Loose from out restraints, both Denaraz and I leapt forward as we saw her feet touch the deck plating again. I could not believe that anyone could survive what she had just lived through, but she smiled at us, albeit a little tremulously, only stumbling slightly as she regained her usual size.
“Well,” she said, checking that her claws were still in the same place, “that was new.”
We fussed around her, unable to believe what we had seen. “Are you all right?” “What happened?” “Does it hurt?” “Can you walk?”
She gave Denaraz a kiss on his cheek and touched my arm. “Later.” Then she turned quietly to where Admiral Ellison was staring, apparently glued to the deck. “You heard what the Chakrans said.”
Ellison’s lips had gone pale. “What was that?”
“You have come to the attention of the Chakran race. And they don’t like you very much. Your actions will damage their environment. They will no longer allow you to pursue this disastrous path.”
“Who are the Chakrans?” she whispered, her hand going to her throat and her eyes searching rather uneasily around the bridge, as if expecting them to pop out at her at any moment.
“You don’t know who the Chakrans are?” Zenzie’s voice was disbelieving. “How could you not know ….” Then she stopped. “Oh, never mind; I suppose there are a million things you don’t know. You are only Terrans, after all.”
I gave her a sideways look, but she was unaware of the unspoken rebuke. I guess we do all seem a bit … basic … to the Tyzarans. They have had millennia more of development, after all.
As to what the Chakrans must think of us … the mind boggled. Well, mine did anyway. A being whose ‘head’ is hundreds of millions of light years away from its ‘feet’. Zenzie once told me that a Chakran, if visible, would be comparable to a filament of galaxies, something like the size of the Sloan Great Wall in the large scale structure of the universe. Hundreds of millions of light years across. In fact, it gave me a headache just thinking about it. Of course we would be less significant than grains of sand on a beach. We would be grains of sand on a beach seen from the other side of the Milky Way. No, we wouldn’t even be discernible.
I shook my head to break the train of thought. It was making me dizzy. I had to grab a hold of Izan to stop myself swaying. He gave me a strange look. I can’t blame him. I wasn’t the one whose whole body had just been swollen up to epic proportions.
“How did your blood flow?” I blurted out, again speculating about the impossibility of what we had just witnessed.
Zenzara giggled. “How should I know? Maybe it didn’t need to.”
Then where would it go? Would it coagulate? I really just could not wrap my head around this at all.
And I wasn’t the only one. Except Denaraz, all of those present were shell-shocked. I mean, you know that human bodies are mostly air and water, but you really don’t expect to have it proved to you quite as explicitly.
Ellison bent down to touch one of the guns on the floor. The Chakran had not put the weaponry back together again. It lay on the decking, stripped down. As her fingers made contact, it crumbled to a dust so fine that it was little more than a cloud.
“Get all these bagged up,” she instructed. Then she put her fingers up to her own head and closed her eyes, murmuring to herself, “Get me the Ethnarch. Stat!”
She really was shaken up. She wasn’t thinking straight. She had just let us know that the Terrans also possessed implanted ansible communication. I was pretty sure they had stolen that from the Tyzarans, too. I wondered if it was one of the things the Tyzaran traitor had passed along to them. I couldn’t help thinking it might be a good thing if they had a miniaturized version. With the Terrans using such instantaneous communication openly, it could only be a matter of time before we all had it. It would stop being a privilege for the few Tyzarans who reached the Supreme Council, and their favored acolytes.
Which reminded me. Denaraz had been able to talk via ansible to the Supreme Council. Had he been keeping them up to date with the situation?
I turned to him and made spinning gestures at the height of my head.
He looked put out. “Mine has been disrupted ever since Ellison overrode the Emergency order on Chibuzo. I don’t know why.”
Ellison’s eyes flickered. I thought she might have an inkling.
I nodded. Pity. Still, after Zenzie’s little demonstration, things were looking a whole lot better.
I took a deep breath and addressed the Admiral again. “When would be convenient to begin peace negotiations?”
Ellison became aware that we were still there. “Put them in back in the brig,” she ordered.
Zenzara’s crest flared upwards. “I don’t think so. We will go back to Nivala. All negotiations must take place on neutral territory. Both you and the Avaraks can join us there when you are ready.”
The admiral considered. It took her longer than it should; she was still trying to assimilate what had just happened.
I stepped towards her, shaking the restraints. “Please remove these. If you wish our co-operation and that of the entire Interstellar Alliance, you must release us immediately.”
Her gaze flickered over Denaraz and myself. It only focussed on Zenzara, however. She gave a short nod. Our fetters were removed.
I rubbed at my wrists. Denaraz and I positioned ourselves to either side of Zenzie. We were a bit late and she clearly didn’t need our protection in the slightest, but it made me feel a little better.
The Admiral came to a decision. “I will agree to attend negotiations on the Nivala,” she said slowly, “but I will not let you go yet. I must speak directly to my supreme commander, Ethnarch Locke, first. He will need to examine footage of what happened here before any decisions are taken.” She bit her lip. “However, after that … err … expression by the Chakrans, I do see that it may not be appropriate to place you back in the cells.”
She walked up and down for a few moments her hand sweeping along the length of the main console. Then she made up her mind. “You will be given a cabin each. You will be free to visit with each other, but I will not allow you to leave the cabin area. You will be restrained again if you attempt to leave. Is that agreeable?” She tilted her graying hair towards me. I nodded. It was probably the best we could hope to get.
She gave the relevant instructions. We were escorted down several decks and along a long corridor until we reached a side passageway with doors reaching off it. Here, we were each shown into a spacious cabin, with en suite facilities including actual water showers. I could hardly believe my eyes. None of us had had water showers since we had been quartered on Sentinel.
Zenzie gave something like a moan and disappeared into her cabin. We heard a lock clicking into place. Denaraz and I exchanged a wry shrug. My clothes were stiff with sweat too. I knew what I wanted to do.
“Meet up later?” he suggested.
“Sure!”
Within seconds I was locked securely inside my cabin, under a pummelingly hot shower. It was bliss. I put my head back and let the water drum onto my face with its thousands of pinhead drops, washing away the tensions of nearly dying so many times. True, unexpected luxury. Nearly the best thing that had happened all day. Climbing into clean sheets and falling into an instant deep sleep had to be the best. By far.
Chapter 19
It was ten hours later that I was woken up by a thudding on the door of the cabin. I pulled myself, most reluctantly, out of bed and padded over to open it, only stopping to wrap a towel around my waist.
Zenzie and Denaraz were standing on the other side.
“Ellison wants to see us,” Denaraz told me.
I gave a curt nod. “Come in.”
They did, and sat on the bed as I dragged my uncooperative clothes back
on. They were so grimy that they scratched as I pulled them over my skin. Zenzie looked away in a pointed sort of manner.
I threw some of that wonderful water on my face and then smiled. “Right! I hope today doesn’t get as complicated as yesterday.”
Zenzie blew out air. “Speak for yourself,” she said. “You didn’t get blown up to the size of a space shuttle.”
“True. You certainly stole the show. How are you feeling now?”
She blinked. “I slept like the dead. It was all I could do to finish the shower. Having all your molecules expanded is tiring. I felt like I was dissolving.”
“I can imagine.” I couldn’t.
Denaraz was staring at Zenzara as if she had achieved God status. “Do you know what you did?” he asked, his voice reverent.
“Not really, no.”
“No Chyzar has ever been able to allow the Chakrans to manifest directly.”
“Don’t tell the Supreme. Then they really will insist on having me examined.”
He shook his head. “I have to. There were scores of witnesses. The Supreme Council would be bound to find out. It is best that they hear it from me directly. Without spin. Without bias. Don’t you think, Mallivan?”
“Possibly. I certainly don’t think you will be able to keep this a secret. And, from what the Chakrans said, they will be keeping a close eye on the situation. That sort of thing may happen all the time.”
Zenzie gasped and large tears welled up in her eyes. “I don’t want to become a … a …”
“Deity?” suggested Denaraz.
She sighed. “A specimen. I just want to be me. Normal.”
I grinned down at her. “You were never that. It may be a bit more difficult now though.”
Her crest drooped. “No kidding.” Her voice was small.
I draped an arm around her thin shoulders. “We won’t let them take you away, Ty Zylarian. Sorry, Chy Zylarian.”
She slumped even more. “Shells! I suppose I am the Chyzar now.”
“Not only are you the Chyzar,” said Denaraz in an admiring tone. “You are the only Chyzar to be able to channel directly the Chakrans. They have been able to form a complex Nexus inside you. You are our most important Chyzar ever.”
Zenzara put out her tongue. “I’ll swap if you will.”
He grinned. “I wish. What was it like to have a truly incorporeal being take over your body?”
“They didn’t. Take over my body. At least, I suppose they did, but they left me room to be me as well. They were very … respectful of my sense of self. It was all right.” She frowned. “And they aren’t really incorporeal either. Their molecules are just spread over aeons of spacetime. And, even though they are so very large, they are terribly fragile too.”
“They didn’t seem it yesterday.”
“No.” Her frown deepened. “They didn’t want to do what they did yesterday. I could feel their doubt. They thought that it might leave them vulnerable in some way. They just weren’t able to see any other options.”
“But they spoke through you. How did you know what they wanted you to say?”
“I could sense what they were feeling. It was a bit like cold weather causing you to shiver. I sensed how they felt, and so I put what I was feeling into words.”
“What about that expansion thing? Was that your idea, or theirs?”
“Theirs, but it was as if they ran it by me first to see if I was all right with what they were doing. I could sense that they didn’t want to hurt me. It was new for them too, and even though they were wary about doing it I could feel their excitement.”
“They were excited too?” How strange.
“Yes, because they have been searching for ways to interact directly with non-quantum beings for thousands of years. This is a breakthrough for them, as well.”
Denaraz was still staring at her in amazement. “You say ‘they’. So you can identify more than one in the Nexus inside you?”
Zenzie hesitated. But we were her friends. “I was right. There are Six,” she said. “Six different entities present. I am aware of them as different strands, different individuals. However, when they are in the Nexus, I can’t really separate them out.”
I stared at the small Tyzaran girl. “Do you know how special that makes you?”
“I … I guess.” She shuffled from side to side. “But I am still me, as well.”
“I know. We will make sure your compatriots don’t slice you open. I promise.”
Relief shone over her face. “Thank you!”
“Right. Well. I guess we should be moving. We need to try to stop a war, as instructed by the Macers.”
“We do.”
We wandered up along the corridor, where we were picked up by what I would like to call a guard of honor, but felt more like a prison detail.
Our destination was one of the smaller shuttle bays. Admiral Ellison was waiting for us there, moving from foot to foot and looking angry to be kept waiting.
“You are to come with me,” she snapped, indicating one of the shuttles.
We were shepherded onto the small vehicle. It was soon overflowing with Terrans, all of whom were heavily armed.
“Are you intending to negotiate or is this an all-out attack?” I queried.
“We cannot go to a neutral ship without taking precautions.”
“I am just not sure that all these men will fit on Nivala.”
“Please refrain from speaking.”
That put me in my place. There was a stiff silence for the rest of the short journey over to our ship.
The shuttle was waved forwards into Nivala’s cargo hold. Nivala is unusual in that she has forward and aft loading doors, enabling the stern loading door to be used for landing and the bow door for takeoff. This is now known as fly-loading-one-way or FLOW stacking. It is generally thought to be more time and cost effective.
Our small shuttle settled heavily on the main throughway and then was picked up on the deployable continuous tracks and automatically stowed in one of the side holds. These are kept with atmosphere at all times, and separated from the open throughway by thin force fields.
The shuttle door opened.
There were many faces peering in at us. All were armed with Tyzaran ABlasers. Sammy was at the forefront.
He waved his weapon at the Admiral. “We were not expecting so many armed escorts.” Then he spotted the three of us and his face lightened. “Rye. Zenzara. Denaraz. Good to see you guys. Welcome back.”
“Sammy. Believe me, the feeling is mutual.” I felt a rush of affection at the sight of my friend. There had been so many times in the last day that I wouldn’t have thought it possible.
The Terran weapons swung to cover us, just in case we had ideas of walking away. Sammy’s face changed and Nivala’s crew raised their ABlasers in return. Their faces were fierce and quite determined. I ran my eyes over them. There was Mel, now holding her weapon with something like eagerness. Anzany had a set face that showed how hard she was concentrating. And at the back I could see Seyal, also holding an ABlaser, also pointing it unwaveringly at the Admiral.
The standoff was unhelpful, however. We needed to get Ellison to the negotiating table. I turned to her.
“I suggest you tell your men to lower their weapons. You will be allowed through with a personal guard of three armed men and two unarmed attaches. The same agreement will be enforced with the Avarak delegation.”
Sammy nodded and immediately lowered his weapon. “That seems fair.”
Ellison hesitated, then bowed her head. “Very well.” She turned to her men, singled three out to accompany her and ordered the others to spread out around the shuttle and protect it. She and her two attaches marched down the ra
mp. Zenzie and Izan followed, with me bringing up the rear.
Mel sidled up to me. “All right?”
I nodded. “I think so. Here?”
“Yes. A bit hairy for a while there, but things seem to have quietened down recently. I don’t know what happened though.”
“Zenzie happened.”
“Did she?” Mel looked intrigued, but said nothing further, limiting herself to treating Zenzara to an encouraging smile.
We were escorted to the gymnasium, in the centre of the upper deck. I saw that all the gym equipment had been removed and a large table set up in the centre. They had used modules from all over the ship to put together something that was as close as they could get to a round table.
Cleared of its equipment, the gym actually had an impressive aura to it. I would never have thought of using it, but the double height gave an air of solemnity about the occasion. It was very effective. I wondered who had come up with the idea. One of the girls, I suspected. Maybe Neema, who must be in charge up on the bridge?
We were seated around one side of the circular table. Ellison edged her own chair forward and her two attaches edged theirs back. Not that there could have been any doubt about who was in charge.
The Avaraks were escorted in some fifteen minutes later, after coffee and some refreshments had been offered. Ellison and her staff refused food, though they did accept coffees. Zenzie, Izan and I grabbed whatever we could. We hadn’t eaten for twenty-four hours. My blood sugar perked up within minutes.
I wasn’t best pleased to see who was attending for the Avaraks. I didn’t know the leading male, but the one tucked in behind him was unmistakable. Vebor. I heard Sammy suck in his breath too. The Avarak doctor had sabotaged our vessel. He was not our favorite person. And he hated us with a ferocity that bordered on murderous.
Zenzie touched my hand. “If it weren’t for him I would never have been found by the Chakrans,” she said.
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