Who Was That Boogeyman I Saw You With Last Night, Charlie Boone? - 7. Chapter 7

They whirled about unsteadily for a long minute before Max seemed to regain control, and Charlie could feel the power of the struggle taking place. This popper was something different, definitely! But at last the feeling that they were gyrating about an unbalanced center ceased, and Charlie had a sense that they had somehow stopped moving in both time and space. They seemed to be in a dark place somewhere, one with odd glimmers and streaks of light that came and went, but nothing around them Charlie could see or feel, and their own bodies not even visible. That a time transference or teleport could be frozen was a totally new idea for him, but Max seemed to have done it. Charlie sensed some other presence then, and by its comforting feel decided it had to be Esmerelda, in some way assisting Max.

But he also felt yet another presence, one unlike any he had ever sensed before; not a part of their group, but somehow having a grip upon it. He could feel anger there, and purpose, and an absolute refusal to accept defeat that was alarming in its intractability.

"What happened?" he heard Kippy ask.

"We've paused," Max said, his voice sounding strained.

"Why?" Rick asked. "Can't we get back?"

"We can, but it would seem if we do, we'll be taking this popper home with us. I can't do that."

"What happened back at the hive?" Rip asked. "It was like they knew we were there."

"They did know," Charlie responded. "They were watching us. Some plan was in operation, but I spoiled it when Castor allowed me to spy them out."

"They didn't know we were there by any way I could feel," Will said then, sounding upset. "I really thought we were hidden from them."

"We were," Max said. "At least, by all the methods we understand. This is some sort of skwish I ain't never seen before. It's not your fault, and it's not mine. We can't defend against somethin' we can't properly sense and don't know anything about."

"The Madracorn did say that some of the poppers might have skwish we didn't know," Adrian reminded. "Maybe this is one of them."

"This isn't something I know about," Rip said. "But we also never met any of the popper command, either. All we ever dealt with were their agents in the field."

Charlie wiggled his mental sense, felt the strength of the bond the alien had on them tighten. "This guy has quite a grip."

Max grunted. "Esmeralda says she can dislodge him, but a teleport and a time move are balanced processes. If we shear off this popper in mid-transfer, it will unbalance our load, and we could wind up anywhere and anywhen."

Kippy gasped. "You mean, we might not get home?"

"Not right away." Max allowed a chuckle to escape. "Esmerelda ain't gonna be bamboozled by no load shift. She'd help us get back. But it might take a while, and I have no idea how much time might pass back on Earth while we're trying to fix this."

Charlie felt a sudden alarm at the idea that they might arrive home to find everyone they knew passed and gone. "We can't have that."

"No. Esmerelda is suggesting we do a redirect, to some other time and place, and drop the popper there. Then we can go home."

Charlie's feeling of unease deepened. "Where would we go?"

There was a moment of silence, and then Max grunted. "Actually, this popper is trying to take us somewhere, himself. He's no match for Esmerelda, though. He grabbed us thinking he would redirect us to where and when he wanted us to go. He seems a little pissed now that we've stopped. He can probably sense Esmerelda's power, but not her. He must think he just grabbed hold of some power-users that are a heck of a lot stronger than he imagined."

"He was trying to take us somewhere?" Rick repeated. "Why?"

Robin made a sound that could only be described as annoyed. "Some things I've been wondering about are starting to add up. I'm thinking now that might have been their plan all along. To get us to come to them, so that they could take us to somewhere else."

Silence greeted that pronouncement.

"They have to be frustrated by the probability discriminators," Rip said then. "They can't even get a good idea of what sort of people live on the protected worlds."

"You've been fighting them a long time, though," Adrian said. "They had to know you."

"They had to know us by our appearance," Rip agreed. "But we always met them out in the galaxy somewhere. They didn't know what world we came from." He nodded. "They do seem able to briefly get close to the probability discriminators, but those are all located in out of the way places, with no people around. So they never saw the occupants of our Earth. We've been an unknown enemy to them out in the galaxy, not tied to any planet. Maybe...maybe all of this was just a ruse of some sort? Maybe they just wanted a good look at us?"

"I'll give 'em a good look!" Browbeat said, his voice still sounding angry.

Charlie remembered how the flyer had handled the popper that had tried to grab Max back at the hive, and couldn't help but to laugh. "You sure showed that one popper!"

A general hum of agreement and admiration arose at that.

"That was the quickest one-two punch I've ever seen!" Rick said.

"You amazed us, sweetheart!" Kippy added. "I never knew you were so quick!"

"Or could get so mad!" Adrian added, just a little bit less enthusiastically. "That was some temper!"

"I'm not sorry," Browbeat insisted. "No one grabs one of my friends!"

"You certainly took that popper down fast," Dick said, with a laugh. "That makes the judo I know look tame!"

"It's that super-elastic field he can project," Rick explained. "Remember? It's designed to keep his body from being damaged in a collision. It takes the impact and transfers the force of it back to whatever hits him --or he hits. I'll bet that popper will have one hell of a headache when he wakes up!"

"If it didn't kill him outright," Robin suggested, more quietly. "I could feel how hard that guy hit the floor, right through my boots."

"I didn't kill him," Browbeat said grimly. "But I would have, if he'd grabbed Max and hurt him!"

Charlie was amazed at seeing this side of the little flyer's personality. Browbeat had never been anything but sweet and lovable. But now Charlie could see that when the flyer considered you a friend, that meant he would look out for you with all his abilities. And those abilities, it seemed, were quite formidable!

"I hope you'll calm down, my friend," Charlie said quietly. "We have to form a plan."

"I'm staying on my toes while this blau'ferzendi has a hold of us!" Browbeat countered.

Kippy chuckled at the strange word. "What's that, sweetheart?"

Browbeat did allow himself a small titter then. "You don't want to know. It's a slimy thing that lives back on my planet. Yuck!"

"Wait," Rick said then, the sound of a new interest in his voice. "Dick? You know judo?"

"I learned it in the navy," Dick explained. "I don't think I want to get close enough to a popper to try any of it, though!"

That brought more laughter, and more questions, but Charlie tuned out the conversation. He made an effort to relax, and realized that that was just what his friends were doing by their chatter. Releasing tension.

Charlie looked around, but couldn't find any of the group to focus upon. "Max? What do we do next?" Charlie wasn't certain, but somehow he knew his question would be heard by the elf alone.

"Esmerelda is sayin' she can see the place and time this popper wants to take us. She says it's a popper planet. Our guest is trying to take us there in his own time."

"So, there were some popper worlds out there!"

"Yep. This one is a half-million years in our past, though. If we just relax and let him take us there, Esmerelda says she can dump him on arrival and then take us home. Maybe that's the best bet."

Charlie felt like he scratched his chin in thought, but couldn't see how his immaterial self could do that. But it did give him an idea. "I'm wondering if just dumping this guy is such a good idea? We may be walking away from a chance to learn more about these aliens."

"This particular one is hot, though," Max said. "Never seen anything like the way those two poppers merged into one. It seems to have increased his power by more than just double."

Charlie felt a crawling sensation on his immaterial body. "Too strong for you to handle?"

"I actually don't know. The grip this guy has on us now...I don't know if I could break it without Esmerelda's help."

That said a lot. "But Robin is here, too, and all the rest of us."

"Oh, sure. Together we'd kick this guy's butt. I just mean his power with time and teleportation would be a job to handle. Rip's the only one who could help with the time stuff. He's pretty strong, too. But..."

"It would be a risk," Charlie guessed.

"Yeah."

Charlie sighed, thinking. It definitely wouldn't be good to let the popper take them to one of its worlds where help would be at hand. But if they could just get the alien somewhere alone, where they could study it, maybe even talk to it...

Charlie had a new thought. "Esmerelda can stop one of us from moving through time, right?"

"Uh huh. Easily."

"The popper, too?"

The elf laughed. "For her, he wouldn't even be different than one of us."

Charlie felt a rush of excitement at that. 'Um, could she move us in time, without letting the popper know she was doing it?"

"Sure. Esmerelda is a part of space-time. She's so much better and more powerful with time than we are...she can do anything we can imagine, I'll bet."

Charlie nodded his immaterial head. "Suppose then, we relaxed, and let this popper take us to his planet--?"

"And dump him there?" Max inserted, with a chuckle. "That would suit me just fine."

"--but not let him take us there in his own time," Charlie went on. "Let him think he is taking us there in his people's time, but have Esmerelda move us forward, so that it will really be our now, 500,000 years later."

The elf was silent for a full three seconds. "Why?"

"We go there in our now, and have Esmerelda keep him from teleporting off the planet or away into time. It will be just him and us, in the present. His people are extinct in our time. Any planet he takes us to would have to be an uninhabited ruin, at best."

The elf sighed. "Somehow, I don't think talkin' to this guy will do any good."

"Okay. Maybe we can't talk to him. But I want to know more about that weird skwish I felt in the room in the hive, where the six poppers were watching us. I want to know how they detected us, and how they could see us and follow us despite all our protections. This bit of knowledge may be crucial to dealing with these people later on."

He heard Max sigh. "You may have something, Charlie. I get a whiff of that strange skwish from our friend, but I can't get a handle on it. It's not like anything I've ever encountered." But then the elf grunted. "Well, I don't think it is."

"You're not certain?"

Max made an uncertain sound. "Once or twice I thought it felt familiar. But I can't place it."

"So, we really should check it out, right?"

"Yeah." The resignation in Max's voice seemed clear. "You're right, Charlie. It might be critical that we know what these guys can do down the road. Let's tell the others, and explain what we want to do."

"I think they'll all go along with it," Charlie offered. He did know his friends!

He heard Max sigh again. "That's what I'm afraid of!"

 

* * * * * * *

 

They followed Charlie's plan and relented, allowing the popper to take control of their movement. The transfer resumed, with the popper redirecting them to an alien world, while Max and Esmerelda quietly moved them 500,000 years into the now that they knew on Earth, without letting their adversary know. As they materialized, Esmerelda separated the popper from them so that they and the alien materialized on the planet some distance apart. She then locked the door on the popper, disallowing the alien from teleporting or moving in time. That left them on a strange world, Charlie's group and their adversary, separated by some distance, perhaps, but each aware that the other was there, too.

Max told them to expect a heavier gravity than they knew on Earth, but that he would adjust it for them as soon as they arrived. But they all briefly experienced it, anyway, before Max countered it, and Charlie estimated that it was a quarter-again what they knew on their own world. Without a skwish counter to the local gravity's acceleration, they would have been weighed down and had difficulty moving. The popper world was either larger or denser than earth, or perhaps a little of both.

They had materialized in what could only be termed a jungle. Or, they materialized above one, rather. They found themselves standing on a ridge above a grand plain covered in tall, green trees of an unknown type, from which the moldering remains of a city still sprouted. A red sun stood low on the horizon, just above the scene below, but whether it was sunrise or sunset was unclear. The sky was a deep violet, with a pinkish tinge around the sun, and Charlie could imagine that the sky must provide quite a view in midday.

Sounds reached their ears, and they could only be the sorts of sounds made by living things. The city below them might be empty, but the jungle that hid it was not.

"That place looks old," Rick said, with a hush to his voice. "Surely, no one lives there now."

Kippy turned to Rip. "The poppers didn't live into our own time. But have you any idea how long ago they perished?"

The ex-time ranger frowned. "Not really. Some of the other races we worked with estimated they'd been gone for at least 50,000 years."

Charlie stared at the tumbledown remains of the city. "I can't imagine ruins lasting that long. Between the weather and other environmental factors, untended constructs tend to vanish much more quickly than that."

"There are some stone ruins on our own world that are quite old," Dick observed. "But nothing like 50,000 years."

"Those are simply stones piled on one another, too," Robin pointed out. "Stones like granite weather time well, while softer stones like limestone are more quickly eroded. More modern building materials are more refined, which actually gives them less durability over time than native rock." The man sighed. "But I have no real idea what sort of miracle materials a really advanced civilization might possess. It's not impossible that some could last this long."

Charlie surveyed what he could see of the towers that still poked up from among the trees. "What's here doesn't look well-preserved. These are just husks, from what I can see of them."

Rick turned to Max. "Any idea where our new friend might be?"

Max swiveled slowly, and then raised a hand and pointed. "That way, but not close. I may not understand that weird skwish, but I got a feel for it now. At least I'll know if he's comin'."

Charlie looked the way that Max had pointed, and nodded. "I can feel it, too. After getting a whiff of it in that room on the popper hive, I don't think I'll ever forget what it smells like."

Kippy stared at him. "You actually smelled it?"

Charlie grinned. "Well...no. It's weird. It's an inner sense, but it tickles my nose somehow, as if it was a smell."

"That the way I get it, too," Max agreed. "Listen, guys. We all need to be careful about using skwish. Whenever we do, that popper will sense it. We don't want to lead him right to us, not just yet, anyway."

Ricky laughed. "Bet that guy is pissed off to find out he's not in his own time!"

Adrian nodded. "And that he can't leave this one. Or the planet, for that matter."

"He not apt to be in a good mood," Robin agreed.

"They're never in a good mood," Rip added. "I never understood how poppers think. All they ever seemed to do was to want to destroy things."

Charlie turned, and found Will watching him. "You've been quiet, my friend."

The shaman nodded. "I've been tryin' to figure out how these blue guys knew we were there. I think I may have an idea."

Charlie looked quickly around the ridge, and decided they were too exposed there. "We need to find a place to base ourselves," he decided. "Then we can have a pow-wow."

Ragal shielded his eyes with a hand, and looked out across the densely-treed plain. "The city would seem to offer the best place to locate a defensible position."

"Do we plan to fight a defensive battle?" Casper asked.

Ragal chuckled. "I rather doubt it. But even an offensive war needs a defensible headquarters."

Browbeat lifted from Max's shoulder and moved to hover in front of Charlie. "Want me to go scope out a place? I can do it a lot quicker than you guys can on foot!"

Charlie was reluctant to let any of his friends go off alone, but even he could see the logic of the flyer's request. It did appear now that the sun on the horizon was sinking rather than rising. He had no wish to spend the night out in the open if he could help it.

Charlie leaned closer to the flyer. "Okay. But you be careful, you hear me? We have no idea what sort of things live in that jungle."

The flyer tittered. "Better be a brave monster that wants to take a bite out of me!"

Casper looked up at the flyer and laughed his squeaky laugh, and then both of them hooted happily.

Kippy rolled his eyes. "Just find a place and come right back. Don't go off exploring."

Browbeat turned in slow circle so that he could look at all of them. "Friends! You can count on me!"

Charlie sighed, and nodded. "Off with you, then. And be careful!"

Browbeat let out a whoop, turned towards the city, and started away from them. The flyer was astoundingly fast when he needed to be, and in an instant was gone from their sight.

"He'll be okay," Casper said, looking up at Ragal. "I feel it."

In fact, less than five minutes went by before the flyer had returned. "I didn't want to go too far into the city," he told them. "I found a good spot at the edge." He made a small sound of amazement. "Boy, that place is really falling apart!"

They found a natural path down the hillside, apparently made by flowing water during the rains. It followed the lay of the land so well that there were almost no places too steep to test them. After fifteen minutes of travel, they had reached the floor of the valley, and were able to move out onto the heavily forested plain.

"This isn't a jungle like you'd find in the Amazon," Rick noted, as they moved along. "I mean, it's not a tropical forest. This looks more like what we have back in our own neck of the woods."

"Except we don't have trees that have red flowers on them, like these," Adrian countered, waving a hand at the canopy overhead.

It was true. The trees averaged in the neighborhood of sixty to seventy feet in height, wore a smooth, light-colored bark, and had green leaf-like structures at the end of fairly familiar branches. But the canopy overhead was alive with reds, too, which proved to be flowers of a sort, at the tips of every branch. The reds and greens provided an almost festive appearance, only countered by the occasional wo-wo-wo calls of what sounded like a fairly good-sized animal.

"Local edition of the wolf, maybe?" Dick hazarded. "Sounds like something to be wary of, anyway."

They had to form a line to pass through the underbrush once the rain-made path meandered away from their course. Browbeat flew slowly, his eyes trying to be everywhere, and often turning to look back to ensure the others were right behind him.

Robin was self-appointed tail to their group, and walked with his hand on his sidearm, his eyes alert. But everyone seemed on edge, as the many sounds of the forest did not inspire confidence. Some animal sounds were almost hauntingly beautiful, but a few were deep and quarrelsome-sounding, and did not sound like they belonged to animals one would want to meet face-to-face.

"It isn't that much farther," Browbeat said after a while, dropping back to fly alongside Charlie. "This forest grows right up into the city. The buildings sort of appear suddenly when you get to them."

"Geez!" Max said suddenly. "Hold up, fellas--!"

A sudden crashing sound ahead and to the right alerted them, and then drew quickly closer in a matter of seconds. The underbrush to one side parted, and something long and scaly and as tall as they were thrust itself out at them.

In the same instant there was a dazzling flash, a ripping sound in the air, and the beast was thrown backwards into the underbrush.

For a moment, no one moved. Charlie noticed now that the sounds of the forest he had felt were nearby had become silent. Only more distant sounds reached his ears. That continued for several more seconds, before the voices nearby slowly resumed their calls. .

And then Adrian made a nervous and relieved laugh. "Thanks, love."

Charlie turned with the others at the front of the line. Rick was standing by Adrian, his sidearm in hand, its muzzle still aimed at where the animal had fallen. Rip also had his gun out, and so did Robin, but it seemed apparent that Rick had been first, and the only one to actually fire. Charlie blew out an amazed breath. He hadn't even thought of grabbing his own weapon!

"You haven't lost your fast draw at all," Kippy noted, in an almost detached manner that highlighted his shock at the speed with which the attack had taken place.

Rick didn't answer, but stepped to the side and parted the underbrush to look where the animal had fallen. His eyebrows went up, and he stepped back and whistled softly. He held up the small pistol then, and eyed it with a new appreciation. "It's little, but it packs a hell of a punch!"

Max stepped forward and looked into the brush, then turned back to Rick. "I'm glad you're fast. I barely detected that thing before it jumped us." He frowned. "Strange I didn't feel it until it was right there." He shook his head at Charlie. "The life here is unusually hard to get a lock on. We need to be careful. And we need to get undercover before it gets dark."

"We only have a little farther to go," Browbeat said. "Come on!"

They resumed walking, even more alert now than they had been before, but there were no more attacks.

The forest was thick, and so when something gray suddenly loomed ahead of them, Charlie gasped before he belatedly realized it was a wall. It was smooth, and though some kind of growths seemed to hang down its side, none seemed to actually be attached to the surface. Browbeat moved ahead to examine the wall, and then came back to announce that they had arrived.

"I hope you planned more than us just having a wall at our backs," Dick said.

Browbeat tittered. "Sure. Come around the right side here, and you'll see."

They moved to follow the flyer, and found that the wall was part of a cylindrical tower, which had been broken off perhaps three or four floors from the ground. The rest of the building lay in the forest on the other side where it had toppled, a ponderous, lengthy, twisted heap of rubble that extended away among the trees and disappeared without the other end ever becoming visible. Whatever it had been, the structure had obviously once been tall.

But what was left seemed to be in one piece, more or less, and the base wall extended all the way around, leaving an enclosure within. The ground on the other side had once been paved, or perhaps tiled, and nothing grew there even now, save into the area from around the edge. Across the open space, the plant-speckled facades of several other buildings reposed in sleep. It looked lost and lonely, like headstones in the graveyard at the end of time.

Charlie turned back to their own building. There was a large doorway in the base of the tower, of the same sort of proportions they had seen at the hive. If there had been any doubt in mind that this had been a popper city, that doubt was now laid to rest.

"It's actually not bad inside," Browbeat told them, leading the way to the doorway. "Come see."

As they moved to follow the flyer. Charlie again felt the presence of the odd skwish. It seemed to come from the remains of the building, but was far weaker than what he had sensed inside the hive.

He turned to Max. "You feel that?"

"Uh huh. But it's not attached to something alive...or, not to something alive now."

"Is it safe, do you think?" Kippy asked. He frowned. "I think I sense something weird here, too."

They gathered into a group before the doorway.

"Weird is right," Robin said. "Weird-feeling place."

"That's the way I'd describe it," Will agreed. "But...there's something important here. We should go inside."

Rip pulled his side arm, and held it up in his hand. "But cautiously, okay?"

The evening light barely extended inside the doorway, but they all had tiny flashes as part of their gear. The lights reached out, and Charlie was surprised to find a relatively clean area inside the tower. There were mounds of leaves and other forest debris inside the doorway, blown by the wind, but that only extended a surprisingly short distance inside, after which a slightly pitted but otherwise smooth floor became visible. But the interior walls were clean, and, other than some forest debris, the rest of the room they could see was completely empty.

The odd skwish sense was even stronger inside, but Charlie had to agree that it was not quite the same as the strange skwish he had felt inside the popper hive. This was weaker and less focused, somehow, almost as if it was the residue of something once more powerful and organized.

"Weird," Robin said again.

"This is important," Will said. "This is ghost ixt. A shadow of something that was once here."

Charlie nodded. "Let's get settled, and then we can talk."

"We need to look through this entire place before we get comfortable," Rip said. "And if we stay, there will need to be a watch at the open door."

"I can fix something for the door," Max said, waving a hand. "Let's just take a walk here and see what there is to see."

There were eight rooms on the ground floor, all empty. There were no other exterior doors, though the rooms had large circles on the walls, which suggested a possible technological way to see outside, like electronic windows.

"I'm amazed no animal has made a lair in here," Adrian said. "It seems perfect for that."

"The weird ghost feeling in here might explain why none have," Will said.

"This place would never meet the fire code back home," Dick said, shaking his head. "Only one door in and out?"

"They were teleporters, remember," Robin reminded. "They didn't really need any doorways at all."

"Yet there is one," Dick returned. "That would suggest that not every popper could teleport, or that it was just a matter of efficiency to have them."

They found a central shaft where some form of lift had once allowed access to upper floors, but it was just a straight, smooth vertical tube now, un-climbable, certainly.

"I checked out the upper floors that are left, and they're the same as this one," Browbeat said. "And when the top part of the building fell over, this central shaft got pinched closed. So nothing that can fly can enter this way, either."

"So, there's just the one door we came in through," Charlie said.

The flyer tittered. "Uh huh. Pretty cool, huh?"

"It would scare me, if we couldn't teleport, ourselves," Robin said. "There'd be no way out for us when the front door was piled high with the enemy dead."

Kippy stared at the man. "You expect that to happen?"

"No, Kip. It was a joke. But the sentiment is genuine. It's a poor fort that doesn't have a bolt hole for emergencies."

"We can always teleport outta here if we have to," Max said. "Lets go back to the front room and see about barring the door."

That proved easy, actually. Max went outside and found an enormous slab of broken wall from the section of the tower that had collapsed, and simply moved it over to block the doorway. It even had the necessary curve to it that ensured a tight fit.

"Now we can sleep soundly," the elf said, grinning.

"Should we post a watch?" Charlie asked.

"Nah. Esmerelda will wake me if anything funny happens. " Max sniffed at the air, and nodded. "Our popper friend ain't close by. I can smell him by that funny skwish, but it will be a lot harder for him to locate us."

"That's what we thought at the hive," Will said. "That they couldn't detect us."

Max nodded. "Right. You said you had an idea about that?"

"Let's sit." The shaman sighed. "I sure could use a cup of that good coffee about now!"

There was nothing to sit on but the floor. Max waved his hands, and a square of comfortable sofas appeared, with a massive wooden table in the middle. The table had a fire pit in the center, and a tiny but cheerful flame lit there.

"All the comforts of home," the elf said, grinning. "Take a seat, fellas."

They did that, and then Max reached over his shoulder, and produced a backpack that hadn't been there before. Charlie grinned, recalling their first meeting with Will in the Alaskan forest.

The elf opened the pack and pulled out a single burner stove, just like the one Will had back home, and set it on the table. And then out came cups, still labeled for each of them, and more for the new members of the group, and then a tin full of instant coffee.

Everyone watched with smiles and grins. There was even a flask of water, which seemed to hold much more than it possibly could.

"I love camping with you, Max," Kippy offered, smiling.

"I don't suppose you have a pizza in that pack?" Rick said, as the coffeepot began to tick merrily on the little stove.

Max made a show of laying the pack down on the tabletop and peering inside. "Hmm. Whatd'ya want on it?"

Rick looked around at the group. "Sausage and pepperoni be okay?" he asked.

Max shook his head. "It's coming from Casper's stand on Engris. Irving's don't make deliveries to this particular planet."

They wound up with two large pizzas with rogosh and timpermil toppings, and smothered in furlish cheese. This was a combo that, from prior experience, seemed to appeal to all human taste buds. And, it did! For a few moments they ate quietly but with great relish, the food soothing more than just their hunger. It was a little bit of home -- or, their home away from home, Engris -- and served to remind them that even on an alien planet in unknown space, the worlds they knew were but a teleport away.

Charlie finished his first slice and picked up another. He nodded at Will then, and smiled. "I can slow down enough now to listen. I want to hear what you were saying about ghost skwish."

"Not just that," the shaman said, after taking a swig of his coffee. "I think I know how they found us at the hive."

"How?" Kippy wondered, around a mouthful of pizza.

Will turned to look at him. "Ixt -- or skwish -- is a source of energy, right?"

Kippy nodded, "Uh huh."

"And it pervades everything, everywhere."

Charlie's boyfriend squinted impatiently. "There's a point here, I take it?"

The shaman laughed. "I'm gettin' there." He turned to Charlie. "Energy has patterns. In nature, these are natural, the results of all kinds of influences. But the main thing about energy, and skwish, is that, before you use it, the patterns it exists in are all natural."

Max leaned forward, looking interested. "Usin' skwish changes its pattern. It become organized to do the work we have assigned to it."

Will nodded. "And that's it, I think. The protections we used to get around being detected by their gizmos and their skwish had completely new patterns as energy, ones that were not natural. I think, somehow, these poppers can sense that change."

Max drew back frowning. "To do that, they'd need to be more than just skwish users. They'd need to have once been close to the allmagic, and know its pattern so well that any change would stand out to them."

"I still think that's what happened at the hive," Will said. "They couldn't detect us, but they could sense the changes in the ixt we was usin', which was all around us, and since they were unnatural changes, that meant someone had to be there to do it."

Charlie squinted at that idea. "When I was in the room with the popper leaders, or whoever they were, they had a skwish projection in front of them they were looking at, and we were all there, just as if they were seeing us on TV." He nodded. "And the whole room was alive with that strange skwish presence."

Max grunted. "It's one thing when you don't know something is there, Charlie. We were undetected, because our protections hid us. But if what Will is sayin' is right, the poppers felt the changes we had made in the skwish patterns around us in order to hide us. That told them something was happening there. Once you know something is going on that you can't otherwise detect, you go looking for it.They apparently had a way to find us once they knew of our presence."

"I still felt they were somehow ready for us, almost as if they expected us," Rip said. "That hive business had all the elements of a trap."

Max shook his head. "I don't think it was actually a trap. I think it was a lure. I think them showin' up on Earth was supposed to lure us into doin' somethin' where they could get a handle on our powers. I'm willing to bet they couldn't know we would be able to follow them back. But once they understood that we did, they wanted us even more badly. That's why they jumped the moment they knew you'd spied them out, Charlie. To keep us from gettin' away."

"It seemed to me they were trying to kill us," Adrian argued. "Not capture us."

"I agree, but later," Max said. "Once we got out of their hive, they were even more scared we'd get away with what we knew. I think they hoped to nab us at first, but once they knew we caught 'em at it and were trying to leave, they wanted to stop us from doing that."

Will shook his head. "When Charlie found them watching us, it musta been a real shock to them. That meant we had a way seek them out, hidden away from us in that hive. That musta alarmed them all to hell. They musta wanted to learn about that, really bad."

"Seems like a pretty good assessment," Dick said. "From my limited perspective, of course."

Max smiled at the man. "Your senses are better than you know. And this trip is going to make 'em even better, you watch."

Adrian closed his eyes then, and placed his hand to his forehead. "There's something familiar about all this."

Max turned to him. "How so?"

Adrian's eyes opened. "Oh, not the situation we're in." He looked around the room. "Something about this place. Or, rather. something about the weird skwish I feel here."

"It's ghost skwish," Will repeated. "It's left over from something else."

Adrian nodded. "But it feels familiar."

Kippy stared at his friend, and then closed his own eyes. "I don't--" He frowned then, and took a deep breath. His eyes opened again, and he turned to Charlie. "I think Adrian is right." Kippy sniffed at the air of the room. "There is something about this leftover skwish that seems familiar. I just...I just can't place it."

"Neither can I," Adrian admitted.

Charlie closed his eyes, and tried to sense the strange skwish he had been feeling. The flavor of it had seemed exotic to him, unknown. But familiar? He turned his head slowly, sensing the room around them. Yes, he could feel the remnants of something that had once been here, almost like a dream. Skwish -- the same sort he sensed from the poppers in the room inside their hive, but this was just a shadow of that here, a lingering aftereffect of something once powerful, something once different.

And yet --

"Kip, give me your hand. Adrian, yours, too."

The other boys clasped Charlie's hands. "Now, think about what you feel that's familiar about this new skwish."

Kippy sighed. "If I knew what was familiar about it, I wouldn't need to think about it."

Charlie nodded, but didn't open his eyes. "Just think about it, then."

He felt their minds come together, and a heightening of the feeling that the strange skwish was familiar as he absorbed some of the mental analysis of the other two. Kip was there, loving and able and sympathetic, most concerned with saving whatever could be saved here. Adrian's thoughts were concerned and restless over his inability to define what was haunting his thoughts about this new skwish, but came with an assurance that whatever was needed for Charlie to understand would be provided. Charlie walked all about his memory of the room in the hive, watching the nearly surreal movement of whatever it was he had seen in the room with the poppers. This new, unfamiliar skwish, that was somehow tantalizingly like something he had felt before.

Almost...almost, he had it. But then is slipped away, and was gone.

Charlie opened his eyes. "Ragal...Casper, I need you in on this, too."

The two moved closer, and put their hands on Charlie. He sensed Ragal's strength, and his depth of wisdom and insight immediately, as well as a feeling of time that was vast beyond all imagining. Casper's presence was bold and humorous and youthful, full of optimism and an eagerness to assist. The new capabilities of the joining added power to his memory of the skwish in the hive, as if he and Castor had actually been able to make more of the steps they had been taking towards the seated poppers and the skwish presence before them. They were closer now than ever before. Remembering Castor, Charlie brought the hand that Kip had hold of to his chest, and put them over the dragon medallion. And again, a new component came to his memory and vision of that briefest of moments in the hive.

And then Charlie sensed movement around him, and new feelings as the others each placed a hand on him, trying to help. Charlie heard a soft buzz near his left ear, and Browbeat landed on his shoulder.

He could sense Max now, calm, strong, and interested; and Robin, daring, fast and smart. Will, with some bit of amazement at what he was doing, and a relaxed old knowledge of the world as a different sort of place than most people knew. He could sense Dick's fascination with it all, and his orderly reliance on doing things when he felt the time was right. Rip Shannon was surprisingly amiable, and surprisingly strong in his desire to do right and win.

Browbeat was a tiny ball of energy, loyal and trustworthy, and most concerned about his friends and what would happen to them .Charlie had to smile at the surge of energy he felt, as he and the joining moved ever closer to the alien skwish.

And then a last hand touched him, and Charlie felt Rick there, with his incredible magical mechanic skills, and an almost insatiable urge to know how and why.

In a last rush, it seemed, his immaterial self took the last steps to the seats on the dais occupied by the poppers of his memory, and Charlie reached between two of the aliens and thrust a hand into the flowing form before them.

Raw newness...excitement...happiness at its almost awareness...purpose!

With a gasp, Charlie withdrew his mental hand and felt the others withdraw. The memory of what he had sensed in that brief contact was burned into his mind now.

He opened his eyes, found Kip looking at him incredulously. "It felt like...like Auggie!"

Charlie nodded, remembering now back to the Christmas event at the shop of Nicholaas, where a piece had broken off the allmagic and come to life as the bearcat, Auggie, forming himself to what they had imagined him to be, and taking on characteristics that they had unknowingly assigned him. And as a result, becoming life, of a sort.

"It did feel like my first impression of him," Adrian added, shaking his head in wonder.

"Elemental," Ragal said, a bit of awe in his own voice. "In process."

Charlie turned to the tall alien. "You said you sensed that the poppers were not mammals, nor reptiles. That they were not classifiable at all."

"I did," the lanky alien agreed. "Because they're not."

Charlie bit at his lip a moment, almost afraid to voice the question. "Could they be living expressions of the allmagic, like Auggie?"

Max closed his eyes a moment, but was shaking his head even as he opened them again. "No. Well...not all of 'em. Not the ones we saw walking around inside the hive." He nodded to himself. "But the six we did battle with...one of them...maybe. Four of them were killed, not something you could do to an expression the of the allmagic. But those last two - remember how the last two merged and became one? It was actually one moving to merge with the other, and it was the one merged with that remained and grew in stature. That ain't a quality of life as we know know it - not any kind of life as we know it."

"What does that mean?" Dick asked. "They're alive, aren't they?"

Charlie leaned closer to Max. "Suppose...suppose that an event happened like the event that created Auggie, and somehow, some poppers came into existence. Could they make other poppers?"

Max waved a hand. "I think you're onto something here, Charlie. But I think an event like the one that created Auggie would have just made one of these popper creatures."

Robin let out a soft whistle. "Would one of them be able to make more?"

Max considered that, and nodded. "I wouldn't put much past Auggie. If he wanted to make a few million copies of himself, I'll bet he could do it."

The idea was fascinating, and appalling at the same time, at least when applied to poppers.

"Here's a question," Kippy said. "Would this allmagic popper be able to take on a hernacki?"

Max laughed. "No. Auggie is strong, but even he couldn't take on Esmerelda. Not if there was a million of him, even. The thing is, any copies of himself that Auggie made wouldn't have his strength or his powers. Because it would be a copy of him, not as good at all. Auggie came straight from the allmagic, but any copy he made would just be a skwish creation, with normal power user abilities."

Rip looked back and forth between Max and the others, seemingly amazed. "Is is possible there's just one main popper, and all the others are copies?"

Robin looked even more amazed. "And that the popper we brought here with us...is the real one?"

Rick scoffed. "What are the odds of that? I mean if there are millions of these guys spread around this part of space, wouldn't it be a bit much to think we just fell right over the main guy?"

Ragal chuckled. "You're dealing in probabilities, remember. Something the Madracorn seem very familiar with."

Charlie stared at the tall alien. "Are you supposing that the machines of the Madrocorn arranged all this? Arranged it so that we would meet up with the one and only true popper?"

"What I am saying is that such an occurrence would be no more strange than anything else that has happened with this entire mission. At first we were figuring that time would be a solution in dealing with these poppers. That maybe we could lock them into a loop of time that would serve as a prison for them. But now we are learning that, just maybe, there never was more than one original popper, and that all the others are just copies the first one has made to extend his reach and powers."

"We're supposing quite a lot, aren't we?" Rick asked.

Max nodded. "But what we're supposin' fits the facts. The one that we brought with us is nothing like the others in that hive. They were able power users, but nothing remarkable at all. But the guy we brought with us - he's strong as all get out. I've played around with Auggie, and believe me, he's strong as all get out, too!"

"You feel they are of a similar nature?" Ragal asked.

"I'm sayin' that I probably would not have noticed the similarity if all of us hadn't been in on this joining thing. But now that I can compare the two in my mind -- this popper and Auggie -- I feel like they may have had the same sort of origin, yes."

Kippy blew out his breath. "I wouldn't want to tangle with Auggie, I know that."

Max laughed. "Auggie has benefited by bein' with the boss. Nicholaas is the strongest power user on Earth. You can't hang around with him and not absorb some stuff."

"But you think that all of us could handle this one popper?" Adrian asked.

The elf grimaced. "If this guy came right from the allmagic, he could know stuff we don't. He's powerful, but he's not as powerful as all of us together. We could handle him if he uses skwish we know about. It's skwish he might know that we don't know about that worries me. Auggie has some tricks up his sleeve that I've never seen before, let me tell you."

Rip nodded. "So, then, what's the plan?"

At the look that appeared on Max's face, Browbeat and Casper both laughed at once, and the act of doing that made them break out into laughter again. That made everyone smile, and Charlie felt the tension that had been creeping up on him recede a little.

Max grinned. "You're askin' me? I think we'll need to meet up with this popper at some point. But how we are going to go about it...I may need to sleep on that!"

"I got a question," Will said then. "If you take out the main guy here, what happens to the copies?"

Max's humor faded, and he frowned. "That's another big question. My own feeling now is that our popper brought us to a world where he thought there would be others of his kind. Copies, I mean. He came here, because he knew we were more powerful than he is. But by absorbing copies he had made that might be here, however many as he needed, he could increase his strength until he was stronger than us."

"But there are no poppers here," Browbeat reminded.

"No. And that's why we need to figure out a plan to deal with this guy, once and for all!"