Escape the Vortex

by Jeanne DuPrau

  She took a step toward Anna, but Dash grabbed her arm. “We don’t have time for this,” he said. “We have to find an ice crawler and get the job done.”

  “You’re right, for once,” said Anna. “Let’s go, Ravi. We’re out of here.”

  The two of them turned around and made their way toward the low passage. Carly and Dash followed, and when they came out of the cave, they saw Anna and Ravi standing by their vehicle, looking uncertainly at a silvery spiral towering over the landscape to the north.

  “Some kind of storm,” said Ravi. “Looks cyclone-ish.”

  They watched. It came closer, rose higher, seemed to bend toward them, took up more and more of the sky.

  “I say we go anyhow,” Anna announced. “Quick, Rav, get in the Cheetah. We’ll cut through it, or circle around it. We’ll be all right.”

  This storm looked different and possibly worse than the one that had toppled the Streak. “I don’t think it’s safe,” Dash said.

  “If you don’t take risks,” said Anna, “you don’t win success.”

  “But if you take too many risks, or bad ones,” said Dash, “you don’t win anything. You end up wrecked or dead.”

  “We don’t,” Anna said. “You’re thinking of your team. Come on, Ravi, let’s go.”

  Ravi glanced uneasily at the oncoming funnel-shaped cloud, and then he cast a worried look at Dash and Carly. But he followed Anna to the vehicle, and they got in, roared the engine, and sped away into the endless white.

  Dash watched them go. They were being stupid, he thought. Typical Anna. Too focused on winning to think about her safety or her team’s. No—it took some courage to head into that storm. Maybe she was right about risk.

  On the other hand, that storm could tear them to pieces.

  But if it didn’t, they’d have a huge head start.

  The shimmering funnel cloud was coming at them fast, enormous at the top and narrow at the bottom, like a giant hand with a finger scraping over the ground. The Omega vehicle traced a wide curve around it, shrinking into a dot as it got farther away.

  “We can’t let them get so far ahead,” said Carly.

  Dash knew all at once that he felt the same. “No,” he said, “we can’t.” And they sprinted—as much as they could in knee-deep drifts—for the Streak.

  In the Cloud Leopard training room, Gabriel started in on the next step of his rescue mission. “Time to work, STEAM,” he said, and STEAM shuffled over to him. “Ready to work, yes sir.”

  “I just need to get your send-and-receive function going here”—he pressed some buttons—“and plug into the Light Blade network”—he entered some numbers, his fingers flying over STEAM’s console—“and let’s check that list Piper sent.”

  There on the screen was the list of the times when SUMI recharged herself. The next one wasn’t for forty-five minutes. That was too long to wait.

  “Have to work on this a little more,” Gabriel said to STEAM. He bent over the keys. “Got to take over the robot’s system. That means…” As fast as he could, he entered some code. “And then…” More quick typing. “Okay. Let’s see if that works.”

  He reached for the headset and put it on. Holding down the intersystem switch, he said, “Come in, Petunia. Do you hear me?”

  At first, there was nothing but a scratchy silence.

  “Calling Petunia,” Gabe said. “Petunia! Urgent!”

  And the answer came back in an eager voice. “Petunia here!”

  “Tell me where you are.”

  “Training room. Locked in. SUMI has the code for the door.”

  With the touch of a couple of buttons, Gabriel downloaded the plans of the Light Blade and scanned them to check the location of the training room. “Perfect,” he said. “We can make this rescue happen. Can’t talk now, but I’ll get in touch soon, next time SUMI is charging. I’m going to tell you exactly what to do.”

  —

  In the library of the Light Blade, Niko was sitting at the table he liked best, the one in the corner farthest from the door. He came to the library sometimes when he needed a relief from the regular routine. Niko loved adventure stories the most. Right now, he had Disaster on Wreckage Island on the screen in front of him.

  He wasn’t exactly reading, however. He was staring at the page, his elbows on the table and his chin in his hands. He was having an argument in his mind.

  Am I being disloyal?

  No, this is the right thing to do.

  But what if it made everything worse?

  Still, I can’t really—

  It was an argument he’d had several times in the last few days. He couldn’t make up his mind, and it was driving him crazy. He kept nibbling on his fingernails, as if that would help.

  “Niko.” It was a sharp whisper, coming from behind him. He whirled around and saw Siena. She must have been reading in the far back corner, sitting behind the high stack of humming servers that held thousands of books and movies in digital form.

  “What are you doing?” she said. “You haven’t moved for fifteen minutes. There can’t be one page that’s so fascinating.” She came and stood behind him. “Wreckage Island?” she read over his shoulder. “I hope that’s not research.”

  “No, not research,” Niko said. “Not even reading. Just thinking.” He knew it was time for him to talk with Siena. They had both been feeling the same thing: that they didn’t like the way Colin and Anna were leading the Omega team.

  For Niko, the trick Anna had played on Piper was the last straw. It seemed cruel. And why was it necessary? Having a prisoner from the Alpha team wouldn’t make their own team any better. They already had a perfectly good medic—him! It was true that as long as the Light Blade had Piper on board, the Alpha team wouldn’t desert the Omega team when the time came to go into Gamma Speed. But he didn’t really think they would desert the Light Blade anyhow. Stealing Piper just made no sense to him.

  But if he spoke out against Anna and Colin, what would happen? How would it do any good? What he’d really like to do was quit Omega and join the Alpha team. But Anna would flip out. And now that his team had kidnapped Piper, he doubted the Alphas would take him anyway.

  Siena came around the table and sat down across from him. She was thinking about the whispers that had passed between them. A couple of times after Colin had given a harsh order, Niko had murmured to Siena, “That didn’t seem necessary.” Or after Anna had said something impatient or unkind, Niko had shot Siena a quick look that said I don’t like this. And then, once the Clipper had left for Tundra, they’d agreed that they had to make a plan.

  Now was the time. “Listen,” Siena said quietly. “I’ve had it with Omega. I think you have too.”

  Niko nodded. Relief flooded through him. Having Siena on his side made a huge difference. He told her that she was right: he was also unhappy about the way things were going. “Especially,” he said, “about having a prisoner.”

  “I know,” Siena said. “I was thinking. We could let her out of the training room.”

  “Right,” Niko agreed, switching off his reading screen. “But then what?”

  “We could hide her somewhere and tell Anna we’d taken her hostage. We’d tell her why—that we really don’t like what’s happening with the team.”

  “For lots of reasons,” Niko added. “Not only because of Piper.”

  “Yes. And what about this: we say we won’t tell her where Piper is until she agrees to make some changes.”

  Niko shook his head. “It would never work. She’d just search the whole ship until she found her.”

  “But what if we gave her a deadline?” Siena leaned forward, her eyes burning with excitement. “Make some changes by six this evening, or else we’ll find a way to get Piper home.”

  Niko’s eyes went wide. “That would be mutiny,” he said. “Anna would be furious. Colin would too. They’d probably grab us and lock us in the training room along with Piper.”

  “They can’t,” said Siena
. “They need us.”

  “Do they?” Niko said. “Sometimes it seems like Anna would rather be on this mission alone.”

  Siena nodded. “Yeah…but if they were down two team members, things would get a whole lot harder. Like it or not, Anna needs help.”

  “Okay, but how would we get Piper home? If it comes to that?”

  “How did she get over here? Doesn’t she have a jetpack or something?” Siena asked.

  Niko’s eyebrows went up. “I think she does.”

  “Do you know where it is?”

  “No, but I bet we can find out. We can start by asking her.”

  “She might not know.”

  “Or she might. We won’t know until we ask.” Niko stood up. “Let’s do it.” He smiled. “I think Piper’s lunch is going to come a little early today.”

  They zoomed through the maze to the kitchen. ZRKs were hard at work there, opening bottles and packets, measuring out powders and liquids, stirring things that bubbled in pots.

  “Hey, ZRKs,” said Niko. The buzzing and fluttering stopped for a second. ZRKs hovered, listening. “We need lunch a little early for our prisoner. Like right now. Can you do it?”

  They could. The little robots got speedier, and their buzzing got louder, and in under three minutes they had a tray of quite delicious-looking food ready to go.

  “Thanks!” Niko said, taking the tray, and he and Siena hurried down the hall.

  Coming right toward them, moving with a purposeful stride, was Colin.

  “What’s going on?” he demanded.

  Niko tried not to look as dismayed as he felt. Incredible bad luck! He’d thought Colin would have gone to his quarters when he got back from taking the team to Tundra. “Lunch for our captive,” he said lightly.

  Colin checked the time. “Over an hour early?” he said. “Some reason for that?”

  Niko’s mind went blank, but Siena filled in for him. She looked at her MTB and gave a small yelp of surprise. “Whoa, you’re right, Colin!” she said. “Niko, we must have read the time wrong. Sorry!”

  Colin frowned at them. “You two are falling down on the job lately,” he said. “Get your act together. There’s no room for sloppiness on this ship.” He glared at them. His glance fell to the tray Niko was holding. “And we don’t waste food either,” he said. “I’ll find a use for this.” He took the tray and stood there scowling at them until they turned around and walked away.

  When he was gone, Niko said, “Guess what he’s going to do with that food.”

  “Eat it himself,” said Siena.

  “Right.” Niko sighed. “Bad luck for our plan, but we’ll try again later.”

  Siena nodded. “After Colin goes back to Tundra to pick up the team.”

  “Perfect,” Niko said. “All Piper will have to do is tell us where that jetpack is, and we’ll get her out of there.”

  Dash and Carly wrenched open the doors of the Streak. Sharp-edged snowflakes came at them in fierce gusts of icy wind. They crammed themselves inside and buckled their straps. Far off in the distance, the Omega Cheetah vanished into the coming storm.

  Dash set the Talon in the back with TULIP, bracing it behind the box of emergency supplies so it wouldn’t bounce around and stab someone, and Carly started the motor. It growled once, twice, and roared to life.

  “Heat signature at forty-six degrees east, eight degrees north of us,” said Dash. “Let’s not follow Anna. If we curve around the storm to the right instead, it looks like we might get to a herd faster.”

  “Okay. We’ll do it.” Carly pressed the accelerator. In seconds, she’d pushed the Streak up to full speed. Once again, they bounded over the rough terrain through swirls of white, bumping, soaring, rocking from side to side—but this time the storm was different. Through the whirling flakes, they could see a towering column ahead and slightly to the right of them, and even over the racket of the Streak’s motor, they could hear the high, shrill sound of the wind. There was a strange twittering quality to the sound, as if it were made up of a million separate pieces.

  “Farther left!” Dash shouted.

  Carly steered left, up a bank that tilted the Streak steeply, but their speed held them and they zoomed on over uneven ground that had TULIP bouncing in the back, making small croaking sounds of distress. The whirling vortex swerved away from them, then changed direction and came toward them. It looked thick, as though it had sucked in all the snowflakes from miles around.

  “Something up ahead!” Dash yelled, pointing. “And another one right behind it!”

  Carly saw them—big solid balls of whiteness hurtling down a slope through the storm. She steered frantically away, avoiding the snowballs but veering closer to the point of the whirlwind, which was moving faster than the Streak could go. “I can’t outrun it!” Carly shouted. “It’s going to catch us!”

  She felt the wind pulling at them like a magnet, sucking the Streak into a curve no matter how hard she tried to hold it straight. Then, to her horror, the front tips of the runners began to rise from the ground.

  “It’s lifting us up!” she cried.

  The Streak tilted. Dash and Carly were thrown backward in their seats. The Streak rose and turned, and they saw that they were caught low on the inside of an enormous funnel, circling the narrow part, but with each circle going up farther toward the wide part, a foot off the ground, two feet, higher and higher…Outside the windshield, the world went white, as if a sheet had been thrown across the glass. They were in the center of a whirlwind.

  All the engine power in the world wouldn’t help them now. The wind would spiral them to the top and fling them out into the sky. We’re done for, Dash thought.

  But no. They were only about three feet off the ground when the funnel suddenly blew apart, exploding into flakes that filled the air. The whirling column had dissolved into millions of insects fluttering like snow to the ground. In minutes, the white of the snow was covered with a vast carpet of white glitter.

  The Streak crashed down and landed on its runners, with its engine still going. Carly stamped on the brakes, and it skidded and veered sideways. Dash grabbed the door handle. He felt a jolt as TULIP banged into his seat back. The door on Carly’s side flew open, and instantly the air was thick with a buzzing, chittering, flickering swarm.

  “Bugs!” Dash hollered. He batted them away from his face.

  Carly stretched out, caught the door handle, and heaved the door closed. The insects in the cab hurled themselves against the glass, against the walls, against Carly’s and Dash’s helmets, against TULIP—tap-tap-tap-tappity-tap-tappity-tap—until finally they fell to the floor in heaps, stunned or dead.

  “Snow locusts,” said Dash, wiping his glove across the front of his helmet. “It’s not a whirlwind; it’s a bug blizzard.”

  Carly plucked a dead locust from her sleeve. “Hideous,” she said, “but interesting. Look.” She held it up. When Chris had said locusts, they both had pictured a grasshopper-like insect, with back legs bent upward over a long, narrow body. But this thing was shaped like a fat little bullet, pure silver-white and shiny as a refrigerator door. Its wings were transparent, and its head was nothing but a bump equipped with a set of tiny teeth. It wasn’t really an insect at all—it had eight legs, like a spider, not six—and the legs were short and thick, nothing but stubs with a couple of tiny claws at the end of each one.

  “Ick,” said Carly. “Locusts are crunchy. These are squishy.”

  Dozens still clung to Dash’s clothes. With a shudder, he brushed them off. Outside, the ground seethed with them.

  “These are what the ice crawlers eat,” Dash said.

  “Right,” said Carly. “So if there’s a swarm of snow locusts around, we might see an ice crawler too.”

  “I bet we already did see some!” Dash said. “Those snowballs rolling down the slope. They must have been crawlers collecting dinner.”

  “Let’s go find one that isn’t in the middle of a bug storm.” Carly pressed the
start button. The motor sputtered, but the Streak didn’t move. She tried again. Still nothing. “Something’s clogged the engine,” she said.

  They looked at each other. “Locusts,” said Dash.

  —

  Less than a mile away, the herd of crawlers moved forward a little faster now, sensing both the strange intruder and also the definite smell of food. It was a loose and disorganized herd. It had no leader. Often a single crawler or a small group would wander off, losing track of the others.

  A couple of them were doing that just now, gliding up a hill away from the herd, confused by the different smells in the air, knowing only that somewhere nearby was something good to eat and that they should get ready. One of them reared up to get a better look at the landscape, lifting its front end twenty feet in the air and exposing its long slit of a mouth. It made a hiss like a snake’s, only far louder. Other crawlers around it did the same, until the herd came to look like a forest of thick, pale trees, swaying weirdly.

  At least it was warm inside the stalled Streak, thanks to TULIP, whose tummy glowed cozily red. Dash was tempted to sit there for a while and catch his breath, but he couldn’t let himself do that. The Streak’s pipes had to be cleared, or they’d be stuck and their mission would be over. “Here I go,” he told Carly.

  He opened the door and stepped outside.

  It was as if his clothes turned instantly to sheets of ice pressing against his skin. His joints stiffened; he could hardly move. He took a long breath and slowly got down on his knees. He fumbled for his flashlight, got it unhooked, and aimed it down the Streak’s intake pipe. There it was—a messy glob of snow locusts, as if the pipe had been stuffed with mashed potatoes.

  Dash took his knife from its sheath on his belt. The blade wasn’t very long, so he had to put more than half his arm into the pipe to reach the clog. He poked and scraped and pulled the mess toward him. Clumps of it fell out onto the snow and onto his boots. Finally, he thought he’d gotten it all—and then he heard Carly’s voice over the radio.