WARLORDS OF ANDROMEDA

Chapter 6

The way Sartok rubbed up against the rock seemed in part ritualistic, in part orgiastic-in a way that he was finding increasingly distracting. He was beginning to wonder if she had any role to play in the planet's throwing a tantrum. The weather anomalies had picked up to just shy of biblical proportions. The intersection of energy lines in the earth leading up to the mountain were starting to throw up vortexes of their own.  

Sartok moved away from the rock, dancing, pulsing, and gyrating in trance, clearly adept at channeling these energies through her body for God knows what. But today she was supposed to be acting as a way off this planet. So presumably she was readying to teleport the both of them out of there. What attunements that meant to her underlying physiology exactly he couldn't say.  

"It's go time." 

Dargan noticed the weather closing in on them from all sides. They hadn't a moment to lose. He said, "I'm fine without the verbal cues. Just do it already."  

In a flash of lightning, they were gone.  

* * * 

For moving half way across the universe, both the transit and arrival felt anticlimactic in the extreme. "Where are we, besides far far away?" 

"We're wherever the great spirit feels we need to be. If it is your destiny to be supreme lord over all these gods of war, then this is the next step in your journey. If not, then it's probably just as well you find out now so I can be home in time for dinner." 

"The great spirit?" 

"Some other time."  

The jungle was lush and alive-a little too alive for Dargan's taste, especially with all of those lifeforms unknowns. A tropical world; he could drink the air more readily than breathe it. She looked more disoriented than him, made uncomfortable by the new surroundings. Probably the price she paid for being more rooted in time and place than Dargan could ever hope to be. And she had just been uprooted. Her people must have descended from nature devas or some such, what they would have referred to as tree lovers in his day. Before they decided to take their game to the next level. 

Nervous and unsettled, she shifted back into male form, her defensive guise.  

"Can I ask you to stay in female form?"  

She took a couple calming breaths to help her process the merit of the request, then shifted back. "Probably a good idea. I'm more receptive in this guise, less guarded, and we need to tune in the new environment and what we're up against in a hurry. There'll be plenty of time to be guarded later." 

"Is there anything you can tell me about this world, using that shamanic sense of yours?"  

She had been throwing furtive glances at every migrant sound since they landed, trying to focus her mind in on what mattered and ignoring the rest. She was merely multitasking by talking to him and he figured he had at best ten percent of her attention.  

"There's magic here - lots of it. A preponderance of chi." 

"The energy surges flowing through the planet are more pronounced?" 

"Yes, that makes more energy available for the creative musings of the lifeforms here. Makes it easier to manifest whatever's on their mind. Though it doesn't mean they're any more in control of their minds." 

"Wonderful. You want to take the lead or should I?" 

"Don't be in such a hurry to get somewhere you may not want to be."  

When he glanced back at her impatiently, she pressed on ahead of him, parting the palm fronds with caution. 

"I find bold works best; animals can smell fear on you."