Catch a Falling Star

Canto 21 – Blue Boy

The entire group of adventurers went aboard the Leaping Shadowcat to work out their problems. The Hammer, an ancient device of incredible power, was now actually in their possession. Junior Aero had detected it hidden within the Synthezoid’s body cavity.

“How was this boy able to read the robot’s mind?” Ged asked Tkriashav.

The almond-eyed Psion Master looked at Ged through narrowed eyes. “He has a Psionic power I’ve never encountered before. His mind reads as a telepath, but he can read artificial minds. He can manipulate computers and robots in the same way Tara and I can bend human minds.”

“Will you teach him to use this power?” Ham asked.
“No,” said Tkriashav, closing his eyes. “I believe he is meant to be Ged’s first student. I can’t touch his mind properly. Neither can Tara. He might prove dangerous to us.”

“But…” began Ged, “I don’t know how to teach! …Not Psion power!”

“You know more than you realize,” said Tkriashav. “You are a master of the inner eye. You do it so well. It is an instinct with you. From what we saw today, the child is nearly there himself. All he really needs from you is moral guidance, positive support, and, well… love.”
Ged looked at the blue-skinned boy. He hadn’t really paid much attention to him before. He looked like a blue version of Ham when he was young. He was small and thin. He hardly ever smiled, but he had dimples when he did smile. He was nine years old, but looked more the size of a six-year-old. It was his Nebulonin curse to be forever small and child-like. Ged nodded. He could learn to love this boy.

“Lend me a hand, Ged,” said Ham as he hoisted the inert body of the Synthezoid onto the game-skinning table. The Madonna had gone to the galley to cook. Tara and Sinbadh had gone to help. That left Bam-Bam, Ged, Tkriashav, and Ham to do the surgery on the Synthezoid.
Ged helped Ham stretch the body out on the table. They pierced the wrists and ankles with skinning hooks. The flesh oozed green juice as if it were blood, but there the similarity to human anatomy ended. There were layers of circuit-weave mesh under the skin and titanium bones at the bottom of it. On the outside, Sorcerer 4 was made like a human. He even had the naughty bits. But under the skin, he was all robot with fiber optic wires and blinking lights everywhere. Ham easily peeled away synthetic flesh to reveal the metal man underneath.
In the hollow of the Synthezoid’s chest cavity, they uncovered the device itself. Ged almost laughed at Junior’s big-eyed facial expression when the boy first saw the Hammer of God. Everyone had been pretty much expecting a Thor’s Hammer type of thing. What they got was an undecorated tube with two right-angled handles on one end. You would never know it was an ancient artifact without the eerie purple glow coming out the open end. It looked like an ordinary plumber’s tool.
“There are no buttons to use the dang thing!” swore Ham, disappointed.
“No,” said Junior in a small voice, “but the thing is telepathic.”
“He’s right,” confirmed Tkriashav. “I can sense that to use the device, you must be a telepath.”
“Oh, great!” moaned Ham.
“It’s workable,” said Ged. “We have to use these things carefully. We will ask Frieda about it, and we have telepaths that might be willing to help us.”
“You do,” confirmed Tkriashav. “I know I haven’t earned your trust yet, but from here on out, our destinies are all intertwined.”
“Even mine?” asked the little blue boy.
“Especially yours,” said Tkriashav.
Ged couldn’t help but be a little spooked by the Psion Master. He didn’t like knowing so many riddles about the future, and he was not comfortable around someone who did.

Tkriashav picked up the Hammer. “It makes things according to mental directions. It uses some kind of organizing power that can rearrange molecules and energy flows. It is light years beyond any technology on Don’t Go Here.”

“What will we use it for?” asked Bam-Bam.
“This planet,” said Ham. “We can bring space-travel technology here with the thingy. We’ll build downports and dry-docks and spacecraft. We can make this world high tech overnight.”
“Don’t be surprised if they insist on staying cave men,” warned Tkriashav.
“Yeah,” said Bam-Bam. “Most of us grew up in Fredsuits and riding dino-back.”

“If we’re going to make this world home, we need to dress it up a little bit,” sighed Ged.

“Yes,” said Tkriashav. “But this world may not turn out to be home in the long run.”

“Why would that be?” asked Ham.

“I see other places on both of your horizons.”

Ged shivered. “Don’t tell me that. I don’t want to know.”

Canto 20 – Seize the Hammer

In the caverns of Don’t Go Here, Ged and Ham and company had arrived at the coordinates of the so-called Hammer of God. Instead of some large ancient construct resembling Thor’s Hammer, however, they found a small army awaiting them. They were not an un-schooled, low-tech army of cave people. They were leather-clad laser jerks, complete with plasma laser rifles and allosaurus mounts.
The army was led by a white-skinned conehead in fake tiger fur. He rode the largest of the allosaurs and he had a small electrical star orbiting his cranium.
“So, you are the Aero Brothers!” cried the cone-headed leader. “You are too late to thwart me this time. I have the Hammer already, and I mean to kill you all now!”
“Ged,” said Ham, “You have such ill-mannered friends.”
“I’m sorry. I hang out in too many low places, I guesssss,” answered Ged, already transforming into the familiar raptor body.
A beam of green energy lanced out of Ham’s weapon and sliced the torso of a bald allosaurus rider in two pieces. Sinbadh’s twin laser pistols splashed angry red beams along the flanks of two different allosaurs, spilling intestines. The beast that didn’t fall dead immediately lashed out in pain and took the head off of another laser jerk.
Chaos erupted before the Synthezoid leader could give any orders to his army. Ged and Ham had never fought an army before, but they knew dangerous beasts from years of hunting experience. They could split up and de-fang a large group of xenomorphs with great skill.
Beams of blue-white plasma leaped out of the laser jerk barrels and skewered things in their path mostly in random directions. One beam passed through the craniums of two of the ten allosaurs in one shot. It wasn’t enough to kill the two-ton carnivores, but it put them both down with smoking holes in their heads.
Ged had transformed and used the raptor’s innate leaping and clawing ability to great effect. He was quickly up on the allosaurus backs and slashing away at laser jerks, piercing leather armor with the wicked hooked claws he wore on each foot. Growling in triumph, he twisted the head off another laser jerk.
Tkriashav used his telekinetic powers to shield the group from laser fire. Plasma and heat splattered off his invisible force fields to set the rocks alight. Puddles of magma began to form around the group of adventurers as rock melted under the rain of deflected plasma.
Tara sent streams of mental fire into the brains of untouched laser jerks. Most fell from their mounts into the burning lava puddles, or to be eaten by their own agitated mounts. Riderless allosaurs did not stick around for a further fight. They scattered into the darker recesses of the back part of the cavern.
The artificial man, unhorsed from his allosaurus, lay glaring up at the raptor Ged with a fierce defiance on his white face. “I shall not underestimate you again, Ged Aero,” he said. “There are ways to defeat even your kind. Psions have weaknesses too!”
“Who are you?” demanded Ham, pointing his laser weapon at the face of the Synthezoid. Bam-Bam Salongi, unable to do anything but watch in the battle, had picked up a plasma rifle. He leveled it at the Synthezoid and showed him that Bam-Bam had seen how they operated by observing laser jerks. He fingered the trigger switch menacingly.
“I am called Sorcerer 4. Remember that name. I will be the death of you all.”
Suddenly the Synthezoid began to hum internally. His eyes rolled back, and his orbiting spark went out like a light bulb.
“He’s going to explode!” shouted Tkriashav. His inner eye had warned him.
“I will get it!” shouted the little blue boy. His naked body vaulted over the corpses to lay hands on the Synthezoid’s head. “He’s still downloading to somewhere else!” Junior closed his eyes and directed a bolt of mental energy into the metal mind.
“The boy can’t do anything!” warned Tara. “We can’t read that artificial mind!”
Suddenly the whirring and the humming ceased.
“I stopped him,” said the boy, smiling. “I mentally diffused the bomb. I can see into robot and computer minds.”
Ham stepped forward and picked up his new Nebulon son. He glared down at the defeated Sorcerer, and then grinned at the boy.
“You know,” said the boy, “you are really handsome when you smile.”