But then the glow subsided from Anubis’ eyes. Although he glowered in Kebron’s direction, he was addressing Lodec when he said, “Very well. Out of deference to you and yours, I shall not pursue this matter further.”

“ Youwon’t pursue?” snapped back Calhoun. “After everything that you and your fellow Beings have done, what gives you the impression that Iwon’t pursue it?”

“For one thing,” Anubis said, his teeth still clicking together, “I would like to think that you are not that stupid. But if you are eager to prove me wrong, by all means ... please do.” He shifted his gaze back to Lodec and said, “They require manners. It would be most wise for them if they acquired them by the next time we met.” He turned on his bare foot and strode out of the room.

“Drag him back in here, Captain,” Kebron said defiantly.

“Why would I want to do that?”

“So I can collapse on him.” And with that, Kebron fell forward, like an avalanche.

“Kebron!” shouted Calhoun, dropping to Kebron’s side. Lodec was making fluttering apologizing noises that Calhoun ignored as he tapped his combadge once more. “Calhoun to Excalibur.Two for emergency beam-up. Then start rounding up the others and get them the hell off this world.”

“Aye, sir,” came the response from the combadge. He recognized the voice instantly. It was Morgan.

“Captain, this is most unfortunate!” Lodec called out. “I assure you, I—”

“Save your assurances and bank one of mine,” said Calhoun. “If Kebron dies, I’ll tear this place apart with my bare hands.”

Even as his hands ran along Kebron’s thick hide, he was stunned to have a huge piece of it come off in his hands. It was a chunk at least a foot wide, and beneath the skin was roughly the same color, albeit a bit lighter.

And over the continued pleadings for understanding from Lodec, the captain and security chief of the Excaliburwere beamed off the surface of Danter.

EXCALIBUR

I.

THE GHOSTLY, intangible image of Mark McHenry and the elderly man who called himself Woden or Aman-Re or possibly Santa Claus stood outside the sickbay and watched dispassionately as Zak Kebron was hauled in on an antigrav gurney that was just barely powerful enough to support his weight. The doctors grunted as they hauled him into the sickbay, and McHenry saw the horrific gaping wound in his shoulder and the scythe protruding.

“What the hell is that thing?” he demanded, pointing at the curved blade that Calhoun was holding as he followed Kebron in.

“A scythe,” said the old man calmly. “It is the symbol of Anubis.”

“Yeah, well you know what I’m starting to think would be my best symbol? A good kick in the ass for whoever gets in my way.” McHenry began to pace. “I’m tired of standing around like Banquo’s ghost while life goes on all around me, and I’m helpless to participate. I ...”

“No,” the old father interrupted him. “You don’t understand.”

“Well, that’s possibly because you haven’t explained it. What exactly am I supposed to be understanding?”

The Old Father turned to him, and there was determination glistening in his eye. “The Beings took a considerable setback in their battle with the Excalibur.”

“A setback? They practically annihilated the ship.”

“Nevertheless, they suffered a great weakening as a result. But now they are preparing to fight back again. It means their confidence is beginning to grow once more. That scythe is a channel for Anubis ... or Loki, as he is also known. It is not, however, active at the moment. He likely has another.”

“All right,” McHenry said slowly, “if this is the part where you’re explaining things, then I’m not keeping up with you.”

A brief smile played across his immaterial lips. “Let me put it to you this way. The Beings do not have infinite resources, despite how things may appear. They have been monitoring us all this time, ‘concerned’ over what we might do that could interfere with their plans. You may not have been aware of it, but I very much have been. To some degree, I have been shielding you from them. Keep in mind, the predicament in which you presently find yourself resulted from an unguarded moment between yourself and Captain Calhoun, when you conveyed to him your opinion that Artemis and her associates were not to be trusted. Their ability to monitor communications is to be underestimated at great personal risk, even in our current condition. It seems, however, that now their attentions are drawn to other matters. That, and they are starting to become suffused with an air of confidence that could, in the long run, prove very costly to them.”

“Meaning what? What happens now?”

“What happens now,” said the Old Father, “is that we endeavor to communicate with Captain Calhoun. We step out from the shadows and move toward the daylight. Our time is swiftly approaching.”

“Our time. You mean I’m finally going to have a chance to live again?” asked McHenry, his hopes rising.

“You? No. No, chances are you’ll wind up completely obliterated.”

“Oh.” McHenry considered that and said, “Our time stinks.”

II.

Dr. Selar was never one to let frustration show, but Calhoun thought that this was about as close as she had ever let herself get to it.

“The bleeding is not stopping,” she said, standing several feet away from the examination table where Kebron lay stretched out. It was not actually one table. He was laid out sideways, his upper torso lying upon the table, the rest of him supported by two antigrav gurneys.

“I have managed to slow it,” she continued, “but the epidermis is refusing to regrow despite the applications.”

“Is it because Kebron’s skin is unique on this ship?”

“I have the Brikar specifics in my medical logs,” replied Selar, Her arms folded in front of her. “I have set the specifications of the regrow tools correctly. It is not, therefore, comprehensible as to why—”

Suddenly there was a loud rending sound.

Kebron’s eyes had snapped open. He was starting to sit up.

His skin began to rip straight down his chest, and the med techs were running in from every direction, trying to stop him. A spray hypo was pressed against his arm but he batted it away, along with the med tech, who went flying across sickbay to crash into a far wall.

“Kebron!” shouted Calhoun. He wasn’t at all sure that Kebron could hear him, or was even aware of his surroundings, but he couldn’t simply stand there and let a delirious Brikar destroy the sickbay. “Kebron, stand down! That’s an order!”

Kebron had lurched to his feet, and he turned and stared at Calhoun without actually seeming to comprehend who was standing before him. With a low growl, he staggered toward the captain, his arms raised over his head, hands curled into fists, each of which was larger than Calhoun’s head.

Without backing down in the slightest, Calhoun said evenly, “I said that was an order, Lieutenant. Stand the hell down. Now.”

Kebron wavered for a long moment ... and then, slowly, lowered his arms.

“I didn’t like you at first, you know,” he said. “Long ago.”

“Nobody likes me at first, Lieutenant. Call it a gift. Are you all right?”

Zak Kebron once again didn’t appear to be paying attention. Instead he was pulling at his skin as if it was a full-body irritant. There were more tearing sounds, and then Kebron pulled at the back of his neck as if he were hauling a sweater over his head. With one final, ear-splitting rending noise, he pulled the entirety of his thick hide up and over, yanking it out from under his uniform.

There were startled gasps from even the most hardened of med techs. Selar, of course, simply arched an eyebrow. “Fascinating,” she said.