Coalshack whirled his blunderbuss and tossed his rucksack to Fu Tichi and Cuspitui, ordering them to pullout slender items… clearly primitive explosives and fuses. Me? I propped Moulder’s head and torso against the nearest wall so that he could see, stuck a piece of gum in his mouth, then began helping Coalshack. I had my reasons.

“Damn it all!” complained Nuts. “This is a beautiful computer! It’s way more advanced than I would have expected for that level 16 crisis era. Why does everybody have to go around blowing up machines?”

We finished placing the explosives where they would have the greatest effect. Then Coalshack urged us all back into the entrance tunnel, and was about to press the remote igniter…

…when it was suddenly snatched out of his hand!

“What the—?” demanded Coalshack as he swiveled – and found himself confronting the sphinx, standing behind him at the bottom of the entry ramp, who had the igniter clutched it its long, snakelike tongue.

“I’b shorry,” said the Sphinx, “but I shimply caddot allow…” The monster paused to swallow Coalshack’s device, before continuing. “I cannot allow this.”

“Why the hell not?” growled Coalshack.

“Perhaps because this creature is the servant of long-dead murderous fools?” I suggested.

Sphinx chuckled and turned to me. “Not quite so long dead, you pathetic, demmie-loving collaborator and traitor to the human race.”

I blinked at the monster.

“Demmie-loving…” I repeated as realization of what he was actually saying dawned on me. And suddenly, so much made sense.

“Then… then you are a –”

“Spertin!” cried a voice from much further up the ramp, at the entrance to the cube, where figures appeared silhouetted against daylight.

Uttering a guttural roar, the sphinx turned to confront the interlopers. Diamond-hard claws set sparks flying as it prepared to leap… when suddenly a sharp beam cast forth, cleaving the fearsome creature in twain. The two halves toppled apart, revealing there, reclining in a sphinx-ter control chair, a human!

Not just any human, but a member of the hostile, Earth-descended tribe that settled a faraway empire, rather than live among and share the stars with demmies.

Speaking of whom…

… a figure strode down the entry ramp, holding a laser pistol and leading several others. All of them were coated, head-to-toe with white desert dust, making it difficult to ID them, at first. Then Nuts cried out:

“Captain Ohm!”

13.

We stared as he entered the Obtainia cube, striding down the ramp as if he owned the place, flashing the famous smile that won our captain interstellar renown as Ohm the Irresistible.

Following in his wake came an elderly demmie, a burly wolfman, an aristocratic vampire, a good-looking zombie… and a snowy-haired ‘Standard’ whom I did not recognize. All of them wore fine coatings of dust from their race across the Great Sugarfrosted Dessert, following a trail of Moulder parts.