The Phantom Menace

The examination room is crowded to overflowing, containing as it does the following exhibits:

This reality's Malachi. Since she is now anchored magically to Ethiopia, and cannot leave its borders, once the teleportation "rope" was reeled in, when Malachi came to a halt at the border the tower was compelled to come to her.

Fred 3, Astra 3, their seven babies, Dragons Sigin and Synizn, Demifox Synizn and Probe.

Manbear Synizn, who had been interested in observing what his analogues were up to.

Dragon Fred, Malachi D'Honaire, Alicia 2 and Inquirer. Malachi is currently in human form.

Carradene 2, Rosepaw, Sigin Vulpine and Rosepaw and Sigin's twelve cubs. The cubs were too young to take much notice of what their parents had been observing, but had been close enough to their parents to get dragged in with them anyway.

Probe's base unit, together with four of the mysterious operatives known within the Alliance military as "Phantoms". The Phantoms had been tapping into Probe's base unit in order to spy on him, and had hence been sucked in. Three of the four were now black and very dead, thanks to the near instantaneous effect of the phage on most humans. The other was immune, probably totally but possibly only to the extent that he would die in a few days time.

Inquirer's base unit, together with three of the Enemy. They had been trying to dredge something out of the fried circuitry of the base unit, but it had been a hopeless task. The phage would kill them too, but it would be a slow death. They had been on the Phantoms' ship, thanks to their covert alliance with them. Getting bored with their task, they had looked across to where the Phantoms were looking at their feed from Probe, and so had got sucked in, together with the base unit they had been working on.

"A fine catch," muses Dead Vincent. "I'm especially intrigued by the artificial life-forms. However, they can wait for the moment. I want to find out what has brought everyone here. And additional to that, the mages and scientists amongst them may have knowledge of value to me. Now, I only have four of the scrying caps that I invented. They won't fit on a dragon's head and I doubt that they will work on the artificial creatures. So let's choose those four." And he indicates Demifox Synizn, Alicia 2, the surviving Phantom and one of the Enemy.

Being incorporeal, he cannot simply pick up the caps and put them on those he has selected, so he uses the poltergeism that he acquired when he assumed his ghost form to do so. He operates the controls in similar fashion, switching on each cap in turn. The caps use a combination of science and magic. He can examine all the contents of the brain of the subject. The caps are "tuned" to receive commands from and transmit information to his own brain, but Live Vincent's brain is similar enough that he gains access to all the information that Dead Vincent gets.

The process takes some thirty minutes per person, two hours in all, and when it is finished Dead Vincent feels that he has acquired so much information that he cannot handle the contents of any further brains for the time being. "Some remarkable stories there," he says. "You've got to help them," says Live Vincent, referring to the Terran natives rather than the Phantoms or the Enemy, of course. "Eradicating the phage and safely shutting down the slipgate system are both essential."

"Ha! This world might be better off with the phage," says Dead Vincent. "Since the children of survivors will be immune, no-one else should die from it. And all the time Terra has the phage, it has a considerable degree of protection from exploitation by the Alliance, or indeed by the Enemy for that matter.

"As to the slipgates...

1. "At least the end of the world should put an end to my weary existence."
2. "Yes, I agree, something must be done."
3. "Yes, I agree, especially as I hope to have a long future life in whichever of these bodies I select to take as my own."

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