Part Five: Gates, Keys, and Whispers in the Dark

"Personal log, Stardog Commander Seth Goddard, commanding officer of the Christa. Day 1215 of our journey to reach the Sol system. It's been... Seven days since Suzee and Connor Macfarlane were lost in the destruction of the other Christa, seven days of us wandering on the border of Spung space, trying to get back on course. There's almost no chance of our ever finding these two lost crewmates, even if we could pull them back into this reality... They could end up anywhere. Thelma claims that if someone were hurled into a foreign reality, they would gravitate towards elements closest to their own reality... Apparently, the same thing would happen if someone were sent into another dimension, such as where Suzee came from..."

Goddard stopped in the middle of his entry. Someone was using the buzzer on his door.

"Pause log." The compupad complied instantly.

"Yes?" He asked, raising his voice.

"Commander," it was Miss Davenport. He certainly recognized that voice by now. "We need to talk."

Goddard got up from his real oaken desk, placed in the corner of what was apparently the former captain's quarters, heading towards the door. He often wondered how these Lumanians had gotten a hold of real Earth oak, especially an antique desk like this one. Not that it mattered much, but little mysteries help to keep one sane on long space trips...

He opened the door, and looked down to see Miss Davenport standing there, a worried look on her face.

"Is something wrong?" He asked.

"It's about Catalina, Commander. The new Catalina, that is. She doesn't try to fit in with the other students, and refuses to be anywhere near Radu for any length of time. It's very troublesome, since she can use his strength in a great deal of her work in engineering. And during lessons, she has proven herself to be a very capable student, but she refuses to do any real work, since, to her, it's 'not important'. She's too independent, too quiet, and entirely too introverted. If she doesn't open up..."

"I know. She could become a danger to herself and others. Well, I'll talk with her. Maybe a little speech on the need for teamwork will do some good."

"Maybe," Davenport said, under her breath, as Goddard left down the corridor, "and maybe not."

Connor was walking through the streets of the city, trying to find Suzee in the crowd. It'd been six days since she'd taken off from her house one morning and no-one had seen her since. Connor and Catalina had spent every day since combing the city, on the principle that Suzee would not have left, since she had no way of surviving out in the great expanses of Yensidian wilderness.

Suzee's family hadn't been seen since the day of the attack, and no one in the city was sure why. Catalina had suggested that they not call the police: The authorities on Yensid are not notoriously effective, mostly since there is almost no crime. Trannik had returned to his home in the foothills beyond, claiming he would return soon. He apparently had access to some resources they didn't, and had promised to use them to help find the errant young woman. And Koan had also disappeared, all the better in Connor's mind, since he didn't feel much like troubling the people of this world with the results of his releasing all of his pent-up rage.

He was also too preoccupied with the search for Suzee. He wasn't sure why, but he knew that he just had to find her.

Koan walked into the large, dark chamber. The door slid back into place behind him with a quiet whirr-ing sound. As he moved deeper into the chamber, spotlights flared to life above him, shutting off as he passed. A massive spotlight lit the center of the chamber, where the individuals he was meeting waited. A cold smile played across his lips as he though of the Plan, the grand design that would give him what he wanted...

"You are

late." One of the figures stated. As Koan stepped finally into the lighting, he finally got a good look at the figure who spoke.

The central figure, the leader of the group, was a Spung. He wasn't very tall, in fact, he was about the same height as Koan, who was short, even for a human. He had a fierce look to him, which gave him a presence beyond his stature. His voice was clear and commanding, menacing, but with a slight honeyed tone, a voice of incredible malice. Like most of his kind, the Spung was scarred from battle after battle. His right arm glinted metallic, an obvious prosthetic. And, like his two gargantuan flanking guards, he was armed, but with a lightning scepter, and insidious weapon, outlawed by all civilized peoples.

The Spung were, most certainly, not civilized.

"You are late." The Spung repeated, "Warlord Shank does not like to be made to wait."

Commander Goddard stood once again on the command post of the Christa, where Harlan and Radu were on watch. There was still a few hours until he would meet with Catalina, and he just couldn't sleep. And as he watched Harlan and Radu at work, he realized what had been bothering him for so long. He had previously thought that the reason he couldn't call his crew kids was because of their experiences, but it was more than that. They really were adults... The fact that it had been three years hit him like an avalanche. He suddenly felt older...

And then, inexplicably, he started to laugh. It was a deep laugh, the kind that starts in the belly and works its way up.

Harlan and Radu both turned and looked at him at the same time.

"He's snapped." Harlan said, under his breath.

Radu started laughing, too.

Catalina walked through the corridors of the Christa, her long hair bobbing as she stepped. Thelma was alongside her, moving at her usual jerky android pace. They were heading towards the classroom, where Commander Goddard wanted to have a "discussion" with Cat.

"Thelma," Cat ventured to say, "do you really believe that Connor and this 'Suzee' are actually alive?"

"Oh, yes," the android responded, "most certainly. I managed to download much of the information myself from your reality contained, and am aware of the events and history of that reality. I am also aware that the Christa herself is almost entirely consistent between the two realities. She would, most definitely, have used every capability of her systems to save any passengers. If, in her own destruction, she could have provided enough power to break the barrier between..."

Unfortunately, Catalina was no longer listening. They had arrived at the classroom. Catalina entered and sat down, while Thelma stood inside the doorway. Commander Goddard, already at the teaching podium, began a long speech about the need for teamwork. Cat, however, tuned him out. She was hoping, praying, that she would see Connor again, alive...

"She's not in the city." Connor declared, when he and Catalina met up again in the city square.

Catalina agreed with him, though she remained silent. She was worried about her friend, but if she wasn't inside the city, there was simply too much wilderness for her to be lost in... They probably would never find Suzee...

"That means we have to go look for her outside of the city," he continued.

Cat looked at him, astonished.

"WHAT?"

The next day, Connor and Catalina were moving away from the city, in the direction of Trannik's cave.

Catalina, being a city person, was not happy about this little hike. It wasn't that the Yensidian wilderness wasn't pretty, it's just that she preferred to admire it from a distance. And, since it was summer on Yensid, there were the bugs, and the heat, and... It was all very unpleasant.

Connor, however, took it all in stride, with the stoicism a painful life brings. His freshly cleaned Starcademy uniform, minus the jacket (something he was glad for), was all dark grey and black. It matched the moods that prevailed that day.

The two of them spoke very little, Catalina out of discomfort and the feeling that she would never see her good friend Suzee again. Connor because he didn't know what to say to this other Catalina. He had no idea what to do.

It was a long, silent, miserable trip.

In the foothills, Trannik was checking his traps. He was waiting for Connor to show up: He knew, he'd always known, that Connor would arrive at his cave, searching for Suzee.

Not long now, he thought, no, not long. Soon, soon they will pass through the Gate...

Of course, didn't know about the Gate, not yet, but they would. He would tell them, when they arrived. Connor, Suzee, and Catalina; they all had parts to play in what was to come.

Trannik knew, though, that his part was almost done. But the greatest part of his work was yet to come. Looking around, he was satisfied that he was alone. He sat down, and entered a meditative trance. He extended the tendrils of his thoughts, across space, and into another dimension... To find the mind of someone receptive, someone with the same gifts as his, someone who could see the future like himself, someone with whom he'd communicated before...

Elmira, his thoughts called, Elmira, I must speak with you...

Radu's sleep was troubled. In his dreams, he saw an incredible fleet, thousands of ships, all of Spung design. Adding to his fear, these ships melded much more advanced technology, technology the likes of which he saw every day... On the Christa. This armada of techno-organic monstrosities, each vessel like a horrific demon, attacked the Sol system. UPP ships were crushed like ants, and nothing slowed the fleet's advance. To Uranus, to Saturn, to Earth...

He woke up, screaming, a cold sweat running down his face. He felt like he'd been dropped in a tubfull of cold water.

Bova and Harlan stirred...

Radu wasn't used to being that afraid, having that sense of incredible danger, not to himself, but to every free being in known space, even beyond...

He knew where the vision had come from, too. He could feel Elmira's presence in his mind, knew she had forseen this, and used their spiritual connection to show it to him, so he could prepare, and...

"And what? Stop it?" He asked the universe, in an Andromedan whisper.

His only response was a snore form Bova.

Elmira's prophecy about him, three years ago, came to mind...

"Noble Radu, strong and brave, those who scorn you, you will save..."

And, more disturbingly... "...Hero added to your name..."

Elmira. The thought of her brought up conflicting emotions in him. On one hand, she was a Spung, part of the empire which had enslaved his people, used them to fight the humans...

On the other hand, the way he felt, even being around her, the lightheadedness...

Do she and I really have a destiny together?

Then, the event of a week ago came to mind; the killcruiser from another reality, the Warlady Elmira who commanded it... Could she really be capable of that? Is there a chance she could take after her father? Radu hoped not.

His reverie, however, was broken by the sudden illumination of the bunkroom's lighting, and Thelma's entry... it was time to start the day.

Hopefully, not their last day.

At breakfast, Radu was even quieter than usual. Harlan was worried about him. Despite their rocky beginnings, and occasional problems, he and Radu had genuinely become friends during their voyages towards home.

However, Harlan really didn't feel like dealing with another cranky person on this trip. They'd all been somber and morose over the last week, with Suzee's loss, And the new, Earther Catalina avoided everyone, and still mourned the loss of her friend, Connor. Harlan, though, while not as irrepressibly cheery as Rosie, was still a very resilient individual. While he'd reacted worst towards Suzee's departure, he'd also recovered first. He had thought that Radu was doing okay, but, it seemed that he was wrong.

An irritable Andromedan is not on anyone's "favourite things in the universe" list.

Then, to the utter surprise of everyone, even Radu, Catalina walked in. She walked over to the food wheel, silently, and dialed up breakfast. Rosie came in behind her. Cat sat down at the table with the others, and started eating.

The rest of them were in shock. Catalina, this Catalina, always either ate before, or after everyone else. This appearance at mealtime had them all stunned.

Harlan got the distinct feeling that this was not going to be a normal day.

Connor and Cat trudged through the foothills, under an overcast sky. It was uncommon to see such a sky on Yensid, which usually had beautiful weather, and there was a chill wind blowing in from the north. It was, in all probability, going to storm.

Connor stopped to take a drink from his canteen, while Cat noticed something in the undergrowth. She moved off the path, though Connor barely noticed. He was about ready to get going again, and was turning around to tell Cat so, when he heard a tearing sound, a scream, and a crash.

He couldn't see Cat anywhere.

"Nuts."

Koan and Warlord Shank met again in the large chamber the next day. Shank was always flanked by his two gigantic Spung guards, though Koan was sure he could deal with all of them, if he had to.

After all, he thought, they're only Spung...

"Suzee has been dealt with, Warlord."

"How was thisss done?"

"She has disappeared into the Yensidian wilderness. She has no means of support, no way to survive. She will be dead, some way, shortly."

"Good. Without her, the prophecy cannot come to pass. We shall not be thwarted, this time."

Shank started laughing, a cold, mirthless, serpentine laugh. It sent a chill down even Koan's spine.

"Soon," Shank went on, "soon, the UPP will fall, and Warlord Shank shall rule all of known space!"

Connor crept slowly to the spot where he heard Catalina fall. Just inside the underbrush, he saw a small, glittering object on the ground, on the far side of a small hole. He guessed that that was where Cat fell.

He peered closer at the shining object. He'd seen it before...

Moving around the hole, he stooped down and picked it up. Examining it more closely, saw that it was a bracelet, and, more importantly, the bracelet Suzee had been wearing just before she'd run off...

Putting the bracelet in his pouch, Connor sat down on the ground, legs in the hole.

Well, here goes nothing...

He slid down, into the darkness below.

Catalina picked herself up off the ground. She hurt from head to toe, and she didn't have the bracelet. She was most definitely not in a good mood. Looking around, there wasn't much light, except coming down from the hole above, which was at the other end of a twenty-foot, sloped dirt tunnel, and some sort of phosphorescent moss on the walls of the cave..

Reaching into her pouch, she pulled out a small flashlight, which she flicked on. Shining the light around, she noticed that she was on a ledge above a large underground cavern. Peering over the edge of her precipice, her light barely reached to the floor of the cave.

Scanning the cave again, she noticed that there were alot of spider webs. Big spiderwebs.

"Oh no," she said, quietly.

Sliding into the hole, Connor found himself skidding down a tunnel that was only slightly larger around than he was. He was also moving a little fast. Trying to slow himself down by pressing against the walls didn't work, they were too slippery. He braced himself for landing, which he guessed would be a little painful.

He hit down, and rolled, to cushion his impact. He stopped rolling when he ran into something, a something he knocked off the ledge.

He heard a short scream.

Getting up, he saw a beam of light swaying wildly, originating below the ledge. He looked over the side, and saw Catalina, stuck on some sort of web, waving her arms in an attempt to work herself free.

"Are you okay?" He called down.

"NO!" Came the angry reply.

"Hang on. I'll find a way to get you loose."

He pulled himself back from the edge, and started rooting through his pouch, which contained assorted survival gear, designed for use in the Yensidian wilderness. Unfortunately, there wasn't any sort of catalyst for dissolving webbing...

His hand closed on the survival knife, a precaution he'd been against...

"I just hope this stuff only sticks to skin..."

As he got up, he heard something...

"What was that?" He wondered aloud.

Cat was definitely stuck.

Serves me right, she thought, with a hint of sarcasm, for dressing appropriately to the season...

Her legs and arms were stuck, where her t-shirt and shorts didn't cover them... She could, however, still move her head. Looking to one side, she noticed something odd. Bundles of webbing, stuck onto the web itself.

"That's odd..."

They were awfully large, too...

Suddenly her head felt very strange... It was a sensation she'd never felt before.

Cat, said a voice in her head. Cat, it's me!

It was Suzee, of that she was certain. But, where was she?

I'm in one of the web casings! There's a giant spider creature in here... It eats people, which it finds near one of the openings to its cave! Hurry, I'm its breakfast for today!

The feeling left her mind, with one last sense of how tired Suzee was...

Cat was trying to spur her attempts to free herself on, by remembering how a spider eats its prey...

Connor pulled on a pair of gloves which were in the pouch.

Well, whatever that is, it'll have to wait until later.

Knife clipped to his belt, hands covered, he leapt onto the web.

He caught himself before he pressed any flesh against the webbing, and found he could crawl along it fairly well. He reached Catalina, and started to cut her loose.

"Connor! Suzee's here!"

"What?" He asked incredulously, pausing in his work.

"She's here! She going to be the giant spider's next meal!"

"Giant... Spider?" So, that's what I heard. "We'd better hurry."

Snip. Cat's right arm was free. She pulled it in close to her body, being very careful.

The web vibrated, ever so slightly.

"Oh, I don't like that!" Cat exclaimed.

Snip. Cat's left arm was free.

"Put on your gloves. Can you cut your own legs free, while I get Suzee?"

"Not a problem, Connor."

Cat, frantically, started cutting her legs loose of the strands of webbing. Connor, moved in a crab-crawl towards the webbing pods.

"Suzee!" He called out. "Suzee! Can you hear me?"

His head swam for a moment, and he felt a presence there.

Yes, I can hear you.

"Which pod are you in?"

The one closest to Cat. Hurry! It's moving towards us, and... The voice paused, as if from exhaustion, and I'm starting to lose consciousness. It's the venom it uses. When it gets to me, it will put in the second part of the venom, and turn my insides to...

The presence vanished from his mind. However, he'd paid enough attention in science classes to know how a spider eats its prey.

Cat was free, but she was certain that wasn't going to matter much longer. She could see the spider now, and it was BIG. She figured that, if she were a fly, it would be a tarantula...

Cat moved quickly across the web, towards Connor.

The spider wasn't very far behind her.

Connor slashed open the pod, being as careful as he could, while going as quickly as he dared. Seeing no blood after cutting it open, he put the knife back in its sheath, gripped either side of the tear, and began pulling it apart.

It was an amazing strain, requiring all the strength Connor had.

Sometimes, just sometimes, I wish I were an Andromedan...

It tore in half.

Suzee fell out, almost onto the web, but Catalina was there, and caught her.

"Connor," Cat said, "It's here."

Connor turned, and saw the spider. Suppressing the initial reaction to run away, Connor crouched low, and drew his knife, slowly.

"Cat, is there any way for you and Suzee to get out of here?"

Cat looked around. Over there, past the spider, the web reached up to another ledge, where she could see daylight pouring in, as though from around a corner.

"Yeah. But it's beyond the spider."

"Don't worry. I'll take care of it. Tell... Tell Suzee I'm sorry I couldn't get you or her back to your friends."

"Connor..."

He started to move towards the spider. It's attention seemed focused on him, thought there was no way to be certain. No way except...

"GO!"

Cat ran, carrying Suzee in a fireman's lift. The spider started to turn, but Connor slashed it along the side of its head with his survival knife. It reared back, and made a strange noise, which Connor guessed was a scream of pain.

It turned back to him.

It lunged at him, but he rolled out of the way, almost getting stuck on the web. Back on his feet, he watched it advance at him, poison gleaming on its mandibles.

He thrust out suddenly with the knife, hoping to catch it by surprise and finish it quickly, but he was greeted with the sound of bone snapping, and the incredible pain of having his hand bitten off.

He screamed in pain.

His scream was followed by another one, of incredibly high pitch. It nearly knocked him unconscious, and it set rocks falling from the walls and roof of the cave. One of the rocks caught the spider, which fell off of the web.

Looking over at the direction Cat left in, he could see, through the haze of pain, the girl standing there, beckoning him forward. He moved as fast as he could to the ledge.

By the time he got there, his strength was gone. He hit the ground, hard. As consciousness slipped away, a voice in the shadows of his mind whispered to him.

"Now the path is set."

When Connor woke up, he was still in a cave. His left wrist hurt terribly, where the hand was gone, but there was also a strange tingling sensation. With great effort, he raised his arm, and saw a hand.

At least, sort of a hand. It looked like his hand, but it didn't feel like it was there. It didn't move, it seemed locked into a spread position. He rested his injured arm on his chest, and tried to sleep.

Before long, he heard someone enter the room he was in. He couldn't get back to sleep, his arm hurt too much, and he kept seeing that horrible spider, biting...

Suzee was looking down at him. Her eyes had a terrible, haunted quality to them, her face was drawn and pale, and she seemed to have lost some weight. She had the telltale lines of closed cuts on her face, and her clothes were weather-beaten and torn from her adventure in the wilderness.

"You look pretty bad," he stated, a smile creeping across his face.

"You're in lousy shape yourself," she responded, smiling back. "Thanks."

"Oh?" He feigned ignorance, badly. "What for?"

"For saving my life. When... I... I wasn't really very nice to Cat back there, after what happened to me, but... You guys came after me. And I... I really didn't deserve it..." She paused, wiping the welling tears away with the side of her hand. "Sorry. this has just been a really tough time for me."

Connor wanted to say something, something comforting, but he didn't know what to say. Figures, he thought, so many people have tried to help me when I felt bad, and now, when I get the chance to return the favour, even in part, I... I don't know how...

So, he tried the first thing that came to mind. He reached up with his good hand, and took hold of hers.

"It's... It's okay." He said, approximating what he was used to being told. "It's going to be okay."

They stayed there, like that, for a long time.

After a week, Connor's artificial hand had finished bonding with him. He kept mumbling something about an old flat-vid movie, some reference none of the others understood. Suzee had been very quiet the entire week, though Trannik had been talkative enough for everyone. He told Connor about how he'd been unconscious for six days after the incident with the giant spider, and how Cat had gone back to the city, to get the equipment Trannik had needed to affix the new hand.

Now, with Connor healed, as they sat at dinner, under the strange stars of Yensid, while Trannik told them about a great device.

"There is, high in the mountains, a Gate." As he spoke, his voice lost the tone and strange expressions of the eccentric, simple hermit, taking on a voice of authority, a voice of importance. "It leads to anywhere, in all that is. Any reality, any dimension, any point in space. It is a mighty tool. However, there is only one, now, eons after its creators have gone extinct. All..." He paused, "but one."

Seeing the expressions of confusion on the others' faces, he went on:

"I am the last of that people, the natives of Yensid for many millennia. When we were all but gone, we put our children in stasis. As one Keeper was growing old, he would bring out the next, teach him, and pass on the knowledge of our people. If one of us should die unexpectedly, the computer would take measures to ensure the next came out of stasis, and was trained by the computer.

"We watched civilizations rise and fall, great empires rule the stars, only to be destroyed, and replaced by new empires. We watched a new people evolve on this world. And we watched them with great interest. Sometimes, in all peoples, one is born with the gift of prophecy. I am one such, and there have been others for my people, before me. We have a prophecy, that a great hope will be born from those who followed us in being the dominant species on this world. And I believe, that you," he pointed a Suzee, "are that hope. Hope for what, I do not know.

"However, I have seen that you three must go through the Gate."

"Okay." Connor said. "So, we're going to go through the Gate."

"I've heard stories, fairy tales about the Gate," Suzee broke in, "we need the Key. There's a key to open the gate."

Trannik said nothing.

"Fine. Tomorrow, we go to the Gate. Maybe we'll find the Key there." Connor said, as he got up. "We should get some sleep."

Harlan and Radu were on duty in the command post, piloting the ship along its course home. Unfortunately, at this point, they had to decide: Take the straight path home, which leads through the fringes of Spung territory, or go around the dangerous space, and add three years to the trip...

Not an enviable choice, but one that they would have to make soon. Meanwhile, Commander Goddard and Thelma had gone to one of the less used portions of the ship, for purposes unknown to the rest of the crew except Miss Davenport, who went ghost- pale and nearly fainted any time anyone brought the subject up.

They were a few days from Spung space, too close for anyone's comfort, and they all had the feeling Commander Goddard had chosen the direct route home...

Radu had been troubled by more dreams of the massed Spung fleet, dreams he'd brought up only with Harlan and Commander Goddard. That was about the time Goddard had started discussing things with Thelma, away from the rest of the crew.

They all wondered, what was going on?

The trail leading into the mountains was bleak and long. Trannik walked in the lead, hunched over and concentrated on the road ahead of him. Connor held back, keeping Suzee and Cat in front of him at all times. As for the two girls, they trudged along, barely exchanging two words during the entire trip.

After three hours, they arrived. The path led to a cliff, which jutted out over a huge, bowl-shaped valley. Walking to the edge of the cliff, Trannik stopped, turned, and gestured for the others to follow him. As they all reached the end, they looked over, into the abyss below. Ten feet below them, they saw a glowing sphere, six feet in radius, which didn't appear to be held up by anything at all.

Trannik turned to them.

"That is the Gate."

"We have to go into that?" Cat asked, incredulous.

"Yes," was the simple reply.

"But," Suzee put in, "we don't have the Key."

"You do." Trannik stated.

"What do you mean?"

He pointed at Suzee.

"You are the Key."

Goddard and Thelma were in a less used portion of the Christa's engineering section. This part was unused, mostly, because there wasn't much there. It was a dead end corridor, with only a small interface port built into the end wall.

"You know what to do, Thelma." Goddard said, gravely.

"Yes, sir." Thelma had an air of having to do something she didn't want to do, even though she knew it would eventually have been necessary. She moved towards the interface port, as her finger moved out of the way, and her input/output plug moved into place.

She inserted the plug into the interface port, and the transfer of data commenced.

The ship began to change, certain components shifting out of the way for others, even on the command post, where new controls were appearing on the engineering, tactical, and central command stations. The corridor in which Goddard and Thelma stood was also changing, empty walls being replaced by panels and readouts, as all the while, the crew stared on in wonder.

When the process finished, Thelma turned to Commander Goddard.

"Weapon systems activated, Commander."

As he walked away, Goddard began to wonder if he'd made the right decision.

However, fate didn't give him time to puzzle it out, as the intercom turned on. It was Harlan.

"Everyone to the command post! Emergency! We're under attack!"

Emergency sirens began blaring throughout the ship, as Goddard hurried to the jumptubes.

This is just perfect timing, he thought.

"What do you mean, I'm the key?" Suzee seemed both excited and horrified at this revelation.

"You are necessary to activate the Gate. That is what I mean. There is no time to discuss this. You three must go. Now."

Trannik moved out of their way. At the last minute, he handed something to Suzee. It was a necklace, with a smaller version of the sphere below them as a pendant.

"This can function like the Gate. But only a few times. You will need it. Now, go! To use it, just concentrate on where you wish to go! Hurry!"

The three of them stood there, at the edge of the cliff. Connor looked over at the two girls.

"Well, shall we?"

Suzee and Cat nodded in silent agreement. The three leapt, hand in hand, off the edge.

The end of Part Five: Gates, Keys and a Whisper in the Dark

Up next, Part Six: Prophecy

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