Escape from the Pipe Men!

by Mary G. Thompson

  The Xaxor flew into me, covering me with its legs and stench and knocking me into Becky. She screamed and crawled forward, and I was still being pushed, squooshing into her faster than she could move. Someone barked loudly.

  “Becky, move!” I held on to her leg, pushing her forward, scrambling away from the noise. The calculator screen went black, leaving us in complete darkness again.

  “You will pay! So many times, Earth! You will be sorry!”

  “I didn’t mean to take you with us. You didn’t have to try and stop us! Are you Grav-e?”

  “I am Tast-e!”

  “Tasty?” Becky giggled in the darkness.

  “That’s right, Becky, its name is Tasty, like something you drink!”

  Tast-e growled.

  The Xaxor was trying to remove its legs from me. It hopped and flailed as I dragged it.

  “Where have you taken us?” Tast-e growled.

  “It’s Brock,” I said. “I just don’t know where we are.”

  “Idiot from! Stop moving.”

  “Becky, stop.” I stopped moving and tried to sit. Something about Tast-e’s voice made me trust him on that point.

  “We are in their private tunnels. We will not want them to find us here.”

  Twenty

  WE SAT IN SILENCE for a minute. Even Becky said nothing. I could hear her panting a little. I let go of her leg and felt around, finally finding her hand. I took in the dampness of the tunnel we were in, the heaviness of the humid air. It was hot, and I was starting to sweat.

  “Since you apparently know nothing, I will explain our situation to you,” said Tast-e. “The Brocine are smaller than all three of our species, which explains why we are cramped into little balls and forced to crawl like vermin. Visitors are normally shuttled to special spaces for big froms. They don’t allow others in these tunnels. No loss to us.” Tast-e sniffed disdainfully. “You already know that the Brocine have a natural weapon on their noses. What do you think will happen when we surprise them in their private tunnels?”

  The Xaxor rustled. Suddenly, a dim white light appeared between us. With one leg the Xaxor was holding a small instrument, which gave off just enough light for me to see beyond it into the Hottini’s haughty purple eyes.

  “Well, what was I supposed to do?” I whisper-shouted. “You were holding us captive!”

  “Open the portal again, and get us out of here!” Tast-e leaned over the Xaxor and pressed his face so close to mine that I could smell the strange spices of his breath again.

  The Xaxor pushed itself up, forcing Tast-e’s face back. It smelled worse than the Hottini, but I appreciated the support.

  Becky stuck her face next to mine, confronting the Xaxor. “Say you’re sorry!”

  “It is sorry,” I said. “The Hottini had it locked up, so it’s learned its lesson. It’s been helping me.”

  “I thought you were nice! But you wanted to sell us!”

  The Xaxor pulled backward, pressing closer to Tast-e.

  “It really is sorry. Anyway, we’re stuck with both of them, so let’s not kill each other, okay?”

  “Their language sounds like screeching,” Tast-e said. “At least you Xaxor keep your mouths shut.”

  The Xaxor rapped Tast-e on the head with its light.

  Tast-e growled like a wolf.

  Becky giggled.

  I sighed. “Look, we need to be on this planet, and this tunnel is where the calculator sent us. When we find someone, we’ll just explain what happened. They can’t be any worse than the Hottini or the Xaxor.” I glared at each of them in turn.

  “Your lives were never in danger with us,” said Tast-e.

  “Right.” I turned to Becky. “You remember how Dad got poked, and that’s how he got sick? You have to be very careful. If you see a Brocine, you don’t go toward it. You say, ‘I am infinitely sorry,’ just like you would to a Pipe Man, okay?”

  Tast-e snorted.

  “Maybe I will open the portal back to that planet with no air.” I held up the calculator. “I remember just where it was.”

  Suddenly the tunnel was filled with noises. Scraping, scratching, breathing.

  “We are infinitely sorry!” Becky and I cried at the same time.

  The Brocine were all around us. I couldn’t see much in the dim light, but they stank like rust, sharp and pungent and metallic. I could feel the heat from their bodies and hear the chatter of their voices as they talked to each other in their squeaky language. They sounded excited, but at least they didn’t poke us with their noses.

  “Does anyone speak the Masters’ language?” asked Tast-e. His voice was surprisingly calm after the warning he’d just given us.

  They pushed in closer, squeezing between me and the Xaxor and climbing between Becky and me. They did look like rats. Large, hairy rats wearing tiny, stinky clothes. One of them crawled on top of the Xaxor’s head and grabbed the light out of its hand. Abruptly, we were in darkness again.

  “You don’t belong here!” said a squeaky voice.

  “Oh, bless my eyes, you do speak it.” I sighed with relief. At least we could explain ourselves. “We didn’t mean to be here. I’m Ryan and this is my sibling, Becky. We’re from the zoo on O-thul-ba,” I explained. “You have people held there, too.”

  “Did you think you could open a portal in our territory without us noticing?” said the same voice.

  “No, I—”

  “Stop. Follow us.”

  There was more shuffling and scratching. The Brocine skittered away from us, in the direction we had been heading.

  “They stink,” Becky whispered.

  “Shhh.” I grabbed on to her hand and began crawling. The Brocine were still around us. Though I couldn’t see, it felt like they were on the walls and ceiling of the tunnel. It was the heat and the rusty metal smell.

  The Xaxor hummed a little as it shuffled behind us, but Tast-e was completely silent. I took that as a good sign. If he kept his mouth shut, he couldn’t say anything that would make them angry. None of the Brocine spoke either, and we crawled on in silence for what seemed like hours, though it might have been only minutes.

  “You all right?” I whispered to Becky.

  “Yes.”

  The way she said it, all quiet, made me realize she wasn’t. I wasn’t feeling too good myself. The dirt from the tunnel floor that had seemed soft at first was now digging into my hands, and the knees of my leggings were worn through, so that I could feel the rough wetness on my knees.

  A drop of water fell on my head, then another. Then another.

  The chattering of our Brocine guides picked up.

  The drops began falling thicker and harder, and soon the water was rising over my hands.

  “Is the tunnel going to flood?” I finally asked.

  More chatter I didn’t understand.

  I heard a thump behind me.

  “Eep!” Becky squealed.

  “What happened?”

  “Get it off me!”

  I reached out a hand and felt the hairy belly of the Xaxor where Becky should be.

  “Ick!”

  “It just slipped. Xaxor? Just move slowly, okay? Can you slide back off?”

  Becky crashed into me, and the Xaxor let out a frantic hum.

  “Get off me! Haven’t you ever experienced a little water?” Tast-e shouted.

  The humming increased, so that I had to cover my ears. Then the Brocine were crawling over me, chattering like crazy.

  “Ryan, they’re on me!”

  A Brocine hit me in the face.

  “Becky, don’t throw them!”

  “Ahhhh!”

  The path fell out from under me. Water was everywhere. I had to close my mouth and hold my breath. I flailed around, trying to find Becky, but found nothing but water and dirt and rocks and Brocine. They were crawling around me, holding on somehow to the sides of the path, while I was sliding out of control. Their chattering stayed the same, like normal conversation.

  I
wanted to yell at them, ask what was going on, but there was water everywhere, and I couldn’t open my mouth. My hand knocked against something that didn’t feel like Brocine, and I couldn’t tell if it was Becky or Tast-e or the Xaxor, and I was falling faster and faster, so I gave up and just let myself slide. Once I stopped flailing around, I slid faster.

  It felt like many more minutes of falling, all the time trying to keep my mouth closed and spitting water out and hoping Becky was calm enough to keep her mouth closed, too. After a long while, the tunnel began to flatten and my sliding began to slow, but the water kept falling all around me. It was coming from behind me in the tunnel, and from above me, and even seemed to be seeping out of the path itself.

  “Becky, are you all right?” I sputtered.

  “Its legs are all over me again!”

  “Kindly remove your appendages from my face, Xaxor,” said Tast-e.

  “I guess they don’t like water. Hang on, Xaxor, I’m going to get you off them.”

  A spindly leg hit me in the face.

  “Hold still!” I lifted the leg from my face as gently as I could and tried to follow it back to the Xaxor, but the leg slipped out of my hand, and I heard a stale, soggy humming. I sighed. “What is going on? Where are you taking us?”

  All at once, the sky lit up. A pattern like stars peppered the ceiling. It was not much light, but it was enough for me to see the cavern full of Brocine. I would never be able to count how many. They were everywhere. All along the sides of a cave as big as a basketball court, they were piled on top of each other. They piled against the walls and also flowed into the floor of the cavern, many Brocine deep. Brocine ran from all sides of the cave, over the tops of each other, toward the center, where a pile of them rose high above the others in the center of the cavern floor. Water dripped from the ceiling, seeming to come from the “stars” above us, and the whole thing stank. I couldn’t make out individual features, but I saw noses. Noses everywhere.

  “You opened a portal.” The voice was deep and loud. It seemed to be coming from the center of the room and the large pile, though I couldn’t see any individual talking.

  I sloshed forward. The water was up past my ankles, and I could only go a few feet, because there were too many Brocine, too many noses that I didn’t want to come in contact with. “I had to! The Hottini locked me and my sibling up. I didn’t know my machine would send us here. I thought it would send us to a . . . a spaceport or something.”

  The Xaxor gave a soggy hum.

  “I have to help my friend.” I slogged back to the others. Becky was gingerly picking a leg off of herself, while the Xaxor sank listlessly into the water. Tast-e stood silent, staring ahead at the pile of Brocine. I turned back to them. “My friend the Xaxor, it doesn’t like the water. Please, can’t you help me get it out?”

  “How did you make the portal?”

  “I have a calculator. I can open portals for you, too, if you want.” I pulled the calculator out of my bag. It was soaking wet, and I had no idea if it would still work. “Please, help the Xaxor.”

  Brocine came out of the water from beneath me, splashing me and the calculator more. They pushed the Xaxor up and held it above the water, but it tipped, legs sagging into the water, so that more Brocine had to lift it. They moved away into the cave, carrying the Xaxor farther than the light of the “stars” went.

  “Where are you taking it?”

  “Aboveground,” said the deep voice. “You are Ry-an, the child sent from O-thul-ba. And you are Tast-e, the Hottini soldier.”

  Tast-e stayed still and quiet. I was about to answer for both of us, when the voice continued.

  “The Hottini have been in contact. They demand the release of their soldier and the transfer of their prisoners back to their ship.”

  “We weren’t supposed to be their prisoners. They were supposed to help us.”

  “We have no intention of giving you back, as long as you give us the calculator.”

  Of course they’d want it, too. Of course! I tried not to show how frustrated I was. “I can give it to you, but it won’t work. Someone imprinted it to work only for me. That’s why the Hottini locked us up. They wanted me to make a map of all the Masters’ tunnels, but I don’t know how.” I couldn’t give it to them. I’d promised Front twice.

  The pack of Brocine pulled more closely together. As one, they leaned closer. I heard sloshing. The water rippled around my feet. I stepped backward, made sure I was in front of Becky.

  “Then you will stay with us, and you will learn how to use it.”

  No, no, no! “What about your people in the zoo? I can help you rescue them if you give me the antidote for your poison. One of your people poked my parent!”

  The pack leaned forward even more. Its voice came from all around me. “We will save your parent. We will bring back our people. And you will stay here.”

  “No, I can’t stay here, I—”

  “Aah!” Becky screeched.

  I tried to keep my grip on her hand, but the water made everything slippery, and she fell away. I turned around and saw her on her back, being lifted by a pack of Brocine. “Hey, stop it!” My legs went out from under me, and I fell backward. The landing was surprisingly soft, like falling on a lumpy mattress. I spit water out of my mouth and had to close my eyes because of the splashing.

  When I opened my eyes again, it was almost totally dark. We were moving through another tunnel.

  “Becky, are you all right?”

  “I’m okay.” Her voice was close.

  “Hey, we can walk, you know, you don’t have to carry us.”

  “This will be faster,” said a small voice.

  “Tast-e, are you here?”

  “Without dignity,” said Tast-e. His voice came from behind me.

  “It can’t be that much farther. Right?”

  There was no answer, but we slowly came to a stop. There was a screeching noise and then a light so bright, I had to close my eyes again. The Brocine underneath me were not moving, but I felt myself being lifted and lifted, and the air around me changed from musty to fresh, like I was aboveground. The Brocine tickled me a little as they rolled out from under me, leaving me lying on my back on something hard.

  I opened my eyes.

  Twenty-One

  SQUEAKS, GROWLS, CHEERING, CLAPPING, and gurgling laughter filled my ears. I sat up and blinked, trying to adjust to the light.

  “Food!” Becky was already standing, hopping a little with excitement.

  We were at one end of a large hall. The ceiling must have been a hundred eyes up, and it was made of glass, showing a red sky dotted with white clouds. In front of us were long tables with benches on either side, set at the right height for Earth people. The benches were filled with Brocine, and they were the ones cheering.

  They were wearing all different kinds of clothes, looking clean and dry. They clapped their paws together. And Becky was right—there was food. Bowls and bowls lined the tables, with things poking out of them. I couldn’t tell what any of it was exactly.

  “I have been here before,” said Tast-e. “This is their show for other froms.”

  At the far end of the hall, past the tables, a pack of maybe fifty Brocine were stacked like a pyramid. It spoke in the same deep voice I’d heard before. “Welcome to Brock, Earth people. Please, drink.”

  In front of the pyramid pack, a group of Brocine slid off the benches with a tiny thump, leaving an opening just big enough for Becky and me. I took a glance at Tast-e, who was standing as regally as possible, considering his drenched appearance. He didn’t move or acknowledge me.

  “Come on,” I said, reaching for Becky’s hand. I led her forward, between the benches.

  All around us, the Brocine continued making noises. They began jumping from the benches onto the tables. Their noses pointed at us, but their eyes were bright and seemed friendly.

  We came to the space they’d left for us and climbed onto the bench. Becky grabbed a bowl and pulle
d out the first thing. It resembled a cucumber, but it was striped with purple and a little fuzzy. She brought it toward her mouth.

  “Wait!” I stopped her hand and looked around me. The Brocine were all on top of the table now, digging into the various items in the bowls, gripping with their claws and tearing the food with greenish, razor-sharp teeth. They seemed to be eating everything. “Let me try it first.” I took it from her and sank my teeth in. It was bittersweet, like both vegetable and fruit.

  “That’s mine!” She grabbed it back from me and took a bite herself. “Weird!” She kept eating, slurping at the juices that dripped onto the table.

  I picked up something out of the bowl in front of me. It was round and flat and reddish brown. I took a hesitant bite and found that it was crunchy, a little salty, and also a little sweet.

  I felt a tapping on my leg. The Brocine next to me was eating as if nothing had happened, so I twisted around on the bench. Standing behind me, on the floor, a Brocine was looking up with big round yellow eyes. He was dressed in a black one-piece suit with buttons down the front, and his thin ears stuck back from his head, giving him a distressed look.

  “Ryan Earth,” he said. His voice was somewhat high, but not quite squeaky. His eyes flitted to Becky, then back to me. “My name is Gript. I am . . . that is . . .” Gript’s eyes filled with water.

  The Brocine next to me stopped eating and jumped down onto the bench. “It is Gript’s children who were taken by the Masters.” His eyes, too, filled with water.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Have you seen them? Are they all right?” Gript’s tears were flowing freely now, dripping onto his buttons.

  “I’ve never seen them myself,” I said, “but my parent—”

  “It was an accident!” Gript cried. “It must have been. They would never hurt anyone!”

  The one on the bench reached down a clawed paw to Gript, who clambered up next to us.

  “They think it was,” I said. “Your children are fine. I’m sure they are.” I realized that I didn’t know. I’d been so worried about my dad, I’d never stopped to wonder what had happened to the Brocine.

  “You’re my only hope. Please.” Gript put a paw on my leg and gripped it with the surprisingly soft fingers under the claws. “You have to help my people rescue them.”