Castle War

Thirty-three Laboratory

Osmirik was sitting at the workstation reading when something hit with a crash. He fell off his chair, then lurched to his feet. Frightened out of his wits, he looked toward the rear of the lab.

The Voyager was back. It had materialized at a good clip and smashed through some old lab equipment, finally hitting the far stone wall. The hull was intact, though the front end was crinkled a bit.

By the time Osmirik reached it the hatch had opened and a strange towheaded man in a battered baseball cap had his head poked out. He was grinning.

“Is this here another planet?” he asked.

“You are in Castle Perilous,” a surprised Osmirik responded.

The man looked around. “Shore is somethin’.” He climbed out, and was followed by an even stranger man.

“This here’s Dolbert, and ah’m Luster.”

“Osmirik,” the librarian said, bowing.

“We got it, Ozzie!” Jeremy poked his head out. “We got the data!”

“I am pleased,” Osmirik said.

Jeremy waved a mini-disk. “It’s all here.”

“Are you harmed?”

“Oh, we got shaken up a bit, but we all had seat belts on.”

Jeremy got out, followed by Isis, who threw her arms around him. They embraced.

“No time now,” Jeremy said, breaking away. “Got to get this into the program!” He started running across the floor.

“Jeremy, look out!”

Something huge and green flashed by Jeremy, barely missing him. There was a roar and a tremendous crash.

Everybody looked toward the adjacent wall. Out of nowhere had come this huge gaudy automobile. Now it was crumpled against the wall with its hood sprung and most of its windows shattered. Fenders fell away and white smoke issued from the engine.

They all rushed to it.

“Lord Incarnadine!” Jeremy tried to open the deformed door; it wouldn’t budge.

“I’m okay,” Incarnadine said, crawling through the window. Luster and Jeremy helped. “Get the old man out. Careful, he may be injured.”

“Injured, schminjured,” Mordecai said, his head popping above the roof. “You hit the button in time, we’re okay. Okay?”

Isis and Dolbert helped Mordecai out of the wreck, then were surprised to discover Jonath. Jonath wasn’t surprised in the least. More gods. Fine.

“Where did you come from?” Jeremy asked in astonishment.

“Florida,” Incarnadine said. “Never mind, explain later. Now, about that data from the interuniversal medium —”

“We got it.”

“You got it?” Incarnadine caught sight of the Voyager. “I see. Well, good work. Let’s go take a look at that cosmos-fixing program.”

As they walked to the workstation the lab door opened and at least a dozen Incarnadines filed in. The first one said, “There you are! Nice operation you have here. Can we take a look at it?”

“We’re busy,” Incarnadine said. “Look around but don’t get in the way.”

“Well, excuse us for existing.”

“I’ll deal with that later,” Incarnadine said.