Ip pulled his eyes in again and sank his head deep into his neck.
“You want some more cake, Becky?” I didn’t wait for her to answer, but cut another slice and put it on her plate. Then I cut a slice for myself. It tasted so good. I ate and stared at Ip, hoping that my glaring would make him come out of hiding. I was almost finished with the whole piece before his blobby head pushed up again.
“I’ll help you find the door to the spaceport,” he said.
Seven
“SPACEPORT?” I ASKED. I turned to Becky. “Spaceport!” I knew that space travel existed, separate from the passageway and the portals. But I had never seen a spaceship.
“There are many from species that don’t live in the zoo,” said Ip, rubbing his blobby hands together. “They trade with the Masters. The Brocine and the Hottini aren’t like us—primitive species the Masters keep for entertainment. They’re traders. The Brocine that poisoned your parent was kidnapped from a trade mission.”
Ip glanced at Becky, who was stuffing the last of her second slice of cake into her face. “Helena must have wanted me to tell you if it sent that note.”
“Tell us what?” My head was still spinning with the idea that the Brocine were kidnapped. Mom and Dad had always told me that the Masters chose people—people who were glad to be lucky enough to live in the zoo.
Ip took a deep breath. “It’s a secret.” He blobbed over to me, making the floor squeak as he moved. His giant eyes bored into me. “You must never tell a Master. Never.”
“I won’t!” A secret from the Pipe Men? All of a sudden, it was hard to breathe. The Pipe Men knew everything. They were smarter than everyone in the universe. How could there be something they didn’t know?
Ip sank his head into his neck a little, but then slowly let it pop out again. His horn vibrated as he spoke. “There is a network of froms who live here in the zoo, people who want to plan how to escape. Some of us are miserable. Some, the Masters have kidnapped. The Hottini have agreed to help us because they want to undermine the Masters. When I met your parents, I told them about the plan. But they weren’t interested. They wanted what the Masters offered.”
“But they changed their minds?” I asked. It seemed impossible. They had never said anything like that to me. They had never even said a word against the Pipe Men. The Pipe Men really were Masters. We thanked them for everything we had.
Ip shook his horn. “Before now, no. They just wanted to be ready, to have a plan in case something changed.”
“We could just leave, couldn’t we?” I asked. It had never occurred to me before, but now that I thought about it, it seemed easy. We could just leave our house and go somewhere else on Earth. Or we could walk through Mom and Dad’s closet and go into one of the portals.
Ip pressed his lips together, then released them with a pop. “We froms only know what is behind the few doors the Masters show us. On Earth, there are more Masters and assistants than you know about. It’s the same for all the zoo froms. The plan is to escape to somewhere where the Masters are not in control.” He paused.
“What are you talking about?” Becky said loudly. While I’d been listening to Ip, she’d gotten herself a third piece of cake. It looked like about half of it was on her face. Beneath the cake, she was glaring at me like she was about to pounce.
“He’s telling me how we’re getting to the spaceport,” I said. I didn’t think she’d run off and tell a Pipe Man about this secret escape plan, but I was just realizing something that I wasn’t sure even I was ready to know. “Are you saying that Mom doesn’t just want us to find a cure for Dad? Mom wants us all to leave the Masters forever? Leave O-thul-ba and Earth?”
“I don’t know,” said Ip. “For now, we’ll get you to the spaceport. You bring back the cure. We’ll deal then with what comes next.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I cut myself a third slice too. If we bring back the cure. If we don’t get caught doing it.
Becky wiped her face with a napkin, but mostly only managed to spread the cake around. She was still glaring at me. But I couldn’t figure out what to say to her.
Ip turned around so that his horn was facing us and slowly blobbed back into the living room.
“Wait!” I left the cake on the counter and ran after him. “What are you doing?”
Ip got down on his knees in front of the TV. His blobby legs smooshed grossly beneath him. He pushed the On button, then began sifting through the channels. “Why the numbering has to be different on every planet . . .” he muttered to himself.
As Ip sped through the channels, from after from appeared onscreen. We got TV from lots of planets, everywhere the Pipe Men wanted to connect us to. Some of the shows were fascinating and strange, and others were totally incomprehensible.
“Ah!” Ip said finally. “Here they are.”
“Those are the Brocine?” I asked. The two froms on the screen didn’t look like rats. They looked more like giant dogs. They were standing in a pristine cabin, speaking in some unknown language. It sounded like barks and growls, yet the creatures delivered them standing very straight, as if orating Shakespeare. The picture was in black and white.
“No, these are the Hottini,” said Ip. “Emphasize the ti. The Brocine haven’t come back to O-thul-ba since some of them were kidnapped, so they won’t be at the spaceport. The Hottini can take you to the Brocine. And if all goes well, bring you back again. But we don’t have much time. There’s a Hottini ship leaving tonight, and it may be a week before another ship arrives.”
“How do you know that?” I asked. The dog creatures—the Hottini—were still orating in their barks and growls. They were entirely covered in some kind of black material not unlike Pipe Man fabric, so all I could see was their heads and the vague outlines of their bodies.
I tried to get a closer look, but there wasn’t much else to see.
Ip reached behind the TV with one arm and twisted something, then pulled a wire out and stuck it back in somewhere else. “The TVs work by tiny portals to the planet the transmission comes from. We use the portals to send messages.”
“What?” Becky pulled up next to Ip on the floor and stared at the TV. “Doggies!” But her quick smile faded, and she looked up at me accusingly. “What’s he doing?”
I quickly told her about the Hottini.
“Why can’t we just find the Brocine through a portal?” Becky asked.
I was surprised I hadn’t thought of it, so I translated for Ip.
“There are no permanent portals to any of the Brocine planets,” he said. “If the Masters have ever opened one, I certainly don’t know where it is.” He smiled at Becky, his first smile since we’d read Mom’s note. “That means we don’t get their TV shows.”
I translated for Becky.
“We’re going on a spaceship!” said Becky, jumping up. “Vroom vroom!” She made her hand into a ship and whooshed it around in a circle.
At least Becky didn’t seem scared. Then again, she probably didn’t really understand what we were doing. I watched Becky whooshing around the living room. I had to believe I was doing the right thing. I was doing what Mom wanted us to do. But why hadn’t she ever told me any of this herself?
I watched the screen. They seemed so distant and strange, and their speech was incomprehensible. “They do speak the Masters’ language, don’t they?”
“Yes, yes,” said Ip. “As well as I do.”
Becky gave her arm one last whoosh and sat down in front of the couch with a thump. “When are we going to see the puppies?”
“They’re called Hottini,” I said. “Can you say that?”
“Hottini,” said Becky. “Would you like some soup?”
Ip burst out laughing, shaking the entire couch. “And what are puppies?” he asked Becky.
“They’re like them,” said Becky, pointing to the TV screen. “You throw them a ball and then they lick you.”
“They’re pets on Earth,” I explained.
Ip sh
ook his horn. “Becky, you can’t treat the Hottini like pets. You have to treat them the way you treat the Masters. Do you understand?”
I translated.
“Yes, they’re going to take us on a spaceship, and we’re going to get medicine for Dad, and the Pipe Men can’t find out.” Becky said it solemn-faced, oblivious to the cake still smeared over her cheek.
I translated.
“That’s right,” said Ip.
“Becky, why don’t you wash that cake off your face?” I said.
She glared at me, but she walked into the kitchen.
I turned back to Ip, lowering my voice just in case Becky understood. “Is there anything else the Masters might do to us, besides making us stay on O-thul-ba? I mean, if we get caught.”
Ip took a deep breath and leaned forward over his stomach, pointing his pomegranate eyes at mine. “I don’t know if they’d hurt you. But if you have caused them enough trouble, they might sell you.”
“Sell us?”
Ip took in my shocked expression. “Their access to exotic from species is one of the most prized assets of their control of the portals.”
Sell us? How could they do that? Some of the Pipe Men were like family. I thought about Hon-tri-bum and all the other Pipe Man visitors, and Yel-to-tor and Becky’s tutor, Bre-zon-air. I couldn’t believe they would do it. But what if they would? “But if we end up having to escape from the Masters, where are we supposed to go?” I asked.
Ip patted my head with a blobby arm, a bit too hard. “Don’t worry. That’s only the worst case. Maybe they won’t even notice you’re gone. You can come back, cure your parent, and nothing will change.”
I nodded. I bet we were putting Ip and the other froms in danger too. If I got caught, I’d put the whole escape route at risk for everyone else. I would just have to not get caught. We’d have to get the antidote and get back without the Pipe Men knowing about it.
Eight
I COULD HARDLY SLEEP THAT NIGHT. Dad would die unless I found the Brocine and got some kind of cure. But it didn’t sound like it would be easy. And I had to take Becky with me. “Ryan and Becky,” the note said. Why wouldn’t she want Becky to be somewhere safe? Was she really just sending us away? Was she worried that the Pipe Men would hurt us? Would they cut us off from Earth like Ip had said? Sell us? And could these Hottini really help?
I woke up to Ip shaking me. His arm felt cold and slimy on my skin. My alarm clock said 3:26 a.m. I’d probably slept less than an hour.
“We have to go, Ryan. If we leave now, we might make it without the Masters seeing us.”
Even though I hadn’t slept much, I was wide awake. I jumped past Ip and put on the clothes I’d laid out for myself, the standard Pipe Man issued tunic and boots, with leggings to keep me from freezing. Then I picked up the backpacks I’d packed the night before. They had a change of clothes for me and Becky and a little bit of food and water. When I got to Becky’s room, she was already awake and dressed in the same Pipe Man clothes as me.
“We’re going through one of the doors!” she said, bouncing as I helped her slip on her backpack.
“Yeah, we’ll get to see some more froms,” I said. Becky’s cheerfulness was almost irritating. I was glad she didn’t really understand what was going on, but having to act happy around her was already hard. She skipped ahead of me as we headed for Mom and Dad’s bedroom.
Ip squeezed his way in front of me and into the closet. I felt the air suck away from me and knew he’d gone through the door. I’d always known that when you went through one of these doors, you went to another planet, and that that other planet might be so far away, you couldn’t fly there in a spaceship in a million years. Somehow, the whole thing had never seemed strange before today. Today, I knew that there was a very real possibility that we might never be able to come back. Suddenly, I wondered about all the things outside our house on this side of the door. What would going to school be like now? What if I never had a single human friend? What if I never ate another peanut butter sandwich?
“Aren’t we going?” Becky hopped up and down.
“Yeah, come on.” I pushed her forward. It was too late for second thoughts. Mom had said to find the Brocine, and this was the only way to do it. I followed Becky through the door and into the passageway.
As we came out, Ip rolled his eyes back and forth and raised his arm over his mouth. I put my fingers to my lips, and Becky nodded. Ip folded his arms and globbed to our left, in the opposite direction from the door to the Pipe Man hospital. The passage was the same as before, all pinkish and soft with square, black, swirling doors. The doors went on down both sides of the passage as far as I could see.
I got as close to Ip as I could from behind, since it was impossible to stand next to him in the passageway. “How do you know which is the right door?” I whispered.
“The doors have numbers,” he whispered back. “Your closet is 2159. We’re looking for 1064. So we have to count down to around 1064. But it also depends on bok.”
“What’s bok?” I asked.
“You haven’t gotten to that yet?”
I shook my head.
“Urg . . . Well, it’s not easy to explain. I don’t really understand it. It’s all about the way these portals work. Stuff nobody on Hdkowl knows anything about. It determines which portal goes to what.”
That explanation hadn’t helped me at all, but counting doors sounded simple enough. “So we just have to count down from 2159 to 1064.”
Ip shook his head and rolled his eyes together. “No, when you deal with bok, it’s not that simple. The doors change position. Even the Masters use a device called a calculator to get to the right place.”
I thought about the rocklike device I’d seen the Pipe Men carrying. “Mom—Helena— didn’t need a calculator to get to the hospital,” I said.
“Most people can figure short distances,” said Ip. “Some people even have a special talent. But not me.”
“So you don’t understand it, and you don’t have this device?”
“We’ll count until we get close. Odd numbers only. What do you have now?”
“What do I have?” I was so frustrated I almost shouted it, but managed to hold it to an angry whisper.
Ip shook soundlessly, like he was holding back a whole mountain full of laughter.
“It’s not funny!” I whispered.
“I’m keeping count. This makes 2129.” He stopped walking and stuck out a blobby arm, pointing at the door to our left. “You can count, too, if you don’t trust me. Now be quiet. The later it gets, the more likely the Masters will come out.”
“Count? What are we counting?” asked Becky.
“Doors. How many go by on one side.”
“I want to count.”
“Sure.” It couldn’t hurt. As long as Ip was right about the first thirty, which I wasn’t at all sure of.
We started walking again, and this time I watched the doors as they went by. They were not solid black like a painted wall, but had different shades of black within them. Each one was a little different. They had patterns of shading inside them that moved and shifted. I knew there were planets behind each one of them. Other parts of O-thul-ba or new planets, places the Pipe Men would never let us see. I wanted to go through them, to see everything.
“My ears feel funny,” Becky said.
Ip stopped suddenly. A Pipe Man came out of a door directly between him and us. Its eyes were facing Ip, not us. Ip turned to face it, arms raised high, then brought his arms down sharply in the ceremonial gesture.
“How are the Earth children withstanding?” asked the Pipe Man.
“Well, Tre-pet-on,” said Ip. Ip flicked his horn sharply, as if trying to signal us.
I didn’t know what Ip was trying to say, but I couldn’t wait to find out. The Pipe Man could turn around at any second. I pulled Becky into the nearest door.
Nine
WE WERE IN A DARK PLACE. There was a little bit of light coming from
somewhere far off, but at first, I couldn’t see anything. The air was misty, and it was hot like a tropical island.
“Where are we?” Becky asked loudly.
“Shhh!” I clapped my hand over her mouth and stood as still as possible. Slowly, my eyes began to adjust. We were in some kind of cave. I saw part of a large boulder in the shadows, and the floor felt like smooth stone.
“Hello?” The voice was scratchy and deep.
I let out a breath and let go of Becky’s mouth. If whatever was in here spoke Pipe Man, at least we had a chance to reason with it. “Hello,” I said.
“Did you come through the door?”
“We seem to have taken a wrong turn,” I said. I had to keep this from talking, make it let us stay here. I couldn’t be sure the Pipe Man would be gone yet. I still couldn’t see the from in the dim light.
“Earth people!” the voice said.
“Yes! How do you know that?”
A head began emerging out of the darkness. It had two large antennae growing out of its forehead, with nothing recognizable as eyes. A mouth in the middle of its face opened in what I hoped was a smile. At least there weren’t any sharp teeth. “From the Masters,” said the creature. “I’ve been learning all the from species. Earth people. Arms and legs!”
“I’ve never heard of you!” said Becky. She pulled forward, still holding my hand, and reached out to the creature. “What are you?”
I wanted to pull her back, but I didn’t want to offend it. Now that it had seen us, we needed it to be our friend.
“I’m a Frontringhor person. This is my planet.”
“How . . . old are you?” Becky labored out the Pipe Man words.
“Becky, that’s not polite.”
“It’s fine,” said the creature. “I would be happy to answer if I knew. I have simply been here a long time.”
It took me a second to realize what it had just said. “You speak English?”
“I speak all languages.”
“How?” I asked.
Escape from the Pipe Men! Page 4
