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Sixteen warriors grabbed us, one to each limb, even though each of us was wrapped up hand and foot with vines. When I saw Beauty, her amber amulet striped from her, taken before the Shaman who raised a knife high above her breast. I went berserk. With a sudden contraction, I burst my bonds and sent all four men flying. While I tend to laugh at the Martial Arts as a discipline, I was not above using their methods. Giant's Sheriffs didn't have a chance. Before they could really comprehend that I was free, they were dead or dying on the ground.

Then the luckless Sheriffs holding Beauty's quivering body came to my attention. She must have known that something was happening as the Shaman had stopped, his eyes bugging out, as he watched me tossing men right and left as if they were so many small twigs. I ran a few steps and flew above Beauty in a flying sideways kick. I caught the Shaman right in the neck and crushed his trachea. The Sheriffs, holding Beauty, fled toward the edge of the platform. One Sheriff with some presence of mind threw a knife at me. I snatched it from the air as if it had been just floating there instead of flying through the air as fast as a giant, who relied on his strength for daily survival, could throw it. I absently notice that it was Imperial Marine standard issue before I tossed it back with such speed that it went completely through him, transfixing a guard behind him who was reading a spear to throw at me. This had given the men holding Beauty enough time to toss her over the edge.

I sprinted at my fastest speed, bowling over the guards along the way as if they were so many dead sticks stuck in the ground, tossing them high and wide as I rushed to the edge of the platform. Holding on to the edge, I coiled my legs under me and pushed off from the underside of the platform, following Beauty's scream of terror. I was traveling at a much higher velocity than Beauty. I snatched her out of the air pulling her shivering body tight to mine. She slipped her tied arms over my head and around my neck. I think she had some idea of what was going to happen next.

I grabbed the first big vine that I flew past and grasped it with all my strength with one hand, the other arm was around Beauty holding her as tightly as I dared. The vine stretched tight but didn't break, even under our combined weights. I slipped a few meters or so at the bottom of the fall. However, by using every bit of strength, I was able to halt my slide. Until you have actually seen the monster trees on this planet, you would not be able to believe that it was possible to fall such a distance without crashing into something. Not only did we not hit anything on the way down but we didn't even come close. I tried to streamline our bodies as we started the rebound.

I had an idea, and Imp said that the mathematics were good. The question is whether I was capable of carrying it off. At the top of the bounce, I let go of the vine. Beauty almost screamed again as I released my hold, her body stiffening in shock until she looked from a distance of only centimeters into my confident face. Our lips brushed—briefly, Beauty reacting as if an electric current had been poured through her body. The extra momentum that I had gained by my pushing myself down after Beauty carried us well above the platform edge. Somehow I managed a flip so that I landed the both of us feet down.

The crowd had just started to comprehend the death of the Shaman and must have thought that I had leaped to my death along with Beauty. Sheriffs were trying to get Giant to the edge so that he could be pushed off also when, as if by magic, I reappeared with Beauty in my arms. I ripped the vines that were binding her off in a single motion, as if they were so many insubstantial spider webs. There was sudden silence, as every person froze not knowing just what powers I might really have. Then they started to withdraw in fear, I could hear them all trilling the song that meant The Mother's Companion in their language.

Imp choose that moment to shock me with, [Larry you must get back to the base. The attack against the Emperor has started. He needs you now.]

I could not see any way to save both Beauty and Giant—and the Emperor. Then I noticed Youth, he walked fearlessly toward me his hand outstretched, while everyone else recoiled in shock at my appearance. I suddenly knew what I would have to do and I knew what Beauty had meant when she said, "uh ah G'da." I placed Youth's hand on my chest, and he reciprocated. Giant was the next that I included in this ceremony. Beauty was last; I had grown closest to her for the simple reason that she was the one that I could talk to…. She was the—by far—brightest native that I had met, excepting possibly Youth, at least to hear Beauty talk about him. I placed her hand on my chest, and she put mine on hers.

"Beauty will you please repeat to the people what I say?" She nodded her acceptance of the job of an interpreter. Turning to look at the crowd I said, "Youth shall be the Shaman of Shamans. Beauty and Giant are to advise him. The Mothers and Hunters will meet every ten years on this spot where they can see the mountaintop and be reminded of my power. They will select another to be the Shaman of Shamans. The council will also choose another roving Mother and Hunter who will advise the Shaman of Shamans, the Council of Mothers and Hunters of the body of two-hands will, in turn, advise them."

Turning to Youth and Giant, I said, "If any Shaman refuses to obey you, then request the council of body of two-hands to judge him. Take him and if he is found wanting they will brand him on the face by inserting the 'plant that marks'* into his skin many times until a large dot is formed on his forehead. This mark will tell all people that he has been cast out to wander far from the safety of the trees for the rest of his life. Thus, it will continue until the end of time. In proof of what I have said watch the mountaintop. Before the morning star shines again, the mountain will light up with fire. Thunder will shake the very trees that you stand on."

*(A simple tattoo, the plant has a natural anesthetic that it exudes, from the tip of a small needle-like a spine that is also a dark brownish impermeable die. The needles enter the skin as you brush past; the anesthetic makes it so that you don't feel it. Later they fall out or are plucked out or brushed off and fall to the surface, where the seed inside the spine starts a new plant. What survival purpose the dye has I don't know. However, the natives here use them as writing instruments and many of the men, who had traveled to the surface, have leg's that are dotted with marks from this plant.)

Then holding up her hand to stop me from leaving. Beauty ran to where the guards had dropped her bag that had never drifted far from her during the entire time I had known her. I guess even these women had their purses. Pausing to grab her amber pendant from where it lay on the platform after it had been torn from her by the guards. She ran back to me, thrusting the pendant and a packet of compressed leaves into my hands, she said, "The pendant is to remember us by, the leaves have magic and will give you long life."

Facing Beauty, I said, "Thank you for telling your people, I have to leave you now. The people on the mountaintop will not come back, and the place from which they come will be destroyed. Tell everyone that if they harm you, or disobey you, that I will come back and they will suffer the same fate as the place on the mountaintop."

Although the time I had spent here had been short, we had grown very close, and I would miss her quick wit and delightful personality, Youth had almost become a son to me. Caught up in my emotions I pulled her close into a hug and kissed her full on the mouth, (I don't think that this custom was observed here, at least I had never seen Giant and Beauty kissing. Although, I had witnessed many other acts of love between the couple.) She responded full heartedly as if this were a regular occurrence.

Still holding Beauty, I grasped Giants' hand and just gave it squeeze. I hugged Youth too, which action he accepted with aplomb as if this were not something new, then I turned and leaped off the platform again, thinking to myself that this was as good as a way as any for a 'GOD,' or as Beauty had said "G'da," to disappear.

This time I gave my jump a strong horizontal factor. As soon as I was out of sight of the platform, I started catching at vines slowing myself down. Finally, I was almost at ground level. The Base was high on the mountaintop I was going to have to hurry. I still would have to figure out how to break into the base, after I got there.

The fates must be smiling on me for just as I needed it a Marine from the base landed on the ground below me, he was looking wildly around him as if expecting an attack. His uniform was torn, bloody and dirty. I saw that he had a NullGee pack and a disrupter. I adjusted my fall so that I landed square on his back knocking him cleanly out. I felt sorry for him, but anyone who was a member of the Duke's group was already under a death sentence, this way he had a chance at life. I stripped the pack off him, slipped it on and turned it on full lift. Wanting to have one last look at Beauty and Giant to make sure that they were safe I swiftly retraced my path.

The sun was shining its last rays through the leafy canopy, starkly illuminating the amphitheater that I had so recently left. I popped up high above it, my shadow falling across the amphitheater. My intuition was correct I had not been believed and instead of waiting for the proof that I had promised, (which would occur when I blew the base to vapor) they were trying to sacrifice Beauty and Giant again. I sighted carefully, and squeezed the trigger—the Disrupters beam lanced out, its path traced by the ionization of the air through which it traveled. In a brilliant flare of light the Sheriffs, that were forcing Beauty and the people that I had convinced off of the platform's edge, vanished, blasted into nothingness by my disrupter, thunder and wind beat the survivors flat. Next, I destroyed the cruel altar where we were to have been sacrificed.

Vaporizing not only the altar and throne but also the dead body of the Shaman, boring clean through the stone base. Thunder, and wind again shook the trees. Poised high in the air I waited while Beauty and her people became aware of me, each pointing me out to a neighbor. Imp overrode the control circuits in the disrupter, and I fired it up into the air. That it blasted a path for me to fly out of this arboreal paradise was only a secondary effect. He modulated the beam so that it carried my thoughts in their song like language at a volume that they never had before experienced, "The Mother of Mothers commands this. Youth is the Shaman of Shamans. Never again will you allow the Shamans to break tradition. If they do, you will mark them and cast them out." Thunder raged again, the branches waved wildly in the wind as the beam snapped off. The effect must have been sufficient for every being on that platform dropped prone, their arms held in supplication to me. Beauty alone stood quietly staring up at me as the final light of day vanished leaving her world in darkness.

I swiftly flew to the base. The huge Gas Giant, now dominating the sky, my only companion, for Imp was strangely silent. My augmented vision revealed no waiting traps or guards, so I just changed the lift so that I touched down in the arena. Blast marks had scared the wall of the stadium. I saw pools of freshly clotting blood here and there on the floors. I ran rapidly to the command center. Not a single person did I see the entire time I was in the base. Imp overrode the security systems and programmed the Base to self-destruct in five minutes, which would give me time to Port out. He also released an Imperial survey pod, which would eat its way deep into the heart of the mountain. Only the Imperial Scouts could use the Port repeater in the pod. Thus many years in the future someone could check up Beauty's people and if they were ready, offer them admittance into the Empire. Imp finally programmed the Port so that I could leave.