7

"Damn!" Tygra spat, and immediately activated the sensors once more, his eyes narrowed. "I think we've found what's going on here, Lion-O," he said in a growl. He watched the bright blue computerized aura on the screen that signified the portal's energy. It was rapidly disappearing. Lion-O took a look at it as the last of it vanished. "The energy diminishes fast," the tiger went on. "If this is what happened to the others, then we will find no traces of it if it is more than a few seconds gone." He punched the side panel of the Feliner's wall in an uncharacteristic show of temper. "Blast it all!"

"Who's responsible for it?" Lion-O mused.

Panthro scowled. "I'd say it's Mumm-Ra's foul doing. This is just the kind of crazy scheme he'd cook up."

"But," Lion-O protested. "How could he possibly know where we would be to plant these portals?"

"Well all he had to do was drop a rift right in the control room of the Tower of Omens, and that explains Bengali. As for Lynx-O and the others, Bengali said they went on a picnic and talked about it beforehand. You know that miserable mummy can see anything he wants in his blasted cauldron of his." Panthro narrowed his eyes. "As for here? Well the only reason we're here is because the Berbils called us for help."

"Because the Mutants were here making trouble!" Lion-O finished. "Miserable Mutants, that last maneuver wasn't random!" The young lord had thought when they almost ran into each other at the end there it was normal Mutant incompetence, but now he suspected it was intentional. "And they must have been told where that rift was!"

Panthro nodded grimly, then looked down. "There's Roberbill," he said. "We'd better go down and give them a hand, tend the injured and help clean things up."

"What about the others?" Wilykat said worriedly, looking a little guilty that he had not brought up his suspicions of Mumm-Ra sooner.

"They're ThunderCats, Wilykat," Lion-O said by way of comfort. "They can handle themselves. Right now the Berbils need our help, and a few hours won't make much difference in solving this problem I'm afraid." He sighed. "Let's get started."

During the cleanup and wound-tending, Panthro growled angrily as he cleaned. He was not helping with the wounded; in his mood, he would be more of a hindrance than a help. "Let me get my hands on one of those cowardly bastards," he said more than once, referring to the Mutants. "I'll find out for sure who's behind this." And each time, Lion-O had told him that ThunderCats don't do those kinds of things. They already knew enough to suspect it was the bag of bones, and besides who else was powerful enough to cast such a spell? Panthro knew he was right, but it blew off some steam talking about it, and so finally Lion-O left him alone to grumble.

***

"How old were you when we lost Thundera?" Pumyra asked quietly of Lynx-O as they walked along the streets of Thundera.

"I was fifty-nine. Why do you ask?"

"I was just wondering. I was twenty-six, so if this is ten years before the catastrophe, I would have been only sixteen, and you not yet fifty."

Lynx-O nodded slowly. "Yes." He wondered what she was getting at.

"I wonder what my younger self would think, seeing me as a ThunderCat."

That stopped Lynx-O cold, and he thought hard for a minute.

"Lynx-O?"

"Pumyra, you lived in Claudon, as did I, but if for some reason the Pumyra that lives on Thundera now were to come to this city, it would be entirely possible for her to meet you."

Pumyra frowned. "Would that be bad?"

Lynx-O shook his head. "I don't know, Pumyra. It would not be a good idea to find out either way. We don't need any more distractions or trouble. Your younger self would likely not recognize you...but still, I don;t know what could happen."

Pumyra nodded and was silent for a while. Then: "Do you know where we're going, Lynx-O?"

The elderly lynx sighed. "I'm afraid not." He could not even walk freely here; the others had to watch out for him so that he did not run into anything, or trip. There were devices that would allow a blind man or woman to be able to "see" where he or she was going; they sent an electronic signal to a device worn on the hand, like a simple Braille board made only for the purpose of avoiding obstacles. "If we could get a hand pad for me to use somewhere, I would be better off, but they are quite a lot of money, and I don't believe we have a credit or coin among us." Most merchants on Thundera accepted either, though coin was preferred more widely on the planet than the newer credit system. Credits were still too new, and were difficult to transfer from city to city, never mind different planets. Coin and gem currency was universal. "On Third Earth we have no need of it."

Pumyra sighed. "Lynx-O, what if we can't get back?"

"There must be a way back, Pumyra. There was a way here, there is be a way back. We need only to find it. I become more and more convinced that this is a deed of Mumm-Ra's doing. Rifts in space do not just suddenly appear. If that is so, he may have used an item of power. Perhaps if we found what it was."

"But what if we can't?" Pumyra's voice held a note of urgency. "If we were stuck here on Thundera, we could make it here again, right? I mean this is our home, we could live here, maybe on the other side of the planet where our other selves never went."

Lynx-O frowned. He did not care for the tone in Pumyra's voice. He had begun to suspect that Pumyra was having doubts about returning to Third Earth at all, and that could not happen. The longer he and the others stayed, the greater the danger of them changing something that should not be changed, of changing history from the course it must take. "No, Pumyra, that would not be right."

"But if we were stuck here we'd have to, right?" She sounded almost desperate for Lynx-O to agree.

Only for the sake of ending the argument and getting back to the task of figuring this out, Lynx-O nodded. "Yes, if we could not find our way back we would have little choice. But if we work together, we will find our way back."

"Right," Pumyra said, more agreeable now that she had gotten the answer she wanted, but there was no conviction in her voice.

There was an uncomfortable silence that Snarfer finally broke. "You said we should find someone of the jaguar clan, Lynx-O, do you know of any that live here in Felis?"

Lynx-O thought. "Not offhand, Snarfer. But I had another idea. The jaguars are a small clan, and their people are widespread. The powerful ones, the ones that are purely jaguar with no other races in their lineage, are difficult to find, but perhaps if we were to find a powerful psychic, a cheetah. He or she could tell us who caused this to happen and what they did to cause it. That would bring us a lot closer to finding out how to get out of this situation."

"Hmm, that's a good idea!" Snarfer said. "Let's do it, snarfer, snarfer!"

But Pumyra surprised them by saying, "I don't think that's a good idea." She had again stopped walking and looked troubled.

Snarfer gave a puzzled frown. "Why not?"

"Well Lynx-O said that we should make as little contact with the citizens here as we could." Once again her eye roamed the streets, looking at scenes she never thought she would look at again.

"Yes, I said that. But there is little chance of success if we do not get some kind of help. We simply must reduce the risk as much as possible."

Pumyra nodded, but she did not look happy; Lynx-O of course could not see her face, but he sensed her hesitation. Even Snarfer thought she was acting strangely, but Lynx-O gave her the benefit of the doubt. He himself had a hard time convincing himself of where he was. "Well come on, team, let's seek out someone who can help us."

"Right!' Snarfer said. "Find the nearest public terminal?"

"Yes."

"Got ya, Lynx-O!" Snarfer scampered on ahead, searching for a public computer terminal, one that listed names and communicator frequencies, and professions. He knew that if there was anyone with the legitimate power of telepathy and psychic clairvoyance, he or she would be in the terminal. The governing body screened them very carefully, and shams were not allowed to practice. Anyone they found in there would be genuine.

"There!" the young Snarf said triumphantly. He led the others to the corner of a large brick building that looked like a school, and they began to search the directory.

Part 6

Part 8

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