The Cauldron by Jean Rabe, Gene DeWeese Page A

birth in otherspace , that part of space that was neither real nor solid, had somehow infused him with abilities beyond those of his peers. Melusine had read the records: no other Elthoran had been born in otherspace— despite many attempts to engineer such. As Delphoros grew, he did not hesitate to join the service, and he agreed to become a navigator, despite the alterations that would eventually rob him of the use of his legs and prevent him from breathing air, forever trapping him in the nutrient fluid of a navigation tank.
    Could he still be alive and be outside his tank on this planet the residents called Earth? He must! Else the navigator’s readings of energy fields were faulty. Did Delphoros’s legs function? Was he lost so early in his life as a navigator that he had not yet been fully changed? Had his muscles not completely atrophied? Did he walk among these beings as one of them? Or was he pushed about like an invalid? Alive or dead, where was he now? He’d been on this very spot. But where was he now?
    Melusine knew that Delphoros had undertaken only a dozen or so flights from Elthor through otherspace when his ship had been lost and a distress beacon sent out from this very world. The message took a great while to reach their home world, as it did not have the benefit of shaving time through otherspace . But when it did finally arrive—a few hundred years after the crash by their reckoning, her rescue ship was dispatched. Delphoros was too precious not to retrieve. He was too powerful to relegate to their history. He was crucial to Elthor’s continued use and exploration of otherspace . And with no prospective navigators left, he was necessary.
    Melusine felt blessed that she’d been assigned to this mission. Her host’s chest swelled with pride at the thought of its importance.
    “Delphoros,” she pronounced the word stronger with her host’s lyrical, feminine voice. “I will find Delphoros.” And Melusine expected to be richly rewarded if—when—she succeeded.
    She’d committed his records to memory, concentrating on his few weaknesses. Delphoros’s instructors had remarked about his too-high regard for all life. One noted that while he supported Elthor’s otherspace explorations, he felt sorry for the ships they traveled in, believing them living beings that had been enslaved rather than lesser creatures to be dominated and exploited for their ability to haul freight and people through space and otherspace . So his good heart was his strongest weakness. Would that help her find him?
    No doubt he’d tried to save the living ship when it crashed. Perhaps he was with its body still—as neither could it have long survived the injuries of a crash nor lived through the centuries like Elthorans could. Had he buried it somewhere to hide it from the people of this world? Was it buried beneath this very sidewalk?
    Melusine bored deeper into her host’s murky mind so she could better control its body. She swung her arms in wide circles and clenched and unclenched the fingers. The bits of metal and crystals around the fingers bothered her, and so she shed them onto the pavement.
    “I will find Delphoros with your help,” she told the woman.
    ***

Chapter 11
    Carl Johnson
    Monday morning looked better, the sky blue and cloudless. Carl was out of the motel a little after seven-thirty, shaved and showered, wearing a fresh short-sleeved Oxford cloth shirt and slacks to look presentable for Omega.
    I’ll go there right after breakfast, he thought. Talk to Personnel, straighten them out. Get addresses for guys I worked with if that’s the only way. Be on my way back home by afternoon.
    At the downtown McDonald’s he dawdled over an Egg McMuffin and coffee, partly because he was absolutely certain neither the restaurant nor the menu had been part of his hometown a dozen years before … and yet the place had an “age” to it. Leaving, he had a qualm: would the plant really be where the phone book,