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  Where Gnea and Bela were still unforgiving of Miriya Sterling's Zentraedi past, they had embraced Lisa as though she were a long-lost member of the Sisterhood. At first Rick was not entirely unhappy about it, but all at once Lisa seemed a different person than the one who had argued so strongly against his joining the Sentinels to begin with. And while it was true that what was good for Lisa was good for the group, Rick couldn't help but feel a bit, well, jealous of the partnership Gnea and Lisa had formed. The Praxian seemed to draw this sort of reaction everywhere she stepped. Rick knew that Karen was having troubles with her, and he guessed that even Bela must be harboring some ambivalent feelings about her friend's sudden preoccupation with Lisa.

  With Gnea it was martial skills that mattered most; but beyond speed and strength, Lisa

  had discovered something else: an independence and self-assertiveness that was taking some getting used to.

  Rick had these thoughts in mind when she came over to sit beside him in the firelight, still flushed and exhilarated from her latest weapons training session. She talked about the feel of the halberd in her hands, the power of the naginata; she was practically poetic in describing Gnea's crossbow and two-handed shortsword. Rick took it all in, forcing a smile and offering all he could in the way of appropriate nods and utterances; but behind the smile his mind was doing backflips. What next? he asked himself. Would he come out here one evening to find her parading around in some skimpy fighting costume, like Bela's bossed and D-ringed body harness? Would she suddenly take to buccaneer boots, some totem-crested helm, long-bladed dirks and throwing knives? Rick shuddered at the thought, grateful for the fact that that damned Robosteed, Halidarre, was temporarily grounded. Unfortunately, however, the Praxian's lambent-eyed malthi, Hagane, was not, and the winged pest nearly parted Rick's hair as it came darting in just now to settle itself on Bela's bulky forearm sheath.

  Rick muttered a curse and looked over at his wife. "Glad to hear how well it's going," he told her. "And I'm sure all this'll come in handy at the next Tirol decathlon."

  She looked at him askance and took a forkful of food from his plate. "Something bothering you, Rick?"

  "No, no, I mean, it's good to see you keeping busy, Lisa."

  "Is that what you think I'm doing-'keeping busy'?"

  Rick inclined his head, eyes narrowed. "It's what we're all doing, isn't it? What am I supposed to do: spit in my palm and pledge my fealty to someone? 'For the Eternal She and the glory of Haydon!'" Rick mimicked.

  "Rick-"

  "No, really. Maybe we should all be practicing swordplay and crossbow technique, leaps and high jumps. Then maybe one of us'll be able to reach that module instead of wasting away down here."

  Almost everyone in the circle caught an earful of Rick's words, and the usual evening's chatter abruptly ceased. The fires crackled, and four Hovercycles could be heard approaching the perimeter. Lisa and Rick seemed to be locked in an eye-to-eye contest when Jack, Karen, Kami, and Lron entered the camp. Jack took a long look around, oblivious to the uncomfortable silence his swaggering entrance had dispersed, and announced cheerfully: "Wait'll you hear what we found."

  "They've agreed to help us," Veidt said later on, hovering into the cavern where Rick and some of the other Sentinels were puzzling over the hideous cave paintings Karen had pointed out. "If 'agreed' is the proper word."

  Karen noted that there were fewer globes than there had been that afternoon; several had apparently found their way out, as evidenced by the fact that one or two had been found bobbing against the ceiling close to the mouth of the cave.

  "Then they are life-forms?" Rick said.

  "Oh, most assuredly."

  Rick heard Bela snort behind him. After Jack had told them of the find, the Praxian women claimed to have heard tales of these orb creatures from Arla-Non, chief of the Sisterhood. But the things were believed to be extinct, just as the beasts depicted on the cave wall were-or so Rick and the others hoped.

  They had all tried to convince Rick that the orbs could wait until the morning, but he had insisted Jack lead them back to the caves immediately. Now, not quite four hours since Jack's return to the base, Rick and half a dozen or so of the core group were standing in the floodlit heat of the cave, listening to the results of Veidt's telepathic probe.

  "I register no sense of how they came to arrive here," the mouthless Haydonite was mind-speaking, motioning to the cavern. "I only know that their destiny lies somewhere in space. This condition of...levity is but a transitional stage in their life cycle. They are sentient, in what might be termed a primitive, or instinctual, fashion. But the important thing is that they seem to understand our need for their assistance-their support, if I may be permitted to play with your language some. In fact, Sarna and I detect a certain desperateness to their own flight-as if they are not merely obeying a behavioral directive, but are, in quite a real sense, escaping."

  No one felt a need to state the obvious: Praxis was a tectonic nightmare from which they all wished to awaken. The heat and stench of the cave only reinforced that fact. And if the cave was indeed a volcanic vent of some sort, it was no wonder the globes were anxious to leave.

  Cabell, his face and glabrous pate beaded with sweat, was watching one of the smaller creatures now, as it bobbed its way toward the entrance. He couldn't help but be reminded of Tiresia's antigrav spheres, and he began to question if there wasn't some mysterious connection here.

  Rick was watching the same sphere; but he was wondering just how many it might take to lift an Alpha to the edge of the Praxian envelope. "Do they understand what we're asking

  of them?-the specifics, I mean."

  Veidt hovered over to a position directly beneath a cluster of the creatures.

  "The mecha should lift off on its own power," Sarna answered for him. "After that, Veidt and I will be able to herd the orbs into place."

  Excited, Rick punched the palm of his hand. He swung around to Jack and Karen. "Contact the GMU. Tell Vince to round up the Skull and the Wolff Pack. We've got to work fast and assemble a crew for the module."

  "Will we be heading back to base?" Karen thought to ask.

  Rick shook his head. "Give Vince our position. Tell him what we've learned." He glanced up at the globes, rivulets of sweat running down into his eyes. "I want the base to come to us."

  While members of the Sentinels hurried to break down the camp and ready the GMU for motion, Burak was breaking the news to Tesla. The Invid made him repeat it several times until satisfied he had all the details straight.

  He had felt certain all along that he wasn't fated to end his days on Praxis, and now Burak had brought word that Hunter and the others had discovered a way to reach the orbiting drive module. With precious little time to spare, Tesla thought as he and Burak packed away the few belongings the Invid kept in his cell.

  Ever since his earlier ingestion of the mutated fruits, his mind had been reeling, locked in a kind of revelatory state, where answers came to him full-blown, like short-lived explosions of light. He had been asking himself why the Regis had come to Praxis in the first place; it was a question that had been plaguing him on and off for months now.

  It was before the mutiny aboard the Farrago that they had encountered one another, when Tesla had landed on Praxis to choose specimens for the Regent's zoo. The Regis had given him a vague explanation then, and it didn't occur to him until much later on to question her responses. With the continual quakes to spur him on, however, and the aid of the fruits, the answer became obvious: she had come here to conduct further Genesis Pit experiments-part of her grand scheme to transmute the Invid race into something Tesla himself could not yet begin to imagine. Optera had been the site of the first Pits, where Tesla and most of the other evolved Invid were birthed. But the Regis's experiment there had almost doomed the planet; it had, in fact, touched off the initial search for secondary worlds she might employ. Abandoning Optera and the Regent, she had finally come to
Praxis to hollow out new Pits deep in the planetary core. And of course that was why she had left the place-because her experiment was following the same course it had taken on

  Optera.

  Left. But for where? Tesla asked himself...

  He put a hand on Burak's shoulder as they were about to leave the room. "You say they will be choosing a crew to pilot the first Alpha up to the module?"

  Burak felt the strength of the Invid's grip, and tried to shake it off, but could not. "Are we going to die here, Tesla?" he asked in a faltering voice. "Peryton, my people-"

  "Quiet, you fool!" Tesla stepped through the doorway, glancing around to assure himself that no one was within earshot, then swinging back around to Burak. "We won't die here-not if we're part of that crew, we won't."

  Burak's face contorted. "But how-"

  "You leave that to me. I just need to know one thing." Tesla sniffed at him. "Can you pilot that Spherisian module?"

  "I suppose so," Burak said uncertainly.

  Tesla stretched out his thick neck. "Then we're all set."

  CHAPTER THREE

  In Admiral [Rick] Hunter's personal notes [recorded on Praxis], we learn of several discussions that took place between Cabell and Bela regarding the issue of child-bearing among the Praxians. (Hunter himself was nonplussed to hear Bela refer to Arla-Non as her "mother.") [Bela] even allowed Cabell to tour the whaashi-"birthing center," or creche-although refused to enter it herself. It was understood that certain members of the Sisterhood were preselected to receive female "offspring," who were then raised as "daughters of the Sun." The Praxians had little understanding of courtship, sexuality, or pregnancy; the "coupling rite" being a kind of catch-all mystery that was at the same time enticing and fearsome. Cabell, of course, was quick to see Haydon's hand at work.

  A. Jow, The Historical Hay don

  Of all the worlds she had visited, this was the saddest, the Regis decided as she contemplated Haydon IV's cityscape from the uppermost tier of the Invid headquarters there. It was a small world, perfect in every respect, but with a heart as lifeless as the faceless beings who hovered across its surface and seemed to know one's every thought. The Regent liked to believe that he had conquered the place by cajoling his way into a position of absolute authority; but Haydon IV had seen many a would-be ruler come and go, while it itself remained unchanged, ungovernable, unreachable. It was one of the few

  open trading ports left since the Tirol-Optera war had spread like some contagion through the Quadrant; and as such Haydon IV enjoyed a semblance of peace. Still, the Regis sensed the presence of an incomprehensible evil here, far worse than the vulcanistic horrors her Genesis Pit experiments had unearthed on poor Praxis.

  She had come to see for herself what the Invid scientists had found here, and now, as grateful as she was for the data they had supplied her, she could feel nothing but a kind of vague dread for the future, for the very path she had embarked on. Haydon IV's sophisticated scanners had picked up a trace of the Robotech Masters' course, and in effect pointed a way to Zor's ship with its matrixed Flowers. But the Regis's private samplings of the planet's vast store of metaphysical knowledge had revealed something of potentially greater import-a suggestion that she had been as self-deceived as the Regent had been. That her ostensibly evolved nature-along with her continuing efforts to search out the physical form deemed most perfect to embody her intellect-was but a carefully constructed delusion, self-generated and engineered to keep her from the real truth. And yet it was a truth she refused to contemplate, a mating she would not accept-one she was not at any rate prepared to accept.

  There would come a moment years hence when these truths would dawn on her like the primordial fireball itself, and the Invid Regis would willingly surrender the shackles of physicality and ascend; but just now, she chose to keep Haydon IV's revelations from her thoughts, and turn her attention to the Praxian woman who had requested audience.

  "This world is a paradise," the Regis said, turning from the spire's incomparable view, but gesturing to it nevertheless. "I have traveled the Quadrant over, and never have I known such an exquisite place."

  Arla-Non flashed her a scornful look, and tossed back a luxuriant mane of sun-bleached hair. "Better a cave on Praxis than a palace here," she sneered. "Every nerve in my body screams at me to beware this place, this planet. Every breath of its wind carries a lie."

  She was tall and powerfully built, clothed in swaths of colorful fabric and knee-high boots of soft hide. Looking at her, the Regis couldn't help but be reminded of her own failed attempts to emulate that racial form, to please Zor...

  "Is that fair?" the Invid Queen-Mother asked, an edge to her voice as she approached the Praxian. "You knew nothing but hardship, and now you have luxury beyond the dreams of most beings."

  "And you have Praxis," Arla-Non shot back.

  The Regis made an impatient gesture. "You must learn to forget Praxis, as I have Optera. Your world is doomed."

  "So you continue to tell me. It is your way of decreeing that Praxis had become nothing more than an Invid breeding ground."

  "Praxis will breed nothing but asteroids!" the Regis seethed. "I cannot change the past, Praxian. Make your peace with this world, or live out your days in torment. I offer you no other choice."

  Without a word, Arla-Non spun on her heel and headed for the entrance to the spire's transport shaft; she stopped short of its triangular accessway. "I can choose to fight you to the last, Invid."

  The Regis had her back turned, but the Praxian's words found their mark. She was beginning to understand why the Regent had never regarded persuasion as a viable option where force could be employed. The Regis made note of it, promising death for the next beings who attempted to thwart her.

  Praxis, meanwhile, was beginning to come apart.

  Forced by ground swells, fissures, and rock slides into taking the long way around, the GMU arrived at the caves precious hours behind its projected ETA. But with the region's numerous caves and shafts to vent the planet's internal pressure, the land here had been spared some of the tectonic turmoil afflicting other areas. Nevertheless, the air was filled with static charge, heat, and stench, and the cave that housed the orbs was fast becoming unworkable. The Skull had arrived hours earlier, and by the time Vince and Jean Grant, Janice, Rem, Wolff, Burak, and the others stepped from the mobile base, the rest of the core Sentinels were well into Rick's impromptu briefing. Several dozen orbs of varying size had already exited the cave, and were well on the way to their enigmatic deepspace destiny; but Veidt and Sarna had "persuaded" the stragglers to lag behind awhile longer. Kami and Learna had reported the emergence of yet more spheres from the cavern's internal chimney. Cabell speculated that it might be possible to widen the access some, and thereby increase the chances of additional creatures reaching the surface.

  The plan called for the spheres to lift an Alpha with a crew of five clear through Praxis's suddenly albescent atmosphere. Once in space and under its own power, the mecha would complete the rendezvous with the drive module. When that was accomplished, the crew would drop the module into a lower orbit while the spheres continued to raise five-person crews. It was conceivable that the GMU would have to be abandoned, but at least the VTs and Hovertanks would survive. Although it sounded crazy the plan was straightforward enough; there remained, however, several variables to deal with. First, the Sentinels had no idea how many orbs might be required to lift a VT, or just how fast they would be able to raise it the requisite distance. An incorrect guess could leave the mecha hanging in space waiting for the module to complete another orbit, or, worse still, missing the thing altogether. Second, and equally problematic, the initial crew would have to be

  comprised of personnel capable of piloting the module into a lower orbit, and possibly-should the orbs for some reason withdraw their support-through a spacefold to Karbarra, or equidistant Fantoma. Third, someone was going to have to stay in touch with the orbs.
/>   This last issue had been decided by the time the GMU contingent joined the others near the cave entrance. Sarna was going to be in charge of mustering and instructing the creatures in their task. Veidt had simply said, "Sarna will do it," and no one argued the point. Rick now had the module in mind.