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  “No!” Sylvan found his voice at last. “No, I was warned of this but I could not believe it! Terex, how could you dare to make a deal with these soulless creatures without consulting the Council first?”

  “Enough!” Terex pounded on the table with the Speaking Rock. “I am the head of this Council and I have decided to bring in allies who can help us in this war.”

  “This war you started,” one of the other Councilors muttered.

  “The Dark Kindred do not even worship the Goddess,” protested another. “They bow their necks only to the Collective and seek to eradicate emotion everywhere they go. They—”

  “Excuse me! Pardon me!”

  The council room door opened abruptly and Mei-Li, Six, and the hairy little Tolleg healer they had brought with them from the Z4 medical barge suddenly charged in, right past the guards standing watch outside. Mei-Li was looking much better than the last time Sylvan had seen her, if somewhat more disheveled. She was wearing a wrinkled green dress that appeared to be on crooked. Six, for his part, was shirtless and the little Tolleg had a strange device in his hand that appeared to consist of a short length of metal tubing and two sensor light disks. All of them were highly agitated.

  “Apologies, Chancellor, we will take them out,” one of the guards said.

  “No, wait!” Sylvan said. “Let’s hear what they have to say.”

  “Thank you. I’m so sorry to interrupt,” Mei-Li said, speaking to Sylvan. “But I got a message from the Goddess last night that I was supposed to tell you before the council meeting started.”

  “A message from the Goddess?” Sylvan asked, surprised. “What did she want?”

  “To tell you that you have an intruder in your midst,” Six said, striding forward. He stopped dead when he saw the image of Two up on the viewscreen.

  “Well, hello Six.” Two’s smile widened, showing even more metal teeth. “How very nice to see you again. And it seems you’ve defected to the Mother Ship. How interesting.”

  “I tried to tell you.” Six rounded to look at Sylvan and the rest of the Council. “Two comes in the guise of a helper and ally when really what he wants is to make a conquest of the whole Earth. He and the Collective have plans to subjugate the entire planet and to kill or enslave its inhabitants.”

  “But my dear Six, that simply isn’t true,” Two protested, giving the assembled Council a look of exaggerated innocence. “We are here as your brothers in arms, to help you defeat the Earth infidels and take what is rightfully yours!”

  “This is exactly right,” Terex declared, striding forward to glare at Mei-Li and Six and the Tolleg. “And that is why—”

  Suddenly the device the Tolleg was holding in his hairy little hands began to emit a piercing wail. At the same time the sensor lights lit up, one flashing emerald green and the other a blinding crimson.

  Everyone looked at the device in surprise, even Yipper who was holding it.

  “This is most strange, yes it is, yes it is,” he declared in his high pitched voice. “According to my soul finder, there are two beings within this one body.” He nodded at Terex.

  “Impossible,” the Chancellor blustered. “What is he raving about? Guards, get rid of him!”

  He would have had Yipper thrown out but Sylvan raised a hand to stop the guards at the door from coming forward.

  “Hold a moment. Yipper, please explain.”

  Yipper withdrew the device from Terex’s vicinity and thrust it at Mei-Li and Six who were standing together, holding hands. At once the wailing alarm stopped and the lights turned green.

  “Do you see?” he said, turning to Sylvan. “This reaction indicates two souls bound together in harmony. Yes it does, yes it does. But this…”

  He thrust it forward at High Chancellor Terex and it began to wail once more, the lights flashing brighter than ever.

  “What does it mean?” Sylvan asked, although he was beginning to get the idea.

  “This indicates a disharmony of the strangest kind. Yes indeed, yes indeed.” The Tolleg frowned. “There can be no mistake—two beings inhabit this body and one is repressing or smothering the other.” He nodded at Terex. “Though I do not know how this is possible, no I don’t, no I don’t.”

  “This…this is preposterous,” protested Terex, backing away. “Put that thing away! Guards—come eject this hairy little imposter.”

  “No, Terex—or whatever your name may be.” Sylvan came around the council table and approached the retreating Chancellor. “I have seen how the Tolleg’s tech works—it is both precise and accurate.”

  “Thank you, thank you.” The little Tolleg nodded. “But Commander Sylvan, I do not doubt my results but how could such a thing be? How are there two beings in one body?”

  “I think I have an idea,” Sylvan answered grimly. “It was not so long ago that we had a rash of demons from the Black Planet invade the Mother Ship.” He turned to the Council. “We thought we cast them all out, bonded to the black soul stone which we ejected into space. But what if one escaped? What if it found the one unprotected male on the ship—the unconscious form of Chancellor Terex? Remember, we never expected him to wake.”

  “But I did wake up—thanks to your excellent medical care.” Beads of sweat were rolling down Terex’s cheeks and his eyes were flickering back and forth between burning red and ice blue.

  “Look at him!” Sylvan roared, pointing. “Look at his eyes! They’re glowing red—like the eyes of the males who were possessed before.”

  “We should have seen it sooner!” Councilor Sarr shouted. “From the moment Terex woke and took charge of this Council, he’s done nothing but try to sabotage us!”

  “It was him that led us into this war,” cried another.

  “And now he tries to put is in league with the Dark Kindred,” Sylvan said. He pointed at Terex. “Whatever unclean thing you are, you are not Terex!”

  “No!” Terex suddenly stopped retreating and stood tall. His eyes were blazing crimson now, glowing in a way that lit his face with a red, demonic light. “I am not Terex—I am Ur!” The voice echoed and boomed weirdly, dipping into an unnaturally low register that even a Kindred voice could not normally reach. “I…Am…Ur!”

  Sylvan felt sick. “We cast you out! You and all your foul kind.”

  “Yes.” Ur grinned ferociously. “All but me, warrior. I found refuge in the last place you would expect—the head of your Council. And since that time I have been working to destroy your people as you destroyed mine.”

  “You started this war on purpose by antagonizing Mei-Li’s father and manipulating the situation to look worse than it was.” Sylvan felt sick—why had he not seen it before?

  “Correct, Councilor. And I also involved the Dark Kindred. I knew how you care for your little Earthling pets. I knew nothing would be more painful than seeing them hurt.” The thing inhabiting Terex’s body nodded at the viewscreen where Two was still grinning nastily. “I told the Dark Kindred they were welcome to kill or enslave the inhabitants and despoil the entire planet. And so they mean to do.”

  “They will never succeed,” one of the other Councilor’s declared. “We will fight you every step of the way.”

  “While you fight Earth as well?” Two asked from the viewscreen. “The seeds of discord were well sown between you and this war will not end soon. You’ll be trapped between the two of us, Councilor.”

  “Two is right.” Ur smiled evilly, his eyes glowing red. “My advice would be to abandon the Earth to us and find a new world to call brides from.”

  “Never!” Sylvan declared angrily. He turned to one of the guards. “We still have a chunk of the black soul stone—it is in my office. Get it and let’s be rid of this imposter.” The stone, being chunks of their home world, acted like a magnet to any of demons it touched. Sylvan had no idea how Ur had avoided its magnetic pull before but he was certain if he put the stone right up against Terex’s skin the demon would be sucked into it and rendered helpless.