On the Shore of an Ancient Alien Sea (Loosely attached to Void and House from Hell tales).Part 6.

Sharle looked at Garl Michael as we got up to head for the door. 3 more people joined us as we reached the door. The slim blond from behind the bar was introduced as Gabriel, a tall slender, exotic inhuman male with brilliant green eyes and wild clouds of hair that sometimes seemed silver, or gray, with blue highlights. He looked slightly cat like, and another Dubwa type.

The male was Azza Uziel, Sharle's husband, known even to me as Emanuel's mightiest warrior.

The Dubwa was introduced as Sharon, better known as the Dreamer. That was all.

Garl led us to a great golden globeship. Chainstar, E.1. Zion was all that was on the name plate beside the door.

I now realized that I was with the highest ranking Ankloi of all.

As we took seats in the control room, Garl simply said. "Shar'Gar, near Sar'Ga Cavern Comp."

"Yes, ETA will be 3 hours." The voice was almost like a lighter version of Garl's own.

I watched the stars pass. They were beautiful. Every color in the rainbow almost.

Eventually, we were aimed at a reddish orange star with 4 planets and a thin Oort cloud.The out most 2 were just frozen rock,. The last world had a small icy moon. Nothing of interest on either.

The next world inward was larger, and had 2 icy rock moons. There was a tower on the smaller moon. Comp sent a small probe. Entering a broken out window, it showed us an empty, wrecked set of rooms. There were 5 levels. No life of worthwhile artifacts were found in any of them. Just office furniture. 2 filing cabinet like metal boxes, and a square machine of some kind vanished.

"i collected all the data I observed, will need translation." Comp informed us.

The 2nd world out from the sun was a humongous gas giant. It had 2 rings and more moons then I could count.

World one was surprisingly far from it's star. It was farther out then my Earth, yet still in the life zone, what astronomers name the Goldilocks Zone.

It HAD once held life, and intelligent life at that.

We could see ruins on 2 of the 4 continents, and a very large tower between 2 mountains. Comp landed next to the tower. Garl teleported us outside.

We could see a cave mouth halfway up one slope. Connan led us that way. I fell in between Sharle and Gabriel.

Did not take long to reach the entrance. It was old, but we could see footprints, disturbed rubble, and something had plainly been drug into the cave.

Con, as the others called him, so I will too; dropped to his haunches to study the footprints and drag marks. "Heavy load, 3 participating." He stood to lead us farther inside.

Gabe began glowing as the light grew dimmer, and Azza and Aaron suddenly turned on flashlights, after which, Gabe's glow died down a lot.

There were pictographs on the wall to the left, which looked smoothed. Most were of large, cat like creatures with 4 arms. They looked heavy all right.

Garl halted a moment, and looked over at Gabe, who nodded. "Angry minds ahead; someone planted a big crate between 2 of their honored dead ceremonial altars."

Then I felt it, a rush of emotions, mainly anger and sorrow. "They are more hurt then anything else." I told Garl.

He shook his head. "Yes, but angry too."

We went on forward; soon arriving at a large Round space. Five tall, and very husky cat like men stood around a big crate.

Gabe moved forward. "We seek that box, and those who placed it here, can you help us?"

The smallest turned to look at him. "Ah, the Protectors, good, and yes, please take this improper object away. We have one of the creatures here.  "Sarss, bring the prisoner to the Ankloi."

"We were debating what to do with him. We no longer sacrifice anything but flowers to our Sun. Nothing halts it's dimming anyway."

Garl moved to stand beside Gabe. "I can put your people on a warmer world, or move your world to a younger star."

"The world please, Shar'Gar is our home." The priest answered. (I am guessing him a priest anyway).

A flicker, and we were all standing outside beside Chainstar. The one named Sarss held a captive human beside the priest.

Above us, the sun in the sky was now yellow. Another flicker put us back at the inn.

The prisoner roared, and tried to break loose from Sarss, nearly escaping. His attention was all for my father at the table, but in a different chair.

A look from Gabe, and he was still. Plainly unable to move. Garl had the crate on the floor by his side.

"Why did you steal the Great Prism from Thrann's messenger?" He gazed steadily at the prisoner, expression stern.

"We were going to exchange it for our freedom from Hell, but he would not believe we had the real Prism." The prisoner whined.

"Why were you chasing the messenger after you had the prism?" Aaron asked, mild toned.

The creature looked at him and turned pale. "Great Baal, we did not know you were involved!"

"I wasn't till you started chasing my grandson." Aaron answered curtly.

"We have had nothing but bad luck with that horrid prism." The creature whined.

"Huh, bad decisions you mean." Con snorted. "Our best bet is to just teleport the prism to Thrann with a note, then see what he does."

That's what they did. Thrann demanded recompense from Aaron since the Broids served Baal. (The creatures did look like human mixed with bear.)

Aaron growled. "And what would you accept?

"Polgae Province." Was the answer. They gave it to him, though Gabe warned him he'd be watching to see what he did with it.

He used it to train troops. No one seemed to care. Unlike hem, they knew he was going to lose the actual war.

The End

May 16, 12

Sharon Pribble