Trevor and his son are alive. They did this! They turned Voggoth’s trick and used it to help us. We must keep fighting, Alexander. These men will turn the battle.”
Alexander wanted to say something to Armand, but the Frenchman hurried away from his side and wade among the newcomers, smiling in a fashion Alexander had rarely seen from his friend.
For their part, the naked men huddled in small groups taking pains to shield themselves in modesty and from the cold air under the cloud-filled night. A few realized their clothing lay nearby and scrambled into uniform. Shock, however, stymied the majority.
Armand aimed to change that. He hurried to the nearest T-72; a dust-covered dinosaur on the verge of resurrection. Gaston realized Armand’s intentions and stood at the base of the vehicle, translating his words.
Despite the sounds of battle from a half-mile away, one burst from Armand’s FAMAS rifle into the air grabbed the attention of the liberated soldiers. A line of naked Russians stood in front of the tank; more spread across the field.
“Listen to me,” he yelled and as he did, Gaston repeated the words in Russian. “You do not know what is going on. I understand. The short way to put it is that you have traveled through time; about eleven years. In that time, Earth has been invaded and we are at war for our survival.”
Armand tried to summon some kind of inspirational speech. He tried to capsulate lots of information into a few sentences as clearly as possible. Alas, the Russian soldiers were neither inspired nor enlightened by his words.
Armand chose a different approach.
“Okay, then let me just put it like this. Now is the time to fight…”
He threw his arm behind him and pointed toward the sounds of battle.
“…and those are the bad guys.”
Jorgie fell to a knee. The energy field buzzing around him flickered. The Nyx seemed to wriggle free of their prison but only for a split second before something stopped them dead again.
Trevor stepped forward but the electricity kept him away as surely as it kept the cloud-things held in place.
“They’re coming, Father. I felt another door open.”
Trevor saw-shapes forming in the energy stream around Jorgie.
Although worn to the point of exhaustion, Trevor heard a measure of awe in his son’s voice as he mumbled, “Something is happening to me-I am seeing things-I feel different.”
Higher up, toward the dark ceiling, the images in the energy screen changed. The cities of yesterday-the battlefield outside the temple-they disappeared replaced by a spinning red funnel that tugged at the power generated by the Nyx.
“I can’t control it any longer.”
At that moment his grip on the energy field ended. The inky-black Nyx creatures became free and threatened to envelope the boy and his father. But at the last moment the pull from the red funnel overcame the strength of the creatures.
Trevor thought he heard a scream-perhaps only in his mind-as the open door in the energy field sucked the creatures up and in. The spinning red vortex sealed shut.
Energy still crackled around Jorgie, filling the Temple with a soft glow. Voggoth and the Nyx had both been sent away to whatever realms they hailed from. But Trevor realized-something else had come through.
They were not alone.
24. The Eight
JB remained on one knee, still surrounded by sparkles of light. Trevor saw his son taking deep, exhausted breaths.
“Jorgie-Jorgie, are you-are you okay?”
JB’s eyes appeared to be watching something; something Trevor could not see.
“Father, I see now. I understand. This wasn’t supposed to happen like this. I am- am becoming whole again-Father I’m very tired.”
JB placed a hand to his forehead.
Trevor took a step forward-and stopped.
They materialized from the glittering energy field like ghosts taking physical form. Trevor realized that the door through space and time his son had commandeered from Voggoth remained open. But open to where?
The light dimmed in the slightest but still surrounded the players on center stage. The sour stench of Voggoth’s earthly lair faded; the feeling of swirling energy calmed.
The newcomers gave JB-still exhausted; still kneeling-a glance before drifting into a circle around Trevor. Their hands-the hands of children-reached and touched his skin as if ensuring the reality of his existence.
He eyed each of the six one by one. A Hivvan, a Duass. A Witiko without a trace of silver cosmetic. A Centurian with big black eyes; a Geryon lacking the leather armor Trevor had seen his people wear on the parallel Earth.
Trevor saw a familiar face as the hands stopped reaching and the children retreated into a ring round him. He dropped to a knee and greeted the Chaktaw girl-Alenna-at eye level, with a smile.
She returned his smile as she asked, “Do you know who we are? Do you know what we are?”
Trevor sighed as he replied, “You are an advanced evolution of each of your races. Probably from some-from some original universe. Did you create the eight parallel universes?”
The Hivvan boy said, “The original universe is older than you can imagine. Its creation resulted in echoes of itself; empty echoes. Identical but lacking in sentient life.”
“Like rings in water after a pebble has been dropped in a puddle,” the Duass spoke through a short bill.
The Geryon added, “An infinite number of echoes. You are aware of only eight because we chose to create bridges between only those eight.”
“And in the original universe,” Trevor’s words felt heavy on his lips. Heavy with disappointment. “In it, eight races. But an empty Earth. Humanity sprung to life on Sirius. The rest-each of you-on your own home worlds. And you evolved there, for eons.”
“Yes,” the Centurian confirmed. “Our races are far older than you can comprehend.”
The others added their voices one after another.
“We grew beyond the physical.”
“Our minds evolved.”
“A synergy of matter and energy; the energy of our intellect.”
“Our technology advanced in ways you would be unable to grasp, but our beings advanced even further.”
Trevor held his hands aloft and cringed as he filled in many of the blanks for himself, wishing with each word he were wrong but knowing otherwise.
“So you accessed a universe for each race, seeding the planets to mimic what your universe was like in the beginning. Each universe identical in almost every way, except for one way. Mankind living on Sirius in each, except for one. In one you moved my people here, to this Earth. You did the same for each of the races in one of the universes. I don’t understand. Why?”
The Witiko sneered as if the reason should be obvious to any creature of intelligence, “To maintain identical conditions. To ensure equality in the test.”
“Test? So, what-Earth offered an environment suitable for each of the races. You erased any advantages of position or geography or weather or anything you couldn’t control, and found equal ground. Seems like a lot of trouble to go through just to kill each other off.”
“You see, I told you he could not understand,” the Duass said.
“He is unable to grasp the complexities,” the Geryon admitted.
The Witiko grumbled a tirade, “There is no reason to share this information. His understanding is irrelevant. Contamination has occurred here, resulting in our reunification which was something to be avoided until the end of
