Psychro: This is the next story in the Yerin Continuity, coming after 'The Wizard of the Black Pyramid'.  This one's mostly about Knave and Alluro.

Alluro: I'd feel sorry for Knave, but I really can't stand him... what are you smirking about?

Melissa: Hey, geniuses at work here.  Go get us some snacks.

Alluro: Get them yourself... wait.  'Geniuses' plural?

Psychro: Guess who gets to co-write this one, Al?

Melissa: Don't worry, Alluro.  I won't let him upset things too much.

Psychro: 'Too' much.  Heh heh.

 

Deep Trouble

 

                It had been several hours, and Knave still hadn't returned.  The ice Lunatac/cheetah hybrid had been out on routine patrol, and still hadn't reported.  Luna was getting annoyed, Amok hadn't actually noticed, Tug-Mug and Red-Eye were making bets as to where he'd gone, Mystan and Psychro didn't care, Psikaris was slightly concerned, Alluro was just happy he wasn't around, and Chilla was halfway to worried sick.

 

                After about ten minutes of watching Chilla pace the control room, Luna had enough.  "All right, all right!" she screeched.  "Go look for that half-brother of yours!  You're driving me crazy!  And you, Alluro.  You're not doing anything useful; go search."

 

                Chilla practically ran out the door.  Alluro followed at a more reluctant pace, muttering a few choice words under his breath.

 

* * *

 

                Chilla's plan of search was simply to follow Knave's patrol route.  Alluro, on foot, decided to do the same thing.  Maybe there would be something the ice woman would miss from the air.

 

                Apparently, there was.  A couple miles from Skytomb, Knave's footprints veered from his appointed track, towards the beach.  After a few dozen metres, Alluro was very confused.  From the tracks, it appeared that Knave was chasing a giant slug.  But why chase something like that?  And how was it going so fast?

 

                Alluro followed Knave's tracks ( an easy task, given that the slug or whatever crashed easily through the underbrush, leaving an obvious trail, at least from the ground. ) through several miles of twisted forest before coming the beach.  If it could be called that.  Red rocks littered the area, throwing off most tracks Knave made.  At least the slug was heavy enough to leave a trail.  There was something about this place that Alluro thought he should remember.  I was down here once before... but for what?  Oh, yes, Luna sent me to collect Thundrainium... he thought, followed closely by, oh, Hells.

                Both heavy track and booted tracks showed in the red ground, though while the slug's trail kept going into the water, the booted tracks ended at a crumpled heap on the beach.  Alluro sat on his haunches and asked, "Knave?"

 

                Knave stirred at the sound, and managed to turn his head enough to fix the hypnotist with a hateful glare.  "It would... be you..." rasped the halfbreed.

 

                "Interesting.  So Thundrainium works on you.  Slower than on a full- blood Thunderan, though, given the distance you covered," said Alluro conversationally.  "But now I am faced with a choice: Do I rescue poor Knave, or do I leave him here?"

 

                "If I die," hissed Knave, "Chilla... will have... your head."

 

                "Unfortunate.  I'm rather fond of it."  The hypnotist hooked a long arm under the smaller man's shoulders, hauling him to his feet.  "Come along, then."

 

* * *

 

                After about forty-five minutes, Alluro and Knave exited the Thundrainium fields.  The hybrid leaned against a tree for support, waiting for his strength to return.  Alluro was crouched on a fallen log, resting his elbows on his knees.  "You do realize you owe me one," the hypnotist pointed out.

 

                "Shut up."

 

                "Why were you chasing a slug?"

 

                "It wasn't a slug," growled Knave.  "It was a... I don't know what it was.  I guess slug is as good a term as any.  It was black... and it looked like it glowed... or could glow, like it was lit from within.  And it had a rider, a kind of frog-thing.  I thought it was one of the Mutants and I wanted to know why he was in Darkside."

 

                "The track goes into the water...  Wait, you 'thought' it was one of the Mutants?"

 

                "Yeah, one of the reptiles."  The hybrid shivered slightly.  "No Mutant looks like a cross between a fish and a frog."

 

                Suddenly nervous, Alluro asked, "Can you walk on your own yet?"

 

                "It's been two minutes.  What do you think?"

 

                'Looks like a cross between a fish and a frog.'  Someone had described something like that to him once, Alluro was sure of it.  And he felt he should recognize what the slug-thing was, felt he could name it, if he could only remember...

 

                Knave's ears pricked up suddenly.  "Do you hear that?"

 

                "No."  Which was odd.  Alluro's hearing was sharper than the halfbreed's.

 

                Concentrating, Knave said, "No, it's not a sound.  My cheetah sixth sense is acting up..."

 

                "No, I hear it now."  Alluro scanned the beach for the source of the sound.  "Oh, Hells."

 

* * *

 

                "Whaaat!?  Now both Knave and Alluro are missing?"  Luna whacked her riding drop against a wall in annoyance.

 

                "Eet would seem that way," Tug-Mug said.  Chilla had reported back an hour ago, unable to find her half-brother.  And coming back, she hadn't seen him or the hypnotist.

 

                "Why weren't either of them carrying communicators?"

 

                Psychro shrugged.  "Knave never saw the point, and Alluro, well, he probably just forgot."

 

                "I can go look again," offered Chilla.

 

                "Right," said Luna, "And lose you, too.  No.  Red-Eye, see if you can pick them up on the sensors."

 

                "Knave could be anywhere by now," Chilla pointed out.

 

                "Yeah, but Alluro couldn't."

 

* * *

 

                "I am blaming this solely on you, Knave."

 

                Knave gave Alluro a dirty look.  Both Lunatacs were stuck in a small cage with their hands tied behind them.  This room was in a cave in the side of a mountain overlooking the Thundrainium fields.  While the Thundrainium was no longer draining the hybrid, he was still weak.  "Are you going to gripe or are you going to help me think of a way out?"

                "I am going to gripe.  First, you deviate from the standard patrol without telling anyone.  Second, you're dumb enough to run into a Thundrainium field.  Third, you aren't carrying a communicator..."

 

                "Are you?"

 

                "... Fourth," continued Alluro, ignoring the interruption, "you insist on hanging around to get your strength back instead of allowing me to help you back to Skytomb.  Fifth, while it was bad enough that you were in no condition to fight, you go and faint on me!  Need I continue?"

 

                Knave glared sullenly at the older Lunatac.  Those last two were unfair.  Those big slug-things were fast.  And, as the Lunatacs had found out, extremely dangerous.  While waiting to regain his strength, six slugs and their frog-riders had come along the beach.

 

                As to the fainting, Knave had made he mistake of actively stretching his sixth sense towards the creatures.  He didn't remember anything now, just a vague sense of nastiness, like sticking his hand into a pail of mud and finding something wiggling in there.  "Don't you usually carry a knife on you or something?"

 

                "Yes."

 

                If his hands weren't tied, he would have belted the psychic.  Even tied up and helpless Alluro still sounded smug.  "Well, why don't you use it!?"

 

                "I have."  Alluro took his hands from behind his back, shaking the last strands of rope off.  "I was just waiting to see if you had a plan."

 

                "Why you..."

 

                "Though I suppose I'll need you if we must fight our way out, provided you don't faint again," Alluro conceded, cutting the ropes from Knave's wrists.  "They took my psyche club, though I'm not sure how effective it would be against them."

 

                "'Them' who?"

 

                "Do stop shouting.  You'll only waste your energy this way," said Alluro, attempting to pick the lock.  "As to 'them', I can't tell you what 'they' are, because I don't know, though I'm certain I've heard of them before.  Someone told me a story..."  Shaking his head, Alluro continued, "I don't know what they want, but I think they were using you as bait."

 

                "Me?  As bait!?" Knave growled.  "When I get my hands on them...  Wait.  What makes you so sure?  We've hardly dealt with these people."

                "One showed himself to you, knowing you would give chase.  After you collapsed in the field, he left and waited.  Hours later, he returned with reinforcements.  Given the number, he expected us all to look for you.  And while you were unconscious, one of the frog-things took blood samples off both of us.  If you actually thought once in a while, instead of stomping around, you would have reached the same conclusions."

 

                "I am not stomping around.  I am pacing.  Can't you hurry up?"

 

                "Can you pick locks?"

 

                "Easily," Knave said, motioning Alluro aside.  He then proceeded to breathe ice on it, meaning to shatter it.  However, this close to the Thundrainium fields, his breath was not cold enough to do anything but chill the metal.  Knave, annoyed that his first approach didn't work, tried to legitimately pick the lock.

 

                After a half-hours work, Knave hit the wall in frustration.  "Can't do it?" asked Alluro.

 

                "No one asked you."

 

                "Stuff it.  I couldn't either.  Damn," Alluro hissed.  "We need to get a message outside."

 

                "You're the psychic," Knave pointed out.  "Can't you do something?"

 

                "Maybe," said Alluro, considering, "Hypnotism is a type of one-way telepathy, forcing one's thoughts on another.  I don't know my range, and we won't know it was received until the others come for us."

 

                "Knock off the lecture and just do it," said Knave.

 

                "But who to contact?  Mystan?  He is the strongest psychic, though it is a telekinetic based power rather than telepathy.  He might not hear it.  Psikaris?" asked Alluro.

 

                Knave shook his head.  "I refuse to put her in danger."

 

                "Agreed.  Psychro is a hypnotist, therefore the most telepathically active, but I doubt he would help us." said Alluro.

 

                "He's our best chance," said Knave with distaste.  "Besides, if Psikaris found out that he let us die, she'd never forgive him."

 

* * *

 

                Psychro?

 

                Great, thought Psychro.  Now I'm hearing voices.  And damned if it isn't that blasted Alluro's.

 

                Psychro, if you can hear me, come to the mountains by the Thundrainium beach.  There is a cave about fifteen feet from the ground.  Knave and I are trapped here by frog-like creatures that ride giant slugs.  It sounds ridiculous, but do not pick a fight with them.  Psychro, believe me!

 

* * *

 

                "Think he heard it?"

 

                "How should I know?.. Someone's coming."  Immediately, Alluro and Knave sat down, putting their hands behind their backs, as if they had not been untied.

 

                Knave never really got a good look at the frog-things before, and now one stood before him.  The jailor was a sort of grayish-green, slippery creature with a white underbelly.  The general outline was vaguely humanoid, though mostly batrachian, with a head like a fish.  The gills on it's neck fluttered uselessly out of the water.  It wore no clothes, but had a few bangles of a whitish-gold metal about its wrists and throat.

 

                Though he didn't have his psyche club, Alluro could sometimes hypnotise people without it.  Focusing on the frog-creature he said, "You will open the cell door.  You want to let us go.  You cannot resist."  While the creature was obviously under thrall, it merely hopped closer to the cell door.  Still concentrating on the hold, he said to Knave, "He doesn't understand me.  I cannot make him do anything."

 

                "He doesn't need to.  Watch a master at work."  With that, Knave sprang across the cell, reached through the bars, and tore out the thing's flabby throat with his claws.  He then took the key from the frog-creature's left wristband and opened the door.

 

                Both Lunatacs thought they made a good team, but neither said anything.

 

* * *

 

                Knave had run ahead to scout, leaving Alluro to follow at his own pace.  Alluro was not too happy with that.  He may not like Knave, but he preferred the hybrid's company to being left alone in these caves.  Hearing a soft sound behind him, the hypnotist turned.

 

                A rocky outcrop was falling, no, dripping off of the wall, reshaping itself into a vast, black, slug-like creature.  Alluro backed away a few steps, then turned and ran.  He wasn't sure how much good it would do, but he knew he wouldn't survive if he fought it.  Maybe it would take its time reforming.

 

                The urge to look back was strong, but Alluro fought it, knowing that to turn would cause him to lose ground to the thing.  Rounding a corner, he felt a blast of cold, and someone shouted his name.

 

                "Psychro!  You heard," said Alluro, walking back.  He never thought he'd be glad to see the ice hybrid, but he certainly was now.

 

                The blue Lunatac was inspecting his handiwork.  The slug-thing was frozen solid.  "These things are pretty much liquid, so it's easy to freeze them," Psychro explained.  "Want to know how close ugly here was to chomping you?"  Looking at the creature and realizing that it was frozen as it reared up, Alluro decided he didn't.

 

                Still shaken, Alluro said, "Perhaps we should stick together.  Did you bring the others?"

 

                "I came alone."

 

                Alluro understood.  Of the other Lunatacs, only Psikaris would believe Psychro if he said that he was going off to where the voices in his head told him to go.  And he wouldn't do anything to put her at risk.  As far as Alluro could tell, his love for his sister was the ice hybrid's only redeeming quality.

 

                "I saw Knave on the way in.  He said to find you.  He's waiting at the next junction," said Psychro.

 

                About five minutes worth of walking caught Alluro and Psychro up to Knave.  "I haven't seen any of the creatures for several minutes now," reported Knave.  "I don't know what they're up to."

 

                "I've got the Lunattacker parked outside," said Psychro.  "Once we get to that, it won't matter."

 

* * *

 

                The Lunatacs only ran into a few more frogs, but Psychro and Alluro had enough physical strength to take down the relatively weak creatures.  Outside the mountain, Psychro threw himself into the pilot seat of the Lunattacker, quickly switching the draconic tank on.  Alluro helped Knave into a chair, then sat down himself.  "I do not know how we can stop them, but seal off the cave entrance.  That will slow them down," directed the hypnotist.

                "I'm way ahead of you, Al," said Psychro, turning the tank and firing the main weapons.  A small avalanche sealed the cavern.  "Maybe we should come back later with Skytomb, bring this whole mountain down?"

 

                "Maybe," said Alluro.  "Though by what we've seen of the creatures, they are aquatic.  Destroying the mountain won't help.  We will need more information."

 

                Psychro took the long way around the Thundrainium fields, out of deference to Knave's weakness.  It helped a little.  "While we're out here, gentlemen, may I remind you that I just saved both your lives," Psychro said conversationally.

 

                "So we'll save yours next time," said Alluro.  He was not in a good mood.

 

                "Oh, no," said the ice hybrid with a smile, "I'm going to take this out of both of your hides."

 

                "What do you want?" snarled Knave.  Of course, Knave couldn't do much more than make threats, not this close to the Thundrainium fields.

 

                "I think you know what I want."

 

                "You may not believe this, but we cannot simply hand Chilla over.  She may complain," Alluro pointed out.

 

                Psychro looked up at the rearview mirror at his passengers.  "No, no.  I ask that you stay out of my way for one week.  No challenges, no posturing, nothing.  Give me my chance.  Oh, and you may not tell anyone about this deal, either."

 

                "Or what?" hissed Alluro.

 

                The hybrid shrugged.  "Since it's obvious that honour means nothing to you, the threat is I drop you back off in front of the froggies' cave.  Knave's in no condition to fight me, and it's not like you've ever stood a chance."  Alluro bristled, but stayed quiet.  "Do we have a deal, or are you afraid that without the two of you in my way, she will love me?"

 

                Knave spat.  "She'd sooner date Tug-Mug than you.  Go ahead.  I just don't like the thought of you bothering her for a week straight."

 

                Psychro chuckled and continued on to Skytomb.

 

* * *

 

                The next day, Alluro found the word he was looking for, borrowed the Ice Runner, and took off for Mumm-ra's pyramid.

 

                The sorcerer was waiting when the hypnotist walked in.  "Alluro.  I sense you carry an item of magic.  A gift perhaps?"

 

                "It's not mine to give.  No, I need information," replied Alluro.  "Tell me about shoggoths."

 

                Alluro didn't expect the sorcerer's reaction.  "Shoggoths?" hissed Mumm-ra.  "How do you know of shoggoths?"

 

                The Lunatac pulled the book out of his pocket.  In light green letters the cover proclaimed 'The Dunwich Horror'.  "The person who left this behind once told me about them.  Them and those frog-things.  But I don't remember much.  This book makes reference to shoggoths, but it says little about them."

 

                "And you need to know why?"

 

                "These creatures guard the frog-things.  I want to find out why the frog-things kidnapped myself and Knave."

 

                Mumm-ra seemed to consider this.  "I will trade you information for information."  There was a red flash and two smallish books appeared in Mumm-ra's hand.  "You may borrow these, but you must tell me everything you learn about the Deep Ones's plans."

 

                "Is that what the frogs are called?"

 

                "That is the human term for them."

 

                Thanking the sorcerer, Alluro headed back to Skytomb.

 

* * *

 

                Magical books of ancient lore should look classier than this, Alluro thought.  They should be full of spells and formulae, not stories of humans running around scared of their own shadows.  The hypnotist sighed.  These books were short novels with garish covers, one titled At the Mountains of Madness and the other The Shadow Over Innsmouth.  Shoggoths were covered in some detail in the first, and Deep Ones in the second.

 

                There was nothing to explain why the Deep Ones had set their sights on the Lunatacs, nor did it seem possible to kill a shoggoth.  Of course, those in the stories were mere humans thrust into situations beyond their control.  He was a Lunatac, and he knew what he was getting into.

 

                He is getting in over his head, Alluro thought, then shook it aside.  He had told Luna of his and Knave's disappearance, and Luna was just as curious as to what these Deep Ones wanted.  Besides, keeping his mind occupied with these problems meant he didn't have to think about the fact that Psychro was probably spending all his free time hitting on Chilla.  Poor Chilla.  Six more days and Alluro could go back to thwarting the ice hybrid.  Settling back, he skimmed The Shadow Over Innsmouth.

 

                "'It seems these Kanakys was sacrificin' heaps o' their young men an' maidens to some kind o' god-things that lived under the sea, an' gittin' all kinds o' favour in return...'"

 

                "'What they done to the victims it ain't for me to say, an' I guess Obed was none too sharp abaout askin'...'"

 

                "'Seems that human folks has got a kind o' relation to sech water-beasts...'"

 

                Whaaat?  Alluro went back to the beginning of the paragraph and read it carefully:

 

                "'When it came to matin' with them toad-lookin' fishes, the Kanakys kind o' balked, but finally they larnt something as put a new face on the matter.  Seems that human folks has got a kind o' relation to sech water-beasts - that everything alive come aout o' the water onct, an' only needs a little change to go back again.  Them things told the Kanakys that ef they mixed bloods there'd be children as ud look human at fust, but later turn more'n more like the things, till finally they'd take to the water an' jine the main lot o' things daown thar.'"

 

                And pages later: "'... they wanted to mix like they done with the Kanakys...  He says they brung us fish an' treasure, an' shud hev what they hankered after...'"

 

                Alluro finished the story, and tried not to run back to the hangar.

 

* * *

 

                "You found what you needed?"

 

                "I think so."  Alluro handed the books to Mumm-ra.

 

                The books vanished in a red flash, back to whatever library the sorcerer had in this pyramid.  "Well?"

 

                The Lunatac took a deep breath.  "These Deep Ones cannot reproduce on their own.  Apparently they could have easily destroyed the humans long ago, but they need human blood.  Why would they bother with the humans at all if they did not need them?  But most humans were wiped out fifteen hundred years ago, and though the Deep Ones are immortal, they can be killed by things other than age.

 

                "While in their clutches, they took blood samples from Knave and I, likely to see if Lunatac and Deep One blood are compatible.  I for one hope it is not.  Perhaps everything alive came out of the water once, but we came from the water of alien Moons."

 

 

The End.

 

Alluro: Melissa, I'm shocked you let him get away with that!

Melissa: Calm down.  It's only for a week.

Psychro: Yeah, Al.  You wanna make things happen, you gotta write it yourself.

Alluro: Maybe I will.

Melissa: Not next issue.  Coming up whenever I get around to it is a little tale called 'Thirst', the Yerin Continuity Requisite Vampire Tale.

Psychro: So who gets the fang job?

Melissa: You wouldn't believe me if I told you.

 

 

 

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