“And change things?”
“No, just relive it. Suppose your memories were wiped and you would end up doing the exact same things again, over and over. Every time you finish the war you restart. Does that seem appealing?”
“Not with all the work we have to do now, and have done since.”
“Put that aside.”
Paul considered his question for another 20 seconds before answering. “Yes and no. I felt more like a warrior then, but I also feel the journey isn’t about experience, it’s about accomplishments, and when you achieve one your purpose is to move on to the next. I just ran out of nexts.”
“So you are not nostalgic then. You do not wish to go backwards, you are only searching the past to find a clue to your next challenge.”
“Aptly put,” Paul said, feeling the vagueness in his mind crystalize to match his friend’s words.
“You belong in the storm,” Cal-com said wistfully, almost as if he envied him. “You need to return to civilization periodically, but never to stay. In the midst of the storm is where you belong. And only there will you find your purpose.”
“Why does my purpose keep changing and evading me? Every time I find it I lose it again in time.”
“That is simple to answer,” the Voku’s voice said, returning to its normal crisp and formal tone. “The storm is not static. It is always in motion, always changing, never holding a due course. You must adapt to it, and in that adaptation you find your warrior nature at it’s most necessary. Those who are unworthy do not survive the storm…”
“…and only those who are worthy can guide others through it,” Paul finished the line from one of the more recent scifi classics called Hotem’ba.
“Star Force was in the heart of the storm before. Now it is more or less calm. You achieved that, and quadrillions of people, at the minimum, are immensely better for it.”
“But I have to seek another storm, for I’ll never be content in my victory.”
“Warriors never are, for more than a vacation or time to heal up or train. We always have to seek out the storm if it doesn’t come to us.”
“Why aren’t the Hadarak that storm?”
“The storm is relative to your skills. A storm to someone else is a stiff wind to you. The Hadarak are not the V’kit’no’sat. The V’kit’no’sat, if given the same technology as the Hadarak…”
“Intelligence,” Paul said, seeing the obvious. “The Hadarak are strong, but in a brutish, dumb way. Not a worthy opponent.”
“Especially not when you can’t even talk to them. They’re like a swarm of insects the size of this storm, rather than an assassin to fight hand to hand, skill against skill.”
“Skills…are wasted on the Hadarak. You defeat 100 of their minions and they just grow 1000 more to replace them. Everything I’ve worked for, except naval, is pointless against their storm.”
“Then perhaps they are not your type of storm. Just a worthy side quest that needs done.”
“A long side quest,” Paul said as he turned when he heard the zipper behind him pull down.
There was someone outside, and had come up on them without him realizing it because he’d shut down all of his extra senses…but the hand that reached in to pull back the flap was black as the night and mostly covered with a robe.
Cal-com walked in and started to reseal the flap as Paul looked back to where he’d been sitting…seeing him gone.
“We have a tool for the sand,” the newly arrived one said as he took off his robe and rivulets of it dropped to the floor next to Paul’s…which was still inside and not thrown out like he remembered.
“Where did you go?”
“To relieve myself,” he said, seeing the odd look on Paul’s face in the white glow of the overhead lamp. “What’s wrong?”
“I’ve just been sitting here having a conversation with you,” he said, opening up his full senses and searching the area with Pefbar, telepathy, and multiple Essence techniques.
“You were standing on the far side of the tent when I came out. I saw you in my visor and went the opposite way. I’ve only now returned.”
Paul pointed to the sand on the floor. “I cleaned that up too, with a brush and pan that you gave me out of your pack,” he said, sitting on the floor dumbfounded. “Search my mind to see if I hallucinated it.”
Cal-com walked over to him and put his hand on Paul’s forehead, bypassing the Ikrid blocks via touch and searching his recent memories.
“It was not me,” he said gravely. “If the sand has not moved, then it was not real. Did you sense any telepathy present?”
“None.”
“Another dream test manifesting?”
“Those were always when I was asleep, and we got them all. We checked the genetic coding to make sure.”
“Do you sense danger?” Cal-com said in all seriousness as he released Paul’s mind, having run through the conversation his doppelganger had just had with him.
“Not specifically. But I have no idea how that’s even possible.”
“Do Humans have waking dreams?”
“Not this one,” Paul said, looking around and outside the tent, even below and above it, with his senses and finding nothing but the storm outside and the normal contents within. “Show me the tool for the sand.”
Cal-com dug into his pack and pulled out a brush and pan. “Are these what you saw?”
“Exactly. And I’ve never laid eyes on them before.”
“Nor should you. They were sealed up inside the kit when we bought them, and I don’t recall seeing any unbundled ones for sale.”
“What is going on here?” Paul said, freaked out enough that his heart was beating heavier…and for a Saiyan that meant it was absolutely racing.
“There is
