by Tom Hoffman
When Orville flicked his wrist and shaped a brilliant sphere of white light, something unexpected happened. The flowers squealed in horror and scampered out of the room. Within three seconds Orville was alone. “Whoa, I guess they don’t like bright light. That’s good to know.” He sent a brilliant orb into the next room then stepped through the gaping hole in the concrete wall.
The first thing he noticed was the skeletons. There were five of them and they had long curved tusks and claws. “Eeew, I wonder if the flowers ate them?” Orville gulped but he didn’t faint. That was the very last thing he needed to do. “Wait a minute, I’ve seen those skeletons before. Now where did I... I know, it was on Periculum on the giant mesa. These are Anarkkians! They must be old, from during the war.”
Orville entered the next room, spotting three more skeletons. “This place is too creepy, I need to get out of here.”
The sound of Orville’s inner voice made him jump. “Every atom, every molecule, and every bouncing marble is exactly where it should be at every moment in time.”
When he heard the word ‘marble’ Orville slapped his paw to his forehead and said several words his mum would most certainly not approve of.
“Oh no, I forgot to pick up the blue marble! It was still rolling when I saw the purple flower. I’ve lost Papa’s marble.” Orville sank to his knees. He had ruined everything. Their sole mission was to find the original source of the blue stone and he had lost it. He had lost the last gift his papa ever gave him. He felt sick.
“Every atom, every molecule, and every bouncing marble is exactly where it should be at every moment in time.”
Orville sniffed, wiping his eyes. “Why do you keep saying that? I don’t understand what it means. Are you saying the blue marble is where it’s supposed to be and I am where I’m supposed to be? If every atom and every molecule is where they’re supposed to be, you’re saying everything is where it’s supposed to be. Sophia said the universe sent us here, but it’s up to us to discover the reason why. There must be something in this place I’m supposed to find.”
Orville sent a half dozen brilliant white lights into the nearby rooms. “That should keep the flowers away.” He moved from room to room, painstakingly searching each one for anything which might hold some significance.
When he entered the fifth room his insides turned to ice. His inner voice had spoken again. “You must descend into the darkness.” Orville eyed with great trepidation the set of stone stairs against the far wall.
“I don’t like the sound of that.” Nevertheless, Orville the Brave stepped over to the stairway, the bright orb of light following him. He flicked his wrist and the orb floated down the stairs. Orville followed, his eyes searching for movement. He reached the bottom of the steps and jumped backwards, startled by a sudden flurry of motion. Several dozen purple flowers had dashed out of the room when Orville’s orb of light appeared. The room was thirty feet square and contained hundreds of wooden racks filled with small rectangular envelopes. Everything was covered with a thick layer of dust. When he picked up one of the envelopes it disintegrated in his paw. Several dozen tiny spheres fell to the floor. Orville kneeled down and examined them. “Seeds. They look like seeds.”
Orville got to his feet and surveyed the room again. “It must have been a seed store, or maybe a garden shop.” He spotted another set of stairs leading downward. “Really? More stairs descending into the darkness?”
Once again he made his way down the stairs. Once again he sent his orb of light ahead of him. He heard the scurrying of a hundred purple plants running from his light. This new room was filled with an assortment of unknown mechanical devices and equipment. It reminded him of the Metaphysical Adventurers headquarters, tables and benches filled with glass beakers and spiraling glass tubes. A few of the larger machines were still operational, with small blinking lights on dust covered panels. Orville kept his distance from those machines. He spotted a wide green door at the far end of the room. He knew whatever he was looking for was behind the green door. With a sigh of resignation he approached it, slowly pushing it open. A dozen purple flowers dashed out, some of them brushing up against his sphere of defense. They held their leaves over their faces, shielding themselves from Orville’s brilliant sphere of light.
When he entered through the doorway Orville saw two things. One was a glowing green stone the size of an orange, and the other was a skeleton lying on the floor wearing a uniform decorated with medals. He made his way to the curious green glowing stone. It was lying in a small crater, as though it had smashed into the floor at enormous velocity. When he looked up at the ceiling his suspicions were confirmed. There was a hole where the stone had blasted down through the building. He got down on his knees to examine it. There were six small envelopes lying next to the stone, all of them torn open. He gently dusted off one of the ancient seed packets. He could just make out the image of a purple flower on the front of the envelope. He jumped away from the stone. He knew whatever the green stone was, it had been responsible for the creation of the deadly mutated purple flowers.
Next Orville examined the uniformed skeleton. This was no low level ground trooper. The creature was not Anarkkian, as it had no curved tusks or long claws, its head resembling that of a snake. Orville was getting a powerful feeling about the creature.
“I need to check the pockets. There’s something in the pockets. Eww, I have to reach into a dead skeleton’s pockets.” He gingerly pushed his paw into the first pocket. It was empty, as was the next one. The third pocket was not. Orville pulled out a clear crystalline cube two inches in diameter. He recognized it immediately. “An information storage cube, just like the ones the glowbird records are stored on. Whatever information this contains must be important. The universe sent me a very long way to find it.”
Orville turned to leave, then stopped, looking back at the uniformed skeleton. “Thanks for your help, skeleton, whoever you are. You may have saved our world without ever knowing it.”
Orville made his way back up the stairs and out to the main door of the building. “Sophia is not going to believe this. I was sincerely brave when I had to face that horde of purple flowers. Some of them were big, probably two or three feet tall. Maybe even taller, it was kind of hard to see. And they were strong, not as strong as Proto, but close. I wonder where that green rock came from? I guess it’s one more puzzle to write about in my journal.”
Orville stepped around a massive concrete wall to find his path blocked by a mammoth Anarkkian attack spider. This was too much, first the purple flowers, then the skeletons, and now a silver attack spider was going to blast him into ten thousand little pieces. It really didn’t seem fair at all.
“ORVILLE! IT’S US!”
Orville looked up to see Sophia and Proto peering down from the top of the great silver spider. He stared blankly at them. “What are you doing up there?”
“Hold on, I’ll throw you a rope!”
Orville scampered up the heavy knotted rope onto the back of the Anarkkian spider. “You figured out how to control it! We can ride on it! Oh, stay away from the purple flowers. One of them stabbed me with its thorn and made me fall asleep and then a whole bunch of them dragged me into their lair. I escaped though.”
“We saw them on the way here. A swarm of them tried to bite Proto’s leg. They didn’t bother us after that.”
Orville described a somewhat embellished tale of his imprisonment by the fearsome purple flowers, how he had misplaced the blue marble, found the glowing green stone, discovered the crystalline storage cube inside the pocket of a creepy dead skeleton who may have tried to grab his throat with its long bony fingers, and finally his daring escape from the horde of ferocious flowery mutants.
Sophia looked a little skeptical during the part about the skeleton grabbing Orville’s throat, but Proto was intrigued by the storage cube and quickly identified the skeleton. “Your description clearly indicates a Mintarian officer. They fought bravely against the Anarkkians
during the war. The Mintarians must have been present on Varmoran during the Anarkkian invasion.”
“Do you think you can read the contents of the storage cube? Remember how you projected moving images through the glowbird’s eyes so we could watch them? Wait, how did you know where to find me?”
Sophia held up a pair of brass goggles with fluorescent green lenses. “By the time we realized how long you’d been gone, Proto had the spider running and I dug out these tracking goggles. It wasn’t hard to follow your residual electronic signature, especially from up on the spider.”
“Too bad we can’t take the spider back to Muridaan Falls.” Orville was imagining a jubilant crowd of wildly cheering mice as he rode triumphantly into town on the back of a great gleaming silver spider after saving the world once again.
“Not one of your best ideas. The villagers had a hard enough time getting used to Proto. I don’t think they’re ready to have a monster spider strolling through town. Let’s head back to camp and figure out what to do about the blue marble. Proto can examine the storage cube and maybe project it for us. Oh, I shaped these comfy chairs for us to ride in.”
Orville grinned, flopping down into a green stuffed chair bolted securely to the spider’s back. In less than two minutes he was sound asleep.
Chapter 18
The Good Captain
“Could you read the storage cube?”
“It required quite some effort to unravel the cube’s encryption code and devise the proper conversion parameters, but I was able to view the data and will project it through my optical system.”
“What’s on it?”
“It is an audioptical record of the last days of the Mintarian captain whose skeleton you found.”
“Is it scary? I don’t want to watch if it shows something bad happening to him.”
“He was wearing a microptic input camera. You will see everything he was seeing, but you will not see precisely how he met his untimely end.”
“That’s okay, I guess.”
Sophia picked up the cube, turning it over slowly. “Was there any mention of stopping time?”
Proto paused. “Possibly. It would be best if you both watched it. It provides several clues to a specific location we should investigate.”
Sophia and Orville flopped down onto the floor facing a large blank wall. Proto sat between them, flipping open a small panel on his chest and tapping a series of glowing green tabs. “Beginning the projection now.”
Bright beams of flickering light shot out from Proto’s eyes onto the wall, displaying colorful moving images of a large interstellar vessel’s bridge. A voice boomed out.
“Attention Anarkkian attack vessel, we are not a military vessel. We are the MV Bermitar, a Mintarian supply vessel bringing medical aid to Varmoran. Our ship carries no weapons, we are an unarmed private supply vessel bringing medical aid to the wounded.”
“They’re not responding. Closing in. Fifteen miles.”
“They’re coming after us. They destroy planets, they won’t hesitate to destroy a lone supply ship.”
“Orders? Their heavy beam pulsars have gone online. Our shields are still down.”
“What about the MV Montrosian? Any word?”
“She’s six miles due west of–”
Orville gave a start as the image of the ship shook violently.
“Captain, the Montrosian has been hit! Their antimatter field fence ruptured! Half the ship vanished and they went down.”
“That’s it. Give the order to abandon ship. Abacus, ready escape pods for export, two minutes. Green board alert! Open Nine Six Zero One Spectral Entry and send us through. Anarkkian ships are closing fast.”
Orville realized he was clutching his paws together so tightly they ached.
The captain dashed to the far side of the bridge and slapped a large violet disk. A wide panel slid down revealing a dark green bulky metallic suit. He thrust his arms into two cylindrical openings and the suit whirred loudly, wrapping itself around him. The screen image went dark, then blinked on again. The captain was walking back to the central bridge console, his massive suit of space armor whining loudly with each step.
He turned toward a shadowy form in a high backed metallic chair. “Abacus, did you open the Spectral Entry?”
“Affirmative, Captain. Spectral Entry Nine Six Zero One activated.”
“Excellent, do your best to–”
“Captain, Anarkkians within range. Dimensional escape pods launched. They’ll be on us in ten seconds.”
“Send us through to–”
There was a thunderous blast of blinding white light and a huge section of the bridge vanished. The projection was spinning wildly, flashing between black sky and the surface of Varmoran.
Sophia put her paw over her mouth. “Oh no, the Anarkkians hit their ship! The captain is falling!”
Orville heard the sound of a small explosion and the image on the screen twisted wildly, then righted itself. “Battle Suit Emergency Canopy activated. Your current distance to surface of Varmoran is fourteen miles.”
Orville heard the captain groan. He was still alive.
“Captain to MV Bermitar. Is anyone there? Captain to MV Bermitar! Do you read me?”
There was no reply.
The captain twisted and turned, looking back, trying to get a glimpse of his ship. “They got through. Good old Abacus.”
Orville pointed to the huge roiling gray cloud rimmed with lightning flashes. “A spectral door! The MV Bermitar must have gone through it! I think they got away.”
The captain grunted and turned his gaze to Varmoran’s dark and forbidding surface. Five minutes later Orville was able to make out sprawling cities miles below.
“Proto, look! The cities haven’t been destroyed yet. That must have happened later.”
“Not much later, I’m afraid. I believe we are witnessing a full scale attack on Varmoran by a Class 1 Anarkkian Armada. It was common practice for several dozen of their battle cruisers to arrive simultaneously, obliterating an entire planet within a day or two.”
“Look! He’s landing!” Sophia watched the surface of Varmoran rushing up toward them. There was a loud roaring noise and the captain’s descent slowed drastically. A moment later he was standing on the ground.
“Captain to MV Montrosian, anyone there?”
Again there was no response. The captain slid open a panel on his arm and tapped a gold tab. His suit whirred loudly, releasing him from its protective grasp. The captain stepped out of the bulky armor and scanned his surroundings, noting several pieces of twisted metal lying on the ground. He pulled a small gray sphere off his belt and twisted the top half. A light whirled around the device, then stopped. “Southwest it is.”
Orville pointed, watching the captain stride across the barren rocky landscape. “I see more pieces of wreckage. I think he might be looking for the other ship, the Montrosian. Maybe he’s looking for survivors.”
The captain followed the narrow trail of debris for another fifteen minutes, then stopped in his tracks.
“Oh, no.” He kneeled down and picked up a small object. With a long sigh he placed it back on the ground. “I’m sorry, old friend. I’m truly sorry.” He stood up and gazed around the area. “There’s nothing more I can do.” He turned, heading toward a distant cityscape.
“Proto, go back! I want to see what he picked up.”
Proto replayed the segment of the record showing the captain kneeling down and examining an object.
“Enlarge the image so we can see it.”
“One moment.” Proto turned a small a dial on his chest panel, magnifying the image that appeared on the wall.
“Just what I thought! It’s one of those blue stones! That’s where they came from!”
“What are they? Part of the MV Montrosian?”
“I don’t think so. He called it his old friend. That’s something he would call his own ship. The MV Bermitar must have gone down.”
“It
still doesn’t tell us what the blue stones are. Keep playing the record.”
The adventurers watched as the captain trekked across the rocky terrain toward the distant city. There was a sudden break in the record, the screen showing only flashes of light and blackness. When the images reappeared Orville’s eyes opened wide. “The city has been destroyed! Look at the flames!”
The captain was dashing past piles of smoking rubble. There were bodies everywhere, but their form was unfamiliar to Orville and Sophia. “They’re lizards. They have red scales and yellow eyes. They look a little scary but not too bad. Why would the Anarkkians do this?”
The captain made his way through the burning debris, finally slumping down and leaning back against a shattered concrete wall. He glanced over and saw something which sent an icy chill through Orville. A small purple flower was growing only a few feet from the captain. He reached over with one paw to touch it. The flower lashed out, its vicious thorn stabbing through his glove. Moments later he slumped over. Orville watched as hundreds of the purple flowers scurried out from a nearby building, running and leaping toward the captain. The image went black.
“The plants got him.” Orville felt sick.
Proto stood up. “We must locate the crash site of the good captain’s ship and search for more of the blue stones. If you will note, when he stands up and surveys the area, we see a huge naturally formed stone arch only a few hundred feet away. That will make an excellent landmark. If we find that, we have found the site.”
Orville jumped up. “I’m going to climb to the top of this building and see if I can spot the arch.”
“I might be able to determine its location by overlaying the images recorded during the captain’s fall from the sky. This will take several minutes. It’s a rather complex process involving various IPS mapping resources.” Proto’s eyes blinked shut.
“What’s he doing?”
“He’s overlaying existing IPS maps of Varmoran onto the view of the planet’s surface shown during the captain’s descent.”
Proto’s eyes popped open a minute later. “I have determined the coordinates of the stone arch. It is called the Great Arch and is a known landmark on Varmoran, as indicated on the IPS maps. I have also calculated our present coordinates. We will need to travel directly south southwest for precisely seventy-nine miles. If we take the spider we should arrive in approximately five hours, barring unforeseen circumstances.”
