Daughter of the Gods Ch. 02

After having worked well into the small hours of the morning once again, Dr. Dennis Johnson retired to his quarters beneath Black Mountain and to the lumpy torture chamber he jokingly called a bed. His lower back cried out for a mattress and he swore to himself that he would buy a proper bed just as soon as they came back from P456X tomorrow afternoon, after all he really did deserve it for pulling their butts out of the fire on this one. For the last six weeks the Quantum Gateway had sat silent in the Control Room, useful as nothing more than a really big paper weight but tonight he, along with LeeAnn Ford and Dr. Harold O'Gara (not one of Dennis' favorite people by any means) had finally been able to get it working once again. They had not, however, been able to contact the members of QG-G and so tomorrow morning QG-A would go through the Gateway in an attempt to retrieve them.

A tired and worn out Dennis Johnson laid himself down on the uncomfortable bed and soon fell into the warm black clutches of Morpheus. Floating in the blackness of the sleeping mind, Dennis began to sense a presence in his dream. Almost as if on cue, a small light appeared some distance away from where he stood. It was not the light of an electric bulb or the light of a fire; at first it was no brighter than a single candle which might have been placed in a window on a cold dark night to beckon a lover home. As it grew brighter, Dennis realized that he was moving toward it. He had not commanded his legs to move and they were not, he was floating in the darkened emptiness of his own mind, floating toward the ever growing glow. The light that at first had been more no than a single candle now grew greater than a thousand suns, Dennis raised his hand to shield his eyes as he turned his head away from it.

"Look at me," a voice inside his mind said. Dennis lowered his hand and turned to face the voice coming from the glowing ball of amber before him. To his surprise there stood a woman he had never seen before. Tall and slender was she, with full rounded hips and ample breasts. Long locks of golden sunlight streamed from the top of her head and cascaded around her waist. Eyes like Mediterranean Sea stared not at but through him. Dennis realized that the woman was not engulfed in the amber light, she was the light.

"Who are you?" He asked in a voice that was small even to his own ears. But to his query she only stood there and smiled a warm kind smile at him. Slender arms reached out to touch either side of his face and draw him nearer to her. Passionate dark red lips descended to bestow a whispered kiss upon his forehead. Something stirred inside of him. One of her hands dropped from his check to touch the place where his heart hid inside his chest. Dennis stared at her, captured by her like a butterfly in a net, his heart racing and pulse pounding. Dropping his gaze from hers, he looked down at the hand resting in the midst of his chest, it too was glowing. Something was coming from her or through her, and it was making its way inside of him, settling somewhere deep in his mind and his heart.

"Sa'Tan, Dennis." She said to him.

His sleeping mind turned the strange word over and over. "Satan?" He mumbled for a reason he did not understand. Dennis watched as her full lips parted and she laughed and shook her head, long blonde hair spilled golden rays of sunshine all around her. Before she spoke again, Dennis realized it had been him who had misunderstood.

"Sa'Tan." (Sah-Taaahn) She repeated. "Sa'Tai Callestah. Sa'Tan, Dennis." The hand which rested upon his cheek now softly caressed his skin. Once more her lips parted and her head descended, Dennis felt the warmth of her tongue as it slid into his mouth and ever so gently, down his throat. The sweet taste of honey mingled with cantaloupe juice filled him. "Sa'Tan" she repeated in a whisper which was strong but just barely audible.

She was gone. The dream faded away and Dennis slept comfortably for the next few hours. In the morning Dennis awoke with the oddest feeling, it was as though something marvelous had happened to him in his sleep only he couldn't remember what it had been. Perhaps some great revelation had come to him as he slept. He didn't know, but he did know that if he could remember he knew he would be very excited about whatever it was. Way in the back of his mind a single word echoed and danced.

Sa'Tan

What was that? He didn't know, but when they returned from P456X later today, he would do some digging and in an attempt to find out. There was something else, was there a certain smell to the air this morning? Strange. The air in the base was drawn in from the outside, circulated through no one knew just how many filters before it reached the lungs of the bases' inhabitants. There was never any smell in the air, most especially not one that did not have the scent of either burnt food, grease, sweat or some type of chemical compound. The latter occurring only if one was either in the infirmary or in one of the research labs. No this scent was different from all of those. What was it? Whatever it was, it was heady and rich with a slightly sweet underlying hint of rosemary and perhaps sage. Two spices which had certainly never found their way into the mess hall. Opening his mouth to give out a small yawn, Dennis realized that his lips were sticky. He ran his tongue along them; the sweet taste of honey filled his mouth instantly. Suddenly, he remembered her, the woman he had seen in his dream the night before. Dennis remembered the warmth of her tongue inside his mouth and her beautifully soothing and familiar face.

Dennis reached over and flicked on the radio by the bathroom sink, it was just a cheap little radio that didn't pick up many (if any) stations this deep under the Earth. Today Van Morrison came through the speakers loud and clear; he was singing that it was a fan-tab-u-lous night to make romance 'neath the cover of October skies. Humming along with the tune, Dennis covered his face in lather and put the blade to his cheek.

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Dr. Dennis Johnson was not the only person who had a long and strange night that evening. Corporal Michael Blood had also spent a sleepless night inside the gates of Oz. Blood hadn't stopped to think of where he would sleep when he took off on his little escapade and now he was sorry about that. Being a stranger to all those around him he had not dared to find a proper bed, a cottage or home where some kindly stranger would take in a man on the road alone at night. No, he had slept in a corner of the courtyard on a pile of not very sweet-smelling hay which he was now picking out of his dark hair.

All around him were the sounds of people hurrying and scurrying about their days' business and he poked his head over the foul smelling stack to have a little look-see. Just as they had yesterday, people were putting together small kiosks and a group of them were working on the finishing touches on some type of platform which they had built in the center of the court yard. Women were busily chatting in their native tongue while they hung ornamental decorations made from materials of various types. Some of the decorations they were hanging looked almost like Christmas balls. They were made of clear rounded glass and filled with different colored liquids. Other decorations were small dolls whose clothes appeared to be made of discarded rags and their bodies of corn husks. Still more of them were nothing more than rocks which had been painted with a background color (most were black or purple or yellow or pale blue) and had some sort of symbols then drawn upon them.

Corporal Michael Blood was no Rhodes Scholar like Dr. Dennis Johnson was but even he could tell the citizens of Oz were getting ready for one hell of a party.

A party. Lucky me. Lucky, lucky, me. Blood rose to his feet and dusted off the last of the hay. In no time at all he was walking among them, browsing their handmade goods, sampling their hand made confections and home stilled booze. All the while his eyes scanned the crowd looking for Dorothy. Surely she would be here today, out among the celebrants. Maybe she would even be alone. Maybe he would be able to get up close to her and talk to her. Blood had enough of his wits about him to dismiss that idea. Whatever language they spoke it wasn't English and he spent a good deal of his time pointing to his throat and giving a slight frown whenever someone wanted to strike up a conversation with him. All of them seemed to understand this almost universal signal for, I can't talk. In return of this gesture they either gave a slight frown of sympathy or just nodded their heads to show that they understood his predicament. Those who sympathized with his false plight were apt to give him a bit of food or drink. To his amazement, some of them even pressed small amounts of what passed for money into his palm. For a small moment he found himself thinking of all the pan-handlers he'd ever come across in his life time. Usually they hung around the lower-end of New York City where he was originally from. His father would always tell him not to give the bums one red cent. His mother, on the other hand, almost always stopped to drop a shiny quarter or two into the cup held in the grimy hand. He wondered how many times his sainted mother had been ripped off doing that and just how many times his cold-hearted father might have been wrong.

All the while his eyes kept turning to the balcony hoping to catch some glimpse of her. Dorothy did not make an appearance on the balcony this morning. However, to Blood's surprise, delight and almost horror, she did make an appearance elsewhere during the festival.

End Chapter Two of

Daughter of the Gods

By Lisa Beth Darling

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