I exhaled again.

  I was in Antarctica, and now, I was going to have to deal with Qiang, the woman whose daughter had been killed in my presence, maybe because of my bad decision to throw young Mei into the hybrid car.

  I shook my head. Talk about sudden transitions. I’d been on an alien world, on Kaldar. Now, I was home on Earth, in subterranean Antarctica. I would have to adjust accordingly.

  -46-

  Soon enough, I reasoned out the logical course of action, and took out and switched on the baan. The neon-red energy bar gave me illumination in this subterranean realm of tunnels.

  I didn’t keep it on long. As I’d wondered earlier, I had no idea how long the baan would continue to function. Instead, I switched it on periodically and looked around.

  There wasn’t much new to report. I was in deep tunnels bored long ago in Antarctica. I wondered who’d made them. I wondered about ancient Mu, psi-masters, mammoth riders, saucer fliers and the Krekelen shape-shifters on Earth. Maybe it was time to buy another copy of Chariots of the Gods and reread it.

  As a kid, I’d devoured a bunch of those kinds of authors’ books and a few comics on the same topic. The ideas had been interesting to think about, but as I’d aged, I’d put away so-called childish things. Even 2001 with its black monolith had imagined alien influences on Earth. It had all turned out to be true, including psionics, which I’d read was supposed to be a pseudoscience.

  I could only wish that were so.

  Walking the cold tunnels of subterranean Antarctica gave me time to mediate on the latest journey. What did Kaldar, the events there and the people and new things mean to my greater fund of knowledge about all this?

  Krekelens and a few psi-masters had moved in the background of Earth’s history, and prehistory, too, of course. There had indeed been a few flying saucers with Draconian pilots. Now, we could add these Zero Stones to the mix. One at least had reached Earth or its moon. Many had reached one of Kaldar’s moons. I could also add the Shrulls to the continually growing list that included the giant hominid Shajoks as well as Ophidians and a nation of herd Neanderthals.

  How did that all play out on Planet Earth? Were the Zero Stones and saucer-flying Draconians outsiders to the rest? Did that mean Krekelens and psi-masters were insiders? That hadn’t seemed to be the case before. Maybe there were more than just two sides. Maybe there were three or four sides and realigning alliances throughout the centuries and millennia.

  The Zero Stones didn’t use the intergalactic teleporters, the obelisks and ziggurats. That was the main thing here. They’d used flying saucers to cross the void, and they’d caused the only atomic war I’d found so far on any planet.

  I nodded, feeling that was critical to understanding the Zero Stones. In all the other worlds, no one had fought a nuclear or atomic war.

  Well, one could argue that America had fought an atomic war, dropping two atomic bombs on Japan in 1945.

  I was talking about a great atomic exchange that devastated a planet. The Zero Stones seemed to have been behind the Atomic War on Kaldar. That war had hurled the humans there back into barbarism. A small select company of Zero-Stone users had remained intact, though, the Dark Brotherhood.

  What would McPherson and the others in our group decipher from all that?

  I had no idea. I continued to trudge through the tunnels, finding passage upward until I reached the ice tunnels.

  I’d put on the Kaldar leather gloves and tied the jacket closed. It lacked a zipper. I put one foot ahead of the other and started to really feel the cold.

  In my haste to leave Kaldar, I’d forgotten to pack food. I wouldn’t need water, as I could melt snow in my mouth. I suppose I could last several weeks without food, probably less in this bitter environment.

  I sighed, and I continued to trudge.

  Eventually, I reached the old station in the ice, the abandoned place where I’d met the military people last time. There was nothing here from that time. I went farther yet, shivering now from the intense cold.

  In the open pit where I could see stars in the heavens, I dared to take out the signal device and press the switch. I waited, shivering even worse, and did it again.

  Afterward, I retreated and then started to stagger faster. It was too cold here and my garments too slight. Without the leather jacket and gloves, and woolen hat, I’d have had no chance, though.

  I hoped I wouldn’t simply prolong the agony this way.

  I retreated farther than was probably good for me. I was burning up too many calories moving around so much. I couldn’t afford to freeze, though. I had to stay warm enough, and walking helped.

  I’d give McPherson twenty-four hours. I doubted she could be here any faster than that.

  But what if my signal device failed? What if it malfunctioned after being teleported twice?

  I shook my head later. Malfunctions hadn’t happened to anything else I’d carried during teleportation. I was worrying needlessly.

  I sat in the cold dark of a granite tunnel, waiting. Mentor had screwed me up with his delaying. By doing that, he’d also ensured I’d never return to Kaldar. If he was going to intern me, he should have gone for it whole hog from the start.

  There was a lesson there. Don’t use half measures. Maybe he’d been trying to be nice. Yet, his ultimate goal hadn’t been nice to me.

  I feel asleep thinking about that, and I must have dreamed…

  -47-

  I awoke confused, sitting up in the dark and shivering. What was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I see? Then it struck me. I was home on Earth. I’d made the transition.

  Groping in the dark, my gloved hands fell upon the baan. I took off a glove and felt it and the indentation where the little-finger width bar of energy extended.

  Only then did I switch it on.

  The neon-red forceblade extended two feet. It gave off harsh red illumination. I stood and moved back and forth.

  I couldn’t find anything to have caused my disorientation.

  Switching the forceblade off, I moved along the tunnel toward the icy part. I rubbed my arms. My stomach rumbled and I knew thirst.

  My nape hairs stood on end. I sensed something nearby. Becoming motionless, I listened, straining to hear…

  I heard a stealthy leathery step. Then, I heard deep breathing. Something was in the tunnel with me. I tried to pinpoint it, and when I thought I had, I stood poised as I switched on the baan.

  The forceblade elongated, and I didn’t see a thing. I squinted in the harsh red light, and I sprinted, thinking to surprise—I tripped over something—it felt like a big foot—and went flying. The baan left my hands and skidded across the floor.

  Something chuckled nastily.

  Terror struck me. What was this? Hands gripped my arm. I flailed madly and struck hard, hitting something where nothing was. With a howl, I kicked free and crawled on my hands and knees, reaching the baan, picking it up. I stood, whirled around and maybe my eyes showed craziness.

  There was a click, and a giant hairy hominid appeared before me. It was a towering, suited Shajok that I’d found last time on Tynar in the Canopus System. He wore leather moccasins and a strange belt with a switch in the center of a big round unit. In his other hand, he held one of the huge Shajok six-shooters.

  “Where did you come from?” I said.

  He cocked his apish head, and spoke.

  It took me a second. I recalled his language from the time I’d been there.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  “I’m Jake Bayard the Traveler. Who in the Hell are you?”

  “Ah. Jake Bayard. Yes. It is good I’ve found you…”

  Before my eyes, he dissipated, disappearing.

  I gaped in wonder. Was I asleep or awake? This felt like a dream. But why would I dream about a Shajok from Tynar?

  Jake Bayard, a voice called.

  I turned to see who it was, but there wasn’t anyone.

  I panted with my baan ready. Was I going mad? Was I still actually on Kaldar? Did the Zero Stones hold me captive and employ mental tricks against my mind?

  “Zero Stones,” I said, with insight.

  I concentrated, and as I’d done before, I severed the telepathic link.

  Abruptly, the voiced calling me ceased. And I realized this was a dream. Someone, a Zero Stone from Kaldar possibly, with the Brotherhood adept using an X-band, had reached across fifteen point eight-eight light-years to communicate with me. He’d done it while I slept.

  “Wake up, Bayard,” I shouted at myself.

  Groggily, my eyes opened. I lay in a dark granite tunnel in Antarctica, and I’d just had a psionic-invaded nightmare. The Zero Stone or the adept had used an image of a Shajok. This was not good. If the thing could attack me from Kaldar any time it wanted, I would have to go back there to slay the adept, smash the Zero Stone and destroy the X-band.

  No, no, that would not be good at all. I had to find some other way to protect myself while on Earth.

  I sat down, and checked the time. Five hours had passed. It would still be quite some time before McPherson showed up.

  Did I know it was an X-band-using adept from Kaldar? No. I presumed that, as it seemed like a logical deduction. But why or how had the adept or Zero Stone learned about Tynar Shajoks?

  “That’s the giveaway,” I whispered to myself.

  A little more pondering had me nodding. This felt like the time on the Planet of the Dead when I’d dealt with the Krekelens and Psi-master Spencer.

  Did that mean my enemy was in the tunnels with me and not sixteen light-years away on Kaldar? Could I have brought a Brotherhood adept across with me? Had one been waiting in Eldon for me to make the crossing and then followed close behind as Alvor the Sleek had once done in Antarctica?

  I frowned. If that were true that would seem to invalidate everything Mentor and Horst had told me. No. I doubted a Brotherhood adept had crossed to Earth following me.

  What then?

  I climbed to my feet. It was time to start searching the tunnels while I still had some strength left. Maybe the military people from last time had left food behind, or something behind I could use.

  Gripping my inert baan, I began to head up the passageway. If there was an enemy down here with me, I wanted to find and destroy him or them as soon as I could.

  -48-

  The icy cold was harder to bear than the stomach-cramping hunger. I went up and melted snow in my mouth. That took longer than I liked, and I was a shivering wreck by the time I staggered down to the less-freezing tunnels.

  I slept again, and if I dreamed, I didn’t recall anything about them.

  I had a feeling that I was seriously slowing down. I was tired, hungry and cold, always cold. When I wasn’t sleeping, I kept moving. I stayed warmer that way.

  Thirty-one hours after landing back in subterranean Antarctica, I had my first piece of good luck. I found a cache of iron-hard protein bars, along with a heavy blanket. Both proved godsends.

  I broke the first bar into pieces with my knife. Then, I popped each piece one at a time into my mouth, warming it enough to chew and swallow. I ate three bars before telling myself I needed to ration the food.

  My full stomach put me to sleep. The blanket wrapped around me made a world of difference. I slept like one dead, long and hard, and without any of the damned dreams.

  When I woke up, I had an idea I knew what had caused the first nightmare, the Zero Stone invasion. My random movements had likely saved me from a second encounter, along with the severing of mental or psionic linkage.

  How long did such severance last? Clearly, not forever, as over time, psi-able people were able to reach my mind again.

  Anyway, now that I was thinking clearer once more, I wondered if McPherson would be able to reach here near the South Pole. If not, I might be on my own again. In fact, if I was right about this, our witch-hunting group might depend solely upon me. If Qiang had gone off the reservation and joined the Zero Stones, she might have incapacitated the others of our group. That might mean Earth was open to Krekelen and psi-master manipulation, without a counterforce weighing against them.

  Was I inflating my worth? That was always possible. In any case, I moved about with greater caution and with more stealth. I also stopped often to listen carefully.

  Fifty-two hours after reaching Antarctica, with only four protein bars left, I knew McPherson had been delayed. She would have tried to reach here by now. That likely meant she’d been unable to make the journey.

  I did not name names in my mind, as that might open it to my hidden enemy. Instead, I went deeper into the tunnel complex. I no longer switched on the baan, as I didn’t want to give myself away.

  Seventy-three hours after landing back on Earth, when I sneaked up for a long drink of snow-water, I heard the scape of a boot on stone, and it came from ahead of me.

  I had the blanket wrapped around my shoulders and didn’t want to release it. It was cold up here near the ice tunnels, and I was sick of being cold. Still, I folded the blanket and put it under my left arm. I clutched the inert baan in my right gloved hand. A click of a switch would turn it on.

  As stealthily as I could, I tiptoed toward the sound. I heard it again, and then I heard a man grumble. I couldn’t hear what he said, but I heard the sound of his voice.

  My breath caught in my throat. It was eerie hearing voices down here in the stygian tunnels.

  “He’s supposed to be close,” someone said ahead.

  I gritted my teeth, and I increased my pace. I heard the clack of someone charging a machine gun.

  That caused my gut to clench. What was the best way to approach this?

  “Did you hear that?” a man said from ahead.

  I froze.

  “Hey, there’s something on the locator,” one of them said.

  “Let me see,” the other said softly.

  I dropped the blanket and moved fast.

  “It’s coming at us,” an unseen man said. “Do you think it’s Bayard?”

  “Bayard,” a man shouted. “We have you covered.”

  I was certain they wanted to capture me, and that might be my edge, as I only wanted to kill them. I pressed my thumb against the switch, and I broke into a sprint. If I hit a wall before the blade gave me light, I’d be dashed onto the floor and possibly knocked unconscious. I needed to hit them fast, though. Instead of that—my being knocked out—the two-foot energy blade appeared as if by magic.

  In the sudden illumination, I saw two men in combat armor holding assault rifles. I recognized them as the bastards who’d set up a roadblock from Qiang’s mountain. One of them had shot and slain Mei, Qiang’s daughter.

  “He’s here,” one of them said in a shoulder comm.

  “Stop,” the other shrieked as he raised the assault rifle.

  Then, I was upon them, slashing left and right. The sizzling forceblade worked perfectly, slicing and dicing the gunmen, cutting them into bloody pieces. Neither fired his assault rifle, as he’d become chunks of gory flesh. It was messy and brutal, and then it was over, the killers slain at last in the tunnels of subterranean Antarctica.

  -49-

  I clicked off the forceblade and stashed the baan in a deep pocket of my Kaldar jacket. I had one of their flashlights and used it to study their equipment.

  “What’s happening? Come in, Team One. Report.”

  I’d pried an earpiece from one of them, putting it into my left ear. I had the shoulder-comm equipment attached to my leather jacket.

  These two hadn’t struck me as Qiang’s people, but Krekelen-trained thugs. The implication seemed clear. I’d dealt with a psi-master earlier, not a Brotherhood adept or Zero Stone invading my dream. It was good to remember that there were more than two sides to all this.

  I collected rations, water bottles, assault rifles and some pistols. Not a bad haul for a quick killing-spree. The more interesting device was a flat screen, the locator, I was thinking.

  I would’ve grabbed their jackets and combat armor, but they were useless, chopped up by my nifty Kaldar forceblade. One of the helmets was another matter. The helmet had a lamp on front. I could definitely use that.

  “Team One, come in,” the man said through the earpiece.

  I wanted to answer and boast. Instead, I decided to use this to hunt them.

  If I were to guess, the Krekelens had put a squad down here to seize me on my return. The psi-master, if no one else, must have sensed it when I’d reappeared on the home ziggurat.

  They might have been wiser to use the psi-master to locate me in the tunnels instead of playing it fancy in my dreams. Then again, these were a maze of tunnels, and the secret doors often didn’t work for them.

  The hidden stone doors were Traveler friendly, which meant me.

  At that point, my newfound locator blipped.

  I stared at the slate. It blipped again, showing, I’m guessing, a group heading this way. They were coming fast, too.

  I thought about that and Krekelen methods. The psi-master could check team-members, right? If he couldn’t touch my mind anymore, he could touch theirs. In this instance, he should be able to tell the leader that Team One was dead, or not responding, in any case.

  I set the locator on the floor. Then, I examined my weaponry. I bet the assault rifles, and pistols, too, had Krekelen tracking devices in them.

  That got me thinking.

  I set the pistols and the assault rifles along the tunnel. Then, with a hand on a tunnel wall because it was dark again without the flashlight, I moved upward in the passage toward them.

  The abandoned locator had shown that my foes moved down to me. If they used tracking tech as I suspected they did, they’d see the locator, flashlight and weapons remaining stationary as if I were setting up an ambush against them.

  Would they be so easily fooled by that?

  I doubted it. I could hope, and maybe even plan for it. But to just leave it at that—

  I halted, waiting, breathing hard. I unscrewed a cap and drained one of the water bottles. I might have eaten a protein bar, but the process took too much time, and I could hear people coming toward me. They weren’t loud, but they hadn’t slowed enough to be quiet, either.