We had to rescue Wilmos. I looked at the portal. No reason to delay any further.
“Ready?” Sean asked.
I held out my hand. “Hold my hand?”
Sean reached out and took my hand in his. We walked into the portal together.
28
A door opens…
The final portal gate was a rounded arch of pale blue metal. In random places, the smooth metal shell had broken away, exposing the complex tangle of electronics underneath. A small symbol had been etched into the center of the arch at the highest point of the curve—a stylized explosion.
“Of course,” Sean said.
It was a Tuhl portal. Because why not?
“What are the chances of us exploding, do you think?” I asked him.
“Zero if we don’t enter.”
Not entering wasn’t an option. Wilmos was somewhere on the other side.
For some reason, I’d thought that the Dominion’s capital would have a direct portal to Karron. It didn’t. It had taken three portals and an hour-long flight via small military shuttle to reach this point atop a remote mountain range on Shurb, the Dominion’s least populated planet. The Dominion provided the craft, the instructions, and the coordinates, but no pilot. Fortunately, we had our own.
Sean had landed the shuttle on a wide platform cut into the side of the mountain, on the ancient stones worn by weather and time to near glass smoothness. The gate sat in the center of it. At the southern end, a huge door led inside the mountain.
We stared at the gate some more. It seemed completely inert. No mechanism to activate it. Approaching it didn’t do anything either.
“Is someone supposed to meet us?” I wondered.
“That was the plan. Miralitt’s brief said, ‘wait for the operator.’”
We waited. Despite the dorky name, Shurb was a pretty planet. It was fall, and the woods below the platform were awash with golds and reds. The air smelled fresh and crisp.
The giant door swung open with a loud clang and a throng of creatures emerged, followed by something very large and covered with an enormous tarp. The keepers of the gate stood about four feet tall on slender legs that ended in hooves. They wore quilted tunics over their slim humanoid bodies. Their heads were slightly goat-like with long narrow muzzles and very dark elongated eyes. Their ears were long and pointed and they poked through their manes of coarse hair.
“Oh no.” Our luck couldn’t possibly have gotten worse.
“What are they?” Sean asked.
“Barsas. Our translator implants won’t work, and I’m very rusty.”
“Wow, a language you’re not fluent in.” He cracked a smile.
“Nobody knows every language in the galaxy, and they almost never come to Earth.”
“There is no need to get defensive.”
The Barsas stopped in front of us. Their leader, an old white-haired male, stepped forward and raised his arms.
Here we go.
“Barsa! Barsa, barsa, barsa. Barsa.” Each word was accompanied by arm-waving and finger-pointing.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Sean said. “Is that all they say?”
“Yep. Hush, I’m trying to concentrate.”
“Barsa. Barsa, barsa.”
The leader nodded sagely.
“What did he say?” Sean asked keeping his voice low.
“‘Welcome. Thank you for being eaten.’”
“That couldn’t possibly be right.”
“I know.” I stepped forward and held my palms out, making small circles. “Barsa?”
“Barsa. Barsa-barsa, barsa.”
“Oh. ‘Prepare to be eaten.’”
“That’s not better, Dina.”
The Barsas pulled on the tarp, and it slid to the ground, revealing a huge, wheeled platform, large enough to contain three semi-trucks side by side. The platform supported a massive mollusk in a spiral shell, dripping wet and brightly colored with blues and greens. It looked a little like the nautilus of Earth’s oceans, except it was a hundred times larger. Its tentacles were a bright electric pink and six feet long. A big round head that should have belonged to a snail protruded from the center of the tentacle fringe.
“Unexpected,” Sean said.
“There might be an underground lake inside the mountain.”
“Probably a sea. I smell salt water.”
That didn’t make it any less weird.
“Is that the thing that will eat us?” Sean asked.
I pointed at the mollusk and waved my arms. “Barsa, baaarsa, barsa?”
The Barsas stared at me for a moment and broke into high-pitched squeals, rocking back and forth and clutching their tummies.
“Apparently, I’m very funny.”
“I got that,” Sean said, his face communicating zero enthusiasm.
The leader finally managed to get his giggles under control. “Barsa, barsa barsa, barsa.”
“‘Prepare to be eaten by the portal.’”
“Oh good.”
A low hum came from the mollusk. The stripes on its shell began to spiral, first slow, then faster and faster.
“Barsa. Barsa. Barsa.” The leader waved his arms.
“Give us your arms.”
Sean gave me a look. I held my arm out. Two Barsas ran up to us and slapped small hexagonal timers onto our forearms. The digital numbers flashed with red. 5,000 long moments. 83 minutes.
“Barsa! Barsa, barsa, barsa. Barsa-barsa!” The leader put his hands together as if holding an invisible apple and opened his fingers, raising his arms. “Boom!”
“Portal must spit us back before the time runs out or…”
“We go boom.”
“Yep.”
I tapped the sensor by my right ear. A respirator unfolded, adhering to my skin over my mouth and nose. An earpiece slipped into my right ear and a clear faceplate unfolded in segments over my face. A short hiss told me my suit was sealed.
“Good?” Sean asked in my ear.
“Yes.”
The suits had about 6 hours of oxygen, so we wouldn’t run out of air. However, they wouldn’t stand up to Karron’s environment. Nothing would. The Dominion assured us that the conditions beyond the portal were optimal, but we didn’t want to take any chances.
Sean pulled his gun off his back. From the outside, the faceplate was opaque, a dark gray, smooth egg, and he looked like some faceless alien creature.
A burst of pink lightning shot out from the nautilus’ tentacles and licked the portal. It powered up in a burst of sparks and projected a small holographic screen to the side. Unfamiliar symbols glowed on it.
“Pressure: 15.2 psi,” Sean said. “Atmosphere: nitrogen-oxygen mix, O2 at 21.3%, CO2 is a bit high, but we should be fine. Humidity at 88%, 600 F.”
“You read Tuhl?” I asked.
“Yes.”
I should’ve known. If it had to do with weapons or transportation, Sean could understand it and fix it.
The second burst of lightning struck the portal. The Barsas raised their arms in unison.
“BARSA!”
We ran into the portal.
My feet landed on something solid. It looked remarkably like a wooden floor. A rotting wooden floor, with boards marked with dark stains and speckled with black mold. Weird gray warts that had to be lichen or fungi sprouted between clumps of toxic-looking yellow sponges.
I looked up. We stood in the entryway of a house. The walls were coated in lichen and mold. Thick blisters the size of my head protruded here and there, caught in a net of plant roots. The liquid inside them glowed with dull phlegmy light. Flesh-colored slime dripped from between the gaps in the crown molding.
Where the hell were we? It was like we had landed in a petri dish with a bacterial colony grown from a swab taken at a truck stop bathroom.
I glanced over my shoulder. Behind us, the portal was a perfectly round, vertical puddle of pale pink on the wall. The holographic readout in the top of my faceplate was green across the board. The atmosphere was safe to breathe and free of contaminants, despite all the bizarre growth.