“Anyway, you look much better with your pants on.”

“The hell he does,” said Nuts, giving me a friendly pinch. “You just have the wrong perspective.”

I felt a surge of dizziness. “You mean… that part… actually happened?”

Nuts grinned at me and licked her lips. “Need a reminder?” She gave me a much more intimate pinch. And I admit at that point I moaned in despair.

“What’s going on here?” demanded Coalshack. “Are you interfering again?”

“Again?” I blinked. “Interfering with what?”

“Navigation.”

“Then they know how to get to—”

“Obtainia. Yes. So let these two go back to work.”

Wanting no confrontation with the irritable cop, I drifted a few meters to one side, watching Nuts and Karakal consult their mysterious devices and compare notes, shouting directions to Fu Tichi and Cuspitui each time the finder executed another turn and click.

For some time we gained altitude as the lovercraft proved its worth at cross-country travel, hugging the ground as we rolled on over rocks and shrubberies, soon climbing at an angle no other vessel could have attempted, ascending toward a cleft barely visible between two mountains. I commented that this seemed the least likely course to anywhere.

Coalshack nervously cleaned and tightened the tensioning cords on his multi-function weapon. “That may be the point. Wherever we’re going and whatever we’re seeking, it was carefully hidden.”

Soon we entered a narrow pass. Though twisty, it had clearly once been chiseled through the folds between twin peaks. Cuspitui eyed the ridgelines, yowling unhappily:

“A perfect place for an ambush…”

Canyon echoes reverberated as we neared the top of the pass, our craft barely squeezing through in spots, and I shared Cuspitui’s worry. A single boulder, toppled either accidentally or on purpose from on high, could finish us.

“Hey, there’s something down there,” cried Fu Tichi from his elevated position at the tiller. He gestured ahead, so we all hurried to the forward railing. Sure enough, as our faithful craft crested the highest point and started to descend, a green valley came into view, completely enclosed by mountains. And there at the center, surrounded at ground level by a circle of tall trees, stood an enormous, glistening glass cube.

“Stop engines!” Fu Tichi shouted abruptly – as a monster stepped into the path, blocking a narrow point in the pass.

An impressive beast, its fur glistened rainbow highlights under the sun. A lion-like body and gaudy but useless-looking wings all led to a face much like that of a Standard or a human, though with fangs that would have made any Nomort or Lik’em proud. Commander Nomlin sighed in admiration… and I gave myself a skull slap for forgetting – even briefly – what kind of world this was.

“You know,” remarked Dr. Katske, “recalling legends from our revered past, I’d swear that thing is a sphinx.”

“That’s what I am!” thundered the monster.