“What is the matter?” asked Zeno.

  Kree’s flame head flickered faster. “Can’t you feel it?”

  “Are you quizzing me?”

  “Yes. Can’t you feel it?” Kree shouted in alarm. “I sense Cronus. He is near. He must have found us.”

  “No,” Zeno moved, turning away from the dull ball of the third Sister and rushing to the viewing screen. Energy left her. The scene changed, no longer showing time and space, but the void. She searched the void, but couldn’t find any sign of Cronus.

  “You’re wrong,” Zeno told Kree. “The void is empty.”

  “He’s near, I tell you,” Kree whispered with dread. “I sense him.”

  “And I did say ‘eons,’” Zeno muttered. She thought carefully, realizing she couldn’t remember the past before Cronus as well as she’d like to. Maybe after five thousand years of captivity… “How did Cronus capture us the first time?”

  “What?” asked Kree.

  “The first time, the original—” Zeno felt something horrible then, the dread presence of Cronus. Could Kree have greater sensitivity to the evil one than she did?

  “He’s here,” Kree said, her flame-being diminishing intensity.

  Zeno peered at the screen. She didn’t see him in the void. She—

  On the screen, as if oozing out of the nothingness of the void, the great, planet-sized creature appeared, the green-glowing fungus patches brighter than she ever remembered.

  “We must prepare,” Kree said. “We must—run, Zeno! We must fleet the void. He wants our null-splitter. That’s what he’s after.”

  Zeno floated to the ship’s controls, but in that moment, she seemed to wade through a dense substance, slowing her advance.

  “No,” Kree moaned. “He’s here. Cronus is with us.”

  Zeno stared at Kree. That was nonsense. That was—

  An evil laugh vibrated throughout the control room. It sounded like Cronus. But he was outside the Dandelion. He was—

  “Zeno!” screamed Kree.

  Zeno turned around. To her horror, their Sister, the dull ball, had changed color. She had become the same awful green-glowing color as the fungus patches on Cronus. The green-glowing ball of energy rose from the deck, pulsating with power. Two eyes appeared, black oily eyes staring at them.

  “Hello, Sisters,” it said in Cronus’s dark voice. “I never got to say goodbye. Now is a good a time as any to fix that.”

  -9-

  Kree burst forth with an intense scream of fury and agony. The agony was a mental memory of what had seemed like an eternity in his power. Cronus had mocked and tormented them, and it had seemed as if nothing could change that. Their moment of freedom had felt oh so glorious.

  She wished Zeno had fled directly for home, for Enoy. She wished—

  Kree of the Flame had wished for many things in her long life. The one thing she wanted more than anything else was to remain free of Cronus. He was unlike anything in existence, and that included the death machines. Now, Cronus was back, and he would surely capture them and retake the Dandelion. He had used them, duped them—

  Kree screamed with fury and sadness at the futility of the situation. Cronus was unbeatable.

  Kree had been juggling a fireball for some time. It had grown stronger, hotter, bigger and more volatile. She now hurled the fireball at their forgotten Sister, who Cronus obviously possessed.

  The fireball sizzled in swift passage, and it struck their forgotten Sister.

  Their Sister bellowed with Cronus’s voice, and maybe that showed the extent of his control. He felt the unnamed one’s pain because he controlled or possessed her more thoroughly than should be possible.

  The green-glowing, floating ball of energy that had been their Sister burned as the fireball sizzled and roasted—

  “NO!” Cronus thundered.

  The ball of controlled energy turned icy cold as an intense artic blue color permeated the Sister of Enoy. The sizzling fire burning her weakened…weakened more—and it winked out.

  “That was a mistake,” Cronus said through the nameless Sister.

  “Eat this, monster!” Kree screamed, hurling a smaller fireball.

  An icicle grew from the nameless Sister, extinguishing the fireball in mid-flight. Shards of ice tinkled as they struck the deck.

  Zeno finally shook off her lethargy and disbelief. Cronus had tricked them. He had found them. He was in the control chamber with them, possessing the nameless one. Had that one even been truly alive anymore? The nameless one had been a Trojan horse.

  That was a human term. The Sisters of Enoy had a different idiom that meant a similar thing. In this context, that would suffice.

  Zeno did not scream with fury, with abandon. She had greater self-control than Kree, although the power of the fireball impressed Zeno. She was glad Kree had attacked with such passion. Still, perhaps Kree could only have done so against Cronus.

  Zeno concentrated as befitted one of high rank. Someday, she had planned to become an Archon of Enoy. It appeared as if that day would never arrive. Cronus was the reason she would fail.

  Dwelling on that, coldly, rationally hating it, she gathered her resolve. It was time to show the void monster the error of having used Sisters of Enoy. Zeno chanted an ancient litany. She would not survive the fight. That was clear. But she would never become his captive again. She would never undergo that indignity and suffer at his whims. That meant it was time for the ultimate bolt of power.

  Zeno concentrated, forgoing passion as Kree had used. Instead, she used logic and cold judgment. Cronus must pay. He must learn. She would not survive, but she would make her death mean something.

  “Cronus!” she shouted.

  The monster in possession of the nameless one stopped icing the weakening Kree. Kree no longer shouted, no longer threatened, but had been stubbornly fighting to remain alive.

  “Ready to surrender, Sister?” mocked Cronus.

  “Eat this,” Zeno said.

  She had already started the great unraveling—the unraveling of her very being. She fed her own life-essence into the bolt. She kept coherence only long enough to launch such a sizzling thing—she had feasted far too much on the ancient stores of vitality—that with a BOOM, and a ROAR, a shining white bolt of pure power zigzagged from the vanished form of Zeno. The bolt sped with unerring accuracy and slashed into the nameless Sister.

  Cronus attempted a last-second shield of ice. The slashing lightning-bolt smashed through the shield and tore into the ball of living energy. With a roar and the smell of electricity, the lightning bolt dissolved the essence of the weak Sister, the nameless one. The power bolt destroyed her in an orgy of violence, blowing her energy farther than the nameless one could contain.

  The power bolt also struck the intellect and possession power of Cronus. In that instant, the bulk of his intellect fled from the control chamber of the Dandelion of Enoy. Some of the intellect died, such had been the consuming power of the blast. Zeno had been strong, almost of Archon strength, and she had supped on raw vitality until drunk with power.

  Cronus was great. But there was a limit to his greatness.

  As Zeno perished and was no more—dying after millennia of life—the control chamber became bright and electric with the power of her passing.

  Cronus’s possessing power fled.

  Kree grunted as wild energy consumed part of her being. The intensity of the lightning blast startled her. She had never believed the commander had it in her.

  Kree did not want to die. Thus, she fled the terrible chamber, trying to stanch the flow of energy draining from her. She didn’t want to die. She wanted to live…

  She floated through corridors, fleeing, but the power, the organized energy continued to flow from her as if from a wound. She could not reorganize herself. She was stunned. She was unraveling even as she fled.

  “Zeno, please, don’t do this to me.”

  No one was doing it now. Either Kree could master her fear and horror of death, and try to reorganize what was left of herself, or she would die for good, never to return.

  -10-

  For a second time in recent memory, the intellect of Cronus fled back to his planet-sized material bulk. He was reeling in shock and pain.

  This was insufferable. He was Cronus. That meant “Giver of Pain,” not the receiver of it. There had only been one time in his life that he recalled such hurt. That had been when the One, the Power, had driven him to this place of horrible darkness. He had nightmares of that time. But he had never expected puny creatures like the Sisters to hurt his intellect so.

  He had forgotten some of the rules of possession. They were not physical laws such as some species invented after observing the effects of gravity. They were ways and customs, methods that shielded him from pain like this.

  The pain angered him, but not in a way to produce more strength. This anger weakened his resolve. He must never allow anyone to hurt him so personally and intimately again.

  Did that mean he must never again possess other beings? Well, he didn’t know about that. He had to do it with greater caution. Perhaps it would be wiser to use the blunt power of his material being. No one could hurt him intimately like that if he did it the blunt way.

  Still, he needed the null-splitter. That likely meant he had to squeeze his intellect to fit into the tiny ship of Enoy one more time. One of the Sisters still lived. He could sense her from here. She was frightened.

  Could he purchase her cooperation? The idea intrigued him. He could promise her many things—

  Wait! Something was terribly wrong. He sensed suicidal thoughts from the Sister of Enoy. She must have sustained damage during the fight. She was thinking…

  The green-glowing fungus patches brightened. Cronus didn’t want to employ such a spell now. He felt so damnably drained. Some of the initial pain had passed into dull throbbing. Hmm, the null-splitter was everything. He had to have it. On the other side of the void was Hawkins. He could feel the little prick over there.

  So be it.

  Cronus concentrated. With a swift thought, he propelled his intellect back at the drifting Dandelion of Enoy. It was time to grab the null-splitter. That meant it was time to deal with the dying, suicidal despairing Kree of the Flame.

  ***

  Kree had shrunk during the short interval of time. She zigzagged through the stone corridors of the Dandelion. Zeno was gone. The nameless Sister was no more. Cronus was out there. She could feel him watching. Did he know that she was heading for the null-splitter? It was time to destroy the device. It was the last thing she could do for Enoy. Cronus must remain a prisoner in the void. If he broke free—

  Kree shivered, and more fiery energy leaked from her dulling and shrinking form. She was an organized energy being. The organization came from her intellect. As that weakened, her form unraveled. It was as simple as that.

  “Kree!” an implacable male voice shouted, echoing down the corridors.

  “No,” Kree moaned. “No, no, please no, don’t let him be here.”

  “Kree,” Cronus shouted. “Let’s make a deal.”

  Kree desperately wanted to increase speed, but she could not. She felt so weak, so dizzy.

  Her form struck a stone bulkhead. She blinked with dull eyes in the slowly moving flame of her being. For a moment, the corridors vanished.

  “No!” she shrieked.

  The eyes reformed in her, and she saw more easily. That helped her as she continued to float, even as she realized that she moved more slowly than ever. This took too much concentration.

  “I’m coming, Kree!”

  She did not dare look back. She could hear him thudding down the stone corridors. He was remorseless. He would never quit. How could the giant monster squeeze into the Enoy?

  “Teach me about the null-splitter,” he shouted.

  Kree moaned in dread. Was she already too late? She wanted to sob, but that wouldn’t help her. Oh, damn Hawkins and his interference. If he hadn’t arrived in the void, they would have remained prisoners. That was a horrible fate, but at least Cronus would never have learned about the null-splitter. Kree felt responsible. She—

  “I see you, little flame,” Cronus said.

  The voice was too close. It felt as if the monster breathed on her shoulder, even though she didn’t possess one.

  Kree of the Flame whirled around. Her eyes in the flame widened in shock.

  A green-glowing thing that looked humanoid like a man stood there. It was an unhealthy green like radiation. It was green like slime that continuously dripped but started from the top. Why didn’t he drip onto the deck?

  “Hello, Kree,” the simulacrum of Cronus said in a loud voice.

  “How are you doing this?” Kree said.

  “I am Cronus. I can do anything I set my mind to.”

  Kree floated back.

  He took several steps closer, and a mouth appeared. It smiled in an obscene manner.

  “How can you see without eyes?” she asked.

  The mouth opened as Cronus chuckled. “This is fun. I hadn’t realized before that giving hope and then chasing it and squashing it could be so much fun.”

  “Please,” she said.

  He cocked his slimy head. “Yes? Please?”

  “Please don’t destroy me.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t want to die,” Kree wailed. She felt horrible saying this. But it was true. She wanted to live. She yearned to live more than anything.

  “Well, this is interesting. I want the null-splitter and you want to live. Hmm, what could you offer me in exchange for your life?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Think a little harder,” he suggested.

  “Please don’t make me betray the Sisters of Enoy.”

  “What do they have to do with it? I have no intention of going all the way to the center of the galaxy.”

  “No?”

  “No,” he said. “Such a journey sounds boring.”

  She was sure he was lying, but what if he was telling the truth?

  “I am telling the truth.”

  “You can read my mind?”

  “Of course,” he said, and that obscene mouth was smiling hugely now. It was so awful that the head lacked eyes.

  “What…what does the deal entail?” she asked.

  “You’ll have to board a shuttle and fly to me. I have a nice cozy room set up just for you.”

  “As a prisoner?” she whimpered.

  “Of course not, Kree, but as a special advisor to Cronus, that is, me,” he said, slapping a slimy hand against his broad slimy chest.

  She thought about that and considered the probability that he was lying.

  “Of course,” he said, “you and I can fight, and I can kill you. That’s it for you, then. No more Kree of the Flame. Do you want that?”

  “No,” she whispered.

  “Then head for the shuttle,” he said. “I’ll follow you.”

  “What about the Dandelion?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “You just make sure to keep my happy. Do that and you’ll have it better than you can believe.”

  This had to be a lie. And yet, if she lived… Kree did not think the rest. She suppressed that in herself and kept her thoughts as meek as possible.

  “Oh, that’s good, Kree. Now get moving, girl, before I change my mind.”

  “Yes, Cronus,” she said, floating toward the hangar bay.

  He watched her, and then he began to walk after her. She couldn’t believe she was doing this, but she didn’t see what other choice she had if she wanted to stay alive to thwart Cronus’s evil will.

  -11-

  Aboard the Nathan Graham, Lugo tossed back and forth on his cot. He was having a nightmare, a dreadful panorama that included being stuck in the void.

  He used to be a tough cage-fighter, and then a thug who taught fools why most people did not run to loan sharks for cash and why one most certainly did not pay late.

  That was all in the past. He was an empath. What that meant in reality was that he, a human, possessed slight extrasensory perception. The Kames were so good and kind, and united. He had missed their presence while in the void. He had been certain that once out of the dreadful realm, the Kames would flow back into his consciousness.

  That had not happened. Oh, no. He was alone out here in the red dwarf star system. He was alone, and he hated it. He wanted to belong again, to feel the peaceful unity of the mass mind of the Kames.

  Instead, he slept in his room aboard the Nathan Graham. As he slept, his dreaming mind journeyed, tugged from his body by an unseen force. He did not want to go. He wanted to stay here—

  “Lugo, I need help.”

  “Kames?” Lugo asked in his sleep.

  “No, Lugo. I’m on the other side of reality.”

  In the Nathan Graham, in Lugo’s chambers, he groaned and tossed in his sleep. He felt the tug, and despite his dreaming state, he was certain the tug was all too real.

  “I don’t want to go onto the other side,” he said.

  “You must. I’m trapped. Cron—”

  “What were you going to say?” Lugo asked.

  “Don’t make this so difficult. I’m sick inside as it is.”

  The tug increased. Despite his sleeping state, Lugo knew someone was forcing him. He resisted, but he was only human. His extrasensory power was weak. The tug yanked his unconscious perception out of his body, through the veil of time and space and back into the void. The unconscious perception looked like a ghostly human form. Lugo’s unconscious mind needed a sense of reference, and the ghostly form gave him one.

  On the cot in his room, Lugo moaned with horror. The nothingness of the void struck him horribly. His unconscious questing mind began to unravel.

  “Not yet, you moron of a human,” someone said. “You must hurry to me. I need help. I must tell someone.”

  Lugo’s dreaming mind saw a shape in the realm of nothingness. That meant something was there, and his dreaming, questing, ghostly form shot to it like an arrow. He recognized that it was planet-sized and had huge continents of green-glowing patches.