He'd never seen a space vessel that hadn't been shaped like a wedge before. This thing looked frightening to him.
"Just keep watching," Hunter told him.
No sooner were the words out of his mouth when the hatch on the strange vehicle opened and two figures emerged. They were not human. They were small-framed, no more than four feet high, with large bulbous heads and long thin arms. They were wearing gold uniforms that glit-tered brightly, even in the dull morning light.
They glided over to the three bodies laying face-down in the mud and seemed to examine them for a moment. One of the creatures was carrying a small globe that was glowing with the same colors as those surrounding the saucer-shaped vehicle. With little fanfare, this creature directed a beam of light from the globe at each of the three bodies, enveloping them in a bright yellow light, but for only a moment or two. Then the creatures returned to their ship, closing the hatch silently behind them.
Joxx was simply astonished. His mouth was wide open, his face as white as his hair.
"Why do you taunt me with these demons?" he shouted at Hunter. "I've seen the horrors of the old days. I dare say I'm an expert in them now, with enough nightmares to last me several lifetimes. Why pull trickery on me at this point?"
"It's not trickery," Hunter replied. "Though believe me, I wish it was."
As they watched frozen at the edge of the stream, the saucer gave off a great flash of light — and then it was gone, straight up, into the early morning sky. Just like that.
Joxx fell to the seat of his pants, causing a mighty splash in the muddy water.
"What in God's name was that all about?" he whispered.
Hunter remained standing beside him. "The simplest answer? It's one more explanation of what happened here that day. The third one I came upon."
"But that was horrible!" Joxx cried. "Those.. beings. The way they moved. The way the looked. They can't be real. Only humans inhabit the universe. That was established eons ago! So they had to be hallucinations. And therefore, this scenario must be a hallucination too. It has to be…"
He looked up at Hunter hopefully. "Right?"
Hunter just shook his head.
"You tell me," he replied.
Joxx wiped a dirty hand across his dirty face. "Well, I'm sure the cardinals were lying to us," he began, still dazed from all that had happened in the past few moments. "All that crap about the angel and the enlightenment. But was Emperor Jimmy lying to us too? Why would he? What would be the point of it? He seemed sincere while debunking the angel story. Why just tell another lie instead?"
Joxx looked up at Hunter again. "Any chance that this third scenario is just a flaw in the mind ring program? Those creatures can't be real! Maybe the guy writing all this just screwed up, or got drunk or something."
Hunter stood mute.
"Because, if not," Joxx went on, "that would mean Jimmy wasn't enlightened by anything real. None of them were — not in the sense that everyone believed over the centuries. By this scenario, Jimmy's so-called 'great mind' didn't invent all those things that first made the Galaxy great. The secret to ion-power, the new longevity of humans, the puffing of the planets and God knows what else. Could it be that none of them sprouted miraculously from any human mind?"
He looked to where the saucer had just been — it was now just that familiar depression in the mud.
"Oh God, just the thought of it makes my skin crawl! That the beings who were flying that thing either intentionally or unintentionally seeded the Earth with their advanced technology. Could this be the true ring? Could it really have been them who gave us everything?"
Again he stared up at Hunter, as always, looking for the right answer. "Which one is true," he pleaded. "Please, good spirit, you must tell me. Nothing will make sense if you do not!"
"I can't," Hunter finally told Joxx. "Because I don't know, either."
The look of horror came across Joxx's face. "Then there's a chance that it's all been a fake," he whispered grimly. "A facade perpetrated by these strange beings and facilitated by the Emperors of the First and Second Empires. They made a pact with the devil — literally. If indeed the people riding that strange saucer believe in devils. There's a chance they were pulling the strings all along."
Joxx let a shudder rip through him. He was almost nauseous.
"What are they?" he asked, gagging on something. "Where are they from?"
Hunter just shook his head an gazed upon the place where the saucer had been.
"I've seen them before," he said. "It was on a place called Zazu-Zazu, a tiny moon way, way out on the Fringe. They were there or beings that looked just like them. They were trying like hell to take over that little moon at the furthest end of the Galaxy. I have no idea why or how. They were just so strange I've tried not to think about them. But all this will make that impossible forever."
He paused for a moment. He could hear the blokes' helicopter off in the distance.
"If we choose to believe this scenario," he went on. "Then I think we must also consider this: that these characters came back here and raised first Michael and then eventually the younger brother as well. Brought them both back, literally from the dead, at the time of their own choosing and then stood back and watched them change the Galaxy. If this is true, then it means these beings never really took their long slimy fingers out of it. They've been running things from behind the scenes, and the three brothers who were here that day must know that, because obviously all three dealt with them on some level, at some time."
He shook off a chill himself.
"But which scenario is true? The angel? The top secret aircraft? The flying disk?" He took a long look around the hollow. "I just don't know," he said.
Joxx suddenly scrambled to his feet.
"I'm hardly a humble person," he told Hunter, "but you've done both a terrible and a wonderful service to me here. My eyes have been opened like never before. Like I never believed they could be. And whatever happens from this point onwards, I guess I owe at least that to you… brother."
Then, very unexpectedly, he shook Hunter's hand. Hunter looked him right in the eye. He seemed sincere.
"Well then, now you know everything I know," Hunter told him. "Except for one last thing."
Flash!
They went forward about an hour.
Suddenly they were in the middle of the stream, standing over the second body. Just like the others, this person seemed quite dead and was wearing a cloth mask over his face. But now, there was a slight glow around him.
The lieutenants were nearby; they had already ordered Hunter and Joxx to dispose of the bodies, and indeed the ring travelers had already deposited the brother who they came to know as Michael into the deep, smelly bog.
They picked up the second rigid body now and, as before, lugged it up the steep rise and out toward the clearing where the great bog lay. But this time, Hunter told Joxx to stop for a moment. Making sure they were out of sight of the lieutenants, they lay the body down on a bed of leaves.
Then Hunter turned to Joxx.
"Your first and last question was this: How can I hold the people of the current Empire responsible for the sins of the past?"
Joxx nodded.
"And you agree that this person here is the youngest brother of the three as we have seen them, the same one who betrayed the 36 Coalition and all the peoples of Earth as well?
Again, Joxx agreed.
Hunter pointed to the man's mask. "Then take that off him, and your question will be answered."
Joxx hesitated a moment. His facial expression seemed to say: Do I really want to know? But finally he did as told. He pulled the mask from the body's face — and let out a cry that was heard all the way back to Kelly's Hollow.