I soon realised that I was heading for an outcrop of rocks, a bare hillock of large, jumbled boulders, perhaps a hundred metres high. Luke was in there, near the base. I couldn’t detect anyone else but that meant nothing; I was aware that the Representative could cloak his presence almost perfectly. I masked my own presence, slowed and approached more cautiously, beginning to circle the hillock at a safe distance. I knew how fast the saurians were, needed to leave myself enough room to bring the P.A.W. into action if he attacked. A dark hole loomed between two giant boulders. Luke was in there. I sensed his pain and despair, and his fear for me. I recognised the trap but I had no choice; I had to go in. I refrained from linking with Luke, in case that alerted the Representative.
That side of the hillock was in shade, the cave even more so. I walked slowly in, and as my eyes adjusted I made out Luke, sitting on the floor, his head down on his chest. He was praying, I realised. I took a pace towards him and was hit violently, mentally and physically, from the side. I was thrown against the wall, my mind stunned, the P.A.W. sent clattering towards the back of the cave. The Representative loomed over me and lowered his mental shields, his mind pressing down on mine like one of the great boulders. Anger, hatred and triumph glowed from him.
He spoke out loud. ‘What a great pleasure to make your acquaintance again. When I discovered that this man was your brother I thought that you might pay us a visit. I am going to kill you now, and then him, but I first wanted to tell you to your face that you have lost. We killed a few settlers as a statement of intent; we are holding several thousand others as hostages. I know you will have switched off the transfer machine by now, but it doesn’t matter. Your weak saurian friends will not be able to stand by and see their beloved human pets killed slowly, one by one. Even with many men with guns, appearing out of slider holes, you could not save them – my soldiers are mixed in with them and will start killing the instant they detect a slider hole forming. The Convenor and her spineless Assembly will give us what we asked for; control of the slider machines. Except that this time, we want all of the machines, together with the scientists who understand them; we will tolerate no more interference.’ He paused, gloating, and I knew that he hadn’t finished. ‘The best bit is yet to come. We will colonise this world, then turn our attention to the other human worlds. You know, the previous inhabitants of this world had a good idea; we are developing a human-specific plague which will kill off all of you, on every world. Your pestilential species will die out within a few years. Now, I shall enjoy killing you.’
He was so focused on me that he had forgotten my brother. Luke flung himself desperately on the saurian, who turned with a growl and threw him off. Luke got up again and the saurian kicked viciously. I saw the flash of a blade and Luke gasped and fell to the floor, his mind going blank with shock. The Representative snarled in satisfaction and turned back to me. But the distraction had released his hold on my mind, which frantically seized on one of the serried ranks of parallel worlds in my memory and twisted.
I lay alone in the cave. I extended my mind and sensed some saurians not far away; Tertia among them. I was back on S1.
I lay in shock for a few moments, trying to comprehend what had just happened. I had crossed to a parallel world by myself, without any machine – just by a desperate effort of will. I ran through the memory of what I had just done. So – I just needed to focus on a world, look at it and then twist my mind somehow. I held the technique in my mind, then used my interworld vision to look back at New Earth. The Representative was peering around the cave, his bafflement evident. Luke lay still on the floor. I walked to the back of the cave, waited until the saurian had moved towards the front, then twisted back into the world. The saurian instantly sensed me and turned around, but the P.A.W. was in my hands and up to my eyes and as he lunged forwards the gun fired, the recoil kicking hard and the noise deafening in the confined space, and the shell punched through his chest, sending him staggering backwards. It did not explode. The Representative shook his head and started to advance again, but he was slowed by the hit so I centred the red dot on his head and fired once more. The heavy projectile smashed open his skull and he collapsed on the ground, limbs jerking, his mind and life extinguished like a doused blaze. I belatedly realised that the shells had a bore-safe nose fuze, which would not arm until a safe distance from the firer.
I walked over to Luke but I did not need to look at him to know that there was nothing any healer could do. The foot-blade of the saurian had ripped open his abdomen and his blood covered the floor. I crouched over him and held his hand. His glazing eyes tried to focus on me so I spoke in his mind. ‘It’s all right Luke. I will stop them. I guarantee it.’
I caught a faint, grateful response, then his mind slipped away from mine as he died. I sat for a while, my mind blank. Eventually, I got up and walked out of the cave. The hostages and their saurian captives were not far away, so I walked slowly towards them. I did not feel like running any more; I felt very tired. The soldiers saw me coming and three of them came hopping towards me, rifles at the ready. Their minds were bright with blood lust, the desire to kill again. Behind them, I located the distinctive mental signatures of the other saurians. I felt my numbness give way to a burning rage. They were not mind-linkers, had no barriers, no defences. I held their minds in mine, and wrenched violently. The first three spasmed and collapsed like marionettes whose strings had been hacked through. As did the other soldiers, my mind sweeping like a scythe through them. In a few seconds over two hundred saurians lay contorted in death.
I sat on the ground, suddenly exhausted and overcome by grief. For several minutes I could do nothing, think no coherent thoughts. Then I slowly roused myself. I contacted Secundo and asked him to open the slider hole and bring Luke’s assistant over to the hostages, now looking around them in bewilderment. They needed someone to organise them, and he needed something to do.
The next morning, back on the airship heading north, Tertia and Secundo were staring at me in amazement. We had just finished burying Luke and the settlers killed in the town (the Representative and the soldiers we piled together and burned), and I had finally been able to describe to my friends what had happened, what I had discovered I could do.
‘What are you going to do next?’
‘End this threat now.’
‘We have already cut off S2 from our comms system, they can’t do the same thing again.’
‘They’ll think of something else. They need a powerful disincentive. Where does the Primary of their Council live?’
They consulted their data and reported that his country was in northern Italy. I asked them to head for the location of his capital.
As we approached, I put a full clip of ammunition in the P.A.W.. My friends looked at me anxiously.
‘You do realise that they will have worked out how you rescued the Ambassador, and their castles and palaces will be ringed with detectors?’
I smiled a mirthless smile. ‘So who needs slider machines?’
The lift cabin slowly descended through the Primary’s palace. It was late evening, and he was hosting a function in a grand hall. The high-arched ceiling was decorated in gold and adorned with dynastic flags. The hall was filled with brightly dressed Rulers, smaller servitors hopping around them. Guards lined the walls, rifles at the ready. The Primary stood at the front of the hall, chatting with a respectful circle. I contacted the pilot, and the airship shifted slightly so that the cabin’s location coincided with that of a small balcony at the back of the hall. I twisted through into the hall, suddenly enveloped by the strange sound of saurian music, the low roar of conversation. I rested the P.A.W. on the balcony railing, and took careful aim.