Suddenly, I realized we weren't alone.
Homer and the other two dogs were standing right in front of us, watching us. I know this sounds crazy, but I swear some flicker of intelligence appeared in those laughing dog eyes.
The three of them looked at us, and we looked back.
I held out my hand, palm up, to show the dogs the crystal. Homer scarfed the crystal out of my hand as if it were a dog biscuit. But he didn't swallow it, just held it in his teeth, where it glittered like a diamond.
The three dogs turned and ran down the beach.
They ran into the surf and splashed out into the water, paddling for a dozen feet or so.
Then they came back to shore, and had a glorious time shaking themselves violently and spraying water all over two old ladies who were hunting shells.
Maybe someday the Pemalite crystal will wash back up on some beach somewhere. Maybe by the time it does, we'll be as wise as the race that created it.
"Homer!" Jake yelled. He threw the Frisbee.
And all three of the dogs, happy, silly, loving fools that they were, went racing after it.
Don't; miss
It was crowded inside the Bug fighter.
Especially because Ax takes up a lot of room.
But we huddled together and looked over Ax's shoulders as he worked the controls. And we looked past Ax, out through the transparent panels at the front of the Bug fighter.
"This ship is very difficult to handle." Ax said. "The design is strange. Some controls are psychotronic. But others require physical handling. Unfortunately, those controls are designed for Taxxons. They have more hands than like."
"Can we do anything to help?" I asked.
"Someone should take the weapons station." Ax said.
"Cool," Marco said. He leaped forward, but I was closer.
I slipped into the area beside Ax. Ax's pilot "seat" wasn't a seat at all, of course.
Taxxons are like huge centipedes, so they can't really sit. Which was good, because Ax doesn't sit, either.
But the weapons station was built for Hork-Bajir. Hork-Bajir are seven feet tall and have thick, spikey tails, but they do sit.
"No way you should handle the weapons," Marco said, leaning over my shoulder. "I kick your butt in video games."
"Yeah, right," I said. "In some alternate universe, maybe."
"Grab the joystick," Marco suggested.
As strange as it seems, there actually was a joystick. It was for much bigger hands than mine, and the two buttons on it were clumsy to reach. But it was a joystick.
"Maybe I should test the weapons," I said to Ax.
"Yes." he said tersely, distracted.
We were rising up through the atmosphere. We were above the clouds already. I could see brief flashes of the lights of the city down below, but mostly it was clouds and more clouds.
But we weren't rising as fast as I would have expected. Ax was definitely working to control the ship.
I looked ahead, saw nothing in the way, and pressed one of the buttons on the joystick.
Nothing.
Ax glanced over. "That was the safety.
The Dracon beam should be armed now. See the screen before you? The red circle is how you aim. Use a combination of moving the joystick, but also use your mind." Marco put his hand on my shoulder. "Phasers on full power!" he said in a Captain Picard English accent. "Arm photon torpedoes! If the Borg want a fight, we'll give them one! Make it so!"
I moved the joystick and watched the target circle track across the screen. It still showed nothing but starry sky. That should be safe enough.
I squeezed the second button.
TSEWWWW! TSEWWWW! Twin red beams of light fired forward, converging too far away for me to see.
"Yes! Most splendid!" Marco yelled.
"Okay, that was cool,"
I admitted, trying not to cackle like an idiot with his first video game.
"Boys with their toys," Cassie teased gently.
"Prince Jake?" Ax said.
"I must apologize."
"Why?"
"I did not at first realize: This Bug fighter's cloaking field is not working."
It took a few seconds for me to track on that. "You mean . . . people can see us?"
"The clouds will hide us from people on the ground." Ax said. "But human radar will observe us. In fact, they have already observed us."
"Uh-oh. Maybe we better get higher," I suggested.
"Yes. But we are rising slowly. I don't know why. And there are two objects approaching us."
"Probably just airliners," Rachel said.
"The objects are moving at one-and-a-half times the speed of sound."
Ax said.
"Okay, that's not a passenger plane," Marco said.
I groaned. "Military jets. Oh, man, it's the Air Force after us. They're "good guys." They're on our side. We can't shoot them down."
Suddenly . . .
SWOOOOOSH! SWOOOOOSH! Two pale gray jets blew past us. The backwash rattled the Bug fighter.
"I can access their radio signals." Ax said. And a second later we heard the voice of one of the pilots.
"Urn . . . Base Control, I ... um ... Bogie is of an unknown type. Say again, unknown type."
"Definitely unknown," the other pilot said.
"Way unknown."
"We're coming around for another pass."
I looked at Ax. "We really don't want to get shot down by a couple of F-sixteens."
"No, Prince Jake. That would be embarrassing. I believe I now know how to increase com"
FAH-WHICH 0000000 M! Suddenly, we were outta there. Out of the clouds. Out of the atmosphere.
"Yes! This thing can move!" Marco exulted.
"We need to buy this game."
We heard a fainter, crackling voice over the radio. "Did you see that? Did you see that thing move, Colonel? Did you see that? What the -"
Then we were out of range, still zooming straight up into black space. Below us I could see the curvature of the earth. It looked just like one of those pictures the shuttle astronauts take from up in orbit.
"That's so beautiful," Cassie said. "Look at that! You can see daylight coming up over the Red Sea."
"Excuse me." Tobias said, "but I don't think the Red Sea is exactly on the way to Washington, D.c."
"Yeah, I guess not," I said. Although it was such a wonderful sight that I almost didn't want to worry about where we were going. "Ax, maybe we'd better slow down, get some idea of where Washington is and -"
"No! No!" Ax snapped.
I was shocked. Ax is always polite.
"No, Prince Jake." he said, a little more calmly.
"We cannot slow down."
"What's the matter?" Cassie asked him.
Ax pointed at one of the view screens before him.
On the screen I saw stars. Then the moon came into view, a vast gray-and-white lightbulb.
And silhouetted against the glowing moon was a shape.
It was like some medieval battle-ax. The rear half was a two-headed blade. From the middle, like an ax handle, extended a long shaft. At the end of the shaft was a triangular head, very much like an arrow's point.
It was black on black. And even if you had never seen it before and had no idea what it was, you'd know right away it was death.
I had seen it. I stggnew what it was.
"The Blade ship," I whispered.
The Blade ship of Visser Three.