Saturn & Sphinx

Seeing what there is to see, that's all. I can pilot almost anything. I will take no joy in destroying you. The panicked babble that followed went in many different directions at once but ultimately returned to Jessica blurting out "What do you mean destroy us? We've done nothing wrong! Tell me , said the Cat, has your species discovered life on other planets? That makes you the first!

Isn't it great to be first! None I'm aware of," said Jess. Have you ever investigated the coincidences between the two? We just collect the samples. Thin streams of lightning flashed from its eyes. The bolts flitted effortlessly through their helmets and enshrouded their brains in a fine mesh of static electricity. Imaginations lit up with ancient alien memories. A giant crystal skewer shish-kabobbing a number of rocky black spheres sailed through space to where a bright whirling pool of stardust was compacting and hatching planets.

The system was destined to have binary stars, but silvery saucers piloted by the mental flux of long haired cats set the baton in place and began it spinning. Once up to speed, the baton moved at an astounding rate, pulling dust and rocks into itself, robbing body and mass from what would become the planet Jupiter. Saturn sprouted rings to become one of the most familiar celestial objects in the sky. Now do you understand why I cannot let you leave. The Cat seemed perturbed. The near endless years of waiting had left him expecting so much more of his company. If anyone were to shut down the machine, Saturn would disintegrate.

Jupiter would absorb its substance, achieve critical mass and ignite. All life would be burned clean from the solar system. No place to house the cats. No servants to feed the cats. No one to pamper the cats. Has a machine ever been made that could not be turned off? Four billion years ago, made in my master's image. Purrfect in every way. How are you even alive? Cat's don't last more than a few years. Are you a robot of some sort?

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Are you a machine? Do I look like a robot? The girl standing next to you. You have often thought of her and in some very lavicious ways. And might add my dear, you do look splendid in black leather. Jessica looked at Lee, shocked, while also a bit flattered. Lee returned a toothy grin. Yet you never do anything about it. And you call me robot. Only the cat knows no master. Only the cat knows true freedom. We are all servants of the cat. And we do as we are told. White bolts of lightning lashed out of the giant black beast. Stinging, burning fire streaked about their bodies, a sensation caught halfway between having the most amazing orgasm in the world and being deep fried.

Only Rod was left unaffected. Before the Cat could take notice, the team leader rolled across the floor, snatched up the fallen gyrojet rifle and rocketed a round into the beast's chest. The explosion showered them with dark gem filigreed kittens, hissing bundles of black fur that quickly found their feet and scampered back towards the platform in a desperate attempt to reform. Slowly, groggily, the two stood up, stung back to consciousness by the stink of frying body hair inside their suits. More later," barked Rod, "Now move!

AS Implant , thought Lee to himself. Rod has an Anti-Shock Implant in his neck. An ASI was little more than a computer chip attached to the spine which worked as a surge suppressor against pain, yet it was also a highly controversial device available only to the military for use in super soldier programs. They helped create warriors who could go on fighting despite having limbs blown off or being toasted by malfunctioning power armor. Rod was by no means super-soldier material which only furthered the mystery of how he ever got his hands on such a device. They came to the portal.

It was closed, covered over by crystal like ice on a pond. Rod hopped up and down on the lid. The surface refused to crack or even waver. Lee flipped the rifle around and aimed at the hatch.

The rocket hit the crystal sheath with an explosion that rocked them off their feet and sent sharp stints of crystal flying everywhere. Once the chaos had cleared, the hole was sharply edged but open. Rod and Lee shook their heads and followed in suit. On the far side of the portal the crystal tower loomed impossibly high, weaving and turning into a nauseating infinity above them. Lee reached down and patted the soft shoulder of Cory's inert form. He sincerely did want to bring the man back for a proper burial but it would be a miracle if they managed to haul their own asses up to the top of the tower.

Their space suits were by no means the bulky white armor of old, yet they didn't exactly come with jet packs either. Quickly the three fled up the steps, holding their backs to the wall and their eyes to the horror swelling and pulsing beneath them, rising like tendrils of black oil in a well. Rod led the way with Jessica in the middle and Lee at the end, gun pointed back the way they had come. The Cat had broken apart to squeeze through the hole, yet it wasn't long before it had recoiled into its stately panther-like form and began charging up the steps after them with lithe leaps and bounds.

Thank God , thought Lee as he stopped on the stairs and lifted the gyrojet to his shoulder, Thank God you can't seem to fly either. Lee held onto a twitching nerve until the beast was almost on top of them, tooth and nail studded tentacles slashing through the air in every direction. The shell sank into the beast's chest and the following blast reduced the cat to a hailstorm of flailing kittens and gemstones. The concussion had almost whisked him off the impossibly smooth steps. But next time not so close!

He had hoped there wouldn't be a next time. He had hoped that despite the Cat's unfathomable invulnerability that it wouldn't survive a skyscraper tall fall. Luck however was not in his favor and Lee would blast the Cat back down to the bottom of the tower three different times as they ascended through the lightning field and into the freezing cold clouds above.

Eventually the Cat wised up and began to simply stalk them, prowling the tower directly two flights below. With backs aching and legs feeling as if they had been shredded by the endless flight of stairs the astronauts finally reached the tip of the crystal spire. It had tried to close on them, yet was narrowly held open by two curls of steel that Lee and Jessica had welded in place before descending the spire.

From the other side he helped Jessica up.

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Rod stretched an arm back down for Lee. Like a hydra, the Cat split into a black mass of tendrils and slick polyps that shot out in every direction as it heaved its massive bulk out into the silo and rolled upwards towards the spire. Angry jagged bolts of electricity crackled through the air. Giant obsidian claws snapped forward from stretching tentacles as they whistled on the crystal steps like ice skates slicing across a frozen pond. The Cat had enjoyed the company yet grown weary of their games. It lurched in for the kill and exploded as the last shell in the gun pierced its black, gem-encrusted core and blew it into a thousand different disbelieving feline forms.

He tossed the spent gyrojet rifle down the shaft and scrambled up into the DS7's cargo hold. It hadn't been easy keeping his mind blank and thinking zero while the digital ammo indicator stared at him with a big red one, yet it wasn't impossible either. Lee pulled himself up through the crack. Quickly the curls were cut free and the crystal tip spun shut. With the laser welders Jessica and Lee took to burning a bead of steel around its outer edges, praying it might hold the portal shut.

Finished, sweating butter inside their suits, Lee looked at Jessica and Jessica looked at Lee. Their eyes shot around the deck. The hatch jumped as the Cat hit it with full force from below. The beast recoiled and vaulted again, breaking apart into a mass of writhing, screaming tentacles on impact.

Once it reached full force, it would be perfectly silent and barely anything other than yet another power drain on the reactor. Until then however, the amount of centrifugal force it tossed around was a scary thing. The elevator chimed and opened its doors. He had the struggling orange fur ball barely recognizable as Tigger clutched in one hand and a pistol in the other. Go up top and get the ship ready for take-off. They gave him a few blinks of disbelief but nothing more.

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Ignoring them, Rod walked over to the crystal spire and pressed the struggling feline's face against it. Below the beast pulled back and slammed the hatch until spider web thin cracks began to spread across its surface. The slug ricocheted twice around the room before lodging in a fire extinguisher that dusted the floor with a rushing white cloud of dust.

Rod held the cat up again and put the gun to its head. He clicked back the hammer. The whole ship seemed to jump with every hit on the beast against the crystal spire's underside. Invisible gears whined and skipped and screeched as they desperately tried to pull open the hatch. Tigger bit into Rod's hand.

Even though his teeth were not sharp enough to pierce the spacesuit glove, the shock of the prickly teeth was enough to jolt Rod into dropping the cat and pulling the trigger simultaneously. The searing slug blew his thumb off at the ball and sent the digit flying through the air like a small blood and steam powered rocket ship. Rage incarnate, the Cat exploded into the room, suspending itself from a dozen gleaming black stalks anchored to the metal infrastructure.

Electricity snap-crackled up and down the sides of the cargo bay. The beast reared back, ready to fall on Rod like a wave of pure death. What hit Rod was not complete and utter destruction but a shower of cut and colored glass, the blackness that bound them suddenly gone like a shadow dispersed.

Rod picked up a piece of frozen metal and clutched it to his broken hand, hoping to freeze shut the wound. The anti-shock implant in Rod's neck kept out the screaming blind agony of the wound but still let in enough pain to tell him that something was terribly wrong. Tears ran down the side of his face.

Tigger hissed at him and bolted for the open elevator. Jessica and Lee stood like statues on the other side of the spire. Lee licked his dry lips and spoke into his suit's communicator. Lee," he barked, "go upstairs and get this heap ready to fly. Get a broom and sweep up those stones. I want every one of them, and I want them on the bridge.

I won't fly with them on board. Billions of years old. Planet with nothing to eat on it but tons of static electricity. It was a robot, just like you said. Once the anti-magnetic field generator kicked in it was caught in the pulse and sucked dry. Throw those stones outside the field and it'll probably zip right back to life. And then where will we be? By being the only one who could fly the ship he figured he didn't have to, pistol or not. Threaten us all you want, but if that's company material, which I'm guessing it is, it's not going to fire.

He knocked Lee aside with a shoulder to the chest and bolted past him to grab Jessica.

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Rod pressed his thumb against the gun's safety pad. The touch sensor flashed green and beeped. Four billion years is damn a long time to protect a planet and we don't know what against. Do you really think it's a wise to leave Saturn defenseless? What if someone shuts that thing down. What if Jupiter attains critical mass? Yes, it would be tragic and certainly any government or perhaps a certain corporation would greatly reward him for the chance to take over the Cat's role as the protector of Saturn, the sole defender of all life in existence.

Keeping the solar system safe from total annihilation could prove to be a very lucrative prospect indeed. In order to take off we all need to be strapped into our acceleration seats, back to back. What are you gonna do then, train the gun on yourself? Aim it over your shoulder at her? Rod jostled Jessica over to the edge of the crystal spire. He checked her life support gage and slapped her backside with a cold bloody hand. Don't stop until you reach bottom. We'll come back for you, once we first get this load up to the mothership. When this thing takes off it's going to shoot quite a blast down that hole, and I'd hate to singe your pretty little head.

I want them on the flight deck. According to Jessica's ESU she's got eighteen hours left to live. That's more than enough time, but not if we dally. The ship's damaged you dimwit. We'll be lucky to get back to the mothership in one piece. It's not going to make another flight after this one! The Cat was right, he did have a bad habit of always doing as he was told.

Back on the flight deck, Lee strapped himself in and checked the computer. Rod had locked off all communication with the mothership. The DS7 couldn't shoot off a distress signal if it was being hauled ass first into a black hole. Lee burned with anger. Rod had lost it. Rod was insane, insane with greed and pain and exhaustion -- much like himself, sans the greed. Aluminum sample containers packed with gemstones were netted and bungeed and strapped in wherever they could be stored.

About this book Customer reviews Biography Related titles. About this book This welcome addition to Iowa's popular series of laminated guides — the twenty-seventh in the series — illustrates fifty-one species commonly found in the Upper Midwest states of Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin.

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Other titles from Iowa UP. Lady's-Slippers in Your Pocket. Browse titles from Iowa UP. The pool of fiery water symbolizes your emotional control. The Parthenon is a symbol of your mastery over your worldly life. Your supportive, non-possessive hands represent the freedom of expression you give to your attributes.

Have the courage of the lion to be yourself. Like the half-human, half-animal face, you can put on many masks, Be versatile, a player of many roles. As the fragile but strong egg and butterfly, express yourself in the yin and yang. Strength is living in full accord with the undiluted multiplicity of your spirit.

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