When the show ended two men ran up to our table and heartily shook hands with Tando. These were old friend from Rothrock who had been held up here in Edgetown on their way back from a mission in what used to be New England.

There were Brago Var, a tan elf, and Affens, a yellow and blue striped man with ears like a hyena.

Affens grinned, showing some nice fangs in an otherwise very human and handsome face “We've been permitted to fly against the enemy. We lost two crew members just this morning and we'd be glad of any of you who wants to come aboard.”

“I know I'm game,” Tando said. “You'll have to ask this bunch about themselves, though. From what I gather they either want to sleep or see the sights.”

Tsang popped up between Brago Var and Affens and said “Sure, we'd love to fly!”

“I thought you wanted to see the town?” I asked.

“I do!” Tsang said. “We'll do that when we land.”

“Sure,” Xato grumbled. “If we don't crash.”

Klyp had asked us to wait for him to come out so we could all return to Candlewood Arms together, but he never did come out. When the staff told us they were closing up for the night we asked after Klyp and they told us all the entertainers had left for the evening.

When we got out to the street we had to rush out to the car, for the temperature had dropped rapidly after sundown. It looked like unseasonable ice might also overtake the city before dawn. I began to wish I'd brought furs.

Brago Var and Affens rode in with us, as their hotel was just down the road from ours.

“Don't forget now,” Brago Var said. “We'll come and call for you promptly at 7.”

“You might want to knock loudly,” I said. “I don't know about these fellas, but I'm tired!”

In the morning, when our new rocketmates stopped by, we decided to stop by Klyp's suite first before going to the rocketport.

On the ramp up to the 20th floor, Tsang had a case of the giggles “Tando, admit you missed seeing Klyp. He is quite the appealing fellow!”

“Knock it off!” Xato said. “You're making him blush.”

I'll admit that I might have been blushing a little myself, not that I dared say anything!

Our redheaded friend had given Tando the second key to his suite, with the open invitation to us to drop in at any time. We tried knocking at first, naturally, but when he didn't answer we used the key.

How can I relate the strangeness of the room when we entered it?

The change was not dramatic, nothing was broken. A chill wind blew through the circular space and nobody answered when we called out.

To be thorough, we checked in the wash room, but that too was empty and the tub and basin appeared dry. In fact, the couches that passed for a bed didn't much look like they'd been slept on either.

“I don't get it,” Tando said. “It doesn't seem as if he came home at all.”

Tsang cuddled up to Affens “It's so chilly! Who'd leave a window open on a morning like this?”

“I don't suppose the maid did it.” I said.

That's when I looked down and saw where the chemical I'd spilled the day before had turned white and solid in the carpet. I stooped and ran my fingers over it, the carpet was totally ruined.

“What's that mess?” Brago Var asked.

I did my best to explain it to him as I followed the trail of white. Footrpints in the stuff tracked along the couch and floor. After that were some streaks that blemished the couch and some spatters on the wall at the panel.

“What'd he do?” Affens asked. “It looks as if the man tried to finger paint in that stuff.”

“It's almost like water at room temperature,” Xato explained. “Klyp probably had no idea it'd make such a mess.”

“If only we had some idea where he was,” Tando said.

“We'll have to check with the desk,” I said. “Perhaps he left a...”

Sirens began loudly outside, the ones used to announce the approach of The Satellite Lords' rockets. Needless to say that ended the conversation, we had to take to the air.

Affens' flying was sheer madness! The man shook us and rattled us and plunged us, and he wasn't a tad shy about hurling us directly into danger.

While working the top gun I think I shouted “Defense! For the love of mercy, let's just go on defense!”

Affens laughed “We are not going to lie down and wait for these creatures! When you fly into them like this it cuts the heart out of them and they retreat!”

The ships coming our way showed no signs of retreat just then. I did my best to give them that notion, but they may have misunderstood. “I think they may just cut the wings off of us!”

Affens executed a series of swoops, loosing small bombs among the onrushing ships. The bursts that resulted turned the sky red all around us.

I shouted to Tando “He makes your flying look tame.”

“Back to shooting, Cylas. We can compare notes when we're safely on the ground.”

Looking out through the glass bubble I watched the multicolored rays of the city's defenses burning up the swarms of ships. I felt a chill of fear at the thought of alien generals who contented themselves at sacrificing so many lives simply to test our earthly defenses.

What could the Earth, even aided by an empire like Selenium, do against an enemy this reckless and without scruples? An empire, a leader, that held no great value on the lives of its own loyal people could never treat fairly with an enemy. Would they stop at nothing?

A horrified scream echoed through the hull.

I turned and saw Xato lying on the floor of the cabin and trembling, tears streaming down his face.

I ran over to him and propped him up “Xato! My God, what's wrong?”

“The face!” he screamed. “A huge face came out of the clouds... I'd seen... I... Oh, no, the face!”

Affens dropped us rapidly out of the fray and sighed “I can't believe it.”

“It's the same as before,” Brago Var said. “Yetta and Chahrah cracked up the same way yesterday.”

“What is this madness?” Affens asked. “Can this ship be cursed?”

“No,” the doctor told us at the hospital. “This has nothing to do with your ship, nor any other one ship.”

“What do you mean, sir?” Tando asked. “Do you know what this is?”

The carved stone halls of the hospital were very bright, clean looking to the extreme. Doctors and nurses rushed back and forth to keep up with the rush of patients from the battle.

Our learned doctor, a yellow gentleman from the outer rim, shook his head. “We are seeing a lot of it, but we are not yet certain what we are dealing with. In the last 3 days we have had two dozen identical cases among rocketmen defending Edgetown.”

We visited Xato in a room where many pilots and gunners were confined in beds. The poor fellows kept quiet and calm for the most part, but once in a while one would begin to scream again about the floating face.

Xato kept looking away, trying to hide a tear “I let you down, all of you. This isn't supposed to happen to me.”

Tando put a hand on his shoulder “Whatever is happening isn't your fault.”

Tsang ran a hand through Xato's mohawk hair “You're going to get well, Xato, you will.”

Xato tried to smile “Thank you. Look, don't let me worry you, too much to worry about already. Go see that magic show tonight, maybe tell that Klyp hello from me.”

That night we took a car over to The Golden Bat again and paid our admission to see Grothol the Magnificent. Our seats this time were nearer the stage, which we figured was all for the good as we meant really to see Klyp.

The lights dimmed and the curtain went up. Like before the stirring music began and the beautiful dancers took the stage. Bodies glittered, covered in metal sequins, and the assistant began to lower down to the stage, clad in flowing indian headdress and deerskin leggings, and long danging loincloth...

But the lovely assistant who descended to the stage was not our friend Klyp!

Oh, he similar superficially, but his white flesh had a decidedly bluish cast to it, his eyes were not as lively, and his hair was not so red as it was a sort of dull purple.

We all noticed it and it ruined the show for us. I could hardly pay attention to Grothol or the rest of the magic, in fact I became lost in thought.

Oddly enough, I again heard the sounds of men weeping, now from multiple parts of the room, and it dawned on me that it came at the same part of the show!