Carn Dar had watched everything. He straightened from his huddled, furry mass and looked at Maddox.

  Maddox raised his visor.

  “You defeated the Inquisitor,” Carn Dar said.

  “I did,” Maddox said. “You don’t have to fear it anymore.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Carn Dar replied, “but I am remembering much more. We are in dreadful danger here.”

  “Can you be more specific?”

  “I can, but first we must protect ourselves from more of the Inquisitors appearing. The control room, we must reach it while we’re able.”

  “Do you know which direction the control room lies?” Maddox asked.

  Carn Dar looked down one corridor, then another. “This way! Follow me, hurry!” The Ardazirho broke into a clumsy lope.

  Maddox and the others followed, running past the smoking wreckage of platforms. Carn Dar panted like a hound, looking in terror to the right and left. Suddenly, he threw his arms before his furry face as three motes of light appeared from ahead.

  “Visors up!” Maddox said.

  Everyone raised their visors just in time. The motes of light began to flash brilliantly in various colors.

  Maddox and Riker fired at two of them, causing them to vanish. Ludendorff shot the other, and it vanished.

  “We’re definitely destroying them,” Ludendorff said. “I’m glad I suggested we take the blasters. Slug throwers would do nothing to them. I wonder how many light motes there are here.”

  “As long as the scooper works,” Carn Dar said, “the Inquisitors will keep coming. We must reach the control room now. Everything depends upon it, everything I tell you.”

  “I suspect you’re remembering more,” Ludendorff said.

  “Yes, yes, now follow me.”

  “No,” Maddox said, “tell us where to go. We’ll lead and you can run behind us so we can protect you from more motes.”

  “Yes,” Carn Dar said, telling them his plan.

  Soon, they continued down the corridors.

  -50-

  Maddox heard a terrible whine. He turned around, and there was a wound in Carn Dar’s side. The Ardazirho collapsed onto his back, placing his hand on the wound, no doubt to staunch the flow of blood.

  “No!” Maddox shouted.

  At the same time, Riker aimed and fired three blaster shots. A mote of light dodged the first two blasts, but succumbed and vanished to the third.

  “Where did it come from?” asked Maddox.

  “It oozed out of the bulkhead,” Ludendorff said. “Riker drew and fired, but not fast enough. The mote flashed. Something in its light became substantial and struck Carn Dar in the side.”

  “Keep watch for more,” Maddox told Riker.

  The sergeant nodded, trying to scan everywhere at once.

  “Meta,” Maddox said, “help Riker keep guard.”

  Meta drew her blaster and went back to back with Riker so they could cover the entire area.

  “Can you patch him up, Professor?”

  Maddox and Ludendorff knelt beside a panting, bleeding Carn Dar.

  “Let me take a look,” Ludendorff told Carn Dar.

  “It’s no good,” Carn Dar said. “I feel myself waning away. You tried to save me, and you did well. I…I…”

  Maddox took off his helmet and removed the headband with the anti-telepathy box. Immediately, he felt a strain against his psyche, a desire to rake rubies and to obey. Resisting the pressure, Maddox placed the headband around Carn Dar’s furry skull.

  The Ardazirho cried out and stared at Maddox in shock and then, seemingly, in horror. The furry hands clutched Maddox’s left arm. “No, I…” The Ardazirho seemed as if he was going to faint.

  There was a hiss as Ludendorff injected something into the Ardazirho’s bloodstream, using an emergency hypogun. It took perhaps forty-five seconds before Carn Dar began to blink and his eyes brighten.

  “I perceive what has happened to me,” Carn Dar whispered. “I perceive my folly and that of the Mastermind and all that has transpired. My friend, Captain Maddox, you are a warrior indeed. Did you not tell me before that you were an enemy of the Mastermind?”

  “To a degree,” Maddox said. “We fought once.”

  “It was a noble fight, I warrant.”

  “Two enemies faced one another honorably,” Maddox said, divining the thrust of Carn Dar’s thought.

  “Honorable foes fight as they should,” Carn Dar whispered. “But not as these entities have fought against us. I remember…I recall things I heard long ago. If you knew how long we have been raking the damned rubies…”

  Carn Dar looked up sharply at Ludendorff.

  The Methuselah Man pressed a bandage against the Ardazirho’s side. He then pressed a medikit against him. It must have pricked Carn Dar, the reason he’d turned.

  “I’m patching you up the best I can,” Ludendorff said.

  “Thank you,” Carn Dar said. He turned to Maddox. “Those are more than rubies on the obsidian plain. They are energy nodes. Not while they lie on the plain of obsidian, but once they go through the scooper, once transferred and ejected with positronic energy. The energized rubies are transferred to a place—”

  Carn Dar gritted his fangs, panting afterward.

  “Rest,” Maddox said.

  “No,” Carn Dar said. “I might die soon. I must explain. The energy the rubies supply… The rubies power a gigantic engine. You will no doubt think me mad when I tell you this, Captain, but it is the truth. The others, those who use the rubies, attempt to pierce dimensions. Have you ever heard of such a thing?”

  “I have,” Maddox said. “Since then, I’ve wanted no part of dimensional travel.”

  “I understand. Omegan, the Builders and the Yon Soths were all tricked. It was a monumental jest except to the good officers who worked with me in the service of the Mastermind. I was an Intelligence operative in the Mastermind’s service. We were sent to retrieve these so-called Seekers, but they are not what anyone thinks. Do you understand that much?”

  Maddox glanced at Ludendorff, who raised his white eyebrows.

  “Do you feel better?” Maddox asked. “We were trying to patch you up.”

  “It’s no good,” Carn Dar said. “I have wasted away these many centuries. It’s hard to know anymore the length of time I’ve endured. I’ve worked and raked for so long. I’ve been taken to the great—what you call the scooper. That is a joke indeed, a grand and glorious jest. Yet perhaps it is apt.” He set his head back and howled forlornly.

  “Conserve your strength, my friend.”

  “No, no, you must listen, Captain. You must listen to what I have to tell you. I only have so long, and I fear there are only a few other ways for you to learn this truth. Omegan is a devilish device, an evil thing, a betrayer of all that it once stood for. It is a Builder artifact. Are you aware of the term?”

  “Yes.” Maddox glanced at Ludendorff, who nodded in a knowing, perhaps even a smug way. Maddox didn’t scowl or laugh but centered his attention on Carn Dar.

  “Tell us then,” Maddox said. “I feel you want to get this off your chest.”

  “I die,” Carn Dar said. “I’m going to the next realm of existence, whatever lies beyond this one. Do you believe in such a thing, Captain Maddox?”

  “I do,” Maddox said.

  “Aeeiii! We came here seeking the Seekers, engines of war, but we had no idea what they really were. The others are more like those of Leviathan than anything else in existence. From what I was able to learn, they are part machine and part organic, but they are also destroyers. They suck up life. They leave deserts behind them, and an evil one controls them. They feed him. He is an entity of evil that makes the Yon Soths look kind. He would devour our dimension, starting with our galaxy. He seeks entrance in this region of the Orion Arm. It is a haunted region of space, the Aquila Rift. I know that is what you call it. I have learned much, and it is so good to have my mind freed after millennia of mental enslavement.

  “Did Omegan give you any stellar coordinates?” Carn Dar asked suddenly.

  “Would the coordinates have been on a sunken saucer ship?” Maddox asked.

  “Describe the occupants of the saucer ship to me,” Carn Dar said.

  “They looked like squids.” Maddox explained what a squid was.

  “Yes, that is the star system,” Carn Dar said. “That is the watery planet. The alien squids, as you call them, were instrumental in first using the cosmic drill. They used it to break through the fabric of dimensions. The first emissaries of the Seekers came through in response. They are the ones who set it up and tricked all of us.”

  Carn Dar began to pant.

  Maddox looked at Ludendorff.

  Ludendorff touched the medikit to Carn Dar’s side. The small instrument beeped. Ludendorff checked the display. He looked at Maddox.

  “I dare not give him another stimulant. It might kill him.”

  “Can you override that?” asked Maddox.

  “I can but I won’t,” Ludendorff said. “Carn Dar might live if we let him rest. We don’t want to kill him.”

  Carn Dar revealed his fangs. It might have been an Ardazirho smile. “It doesn’t matter. I must tell you the bitter truth. We used Yon Soth pathways as the Mastermind had taught us. We came here to this place as well as to others. The others from the next dimension worked for the Seekers. They tricked us. They tricked all of us as they set a process into motion.”

  Carn Dar swallowed dryly, panting afterward.

  Maddox offered the Ardazirho a canteen.

  Carn Dar shook his head. “Listen, the scooper has been sending the irradiated rubies to the water world. There, they power the great engine. There, I warrant, other ships have gone to weigh in the balance until finally the day comes when the breakthrough occurs. The Seekers from the other dimension will trade places with the mass of waiting vessels. Did Omegan try to send you to that place?”

  “It did,” Maddox said.

  “You’d have been slain or enslaved and sent to different areas, perhaps even across to the other dimension there to feed the evil that awaits and attempts to come through. No, Captain, you must flee the Aquila Rift. There is nothing that I know of that can destroy those in the water world. There are some of the Seeker elements there.”

  “Shouldn’t we destroy the scooper?” Maddox asked.

  “If you can, do it,” Carn Dar said. “Destroy Omegan as well if you can. It has elements the others have given it. The Aquila Rift is haunted and evil. I wish the Mastermind knew of this. But perhaps he does know, for none has ever come from the Ardazirho service to rescue us. You rescued me, Captain Maddox. I appreciate that greatly. You kept the motes from regaining control of my mind and putting me back into their dreadful service.”

  “Try to rest,” Maddox said.

  “I tell you these things not because I have any love for you or your kind, Captain. I tell you these things because I hate the evil that enslaved me most of my life, raking the horrific rubies and enlarging the dimensional opening. It would take perhaps all of Leviathan and all of Star Watch’s fleets combined to destroy what is on the water world. They have elements there, and they have the power the irradiated rubies have given them. It is so much more than what you can imagine. But as long as they do not have enough, in time, millennia, what they have will dissipate.”

  Carn Dar snorted. “Will those on the other dimensional side quit and try to come through elsewhere? Buying time, Captain. That is what it is all about. You must buy our universe time. You must buy your people time. Perhaps, eventually, you will invent weapons powerful enough to defeat the Seekers.”

  Carn Dar began to cough, a deep, racking cough.

  Maddox had heard enough coughs in his life to know the Ardazirho was near death.

  Carn Dar spoke of a transfer station that Maddox and the others could use to regain the rogue planet of Omegan. From there, they could return to Victory.

  “Are there other stations we can go to?” Ludendorff asked Carn Dar.

  “Maybe, but you would get lost without me.”

  “Then hold on,” Ludendorff said. “Contain your energies, man.”

  “I am not a man.” Carn Dar said, breathing rapidly with a rattle in his throat. “Listen, Maddox, I do not know all the entities in this grand conspiracy. But they are many and varied, and each has its own plans. How you ended up here is a mystery indeed.”

  Abruptly, Carn Dar turned his head and breathed what might have been his last.

  Ludendorff adjusted the medikit, pressing it against the Ardazirho’s side. It hissed as it injected him with drugs.

  “Might as well try it now,” Ludendorff said. “He’s dead if we do nothing.”

  Carn Dar continued to breathe, albeit shallowly, although he was now unconscious.

  “Preposterous, don’t you think?” Ludendorff said. “That was a preposterous story. I believe his weakened state has distorted his mind or his memories, or perhaps both.”

  “We can check out some of it,” Maddox said. “We need to find the scooper’s control room.”

  “What about Carn Dar?” Meta asked, looking down at the Ardazirho. “We can’t just leave him here.”

  “Right,” Maddox said. “Riker, we’re going to carry him. If Carn Dar lives, we can use his knowledge.”

  “Is that the only reason to try to save him?” Ludendorff asked.

  “No,” Maddox said. “He’s brave, and I like to help the brave any way I can. Let’s do this.”

  -51-

  They followed the directions Carn Dar had given and opened several hatches. One proved impossible to open from this side. Ludendorff used his teleporter, disappearing and then opening the locked hatch from the other side. In time, they entered a large control chamber. It was close to the chamber where an Inquisitor had used a dais to teleport Maddox and Meta back to the cavern on the rogue planet.

  Ludendorff went to the banks of controls and began to manipulate them. Soon, he shook his head. “I don’t know what they do or how to operate them. This is baffling.”

  Maddox glanced at the sleeping Carn Dar. “I wish we had more time. Can you wake him, Professor?”

  “Is that proper?” Meta asked.

  “We’re out of time,” Maddox said. “We must do what we can while we can.”

  “Are we sure we’re out of time?” she asked.

  “I feel that,” Maddox said.

  Meta looked guiltily at the Ardazirho. “It’s not right. We could be killing him doing this.”

  Maddox knelt beside Carn Dar. “Wake up,” he said, gently shaking the Ardazirho’s shoulder.

  Carn Dar smacked his lips as his eyelids fluttered. He opened bloodshot eyes. He frowned. “Oh. Captain Maddox, right?”

  “How are you feeling?” Maddox asked.

  “Exhausted,” Carn Dar said.

  “I’m surprised he’s awake,” Ludendorff said.

  “Maybe the property that allowed him to live all this time is still operating,” Meta said.

  Carn Dar worked up to a sitting position and looked around. “You’re in a Portal Chamber. Good. We can do this then.”

  “Does that bank of controls look familiar to you?” Ludendorff asked, pointing at them.

  “Help me up, please.”

  Maddox helped Carn Dar stand. Together, they shuffled to the banks of controls.

  “Let me see,” Carn Dar said as he touched his lower snout. He pressed a switch, pulled a handle and manipulated several more buttons.

  All of a sudden, a portal opened before them, showing a place they could jump through to.

  “Dare we try it?” Ludendorff asked.

  “No!” Meta exclaimed, rushing forward. “Do not try it!” She took a ferocious grip of Captain Maddox, holding him back.

  Carn Dar turned a dial, and the portal snapped shut.

  “We know the controls work,” Ludendorff said. “That looked like a Yon Soth pathway.”

  “A modified one,” Carn Dar said, sounding winded.

  “Can you use the controls to create a portal window?” Ludendorff asked. “Can you make a screen so we can study where we could go?”

  Carn Dar frowned at the controls. He began to manipulate. Several minutes later, he straightened, although it seemed to pain him.

  “I believe I can show you the water world from space,” Carn Dar said. “I remember the coordinates well enough, even though I have no idea how many centuries have passed since I learned them.”

  Maddox and Ludendorff exchanged glances. Maddox raised his eyebrows in a questioning way. Ludendorff nodded.

  Maddox turned to Carn Dar. “Please do so.”

  Carn Dar manipulated the controls. Before them, a smaller portal opened. It shimmered as if covered or fronted with glass. Through it, they looked through a spaceship’s viewing port at a close water world.

  “It’s beautiful,” Meta said.

  Maddox stepped closer to the ‘window.’

  The water planet was Earth-sized, a ball in space with many hues of blue and blue-green. Clouds drifted in places. There didn’t seem to be any land, no browns or solid greens, in any case. There was ice on the poles, however.

  The terrestrial planet possessed a ring like Saturn’s bands. Instead of dust and ice, this band or ring was a brilliant red, in places sparkling with reflected starlight. That likely meant trillions of fist-sized rubies carefully raked from the obsidian ground of the Ruby Planet, sucked up and transported via a portal from the scooper. How long had this taken? The ring was beautiful and no doubt functional, as well. Taken together, the blue-green of the planet and the red of the ring—it was a spectacle indeed.

  “Look over there,” Ludendorff said.

  The planet lacked a moon, although at first one didn’t suspect that. Instead of a moon, there were masses of spaceships bunched together in a bee-like swarm at a moon-length orbit around the planet. Closer inspection revealed that the spaceships were wrecks. How many wrecked ships were there? It had to be tens of thousands at least, possibly hundreds of thousands. There were big vessels and small ones, and endlessly different designs. Carn Dar had been right. This was a graveyard of spaceships: some blasted half apart, others practically intact, and no doubt from many different eras.