting for death.”

  “Yes! You killed my scimitar cat. It was watching you, nothing more.”

  “Do you hold its death against me?”

  “…Yes.”

  I nodded. He’d just told me the truth. Maybe other things he said were also the truth. “Let’s give it a try then. At the first sign of treachery, though, I’m going to kill you. Do you understand?”

  “We can make this work, I promise.”

  “Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” Dillan said.

  I wasn’t sure I believed him, but I did realize that he was a fount of knowledge, a high-ranking Brotherhood adept. It was time to see if we could escape any so-called glizzards swimming about the lake.

  -31-

  We waded and then swam back toward the canoe, which had drifted a short way from us.

  Then, Dillan shouted: “The glizzard is heading for you!”

  I’d holstered my Colt. Now, I jerked out my knife, holding it in my left hand, which inhibited my swimming. My gut shriveled, and I felt just as I would if swimming in the ocean knowing a hammerhead shark was heading straight at me.

  I couldn’t flee at this point. I could wilt and panic, or I could swim with a knife, and stab and slash for my life when the moment came.

  Something big and powerful brushed up against me from underneath. I slashed down into the water. A fin might have slapped my face, but the great beast glided away even as fear spread through me.

  Before I knew it, my head bumped against the canoe, and I clambered up into it faster than I would have thought possible. Maybe my Marine training came to my rescue. I didn’t panic, but grabbed a paddle, dug into the water and shot toward Dillan.

  The bright moon allowed me to see a dorsal fin cutting the water, heading straight for the adept. I paddled for the glizzard. Before the beast reached Dillan, it turned away and dove, the dorsal fin disappearing from sight.

  Dillan was sobbing as his white hands grasped the gunwale. “Help me, help me please.”

  “Get in,” I said.

  I’d taken the back seat. He could sit in front this time where I could keep my eye on him.

  “It’s coming back,” I said.

  He sobbed, nearly capsizing the canoe as he scrambled within. He made a pitiful image as he crouched in the canoe, weeping and wet, shivering with fright.

  That stopped abruptly, and he raised his head. He looked back at me in an accusing way. “The glizzard wasn’t coming back. You made that up.”

  “Got you into the canoe, didn’t it?”

  “You’re a bastard.”

  “Takes one to know one.”

  He shook his head. “I saved your life.”

  “Hey, Dillan, I just saved yours.”

  “No. I wasn’t in any danger from the glizzard.”

  “You were just putting on a show then, huh? That’s why you were weeping like a girl? I’m impressed then, as you convinced the heck out of me that you’re a coward at heart.”

  “This here was the reason for my duplicity earlier,” Dillan said. “I sense hostility in you, especially toward those with superior abilities.”

  “Oh. So, that’s why you lied every step of the way. I feel so much better now. Thanks.”

  “You don’t understand yet. I engineered your escape from the Shrull camp. I ensured you received your weapon back and learn the truth about the situation on Kaldar.”

  I might have set down the paddle and clapped sarcastically for him, but I didn’t think he was worth the effort.

  “Kaldar is doomed,” Dillan said.

  “Because of mechs?” I asked.

  “Exactly.”

  “Where’s Styr Mordel?”

  “Chasing us so he can capture you.”

  “Meaning you think he reached the Shrull camp?”

  “I know he has.”

  “How do you know?”

  Dillan fell silent.

  “Are you in communication with him?”

  “I’m blocking him. I know the weight of his mental assaults, though.”

  I thought about that. “Well, pick up a paddle. Help me row.”

  “I would, but that will blister my hands. I’m worried they could become infected.”

  I snorted. “Hey, lazy boy, you pick up a paddle and start rowing. A few blisters will do you good. And while you’re at it, drop the Horst disguise. I want to see what you really look like.”

  A second later, Dillan shimmered in the moonlight. He became smaller, with narrow shoulders. I noticed that his head did not expand in any way. He didn’t seem to have the greater cranium of a psi-master. Was that odd? I didn’t know enough about the subject to know.

  He picked up a paddle, and he proved to be clumsy at it.

  “How did you teach me to paddle better when you’re so lousy yourself?” I asked.

  “There’s much you don’t understand.”

  “So, start explaining. We have time.”

  “I think we should concentrate on traveling as fast as we can to Eldon.”

  “Whoa, hold up there, Hercules. You told me you could help me free Horst. That means we have to head back to the Shrulls.”

  “Further thought has led me to conclude that that would be a bad idea for the both of us.”

  “Better tell it to me plainly,” I said.

  “From the insistence of Mordel’s mental efforts against me, I believe he has launched a full-scale hunt to capture you. That means the Shrulls have likely taken to the water. If Horst is alive, he will be with them in their dugout canoes.”

  “What do you mean if?”

  “The Shrulls might have killed Horst. Surely, you understand that.”

  “Wouldn’t Mordel keep him alive in order to learn more about me?”

  “The possibility exists.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Let me get this straight. You want us to race to Eldon because the teleporter is there.”

  “Is that what you do? You teleport from one planet to another?”

  “Is there an ancient ziggurat in Eldon?”

  “Yes.”

  I nodded. “Are there real mechs?”

  “Oh yes,” Dillan said. “Rud’s tale was a true one. He was a porter and he saw a mech.”

  That Dillan knew about Rud’s tale lent credence to his story about his engineering my escape. That still didn’t necessarily make him a good guy. “These mechs use human brains to function?”

  “The mechs are like giant robots. Do you know what a robot is?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “The ancients built mechs as weapons.”

  “Against whom?”

  “The alien invaders.”

  “In ancient times here on Kaldar?” I asked.

  “Before the Atomic War, anyway,” Dillan said.

  “Why the need for mechs exactly? Why fashion them to use human brains for function?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I snorted. “I’m sure you’re lying now. You’re trying to beat Mordel to the punch because you know why he fears the mechs so much. Did you know about the mechs before or after you went down into the deep place?”

  “It’s complicated,” Dillan said evasively.

  “Uh-huh. That just means you don’t want to answer me. That means you’re trying to hide something from me. Let’s get things in the open, shall we? That will be simpler. I’ll know the score and stop wondering if I’m doing the wrong thing in letting you live. Of course, if you don’t come clean, I’ll realize you’re trying to screw me and possibly Earth, too. Oh, and while we’re at it, how did Mordel contact Qiang on Earth?”

  “You’re not the simpleton you appear to be.”

  “You’re making me blush. Now, start talking, Dillan. Tell me the real situation or I’ll toss you into the lake for one last swim.”

  -32-

  “I’ll talk,” Dillan said. “First, though, can we land onshore? I need to clean up and dry…well, dry something vital.”