Outlanders 11 Armageddon Axis by James Axler

Author:James Axler
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

After that, no one cared to linger around the master console. Over his croaking protestations, DeFore led Lakesh away to the dispensary. He claimed he was fine, but everyone saw the clammy film of sweat glistening on his face and the unsteadiness in his legs.

Brigid ejected the disk and frowned at it. "Seeing that woman—or whatever she was—stressed him out."

"He's seen as bad as that before and probably been responsible for worse," Grant remarked darkly.

"What the hell kind of trouble has Sindri gotten himself into?" Kane demanded. "And why would he think we'd give a shit about it?"

Before Brigid could venture a guess, Banks returned to the control complex with Leland. A relieved smile creased the troll's face. Worriedly, Banks said, "We just passed DeFore and Lakesh. Is he sick?"

"We don't know," Brigid answered. She gestured to a chair several yards away from the puddle on the floor. "Leland, sit over there. I want to ask you some questions."

"Okey doke." Obligingly the little man shambled over to the chair and hopped up onto it. He gazed up at Brigid with something akin to adoration shining in his eyes.

"I hope you don't hold that crack on the head against me," she said.

"Oh, no. I deserved it. I was half-drunk because of too much oxygen." He shifted his gimlet gaze toward Kane. "Sindri said you made that happen, monkeying around with the airflow."

Folding his arms over his chest, Kane shot back, "Sindri was right. If it wouldn't have killed us, too, I'd have cut off the oxygen supply to the entire compound. Consider your ugly little ass fortunate."

Leland clenched his fists and feet, favoring Kane with a gargoyle sneer of defiance. To Grant he said, "And you killed Elle."

"I didn't mean to," Grant responded dispassionately. "Casualties of war. What was she to you?"

Leland shrugged negligently, as if he had lost interest in the topic. "She gave me blow jobs sometimes."

Kane noticed Brigid wince and he had trouble repressing a shiver of revulsion himself as the memory of the bulldog-faced transadapt woman drifted through his mind. A new thought struck him According to the autopsy performed on the troll they found in Redoubt Papa, the male transadapts didn't have conventional reproductive organs....

His revulsion returned twofold, and he chased the grotesque thought away.

Brigid regarded Leland gravely. "Where is Sindri?

What place were you in? How did you get there? And why?"

Leland answered the questions in reverse order. "We'd been tryin' to find another place to live. Sindri keeps sayin' Cydonia ain't our real home. He says Earth is, 'cause that's where our ancestors came from."

He rubbed his splayed nose. "Sindri found the right buttons to push in the comp on the space station to take us places."

"Buttons?" inquired Grant.

"You know, on that quantum thingamawhatsit."

"The quantum inter-phase mat-trans inducers," Brigid said. "He found the destination and target-lock coordinates for the gateways. Is that what you're saying?"

Leland nodded. "Yeah. So Sindri and a bunch of us climbed into the one on the station and went away. Then we were in the other place.

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