“Be careful,” V’rex told him. “They’re pretty well armed and those little orange NeverBreeder bastards are tougher than they look.”
“They look like Oompa-Loompas,” Penny put in helpfully. “Only bald.”
“Colonel Sanders and his cult of bald cannibal Oompa-Loompas?” Kat shook her head. “Doll, that is just crazy.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” Penny said fervently. “I’ll give you more details when I finally get back to the Mother Ship.”
“You’d better!” Kat said and shook her head again, wonderingly.
“If you’ll send me your coordinates, I’ll send the details of Penelope’s mission,” Sylvan said. He leaned forward and looked at V’rex. “Despite your reputation, I’m trusting you, V’rex—mainly because of your oath to Penelope.”
“I won’t fail you,” V’rex replied. “Just this once, we’re on the same side.” He arched an eyebrow. “Though I can’t promise that trend will continue after Penelope and I part ways.”
“Understood.” Sylvan nodded again and looked at Penny. “May the Goddess grant you success. I’ll send the information at once because time is of the essence. Please hurry.”
“As fast as I can,” Penny promised. She waved goodbye to Kat and then the viewscreen went blank.
When the conversation with the Mother Ship was over, she wasn’t sure what to say to V’rex. The big Hybrid’s oath to protect her had taken her breath away with its seriousness and sincerity. Why would he still want to protect her so much if they had decided to go their separate ways? Could it be that he still had feelings for her somehow?
But when she looked at V’rex, the big Hybrid was smirking at her as though he didn’t have a care in the world.
“Well, sweetheart,” he remarked, giving her a wink. “Looks like we’re going on one last ‘adventure’ together.”
“I…I guess so,” Penny said.
And then found she didn’t know what else to say.
Ninety-Six
“Well, this looks like the entrance to the secret city under the mountain,” V’rex remarked as he maneuvered his ship through the narrow gorge that led to the sacred mountain, Ra’gar.
The high, craggy walls of deep gray stone rose all around them—it was like flying through the Grand Canyon, only with a lot less color, Penny thought.
“Looks like it,” she agreed. She was studying the maps they had printed out from the information Commander Sylvan had sent.
“The Father of Cruelty with reach from Afar
To the Eye of his scion asleep in the Dark
Buried so deep ‘neath the mountain Ra’gar,” she murmured, reading the first half of the prophecy again.
“Father of Cruelty—guess that’s the Cruel Father. Or Kru’ell Father in my Sire’s native tongue,” V’rex growled. “He’s the son-of-a-bitch who created the Kru’ell Ones in the first place. They’re meant to look like the Kindred but to be their exact opposite in temperament. Instead of revering and protecting females they…well, you know what happened to my mother,” he finished grimly.
“A dark mirror image,” Penny murmured and shivered. To take her mind off the Cruel Father, she looked through the print-outs again. Aside from the map and the prophecy, they also had a drawing of the Eye of Ten’gu and some notes about the artifact which Nadiah, the priestess who’d had the vision in the first place, had found in the archives on First World.
The Eye itself wasn’t a very large artifact. There was a drawing of it and to Penny, it looked a little like a stylized Egyptian eye from some ancient set of Hieroglyphics.
“Is that what we’re lookin’ for?” V’rex nodded at the drawing in her lap.
“Yes—listen to this.” Penny read from the notes on the print-out, which were written in an ancient, flowing hand.
“The Eye twill fit in the palm of a female’s hand. Yet tis heavier than it would appear and seems to drag upon the one who wears it. It is very beautiful, being painted with gold and stained with all manner of precious lazuli oils. Yet it carries with it a feeling of dread and he who wears it will feel a shadow on his soul which may not be lifted until the Eye of Ten’gu is removed.”
“The one who wears it?” V’rex asked, frowning. “Is it a piece of jewelry or something?”
“I don’t know.” Penny shook her head. “It doesn’t say. Sounds like it could be. And all that talk about a feeling of dread and a shadow on your soul…” She shivered. “Let’s just get it and get out of here as fast as possible.”
“Uh, that may be a problem, sweetheart,” V’rex remarked.
“What? Why?” Penny looked up to see that they had come to the end of the long, twisty gorge they’d been flying through. There, on the side of a vast mountain rising like a monolith into the gray sky of the frozen planet, she saw an immense crack which had been carved into the shape of a doorway. But resting on the canyon floor was a small army of alien spaceships.
“It looks like we’ve got company,” V’rex growled. “I’m afraid somebody beat us here.”
Ninety-Seven
“Who do you think is here?” Penny asked, staring at the ships as V’rex found an empty spot to park his own ship in.
“If I had to guess, I’d say it’s the Fox’ens,” V’rex remarked. “See the markings on the sides of the ships? They’re all the same—all from the same tribe.”
“Commander Sylvan and Kat did tell me that they were worried about them coming up here to the Northern continent now that they’re spreading across Yown Beta,” Penny said. She nibbled her bottom lip worriedly. “Do you think they’ll be a problem?”
“I don’t know,” V’rex admitted. “I’ve only dealt with them a few times. Never had problems before but then, the stakes were never so high. They’re a very proud people and they value barter and contests of will over any kind of currency.”
“Sounds like a fascinating culture,” Penny said. “I just wish I was here to study them instead of trying to get
