Orville Mouse and the Puzzle of the Clockwork Glowbirds (Orville Wellington Mouse Book 1)

by Tom Hoffman

  “Hmm... you make a good point.” Orville stared at the bright orange canopy covering the blinker Ship. “I’m guessing it’s our only choice?”

  “Perfect. We’ll use that blinker ship there. The emergency canopy release looks in good condition.”

  “Wait, what? Suppose this one doesn’t pop out like the first one did?”

  “Then you’ll probably be very angry at me, but not for long, if you know what I mean.” Sophia slapped her paws together with a loud smack, raising one eyebrow.

  Orville groaned. “You’re trying to make me faint, but it won’t work. All right, I trust your judgement more than I trust my own. What do we do now?”

  “Well, first we have to see if the lift still works. If it does then we’ll raise these ships up to the surface. If the lift doesn’t work, then all this has been for nothing. Okay, hop on the lift, Orville, and we’ll see what the universe has in store for us.”

  Orville stepped onto the lift and stood next to Sophia. “The violet disc?”

  “That’s the one. I’m holding my breath.”

  Orville slapped his paw down on the violet disk. There was a loud groaning and clanking sound as the huge lift began moving upward.

  Sophie held both paws up and cheered loudly. “It works, Orville! It won’t be long now and we’ll be off this mesa and back on the ground again.”

  Orville had a painfully forced smile on his face. He was imagining himself inside a metal ball screaming down through the air toward the forest floor three miles below.

  Sophia looked up and saw a square of bright light far above them. “The upper lift doors have opened! I can see daylight up there.”

  Ten minutes later they were standing safely on the surface of the monolithic mesa.

  Orville was feeling more dubious than ever, but did his best to maintain a positive attitude. “What next?”

  “This is the perfect location. The lift is only a hundred feet from the edge of the mesa. We just have to roll the ship right up to the edge, but not too far. If it rolls over the edge then we’re back to square one.”

  Orville and Sophia stood behind the blinker, rocking it back and forth. The outside of the craft was perfectly smooth and without a great deal of effort they rolled the ship off the lift. Fortunately for the two adventurers there was a gentle downgrade leading to the edge of the mesa. Orville set down a row of large rocks at the edge of the precipice to keep the blinker from accidentally rolling over the side.

  Twenty minutes later the ship was perfectly balanced only a few feet from the three mile high drop off.

  Sophia stepped back and studied the ship. “Excellent. The rocks you set down worked just as I’d hoped. I think we’re ready. We’ll remove the rocks, hop inside, lock the hatch, and rock the ship back and forth until it rolls over the side. Once it’s falling I’ll pull the emergency canopy release.”

  “Okay. I think. Is it getting hot or is it just me?”

  They slid the heavy stones out of the way and the two intrepid adventurers climbed into the blinker ship, closing the main hatch behind them. Orville twisted the locking mechanism tightly. “Look, we can use those harnesses to strap ourselves in.”

  “Perfect, they’ll help during the landing, in case we roll.” Sophia buckled herself in tightly, making certain she could reach the canopy release lever. “Okay, I have a good grip on the emergency release. We’re all set. Start rocking the ship!”

  The ship was already teetering on the edge, and after only fifteen seconds of rocking it rolled over, tumbling down into the three mile deep abyss.

  Orville would have shrieked like a mouseling if he hadn’t been so disoriented. He was upside down and the ship was plummeting toward the ground so rapidly his insides felt like they were being pushed up into his boots. Sophia managed to cry out, “Here we go!”

  She yanked the canopy release lever and was rewarded by the sound of a sharp explosion from outside the ship. Seconds later the craft flipped right side up with a wild jarring movement, violently pushing Orville downward until he felt as though he was being crushed by a giant hand, his stomach doing flip flops as the ship swung crazily about like wind chimes in a tornado.

  Gradually the swinging diminished until it was only a gentle swaying motion. Sophia peered out of the small porthole. “We did it, and we’re drifting away from the mesa, just as I hoped we would. It should take us about twenty minutes to reach the ground.”

  Orville was shaken, but thrilled to still be alive. “Creekers! I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared in all my life! Hey, I didn’t faint!”

  Five minutes later Orville was still giddy with relief. He peered out the porthole behind his harness. “That canopy is huge! It won’t be long now, I can see the trees clearly now!”

  Sophia had been concerned about how jarring their landing would be, but as fortune would have it the blinker ship descended into a dense grouping of gigantic trees. They heard a series of splintering, snapping sounds from outside the ship as it careened through the thick branches, slowing the ship’s descent and bringing them to a gentle halt. Sophia peered out the porthole and grinned. The ship was dangling only six feet above the forest floor. She unhooked her harness and swung open the ship’s hatch. “Everyone out! We’ve landed!”

  Proto scrambled out of Orville’s backpack. His eyes were wide. “It’s gone. It’s really gone.”

  Chapter 25

  The Senyph Ocean

  “Well, I can’t say I’m sorry to leave that forest behind us. Especially our round sticky green friends, although I was getting quite attached to one of them.” Orville looked at Sophia with a silly grin on his face.

  “What?”

  “I said I was getting attached to one of the green ball creatures. Get it?”

  “I’m sorry, I guess I’m not in a very funny mood. I’m starting to worry.”

  “Did you see a centipede?”

  “No, nothing like that. I asked Master Marloh to send us here so I could find proof that Draken Mouse was responsible for Papa’s death, and I haven’t discovered anything yet. It’s taken all our efforts just to survive Periculum.”

  “What about those time goggles? The four dimensional goggles you found in the Anarkkian Command Control Vessel. Can’t you use those somehow?”

  “If I could find the exact location where Papa died I could use them to witness the murder and prove Draken’s guilt. The monastery they were looking for is somewhere near the ocean, but the coast is hundreds of miles long. I don’t know where to start looking. Even if we send Proto out to do an aerial search it would take weeks to find the monastery – if it’s even there.”

  “All right, let’s start from the very beginning. How did your Papa get to Periculum?”

  “They came through a spectral doorway in a small Quintarian scout ship. That’s all I know.”

  “Well, how about when we summit that ridge ahead of us we use the time goggles to look back in time for their ship?”

  “The time goggles might work. It happened too long ago for the tracking goggles to work, but the time goggles should work. We should have a good panoramic view of the coastline from way up on the ridge and a silver scout ship flying through the sky shouldn’t be too hard to spot.”

  “That’s our plan, then. We’ll camp here for the night and in the morning we can take on those hills. They’re not as steep as the mountains around Muridaan Falls, but they’re still daunting. It’s going to be a tough climb.”

  Orville shaped a blazing campfire and prepared dinner while Sophia shaped sleeping bags and a large waterproof canopy in case of rain.

  Soon they were relaxing by the campfire eating a tasty meal prepared with a healthy portion of excellent culinary advice from Proto.

  “Mmmm... your vegetable soup recipe is delicious, Proto. You should open an inn. I’ll bet it would be a great success.”

  “Thank you, Sophia. Would you mind terribly if I discussed a rather personal matter with you? Something has happened which is quit
e confusing to me.”

  “Something has happened? Are you all right?”

  “Well... yes, quite all right, thank you. I suppose I should begin at the beginning. Over the last several years I’ve spent a good deal of time thinking about the tasty snacks and warm beverages I make, and why I feel so compelled to make them. When the Elders created me, their intent was for my behavior to simulate that of a very friendly and likable rabbit, one who is kind, compassionate, and thoughtful. They selected what they felt were the most admirable qualities of rabbits, and altered my engineered synthetic neuronic intelligence to act according to this new set of parameters.” Proto hesitated. “Is this too personal? Am I talking too much about myself?”

  “Proto, we love hearing about you. You’re our friend, and friends tell each other their deepest thoughts and feelings without fear.”

  “Thank you, Orville. Well, as I said, I was engineered to please rabbits and that is all I have ever known. For many hundreds of years, to the very best of my ability I remained true to my original design, and found this behavior quite gratifying. When a rabbit liked my tasty cakes or chocolate creams, I felt happy and fulfilled. But, as the centuries rolled by I began to feel something odd, something... unfamiliar. It felt like the tiniest, gentlest tickle of emptiness inside me, as light as the brush of small glowbird feather. It came from far beneath my neuronic patterning and it felt as if an infinitesimal speck of me was missing. The years went by but the feeling did not go away. In fact it grew stronger until eventually, no matter how many tasty snacks I made, I felt as though a vital part of me was missing. That tiny tickle of a glowbird feather had grown to become a dreadful ache which was consuming me.

  “Two days ago everything changed in a single moment. As we were tumbling off the mesa in the blinker ship and I lay curled up in your backpack, terrified that you and Sophia would not survive the fall, I realized my dreadful feeling of emptiness was gone. It was gone and I hadn’t made a single tasty snack in weeks. I have thought about nothing else since that moment. I believe it is your friendship and Sophia’s friendship which filled that empty space. I am certain now there is a deeper purpose for me than pleasing rabbits with tasty snacks, a purpose which I believe was quite unforeseen by my creators. A purpose that comes from another place, a place I am unable to describe or name.”

  For a moment Orville could not speak. He was absolutely stunned by Proto’s revelation. “Proto... this is incredible. It’s... miraculous.”

  Sophia ran her paw over Proto’s feathered back. “It is well known among mice that all living creatures have a hidden destiny, a hidden purpose that comes from a far deeper place than this physical world. I am astonished that you have discovered this on your own. I agree with Orville, it is miraculous. Many mice and rabbits go through their whole lives without realizing this truth.”

  “You said all living creatures have a hidden purpose, Sophia. Are you saying you think I’m alive?”

  Sophia thought for a moment. “I can’t answer that question. I can’t say for certain either way. All I can say is you are our dear friend and we would love to have you join us on our adventures, wherever they may take us.”

  Proto snuggled down between Orville and Sophia in front of the roaring campfire. He was silent for a long time, but finally poked his head up and said, “Perhaps tomorrow we shall encounter some dreadfully terrifying creatures with great pointy scales and razor sharp teeth just itching to devour us, and I will rescue both of you.”

  Sophia rubbed Proto’s back. “I would like that. Wouldn’t that be fun, Orville? Maybe we’ll even get attacked by a swarm of those dreadful carnivorous centipedes.”

  As the sun rose the next morning it found the three adventurers scaling the rugged ridge to the east. More precisely, Orville and Sophia were scrambling up the jagged slopes while Proto soared overhead in search of dreadful predatorial beasts.

  “Look behind us, Sophia. You can see most of the dark forest. And look at that mesa! I can’t believe we climbed into a big metal ball and rolled over the edge. If someone had told me a year ago I was going to do that I believe I would have fainted on the spot.”

  “I think you might be turning into an intrepid adventurer, Orville Wellington Mouse.”

  Proto sailed over them, calling out, “Not much farther to the peak! Just another mile or so. There’s a wonderful view of the ocean from up there!”

  Orville groaned. “Only another mile of climbing? Sometimes I wish I had wings like Proto.” He grinned, “But then I’d have to eat those tasty little cakes with my feet. Eeww.”

  “A pleasant thought. Thank you so much for sharing that with me.”

  “If we find proof that Draken was behind your Papa’s death, what are you going to do? Who will you tell?”

  “Master Marloh and I discussed that. We’ll announce it at the Grand Assembly of Metaphysical Adventurers. If we do it during the assembly, everyone will witness it at the same time and I don’t think Draken Mouse would dare to harm us in front of all the Metaphysical Adventurers. I hope not, anyway.”

  “That seems like a good plan. What kind of proof do you think we’ll find?”

  “That I don’t know. I really have no idea.”

  It was late afternoon when Orville and Sophia crested the great ridge overlooking the coastal region. Orville gave a loud cheer and sat down on a flat boulder to catch his breath.

  “Look at that view. The ocean is beautiful, isn’t it? How high up do you think we are?”

  Sophia glanced behind them. “Probably six or seven thousand feet above the ocean. It will be a lot easier going down the slopes than climbing them.”

  “That’s good news. Are you ready to try the time goggles?”

  “I am, although part of me is a little afraid of what I’ll see. Maybe more than just a little afraid.”

  “I can look if you’d like.”

  Sophia gave long sigh. “Thank you, Orville, I think I would like that.” Sophia gave him the brass box and Orville slipped on the goggles and the red cap. Sophia connected the cap to the goggles and pushed the silver tabs. A small blue light blinked on between the bright red lenses of the goggles.

  “You’re all set. Just turn the little brass dial. That determines how far back in time the goggles take you. I really don’t know their limit, but I hope it goes back far enough to spot the scout ship. It’s an egg-shaped silver craft about fifty feet long. It should sparkle in the sun, and more than likely they arrived during the daytime. As you rotate the dial you’ll see the days turn to night and back again. This little counter on the side displays how many Anarkkian days have passed. You should probably start looking about... maybe... umm... three hundred and ninety days ago. I’ll keep an eye on the number of days while you turn the dial.”

  “Okay, here goes.” Orville began twisting the small brass knob. “Creekers, you’re right, it’s flickering from day to night. It goes fast! Whoa – I just saw a huge Gnorli bird flash past! Hold on – I see something in the ocean.” Orville turned the brass dial back until he had found the right place in time. “Creekers! Now I know why Gnorli told us not to go swimming in the Senyph Ocean. Something leaped up out of the water. It was enormous, bigger than anything I’ve ever seen. I can’t even describe it except I’d rather be dropped into the centipede pit than be swimming in the water when that thing showed up. It was nothing at all like a fish. Scary.”

  Orville twisted the dial and left the terrifying creature behind.

  Sophia watched the counter spin on the side of the goggles. “Okay, you just passed three hundred and ninety days. You can start looking for the scout ship.”

  “I’m turning it slowly now, scanning up and down the coastline. This is going to take a while. I don’t want to miss anything. I’ve seen three more Gnorli birds fly past so I know it’s working.”

  Sophia gazed out across the ocean while Orville searched through time for the scout ship. She never imagined that one day she would find herself on Periculum trying to discover
who had killed her father. In her heart she knew Papa was in a much nicer world than this one, but she still wished he was here. Life was full of surprises, good ones and bad ones. She was also well aware that events which at first were so painful and so sad could change a mouse’s life in the very best of ways. She glanced over at Orville and smiled. She would never have met Orville if her Papa hadn’t been killed by Draken. The universe closed some doors and opened others. Who would have thought her best friend in life would be a mouse who fainted at the sight of giant centipedes? Or a mouse whose kindness would transform the life of a lonely old Rabbiton.

  “Hold on! I think I have it! I see it, I see it! An egg-shaped silver vehicle just popped out of a black stormy cloud to the north of us, right over the ocean. I’m reversing the time flow now. It’s heading inland... slowing down... descending. I see where it landed! Right near that big rocky area that pokes out into the ocean!”

  “They landed safely? There wasn’t a crash?”

  “No, they were in control of the ship the whole time. It descended slowly and disappeared down behind the trees.”

  Sophia knew the time was approaching when she might have to watch her father being killed. She felt sick inside. “Orville, I can’t do this. I thought I could, but I can’t watch what happened to Papa.”

  “You don’t need to. I’ll do it for you. We’ll find out the truth and then we’ll tell Master Marloh and all the Metaphysical Adventurers.”

  Chapter 26

  The Letter

  The following morning after a hearty breakfast Sophia and Orville headed down the steep rocky slopes to the Senyph coastline. Orville watched as Proto swooped and soared through the sky ahead of them. “Sophia, what do you think about Proto, about him sensing a deeper purpose than making tasty snacks for rabbits? Do you think it’s really possible for a Rabbiton to make the transition from a machine to a living creature?”