MADAME PONG SCURRIED BEHIND GRAKKER and did a quick module change. “Diplomatic module,” she whispered when she saw me watching her. “Doesn’t work very well, but it may keep him from ruining the situation entirely.”
With Grakker in the lead, we marched out of the house, chibling and all. A dozen shapeshifters armed with ray guns stood ready to keep us in line.
They marched us through the center of the village. On the far side we stopped in front of a house no bigger or fancier than the one in which we were being held. Standing in front of the door, Galuspa said, “This is the home of the Ting Wongovia. In his decision lies your fate.”
With those cheerful words, he opened the door and gestured for us to enter.
One by one we filed through the door into a dark room. At the far side hung a shimmering blue-black curtain, covered with stars and moons that drifted in slowly changing patterns.
Once we were all inside, the door closed silently behind us, leaving us in complete darkness save for the slight glow of the patterns of the curtain. This darkness lasted only a moment.
Then the curtain was drawn aside to reveal the Ting Wongovia.
He sat in an ornately carved chair, bathed in a column of blue light. He wore a robe of the same shimmering blue-black fabric as the curtain. And his face was so familiar it made me gasp in astonishment.
My gasp was nothing compared to Grakker’s shout of joy.
While my astonishment lasted, the captain’s joy, alas, did not. The being facing us was not, as we had first thought, our missing friend Flinge Iblik. He merely looked enough like our lost crew member to be his brother.
After gazing at us solemnly for what seemed like several minutes, he said, “Greetings. As you have no doubt guessed, I am the current Ting Wongovia. My apologies that I was not able to see you sooner. I was . . . otherwise engaged.”
“Where is Flinge Iblik?” shouted Grakker.
The lizard-faced being sitting in the chair looked as surprised as I had felt when we first saw him. “What do you know of Flinge Iblik?” he asked sharply.
Madame Pong moved up beside Grakker and put a hand on his arm to remind him that such conversations were her job. “Flinge Iblik is our shipmate,” she said.
“And he is my egg-brother,” replied the Ting Wongovia, “which in many ways is almost the same thing. But if he is your shipmate, why is he not with you? Why do you ask if I know where he is?”
Quickly Madame Pong told the story of Snout’s disappearance. As she spoke, the Ting Wongovia began to frown. “This is not good,” he said when she was done. “Not good at all—especially in light of what else is going on.”
“What else is going on?” asked Madame Pong. The way she asked the question made me shudder, for it gave me the feeling that we had stumbled into a bigger problem than I had realized; that we were not simply fighting for our own survival but facing something bigger, something we did not yet understand.
The Ting Wongovia did not answer her question, at least not directly. “I need to examine you before I say more,” he replied. “I do not yet know that you are safe, or that I would be wise in trusting you.”
“What do you propose?” asked Madame Pong.
“If you truly knew Flinge Iblik, then you already know the answer to that.”
“You want to do a mind probe,” said Madame Pong.
“I forbid it!” snapped Grakker.
The Ting Wongovia looked at him in surprise. “How else am I to know whether I can trust you?”
“How do I know that we can trust you!” retorted Grakker.
The Ting Wongovia smiled. “You don’t.”
“I can well believe that you are Flinge Iblik’s egg-brother,” snarled Grakker. “That’s exactly the kind of answer I used to get from him. Even so, I am not going to allow you to look into the mind of any of my crew. To do so would give you access to information you could use to destroy us. And just as you cannot be certain that we are on your side against Smorkus Flinders, we cannot be certain what your motives are.”
“Alas,” said the Ting Wongovia, “it seems we are at an impasse. Your concerns are valid. Yet until I am sure that your good will is equally so, I cannot let you join us. We simply have too much at stake.”
“What we need,” said Madame Pong, “is someone whose mind will reflect our good faith, yet does not hold our secrets.”
“Precisely,” said the Ting Wongovia.
You can probably see where this was heading. I didn’t, until Madame Pong said, “Deputy Allbright, would you step forward?”
I swallowed hard. Though I didn’t particularly want this guy rummaging around inside my head, I could see why I was the one who was going to have to volunteer. A probe of my mind would certainly show that the crew of the Ferkel was not working for Smorkus Flinders. However, unless the Ting Wongovia had a burning desire to know the details of life as a sixth grader in a small town on Earth, his probe was not likely to turn up anything else of interest.
“Go on, Roddie,” hissed Elspeth. “They’re waiting for you!”
This annoyed me so much that I wanted to stay where I was just to spite her. But there was too much at stake. Taking a deep breath, I stepped up beside Madame Pong and Grakker and said, “Deputy Allbright reporting for duty.”
“I shall have to ask the rest of you to leave us,” said the Ting Wongovia.
Grakker started to protest, but the Ting Wongovia raised his right hand and said, “I will be very vulnerable while conducting the probe. I cannot have potential enemies in the room while I am doing so. You will return to your quarters now. When I am done with your deputy, we will talk again.”
Though Grakker grumbled, Madame Pong made a gesture of assent. The aliens turned to go.
“What are you doing?” cried Elspeth. “You can’t just leave Rod here with that guy! There’s no telling what he might do to him.”
I was startled by this display of loyalty from Elspeth. Unfortunately, it didn’t have much effect other than to crank up my fear and uncertainty.
Madame Pong turned toward me. “Do you accept this assignment, Deputy Allbright?”
“Of course he does,” growled Grakker.
“Captain!” she said sharply. “You know that Provision 136.9.17.48 of the Galactic Code forbids us to force anyone to undergo a mind probe. Since the question has arisen, we must again determine that Deputy Allbright is doing this of his own free will.” She turned to me and said, “Deputy Allbright?”
I hesitated. This was my chance out of it. The truth was, I was terrified by the thought of the Ting Wongovia poking around inside my brain. But if I refused, what then? We would be right back where we started.
I glanced at the Tar, wondering if it would order me to volunteer. Even if Grakker couldn’t order me to do this, the Tar could, now that I was its krevlik. But its face was a blank.
The decision was mine alone.
“Is this mind probe thing dangerous?” I asked.
“Not really,” said the Ting Wongovia. “There is a small chance that you will be driven completely mad by the process. But the odds of that happening are really quite low.”
“How low?”
The Ting Wongovia smiled. “Exactly equal to the chance that it will happen to me instead.”
I sighed. For a minute I thought I had a good excuse to bow out. But if the Ting Wongovia was willing to take the chance, I couldn’t refuse without looking like a total coward. One of Mom’s lectures started playing in the back of my head—the one about not worrying about what other people think of me, and just doing what is right.
Okay, so if it didn’t matter if the others thought I was a coward I could still bow out if I wanted to.
But would it be right?
I sighed. “All right, I’ll do it.”
Grakker smiled.
The aliens tried to take the chibling with them when they left, but it eeeped so desperately that finally the Ting Wongovia gestured for them to leave it behind.
&nb
sp; “Bye, Roddie,” called Elspeth as the door closed behind them. “Good luck!”
She actually sounded like she meant it.
I was alone with the Ting Wongovia.
He chuckled and rubbed his hands together.
“Well,” he said with a smile that I could not interpret. “This ought to be interesting.”
CHAPTER
16
Bubble Memories
THE ALIEN SAID NOTHING ELSE for the next several minutes, just stared at me in silence. I wondered if he was trying to get into my mind; if he was, I sure didn’t feel it. Finally, moving slowly, he touched a button on his chair. The blue light disappeared. Only then did I realize that the light had probably been a force field protecting him from possible attack. I stifled a snort. I was so used to getting beat up that it was hard to believe someone could actually consider me a threat.
Leaning forward, the Ting Wongovia said, “How well did you know my egg-brother?”
“Not very. Flinge Iblik and I went through a dangerous time together a while ago. I learned great respect for him. But I don’t really know much about him.”
“You will know more about him, or at least about our people, when this experience is over,” said the Ting Wongovia. “You see, it is impossible for me to do a mind probe without opening myself to you at the same time. Not completely, of course; I am, after all, a Master of the Mental Arts. And unless you have had more experience with this than I suspect, you will not know how to take advantage of the situation. Even so, you will inevitably learn much about me—and, by extension, much about my egg-brother. Are you ready to begin?”
I took a deep breath. “Yes,” I whispered. “I’m ready.”
The Ting Wongovia rose from his chair and walked to where I stood. Placing his spindly fingers at my temples, he raised his face toward mine.
The chibling let out a shriek and wrapped itself around my leg. This made me nervous. Did the little creature know something that I didn’t? I half expected the Ting Wongovia to order me to do something about the animal, but he simply gave it a quick glance then returned his attention to me, as if the chibling’s presence was a matter of no importance.
The stance he had taken was familiar—it was the same one Snout had used when he did the “training transfer” that taught me how to use the flying belt. Except that time Snout and I had been the same height, because we had both been shrunk to about two inches. At our regular sizes, the head of his egg-brother came only slightly above my waist.
“You probably don’t want me to move,” I said, remembering how disastrous it had been when I broke my connection to Snout.
“Don’t worry about it,” replied the Ting Wongovia. “You won’t be able to.”
Naturally, I responded to this statement by trying to move. The Ting Wongovia had spoken the truth: I was completely immobilized.
“This will be easier if you relax,” he said.
There it is again, I thought. Stay calm. The advice was turning out to have more uses than I would have guessed.
While I was wondering again how much I had missed by not reading further in Flinge Iblik’s book, I found myself beginning to drift . . .
Suddenly I was no longer just myself, but (somehow) both myself and the Ting Wongovia.
I felt as if I were suspended in some strange sea. Around me floated memories, drifting up like bubbles of a thousand colors, a thousand sizes. Every once in a while one of the bubbles would burst against me and flood me with its contents: experiences so vivid and clear it was as if they were my own, as if I had become the Ting Wongovia, and was not merely remembering but actually living the incidents contained in each bubble.
* * *
Bubble: I am hatching—breaking my way out of my leathery egg and stretching into the sunshine. Around me squeak and wiggle my egg-brothers and egg-sisters, all three hundred and fifty-eight of them. Our voices rise in the hatching song.
Bubble: I am entering a beautiful wooden building. My long face twitches with nervousness. Yet I am happy, proud because out of all my egg-brothers and egg-sisters only Flinge Iblik and myself have been chosen to be trained in the Mental Arts. One other from our hatching year, a female named Selima Khan, has also been selected. Together we have traveled across space to the Mentat. Today our training is to begin.
Bubble: I am buried beneath a writhing mass of furry bodies, trying to squirm my way free.
(Later I realized that this bubble—and this bubble only—came not from the Ting Wongovia, but was some vague memory of the chibling’s that got mixed in with the whole situation!)
Bubble: A being who looks like a three-legged avocado with tentacles takes my face between its hands and begins to weep.
Bubble: Seething with rage and frustration, I throw my few belongings into a sack and climb out a window.
Bubble: I stand in darkness, listening not with my ears but with my mind. At first I have a hard time picking out the speakers, but soon I am able to separate their voices. It takes only a moment for me to feel a wave of horror at what they are saying. I start to move . . .
* * *
I felt as if I had been shaken out of an intense dream. The memory-remnants of the last bubble spattered about inside my brain, leaving mysterious and unconnected images. It was as if I had been watching a movie and someone had ripped the last reel off the projector, cut the film into tiny pieces, and dumped them into my hand saying, “Here, figure out the rest of the story yourself!”
The chibling flopped off my leg and lay there eeeping weakly.
The Ting Wongovia was staring at me with an expression that I could not interpret. Finally he said, “That was made much easier by your previous experience with my egg-brother. Allow me to say that you have a very interesting mind, Rod Allbright.”
“Do you trust us now?” I asked eagerly.
He made a sign of acceptance. “Unless the rest of your crew is operating at a deep level of deceit, you are what you say you are.”
The words made me shiver. Was it possible Grakker and the others were something different than they had told me, on some other mission than they claimed to be? I shook away the idea. Grakker was too straightforward for that kind of thing. But what about Madame Pong? Her mind was sly and subtle. She could work at many levels . . .
Stop it! I told myself angrily.
The Ting Wongovia was smiling at me. “I have summoned the others,” he said. “Now that I am satisfied with your intentions, we can talk. I think you will find this . . . interesting.”
Something about the way he said “interesting” made me shiver again.
* * *
In about ten minutes the other aliens (I say “other aliens” because by this time I had realized that in Dimension X I was an alien as well) came through the door. Galuspa was with them.
Elspeth looked intently into my eyes. “Did you go crazy?” she asked, giving me a ghoulish grin.
“You’ll never know,” I whispered. “At least, not until it’s too late!”
Then I let out a low but demented laugh.
The look on her face was very satisfactory.
Madame Pong paused beside me. “You have done well, Rod,” she said. “You have my thanks. And the captain will enter this in your record. Since you also got a commendation for your help in the struggle against BKR, this will look very good for you. My congratulations.”
“You keep a record on me?” I asked in surprise.
She seemed surprised at my surprise. “You are a deputy of the Galactic Patrol,” she said. “Of course we keep a record on you.”
Though Grakker had always called me a deputy, I had figured it was just a way for him to justify bossing me around. But if they were keeping a record on me, it must mean I really was a member of the Galactic Patrol!
I felt as if I had just learned that I had accidentally joined the army.
I was still trying to figure out what all this meant when my thoughts were interrupted by the Ting Wongovia.
“P
lease make yourselves comfortable,” he said. “There is much that we must discuss. What I have learned from your deputy tells me that things are worse—much worse—than I had realized.”
CHAPTER
17
Unite and Conquer
THE TING WONGOVIA’S WORDS CREATED an uneasy murmur.
“Please, please,” he said, holding up his hands. “Find a seat. Settle in. This is going to take some time.”
The lights came up so that the room was merely dim instead of dark. I couldn’t figure out who had adjusted them, then decided that either the Ting Wongovia had a switch in his chair or had somehow done it with his mind.
In the murky light I could see a variety of chairs and cushions against the curving wall. Each of us quickly found something suitable, with the exception of Galuspa, who simply turned himself into a legless blob. The chibling stretched itself out at my feet.
“All right,” growled Grakker, once we were all seated. “What ‘things’ are you talking about?”
“The fate of Rod’s planet,” said the Ting Wongovia. “And, by extension, the fate of our entire dimension, which is in immediate and terrible danger.”
When the Ting Wongovia said “our” dimension, it took me a moment to remember that he had not been born in Dimension X, but was a visitor here like the rest of us. I wondered how he had ended up here, in this village, in this role.
If only I had been able to make more use of that mind probe!
“What did you find in Rod’s memories that indicated this danger?” asked Madame Pong.
“The image of Smorkus Flinders moving between the dimensions. He did it far too easily. I know you are well aware of what a complicated thing it is to breach the dimensional barriers. Yet Smorkus Flinders went in and out of our dimension as if he were stepping through a door. That means his research has finally paid off.”
“Research?” I asked.
Madame Pong shot me a look, reminding me that as ship’s diplomat, this conversation was in her hands.
The Ting Wongovia answered anyway. “Smorkus Flinders has one of the greatest minds ever seen on this planet. He was also quite a nice person, until he got turned into a monster. Then everything changed.”
I Left My Sneakers in Dimension X (9781439113240) Page 8
