It was stuffy and warm and I was beginning to sweat from the temperature alone. My pulse rate was, normal and my morale high. No more waiting—a time for doing. I turned the light off and pocketed it, then opened the door into darkness and stepped through.

Bright lights came on. Slakey was standing just before me. Smiling.

I had only the briefest of glimpses because at the instant that the lights flared I had dived to one side. Biting down hard with my back teeth.

At least I tried to bite. But as fast as I had been, something else was much faster. I could see and hear—but that was all. My body was flaccid, my eyes open and staring. At the greasy floor because I had landed heavily facedown. My jaw dropped open; I drooled. I felt the panic rising as I realized I could do nothing, could not control a single muscle. But at least I was breathing and my heart was still beating, pounding loud and strong in my ears. A shoe tip appeared in front of my eyes and my vision swirled, settled, staring up at the bright light. Slakey must have rolled me over; I could not feel a thing. His face blotted out the light.

“You can see me, can’t you? And hear me as well? My neural neutralizer allows that. I know all about you Jim diGriz. I know everything for I am all—powerful. I know how you invaded this holy place of worship. I know who you came with.”

His hands reached—down, my head turned. Sybil was lying next to me, sprawled and unmoving. My vision swirled again and Slakey was straightening up. Dressed in full regalia, I saw now. Bright robes with strange symbols covering them, with a high collar, a crown of some kind on his head. He raised his arms and shook his fists on high in a triumphant gesture. Both fists. The right one worked very well indeed and there was no sign of any scar on either wrist when his loose sleeves fell back. “You are a pitiful mortal and shall be destroyed. You seek enlightenment but you shall not have it. You and this female creature you sent to spy. You wish to see Heaven—then you will go to Heaven. You shall, you shall!”

There was motion, my vision rocked. Stopped. My head was raised and I realized that he had dumped me across Sybil’s unresistant body.

“Go, both of you, go. Go to Heaven.” He laughed, choked, laughed even louder.

“Well—not quite Heaven as you shall discover.”

Blackout

Chapter 5

Something happened.

I couldn’t remember it, could not begin to describe it. I did not want to think about it. I had far more important things on my mind. Like the fact that I was still paralyzed and lying facedown in red grit of some kind. I couldn’t fee] it but I could smell it. A rotten, sulfury smell.

Smell! Yes, it certainly was there, and growing stronger and stronger. Which meant something important. After I had been zapped couldn’t smell or feel anything: I could now. Which must mean that the paralysis must be wearing off, because I was vaguely aware of a scratchy pressure on my cheek. I concentrated, struggled hard, harder—then felt my fingertips move ever so slightly.

Recovery did not end quickly, not the way the onset of the paralysis had, but slowly and soon very painfully. Waves of red agony that ran through my reviving body that threatened to block my vision. My eyes were watering, tears ran down my cheeks as I writhed in agony. Slowly, very slowly it died away and I managed to roll over.

Blinking away the tears to stare up at a gray rock ceiling above. There was a low moan and with a great deal of effort I turned my head to see that Sybil was lying oh the ground next to me. Her eyes were closed and her body twisted with pain as she moaned again. I knew what she was experiencing. Slowly and exhaustingly, with a great deal of grunting and gasping, I crawled to her, took her hand,

“The pain,” I managed to say, “it goes away.”

“Jim. ~..” Whispered so quietly I could barely hear it.

“None other. You’re going to be all right.”

This was a pretty pathetic reassurance but was about all that I could think of at the moment. Where were we? What had happened? If this was Heaven it was pretty different from the place that she had described. Sharp volcanic gravel instead of grass; rock instead of sky. Where was the light coming from? And what was the last thing that Slakey had said? Something about not quite being Heaven.

With some effort I managed to sit up and saw the opening in the rock wall: we were in a cleft or a cave of some sort. And beyond the opening was a red sky.

Red? There was a distant deep rumble and I felt the ground beneath me tremble; a cloud of dark smoke roiled across the sky. Clutching to the rock wall I managed to drag myself to my feet and stumble over to Sybil. I helped her sit up with her back to the wall.

She tried to speak, starting coughing instead. Finally squeezed out the words. “Slakey—he was one step ahead of us all the time.”

“What do you mean?”

“He was playing with us, and must have known that you were in the building. He cut his sermon short, made some kind of excuse about an unexpected meeting, turned the organ on instead, along with a recording of everyone singing. Asked us all to leave. Everyone except me. He took me aside, said that he had something most important to tell me. I was curious of course, besides the fact that I couldn’t think of anything else to do except do as he had asked. Then, as soon as the others were gone he pointed something at me. I had only the quickest look at something like a silver spiderweb, before I fell down. It was horrible! I couldn’t move a muscle, not even my eyes. I was aware of him dragging me into that back room in the darkness—and the worst part was that there wasn’t a thing I could do about it. I couldn’t move, do anything at all, couldn’t warn you that was the worst part. Then the lights were on, and you were there, falling. I remember him talking to you. After that—nothing.

“That’s about all that I can remember—until I opened my eyes here.”

I patted my side pocket, felt the lump of the communicator, felt a slight touch of hope at the same time. I put it to my ear, turned it on. Nothing. The same went for every other device on my person. All dead. Batteries and power packs drained. I couldn’t even open the blade on my Schweitzy Army Knife; it seemed to be welded into a lump. I looked at the small pile of metallic debris and felt the urge to kick it across the cave. I gave in to the urge and did just that. It clattered nicely.

“Just junk now. All dead. Nothing works.” I turned and stumbled towards the light.

“Jim, don’t leave…”

“I’m not going far. I just want to look out, satisfy my curiosity, find out where we are.”

Leaning one hand against the rock so I wouldn’t trip, I took step after shuffling step until I was at the entrance and staring out. I felt my jaw fall open with shock as I dropped to my knees. For long moments I could only stare. With an effort I turned away, managed to stand again and went back to Sybil. She was sitting up now and very much more in control.

“What’s out there, Jim?”

“Certainly not Heaven. The sky is red, not blue, no white clouds and certainly no grass. A geologically unstable area with an active volcano nearby. Plenty of smoke, but at least no lava. And there is a big and swollen sun like no sun—or star—I have ever seen before. It is light red in hue, not white or blue, which explains the russet coloring of the landscape.”

“Where are we?”

“Well—” I groped for something intelligent to say. “Well we know now that we’re not on Vulkann,” was the best I could come up with. “And…”

She noticed my hesitation. “And?”

“I just had a glimpse.”

“Some glimpse! You should see your face—you’ve gone all gray.”

I tried to laugh at this, but it came out as a pathetic gurgle. “Yes, I saw someone—or something. For just the shortest instant I could see sort of a figure, going away, fast. Biped, erect.” My voice ran down and she looked very concerned. “Sorry. I’m just being stupid. It really moved too fast for me to see any details. But I think, no I’m sure, that it had a tail. And… it was bright red.”