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  It was a fiery image of Zor, straddled-legged, blocking the Land Cruiser's path of retreat.

  "Kill him! Kill him!?the Regent yammered, laying about him on the Land Cruiser's bridge. "I, your god, command you to kill Zor for once and for all!"

  When the Land Cruiser loosed its awesome barrage at the unmoving figure, Veidt was ready.

  He wove the carpet in among the volleying supercannon and lesser gun batteries. The salvos were disintegrating the cityscape before them, but had no apparent effect on the colossal Zor.

  High on the aft part of the cruiser's hull, a rack of missiles was rising into place from its shielded pod. As the pod doors opened to allow it to rise, Veidt swooped through, into the space between the hulls. Karen and Jack found themselves clinging to one another, trying to keep their footing, praying the Haydonite knew what he was doing.

  Jack was so scared that he couldn't even enjoy the embrace.

  Veidt seemed to know the entire layout of the cruiser, every nut and bolt. An ammo

  elevator to the launcher's magazine gave them, in turn, access to a utility core. In seconds, they were racing down a passageway scaled to media size, high over the heads of the preoccupied Invid.

  Veidt flew them to a remote part of the cruiser's belly. They stopped before a compartment with a giant hatch. "Rem's cell," Veidt explained.

  But the hatch was open. Karen and Jack piled off, rifles ready, to peer inside. The Regent's two Hellcats, having cornered Rem, spun on the intruders.

  The 'Cats pounced at the Humans even as Jack and Karen brought their muzzles up blazing.

  Clad in his heavy, powered battle armor, the Regent railed and raved as his cruiser's most powerful cannonades failed to have any effect on the enormous figure of Zor that stood blocking his way.

  "Have my flagship lift off and open fire!" he shrieked.

  As the order was relayed, a tech said, "All-Powerful One, there is an unidentified flying object approaching!"

  The Regent looked at the monitor to which the tech was pointing. Sure enough, something was racing forward right along the upper hull, weaving in between gun and missile batteries, too close to the cruiser to be fired upon.

  "I-I-" The Regent felt his head spin. He saw a Haydonite flying carpet with several figures riding it. As it zipped past the bridge, two resplendent objects were tossed and bounced off the forward hull just in front of the viewport.

  The Regent shoved aside the crew members who were trying to see what had been dropped, and had a look for himself. There on the deck lay the two mighty collars, mounted with gems from all the Invid-dominated worlds, that his pet Hellcats had worn. The Regent let out a piercing screech, and was about to direct all fire at the fleeing carpet, when yells of horror burst from his crew.

  The giant Zor was moving.

  The fiery image strode forward, straight for the Land Cruiser, even as the flagship rose from the nearby starport and began firing at it with all guns. The Regent bleated in pure dread and hurled techs out of his way, charging for the bridge's hatch.

  The towering, demonic Zor dove at the cruiser in apparent slow motion, arms spread and

  fingers curled, as if to enfold it. The collision sent waves of light racing outward like waves in a pond when a rock is thrown in. Multicolored flames flared up along the cruiser's bow as the figure began to merge with it.

  High on the hull, an emergency ejection port opened and a metallic shape shot straight up like a sub-launched missile. Riding the propulsive power of his augmentation modules, the Regent arrowed away toward his flagship.

  Below him, the cruiser was already half engulfed in the destructive force of Haydon IV's defensive system. A series of explosions ripped the war machine apart like an overtaxed boiler and leveled that part of the city.

  In that moment, gazing down as he ascended on his suit jets and reflecting upon the sum total of defeats and reversals, the Regent retreated into uttermost devolved depths. While his powered armor's automatics made the linkup with the flagship and guided him into its airlock, and the vessel itself lifted away from Haydon IV at maximum boost, the Regent abandoned temper tantrums and frustrated rantings for the impersonal malevolence of a serpent.

  The Regis would never understand his choice of deevolution, but then she had never sampled it. She had never known how, in its purest form, the devolved state took away the pain of introspection, of reflection, of shame and regret and misgiving.

  She would never know the mindless hatred and untainted hostility and the personal peace that state could bring. But for her mate, it was a chosen way of life.

  His defeats were forgotten now that he had submerged his higher self; he luxuriated in a rancor so all-embracing that it satisfied him like a drug. But in that trance, contrary to the accustomed blankness, a Vision appeared. It defined itself, coming into mental focus, thrown up before the Regent's eyes by the depths of his loathing and his thirst for revenge. It was an answer to his dilemma. It was the face of General T.R. Edwards.

  Like other worlds the Sentinels had visited, Haydon IV had its shrine to the godlike being after whom it had been named.

  This one did not occupy a mountaintop or city plaza or polar ice cap. Rather, it stood at the center of a burnished alloy plain three hundred miles in diameter, the only feature of a landscape that was otherwise as smooth as a looking glass.

  Unlike other worlds', Haydon's icon wasn't carved from ice or hewn from the living rock of a peak. Instead, a projected, ghostly image of the legendary figure stood nearly a mile high. It bore a resemblance to a Haydonite in that the features were smooth, anonymous; the arms were within the high-collared cape, so that Haydon looked very much like the

  inhabitants of that world. Only the hint of flowing hair contradicted it.

  The Terrans had been surprised to realize that, by Haydon's own decree, no precise image of him had ever been made. And so he remained shrouded in mystery just as the projection stood wrapped in its long cape.

  The Sentinels and the freed Praxians had offered to provide an honor guard for Sarna's funeral, but Vowad and Veidt declined. Together, they boarded a small carpet and undertook the journey with the body of the beloved mate and daughter.

  Soon the leveled city was left behind and the idyllic countryside of Haydon IV rolled by beneath. But the two kept their gazes straight ahead. During that long flight not a word was exchanged between the two, each being lost in his contemplation.

  When at last they hovered before the projected figure, there was no need to say anything aloud. They had already communed their sorrow to the very planet, and to one another.

  Nevertheless, Veidt, having picked up new customs in his travels and travails, bade the figure of Haydon, "Take her into your keeping, she who was everything in this life to me. Grant that her words were true, and that we will be together again!"

  He wasn't praying to Haydon, but rather addressing a higher power that even the Haydonites only dimly understood and could not fathom by any application of mere logic.

  Still, the image of Haydon moved, as the living Awareness of the planet willed it. Arms appeared from beneath the cape, and eyes, like Human eyes, or Tiresian, came into shadowy resolution. The open palms beckoned.

  Sarna's body rose from the carpet, poised and erect as though she lived once more. As the father and the husband watched, she was drawn into the valley of Haydon's cupped palms.

  Vowad struggled within himself, moved by the words Veidt had spoken and by the wretched grief of the moment. Sarna was gone, her essence having passed to some other plane of existence, therefore it was illogical to base decisions on what would please her. And yet...

  Sarna's body had vanished into the cupped hands of Haydon. A glow rose from between them, lighting Haydon's smooth face and the sky above. The two mourners heard many voices raised in wordless music as the light intensified. Then all at once it was unbearable, and they had to look away.

  When they turned back, Haydo
n was lowering vast, empty hands. In moments, the projection stood as it had when they appeared. They stood looking at it for long minutes.

  "Veidt, I-I would like to be friends with you from now on, if you will it."

  "Thank you, Vowad. It will give her great joy."

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  So it's eloquence or violence,

  'Cause no one believes in coincidence! The Robotones, "Protoculture Junction"

  The call from his secret facility under the Royal Hall didn't awaken Edwards; he slept less and less nowadays, animated by his relentless hunger to wrest control of the REF, and by his frustration that Minmei, still in solitary confinement, was steadfast in her refusal to so much as speak to him.

  His first impulse was to call his security convoy over to the Royal Hall with lights flashing and sirens wailing. But in the cautious head-on power games he was playing with Lang and the rest of the Plenepotentiary Council, he couldn't afford to attract attention to the secret advantage he held. So the trip was low-profile.

  With Ghost Rider guards flanking, Edwards picked his way through the catacombs under the gargantuan Royal Hall, coming at last to the carefully guarded installations that was under his personal control.

  "We have a contact signal, sir," the officer on duty explained, "but no response to our acknowledgment. We just get the same word in code."

  The officer turned up the volume and the speakers murmured Edwards's name over and over.

  Edwards issued terse commands. The room was cleared, leaving him alone with the apparatus. It took a bit of remembering, but he had been careful to learn how to operate the devices himself.

  "Edwards here."

  There was a moment's silence, then he found himself looking into the face of the Invid Regent.

  I knew it! Edwards exulted. Perhaps it was in some measure a function of the strange insights he had gotten when he had taken that brain-boost from the captured Invid equipment, but perhaps it was just as much a matter of his innate suspicion. In any case,

  he had never believed that the creature strangled on Tirol by Tesla was the real Regent.

  "You took your time answering, Human," the Regent said.

  "I'm here now. What do you want?"

  Each was inspecting the other with the same thought: this fool could be the answer to my problem!

  "There have been...unfortunate mishaps," the Regent said. "Your enemies and mine now hold Haydon IV."

  Edwards bit back an insult; he had to appear absolutely calm. The failure of his Ghost Riders to return from the pursuit of Breetai had been clear enough proof that the Zentraedi had probably linked up with the damned Sentinels. But to hear that they had triumphed again was almost enough to make him doubt his own high destiny to rule all Creation.

  But no; here was the Regent, a sign that Edwards was, indeed, the Chosen of the Gods.

  Edwards resisted the impulse to taunt the Regent; he would need the creature's goodwill for a while longer yet. "That's too bad. What are we going to do about it?"

  The Regent hid his satisfaction at hearing that Edwards would willingly be a part of the Regent's web of machinations. "I am on my way to the Home Hive on Optera now. Once there, I will contact you with details of our combined effort. The Protoculture willing, we shall wipe the Sentinels out of existence."

  "I look forward to that day, my good friend," Edwards said in a butter-wouldn't-melt voice.

  The two broke contact with an identical silent thought: Just wait until I no longer need you, you gullible simpleton!

  On Haydon IV, the sorrow over Sarna's death and the deaths of thousands of others, and the destruction of Glike, was lessened somewhat by the somber satisfaction of having evicted the Invid.

  Once the Regent departed in his flagship, the Invid simply lost their will to fight. The mopping-up hadn't taken long. By the time Breetai's Valivarre and the two REF cruisers were making planetfall, most of the fighting was finished.

  They found a city where triumphant amazons were celebrating their liberation, patrolling the city with weapons in their hands and heads held high. The Haydonites, too, had undergone a change: gone were the days when they could stomach Invid tyranny over

  themselves or others. The ruins of Glike had the air of a monument to the trans-species hunger for freedom.

  In the wake of the struggle, the other Sentinels were left in various moods and states. Vince Grant and his wife hugged, rejoicing in the victory, but were melancholy in the knowledge that there was so much more yet to do.

  Jack Baker and Karen Penn, watching over Rem in a Hall of Healing, found that they didn't despise one another quite so much. "Glad you made it, Penn," Jack blurted.

  "Thanks for...for riding to the rescue, Lancelot," she tried to joke, but she couldn't bring herself to say it lightly as their eyes met.

  Across from them, Janice Em was gazing down on Rem, too. She saw images of Rem and Zor and-something else; impulses fought in her for dominance. Although it was contrary to her programming, an undeniable tide of emotion welled up in her every time she looked at the clone. She longed for a chance to ask Lang what it all meant, but despaired of ever having the chance; the war seemed to have taken on a life of its own.

  For Breetai there were cheers and accolades, and kisses, too, though his sixty-foot height made those a little impractical.

  Lisa didn't care; she insisted that the Zentraedi lift her high so that she could plant a wet one on his cheek. She had the interesting experience of seeing one of the universe's biggest blushes up close. There was a tallish female Zentraedi close-by, someone Lisa had heard called Kazianna, who frowned a bit at Lisa's display of affection.

  Lisa understood the possessive look she was seeing on Kazianna's face, and lingered a moment, literally grabbing Breetai's ear. "Well! Congratulations!" she said slyly. The ear grew red and warm in her grasp, but Breetai was grinning like a schoolboy.

  As for Lisa and Rick, there was something between them that hadn't been there before the Haydon campaign. It was the unweighted love that had come into being when it was proven in battle that there was no inequality of courage-or concern-between them. Each was an accomplished fighter now, and it was understood that each would have dangers to face. And so each felt equal love for the other, and apprehensions, and pride. And each felt the immeasurable value of every moment they shared.

  The Karbarrans and Garudans managed to contact the members of their respective races who were on Haydon IV, and enjoyed the particular pleasures of hometown manners. It pleased the other Sentinels to know that word of the exploits of Lron, Crysta, Kami, Learna, and the rest would be carried back to their homes.

  Max Sterling took no part in the impromptu celebrations because he spent every waking

  moment by Miriya's bedside and often slept there as well. She had lost consciousness shortly after the Regent's flagship lifted off, and had sunk into a deep coma less than an hour later. Even the Haydonite healers were mystified by her condition, which was caused by some interaction of her impossible pregnancy, exposure to the Garudan atmosphere, and the exertions of the battle in Glike.

  Tesla and Burak had reappeared. Tesla was now taller, more Humaniform. Most notably, he had a mouth, and spoke with it. Things were so disorganized in Glike that there wasn't much time for comment. But everyone who saw him groaned, either out loud or mentally. Jeez, he was bad enough as it was! But now that he's got a mouth to shoot off...

  Breetai's news that Tesla had strangled the simulagent had everyone looking at the scientist with renewed suspicion, of course, and there was vague talk of bringing some kind of war-crimes charge against him. But Tesla managed to deflect it, for the moment anyway, by pointing out that his victim was an Invid espionage agent and that, in any case, Tesla himself was technically a POW. The waters thus muddied, he remained at liberty and at least nominally a Sentinels collaborator.

  Tesla had considered parting ways with the Sentinels, but faced the conclusion that
his key to Ultimate Transformation lay in visiting the other worlds that had felt Haydon's personal touch-Spheris and Peryton. And the only reasonably safe way to do that lay in the company of the Sentinels. Besides, trying an escape would risk the wrath of the Karbarrans, the Praxians, the Humans, and the rest, and even with his enhanced powers, Tesla secretly trembled to think of what that meant.

  And so when he was finally brought before the leadership, Bela pinking him in the side with a shortsword, Tesla deflected their accusations and inquiries about the changes the Flower's Fruit had wrought in him.

  Instead, he said in his blandest voice, "We have a common cause; you must put aside your hatred and mistrust, and work with me in friendship."