ELMO’S SOJOURN, CHAPTER 11
ELMO’S SOJOURN
CHAPTER 11
ELMO’S OFFER IS ACCEPTED
The argument went back and forth between Elmo and Valmid, but Valmid finally succumbed to Elmo’s persistence. “I accept your help my friend. We shall leave when the devices are ready.”
In a few days the six new Freon throwers were ready and tested. Valmid called the five other Rothians to his home. The seven warriors were ready to depart. Elmo noticed that each member of the team carried a pouch in addition to his Freon throwers on their backs. Elmo was also given a pouch.
“We are taking as many time-space machines as we can carry. We have no idea how many women we will be freeing and returning to Roth. I’m afraid there is little hope of rescuing any of the women abducted from Earth, for the abductions ceased there almost sixty years ago, when the Freon level reached intolerable levels for the Gylex monsters.
“Our plan is to journey to Gylex, hopefully arriving at a deserted area. Then we will try to follow the thoughts of the captive women.” All five of the Rothians and Elmo nodded and prepared to leave. Elmo joined Valmid in the center of his machine; the other five occupied two machines facing back-to-back in preparation for a hostile greeting.
In a flash the most dismal landscape imaginable surrounded them, along with four Gylexian monsters. Three were quickly dispatched, surprise being on the side of the Rothians. The fourth began flying away, thanks to the weaker gravity of the planet; Elmo was able to leap high enough to douse the creature and it abruptly fell to the ground.
After the initial excitement, the travelers had a chance to inspect their surroundings. Elmo thought, “If there is a hell, it must look something like this.” The Rothians were unfamiliar with the concept of Elmo’s hell, but they all shuddered at the scene before them. Everything was colored shades of gray and black. The landscape was dotted with miniature volcanoes no more than a few hundred feet high, most in a constant state of eruption that spewed heavy columns of smoke and ash into the air and shed an eerie glow from the magma seeping down their sides. The atmosphere was thick and oppressive. The party had timed their arrival for daytime, but a faint twilight was all that greeted them. The only vegetation visible were huge trees, not unlike those found on Roth. Their trunks disappeared into the unbroken mantle of black clouds that filled the sky; their leaves seeking the life-giving light denied the planet’s surface.
The rescue party could see larger mountains in the distance; their sides honeycombed with openings. Occasionally a winged Gylexian would fly in or out of apertures; these must be their cities.
The six Rothians stood still and quietly concentrated, seeking the thoughts of the women they had come to rescue. It did not take long for them to sense Rothian thoughts and then locate their origin on a distant part of the planet. They set up their time-space machines, again standing back-to-back and ready for an attack. They were sure there must be guards at their destination, and to eliminate them by taking advantage of the element of surprise.
In a flash the seven were standing before a Gylexian hill, somewhat smaller than the hill they first had seen. Perhaps this was the prison where the women were being held. At the same time, they also found themselves standing before five guards armed with weapons resembling crossbows. Before the Rothians could react, one of their parties was shot in the neck and collapsed. Freon spray quickly took care of the guards, but not before they sounded an alarm that brought more guards flying out of the prison, also to fall to the ground as the air filled with Freon. Three of the party, along with Elmo, remained outside to guard against further attacks. Valmid and the remaining member of his group entered the prison to free the women. The sight inside sickened them. Corpses of ten to 15 Rothian women littered the floor of the forbidding structure. As they proceeded farther into the dark, dank hallways they came upon the cells they were seeking. Each cell held two or three women in various stages of pregnancy. As Valmid had anticipated, there were no women from Earth, only women from Roth. Valmid searched wildly from cell to cell looking for his daughter, calling her name, “Rolack, Rolack.” He stopped at the entrance of a cell holding two women, then choked back tears and cried, “Rolack!”
A woman inside stood and cried, “Father!”
Valmid had found his daughter. In short order, the keys to the cells were located and the women released. They made their way out of the prison, the women breathing free air for the first time since their capture. One of the women collapsed by the body of the fallen Rothian, crying for the husband she had not seen for years and who had died trying to rescue her. Valmid ordered everyone to unfurl the time-space machines and, in twos and threes, quickly occupy them. Two Rothians carried the body of their fallen companion to the last machine and gently laid him down. Then Valmid distributed the preset control boxes, and the group disappeared in a series of flashes, bound for Roth.
Once on Roth, the women cried, laughed and even collapsed when united with their families. Those who returned pregnant wanted most to immediately cleanse their bodies of the demon cargo they carried. Valmid, Elmo and Rolack entered their home to find Cal crying out at the sight of her daughter. The three family members hugged and cried while Elmo stood to the side and felt an emptiness he could no longer deny.
