Free Return - Book III of the Five Worlds Trilogy by Al Sarrantonio Page B

what she’s supposed to say,” Kay Free replied.
    “Yes, of course. And yet—”
    The two of them were startled to notice the arrival of Pel Front; he, like his two companions, was very much not himself, and had merely glided up, a silent gathering of energy.
    “Pel Front, are you all right?” Kay Free asked, alarmed.
    “I … don’t know …” Pel Front said. “I’ve been alone so long, and it’s been so long since there was a calling … .” He, too, had oriented himself toward the distant sun, the triple bearded balls of ice and rock pimpling??? its orbit.
    “Mother didn’t seem concerned about that, either,” Mel Sent said. “When I asked her why there hadn’t been a calling since we were instructed to do that”—she paused, making a gesture of distaste at the comets—”she was very cryptic. Very cryptic indeed. I worry about her!”
    “I wonder if she doesn’t worry about us,” Kay Free said.
    “Of course—that’s what she’s supposed to do!” Mel Sent said. “And yet…”
    “Yes,” Kay Free said. “And yet…”
    “Well,” Pel Front said, regaining an incremental bit of his old peevishness, “I can’t see as anything is being solved here. I suggest we each go back to our separate brooding. Whatever will happen will do so in its own time.”
    “I suppose …” Kay Free said.
    “I really should check in on Mother, anyway,” Mel Sent said.
    They began to drift their separate ways; Kay Free continued to stare at the distant sight of coming destruction of her own design.
    Suddenly, something tiny and then stronger drove through her.
    “Wait a minute—” she said, as the others abruptly drew closer to her.
    “Yes—” Mel Sent began to say.
    And then a calling came.
     

Chapter 11
     
    D alin Shar felt something like a bolt of lightning go through him.
    He was sure that, for a moment at least, his heart stopped. He ceased breathing, the world went white before him—
    My God , he thought, could I be having a heart attack? And not yet twenty years old?
    And then it passed.
    The white wall before him not so much dissolved as was yanked quickly away; he was exactly where he had been before, sitting at a table studying his advisers by the light of a nearby, flickering fire.
    “She? You were saying?” Erik said, looking at him with the beginnings of concern.
    “I have no idea what I was saying,” Dalin said, with a slight laugh. “For a moment there, I was … not with you …”
     Erik was instantly at his side, peering into his face. “Are you ill?”
    “I don’t … know…” Dalin said; but already the incident was being forgotten, and he felt himself once more. “Let’s move on,” he said with finality.
    Erik was still staring at him curiously; but after a moment he shrugged, regained his place at the table, and the meeting went on.
     
    L ater, as Dalin reclined on a cot in his tent, Erik came to see him, appearing in the tent’s opening with the same concerned look returned to his features.
    “What happened to you before?” Erik asked.
    Dalin sat up on the cot and motioned the other man into the enclosed space. “I have no idea.”
    “I saw something in your face. Your eyes,” Erik remarked.
    “What did you see?”
    “Something …” Erik laughed and shook his head. “I don’t know, exactly. But as you said, it was as if you were returning from elsewhere.”
    “That’s what I felt like! For the briefest moment I was lifted, or projected out of myself, and then I was back.” A puzzled look crossed his face. “I felt something like it, in a much milder sense, once before. When Shatz Abel and I were descending Christy Chasm on Pluto, I fell from a ledge and was saved by something. He called it a goblin. I still don’t know what it was, but whatever it was, I felt a tinge of what I just felt at that meeting. Just a tinge… .”
    “Whatever it is, if it happens again, I want one of the doctors to look at you,” Erik said sternly.
    “Nonsense! I’m