Bond-Shattering

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AND MEDEEK LOOKED DOWN upon all He had created. And, lo, He observed that Adar was lonely and yearned for the companionship of his own kind. And Medeek took pity upon Adar and provided him Biolab-1, saying: "Scientif and multiply!"

...excerpted, page 2, Chapter One ("Life from the Void"), THE GREAT BOOK; loca data banks Clan Julius Archives, WARXII.

SYCRAIAN MELAT-ADVISER BANEUS THO Sycraian Melat-Adviser Baneus Tho had witnessed nature's equivalent to this man-made disaster. He'd been on the slopes of High-Mountainclimb, at the time; when across the valley, one small crystal of fall from the sky ice touched down, mingled with dormants of its kind, and began to move the lot. Soon a small, moving ball, to gather more mass. Then, an all consuming roar that sucked up, pasted on, and devoured all, including one small village. Nothing recognizable in its wake, as if ice had become permanent eraser.

Here, now, on this scene, if presently off center-stage, was Thuam Moore, of deposed planet Hylan royalty, emigrant to planet Sycra, become catalytic ice crystal of his own. The product not only of the unchecked passions of Sycraian Melat Gaylan West for Thuam, but the duo's involvement in the disastrous plan to capture planet Hylan's City Hideo Max and put Thuam back on the Hylanian throne. Resulting in the kidnapping by the Hylanian ruler, Quin Xu, of Gaylan's Warrior Clan bond-mate Dovio Lix; too, threats made, the latter having become a burr to anger the Warrior Universe with whom Baneus had so diligently sought to open a viable channel.

So far culminating with this: an incoming message. The message's unknown contentevery reason to make Sycraian Melat Gaylan West and Sycraian Melat-Adviser Baneus Tho anxious. For, if it bore good news for Gaylan, something might yet be salvaged from the input of the power hungry bastard Thuam Moore. For, if it bore bad news, more disaster was risked than the mere erasure of some small village in a High-Mountainclimb valley.

Anxious, also, was hired transmit-receiver Creer C. Because this t-r's whole surgically manipulated t-r system became more and more endangered as Gaylan vacillated between wanting and not wanting to risk the incoming news.

"Vector coordinates are fuzzed," said Creer C, and his mentasensors automatically tried to un-distort transmission. Creer's gree scales went glossy in his concentration to the contrary.

Gaylan's large fingers ran through his thick black hair. His wide nostrils flared. He licked this thin lips and swallowed nonexistent spit. "Demand site origin before unscramble!"

The surgically sensitized Creer strained retention of the image but mentasensed dealing with a t who could override his mere fourth class r capabilities: another ominous portent to fill the watch. While Creer still had excess capabilities, he, once again, scanned his mentabanks for any indication that his Sycraian host might be of the kill the messenger of bad news mentality. As before, there was little in the source data to be had on these yet to be classified civilized humanoids. It was only Sycraian application for reclassification, based on yet to be verified research by some genealogist, which had Creer here in the first place. T-rs went where the fee was paid; Sycra, in the midst of a new prosperity opened by its freshly awarded limited trade access to the civilized worlds of the Warrior Empire, Anthax VI included, had ecocredits to spare.

"Site origin denied," Creer informed. Further indication that Gaylan was in deep shit: nothing Creer hadn't known since long before the present visual had pressed for review. However, a t-r's non politic capacity didn't qualify him for rendering advice. Creer was t-r passive.

"They wouldn't deny site coordinates!" Gaylan insisted to himself. "If the Hylanians still control City Hideo Max, they'd want to boast it." On the other hand, Mylax Eaton, Gaylan's armic head of the Sycraian raiding party instructed to take and hold the Hylanian city for Thuam Moore, wouldn't deny his supreme commander coordinates either. As for the Warrior Clan, furious and constantly querying regarding the kidnapping of (and life threats against) its own, Dovio Lix, it certainly never had (nor would) apply incognito status.

"Visual is insistent," Creer informed: as close as he could come to warning that his damage would not be taken lightly by his Anthax VI initiators. T-r conversions were expensive operations. Was, as rumored, Gaylan's Sycraian brain not yet developed enough to realize the repercussions of r overload? "I have insistence to factor six."

The still scrambled image burned inside Creer's head cavity, the heat creating gree sweat released from reverberating gills. Sweetness oozed and was swallowed for lubricant recycling.

"Where would the Hylanians, with no access to civilized markets, access a t-r with override capabilities?" Gaylan wanted to know.

It wasn't Creer's capacity to volunteer solutions to such conjectures. Transmit. Receive. Those were the t-r mode charter. "Acceleration beyond insistences seven," he said instead.

Gaylan paced. Worried. He loosened his belt to disengage the pressure the containing strip exerted on his gut. The resulting expansion of his flesh emphasized he was not in prime condition. Less good living would have seen him commanding on site, instead of here awaiting progress reports in a secret command station on Sycra. Was the good living, brought on by even fragmented exposure to the civilized worlds of the Warrior Empire, about to cease? Had Thuam Moore, Thuam's Adviser Kyle Icru, and Gaylan miscalculated?

"Insistence factor eight." Creer's throat no longer retained the excessive overflow gree; liquid washed glossy scales; hereditary tail trembling ceased; inner resources, menta and muscular, concentrated against image imprint on his brain.

"You have capacity to insistence factor ten, correct?" Gaylan asked.

"Maximum ten," Creer reminded. His voice was breathless, hooded eyes glazed, fangs clamped, and muscles taut. He might have been an inanimate grave marker carved by his ancestors in the scattered telmudic stones of Anthax VI.

Gaylan was sweating. His hands were wet. His upper lip was soaked. Rivers ran the folds of his overweight flesh beneath the fine sansil fabric of his Sycraian royal robes.

"Nine plus." Creer suspected his time was running short. Such a waste in that the visual would transmit over his damaged circuits, once the override, and Gaylan would pay dearly for delaying whatever the incoming news.

"Very well," Gaylan surprised and conceded (too late?) to the inevitable.

Mentamortar that had held the incoming message in check dissolved to spill the hologramous image through surgically altered t-r retinas. The dismembered pieces formulated into 3-D projection: the Hylanian AxMan, Ru Zamber; the Hylanian ruler, Quin Xu; the kidnapped Warrior Clan bond-mate to Gaylan West, Dovio Lix.

"And how comes an uncivilized barbarian into possession of a t-r?" Gaylan asked: the best defense an offense. The longer he could prolong the other questions, and receipt of their answers, the longer he could retain hopes of success still possible.

"Borrowed," Quin Xu replied. With an upturned hand in motion toward Dovio Lix, he added: "As is your Warrior Clan bond-mate borrowed."