[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

going away from them.
"That's a Rithian," Josef told them. "He probably manages a few of the plots
down there."
"Looks like a bug," Jimmy commented.
"Well, they do have a fairly hard shell that they shed now and then, but
they're just another race, like all the others. They marry and they mate in
much the
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Marathon%203%20-%20Ninety%20Trillion%20.txt same way we do, and they bear and
nurse live young, usually two at a time. But they're tough little bastards;
they had a six-system, one-hundred-and-forty-light-year mini-empire before
they were discovered and overrun by the Mycohl."
"I think I've seen enough for right now," Krisha said in disgust.
"Hold on!" Chin responded. "Take my mark and blow it up."
They all did so, and soon the magnifiers brought into focus a thing so distant
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it couldn't readily be distinguished with the naked eye. But what it was, very
near the far-off city, was very familiar.
"It's a station! One of the crystals!" Modra exclaimed excitedly.
"Where'd it come from? How'd it get here!" Josef asked, puzzled.
"At a guess," the captain replied, "I'd say it's probably one of the ones from
that hot world template we went through. Cut from the crystal cave long ago,
tempered in those fires and tuned, somehow, and then transported here via the
interdimensional passageways. They know their way around, that's for sure."
Krisha thought a moment. "How many finished crystals were there in that
horrible place? Twenty? Thirty?"
"Certainly no more, although we didn't see the whole region," Modra agreed.
"And they certainly hadn't started any work getting or growing more. The cave
was pretty wild."
Jimmy nodded. "I see what you mean! They don't have many of those bloody
things at the moment, so the fact that they moved one here shows we aren't up
the creek. This is one of their headquarters!"
"I never had any doubt," Josef said with a somewhat relieved sigh. "And
neither did the Higher Races or they wouldn't have committed us like this."
"When do we go?" Jimmy asked.
"After dark," the captain replied. "When the farm community's in for the night
and the ones in the city up there are relaxed, and when it's cooler. It'll
take four or five hours to cautiously get close to that city, and even if the
powers of Hell are stronger after dark, they're also overconfident then. In
the meantime, check your equipment."
The Mycohl technicians had done their best to create what they themselves felt
they needed beyond the standard suit defensive equipment. Because energy
weapons had no effect on the Quintara, Josef had requested and the shops had
made one of
Terra's most feared weapons of old, crossbows. These crossbows had extended
range, a small energy pack that produced exceptional tension, and a superior
computerized targeting scope, all to put a hard-tipped arrow in the right
place.
Even with all that, its accuracy outside very close ranges wasn't great, and
there was some thought that if any of them were close enough to use them
they'd be in the mental clutches of the enemy and unable to do so. Still, it
was something.
Jimmy had extra equipment that was of interest only to him, but which made him
feel far more comfortable. One was a small medal suspended from a short chain
around his neck on which was embossed a cross centered over the Seal of
Solomon.
The other was a cross, almost as large as a pistol but small enough to fit in
his utility pouch, made out of a lightweight material with a golden finish.
Gun Roh Chin was amused by it. "The ancient cross, I see. I never could
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file:///F|/rah/Jack%20L.%20Chalker/Chalker,%20Jack%20L%20-%20The%20Quintara%20
Marathon%203%20-%20Ninety%20Trillion%20.txt understand a religion that so
worshiped death and whose highest state of grace was to die a martyr."
"It's not death but redemption this symbolizes," McCray replied. "We may have
the demon in all of us, but this reminds us that it needn't control us. We
cannot help being born with Adam's sin, but someone else paid the price for
all who would but take it. There's only one not born in sin I ever addressed
in prayer, yet someone high and not of this universe said I had talked to Him.
And a martyr dies in joy in the sure and certain faith that he or she will be
reborn with all the corruption expunged, in new and perfect flesh. No,
Captain, it took a descent into Hell literal and Hell personal, but I've laid
to rest my doubt."
Chin said nothing in reply. He didn't want to argue theology with the little
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man. McCray might have a simple and parochial faith that events had left a
curiosity, but faith he had, and that was important here perhaps the most
important thing of all to have. Anyone could draw a simple pentagram; it took
certain faith to activate its interdimensional properties. Six-pointed stars
abounded, but in the hands of one with faith in their use they could be
incredibly powerful in the same realm. Who was to say that the cross was not
another of those geometric symbols of a rules set beyond known physics? Faith
was a powerful thing in interdimensional geometry; he wished he had a lot of
it himself. He certainly was not going to attempt to argue the little priest
out of it.
The air had cooled to a "mere" forty-four degrees on the centigrade scale by
the time they started out near dusk. There was no sign that anyone was
searching for them or suspected their presence. Some, like Krisha and Modra,
were actually more worried about the lack of attention; it seemed far too easy
no matter what the physical conditions. The men, for their part, seemed
relieved; to Chin and
Josef in particular, it pointed out how totally secure the Quintara felt
against mere mortal opposition.
That would not help them, though, once they were inside the hive. Even if the
Quintara there didn't sense them, they were there to cause attention, to
destroy and even kill the demons. It didn't matter that the demons would not
truly die;
the information in Chin's mind told him that the shock of death on this plane
was great enough that it would be many months, perhaps years, before a
"killed"
Quintara could refashion another body to walk this plane again. In essence,
the
Quintara were not the problem to be solved here, even though they were
dangerous and deadly. With the Engineer at large, miracles were possible;
miracles of the darkest sort. With the Engineer gone, the Quintara could then
be hunted down and, if killed, the great computer that controlled the linkage
between their city and the other plane could be reset so that their new [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]