“One for each of the First Families,” Max pointed out.
“How do you know that?” I said.
“Everyone does,” she replied.
“I don’t!” Theodore complained.
Theylor saw us gawking at the alien sculptures and said, “The Citizens and their Trading Council profit immensely from the crystal moons.”
It was obvious to me that they had spent a fortune on those sculptures, and everything else, too.
“This is unbelievable,” Theodore said, staring up through the glass ceiling that framed a spectacular view of the moon Ki, where the Citizens harvested so much of their wealth. Orbis 3 curved up and over our heads, revealing an unending sparkle of lights from more and more buildings.
“There must be a lot of people on this ring,” Max exclaimed.
We followed Theylor across tiles laced with metal that seemed to sparkle from some unknown energy source. In the middle of the open foyer, one Citizen stopped abruptly in front of me, glaring. He made a snorting sound and flicked his wrists toward the ground. Another Citizen practically walked over Dalton, unwilling to acknowledge his existence. I straightened my tattered vest, even though I knew the skin was the mark of a knudnik. It was the only thing that visibly separated us from them.
“They certainly have a way of making you feel wanted,” Max whispered to me.
“We should just take these things off,” Theodore told Max, tugging at his skin.
“Forget the Citizens,” she said.
“But I hate being invisible,” he replied under his breath.
“I see you,” Ketheria said.
I smiled at my sister.
The Citizens on the Rings of Orbis may have been ignorant and self-absorbed, but boy, could they build things. When we stepped out of the spaceport, we were besieged by curving towers of metal and glass, gigantic floating cylinders, and sleek sparkling spires that crowded the sloped horizon. I stood on the steps with Theodore, pointing at objects I’d never seen before, not even in my imagination.
“The Citizens take great pride in their cities. Maybe too much,” Theylor announced as he stopped in front of a long transport at the bottom of the metal steps. “It is a shame that they left no sign of the Ancients’ buildings.” Theylor stared out toward the glimmering buildings with his left head while his right head drooped, looking away.
After a moment, Theylor turned back toward us. “Come, it is time to meet your new Guarantor,” he said, and swept his long hand over the shimmering transport. We all piled in.
“Who is it this time?” one of the children asked anxiously.
“Are there any nice Guarantors?” Grace asked. “Will we ever get one of them?”
“We don’t need a Guarantor,” Dalton grumbled, eerily reminiscent of his friend Switzer, who had died on Orbis 2.
But Theylor only smiled and connected with the craft’s navigational computer using his neural implant. He attached the clear cable securely behind the left ear of his right head while his other head turned and said, “Please take any seat. The ride will not be very long. All your questions will be answered when we arrive.”
Max and Ketheria sat in front of Theodore and me. Ketheria steadied herself as the transport lifted off the ground and turned 180 degrees in front of the spaceport.
“Whoa!” Max gushed as the craft floated through the city about four meters off the ground. Other crafts sped past, most with only a single passenger.
I hung out the side, looking down at the ground. Only a small metallic rail prevented me from me falling out.
“Theodore, look at that!” I shouted, pointing to small round shuttles scurrying along the precise streets beneath us.
“No, look over there,” another kid shouted, and we all strained our necks to catch a glimpse of a huge floating cylinder. The edges were rounded, as if someone had punched the middle out of a security bubble. Inside sat about a hundred aliens watching some sort of performance in the middle of the oddly shaped building. I could not even begin to imagine what job we would have to do on Orbis 3.
“What are we going to do here?” I asked Theylor.
“That will be up to your new Guarantor,” he replied.
“Why won’t you tell us about him?” Max asked.
Theylor would only say, “Everything will be revealed to you shortly.”
My chest tightened with a mix of fear and excitement whenever I thought about our new owner. Our first Guarantor, Joca Krig Weegin, forced us to work on an assembly line sorting his junk. The smell from the radiation gel we used to protect our bodies would be forever burned into my senses. After he tried to sell us in an underground slave ring, we were traded to a far more evil creature on Orbis 2, named Odran. He profited from knudniks by selling them illegal passage off the Rings of Orbis. My experience with Guarantors was horrible, to say the least. It frightened me even more to guess why Theylor wasn’t telling us anything. Who would we belong to now? I could only wonder.
The glass and metal structures gave way to rolling hills and trees whose branches hung down and rooted into the ground. Immense compounds dotted the greenery and weaved between small forests. Some buildings were contained in clear domes while others were open-air structures. I saw elaborate fountains, manicured gardens, and stone sculptures. Everything appeared crafted by artistic hands — I was certain they were the hands of knudniks.
“What are these buildings?” I asked Theylor.
“They are the dwellings of Citizens,” the Keeper replied.
“We’re going to live inside the Citizen’s home?” Max said.
“We’re not going to live in a factory or something?” Theodore asked.
I didn’t know what this meant. Was it better or worse? Did this mean we were going to clean up after a Citizen, or would they take us to our workplace later? I wished that Theylor would give us more information.
The shuttle passed three more dwellings before it circled over a sprawling, palatial estate. The building flowed between the shrubbery, winding its dark stone walls in and around the tiny forest of oddly shaped trees. Behind the main structure was a huge glass dome, which evaporated as our shuttle approached.
“Who is it, Theylor? Who lives here?” Max badgered him, but the Keeper simply watched the glass sparkle and dissolve as we descended into the interior.
The shuttle set down on a large circular pad of rough stone that was surrounded by towering bushes with thick leaves of red and purple and blue. The dome re-formed over our heads, and Theylor stepped off first. Ketheria took my hand, and we followed the Keeper out of the shuttle and up one of six paths that led from the landing area. Around every bend, a new kind of plant lined the pathway. A few brandished long spikes while others flowed in the wind so gracefully that they looked like they were floating in water.
Theylor caught Grace reaching out for one of the plants and stopped her. “Be careful,” he warned. “They may look pretty, but some are very deadly, especially when they are hungry.”
Grace snatched her hand back, and we all huddled a little closer. The garden didn’t seem so beautiful anymore. As the path widened, we found ourselves at the bottom of a small rise that led to the Citizen’s home. All of the walls were curved, and it was difficult to tell where one ended and another began. A glass wall, or maybe it was a door, began to shimmer at the top of the broad steps. It disappeared the same way the dome had when we landed.
“Who lives here, Theylor?” I said.
“You do,” someone replied from the shadows of the darkened interior.
When the figure stepped into the light, I couldn’t believe my eyes; in fact, I even blinked once and shook my head.
“Charlie?”
I thought we would never see him again when we were forced to leave him on Orbis 2. But standing proudly in front of us, wearing a long cream-colored robe and a huge smile on his rugged face, was Charlie. Draped around his waist was the ornate belt of a Citizen, flashing the emblem of Orbis.
“Well,”
he said, his arms outstretched, “what do you think?”
“Nugget!” my sister yelled as the muscular little alien emerged from behind Charlie and leaped toward her on his big-clawed feet. While his thick clumsy hands waved around, my sister scooped him up, and they both fell to the ground laughing.
I didn’t know what to think. Is it true? I looked at Theylor. Both of his heads smiled and nodded, and we rushed our big friend. The excitement was infectious as each of us hugged Charlie. What a great feeling this was. I stood and watched. I was smiling so hard, my cheeks hurt.
“It’s good to see you again,” he said. “How’s the arm?”
I held up my right arm, the robotic one the Rings of Orbis had given me after Switzer died. “It’s good,” I said. “I hardly notice the difference anymore.”
“That’s good. You guys deserve a little fun.”
“But how?” I said as he thumped me on the back with his big hand.
“Does it really matter?” he replied.
“Are we gonna live with you?” Max asked.
“If you want,” he said, looking at me.
“And Nugget, too?” Ketheria shouted.
Charlie smiled and said, “And Nugget, too.”
“Come, Ketheria. Let me show you everything,” Nugget said, and pulled Ketheria into the house. The alien was as tall as she was now, and his useless bony wings were beginning to dry up.
“I can take it from here, Theylor,” Charlie said. Before the Keeper reached the shuttle, Charlie stopped him. “Theylor?”
“Yes?” the alien replied.
“Thanks. They won’t regret this.”
But the Keeper only smiled and turned away.
“Regret what?” I asked.
Charlie laughed. “You and your questions. You’re as bad as Max.”
“You still have a ton of things to tell me,” I reminded him.
Charlie laughed as Max and Grace dragged him into the house. Most of the others had already followed Nugget and Ketheria inside. There was shouting from every room as we poured through Charlie’s house, exploring each curved wall, each new room.
Max grabbed me by my skin and pointed out the wave-like designs on the walls.
“They all have it,” she said, and rubbed her hand along the thin channels carved into the polished stone.
“What are they?” I asked.
“They represent the cosmic streams of OIO. I think it’s to remind whoever lives here that we are constantly affected by the cosmic energy that flows through the universe.”
“You think Charlie did this?”
“I don’t think so,” she replied. “He doesn’t talk about OIO much. I think someone else owned this place before him. Why wouldn’t he have mentioned it before?”
“She’s right,” Charlie said, standing behind us.
“Whose house is this?” Max asked.
“It’s our home now,” he said.
“But why?” I asked. “What are we going to do here? What about the Trading Council and the debt we owe?”
“Whoa!” Charlie raised his hands to deflect my barrage of questions.
“He gets that from me,” Max said matter-of-factly. “But I am curious about where we are going to work,” she added.
“Will you be at our workplace?” I said.
Three other kids joined in our assault.
“Where do we sleep?”
“This is a strange factory.”
“What do we have to do?”
Charlie closed his eyes and held up his hands again. “Wait, wait,” he said. “Stop. It’s really simple. All you have to do . . . is be kids. Play. Have fun. Grow up like other children. Just be kids.”
I must admit that Charlie’s words were sweeter than any toonbas I’d ever tasted, but what was he saying? Just be kids? We were knudniks. Our job was to pay off our parents’ debt. As simple as that. And if we didn’t like it . . . well, I had been reminded of the consequences many, many times on the Rings of Orbis.
I had to ask, “But how, Charlie?”
Charlie put his hand on my shoulder. He looked at me, but said nothing. His jaw slackened, followed by his shoulders, and his lips tightened, trying to keep a smile. To me the expression said, Why can’t you just accept it? But I couldn’t. I didn’t trust very many people on the Rings of Orbis. Everyone had an agenda, and I mean everyone — even Charlie. “Soon enough, Johnny,” he said. “Don’t rush this. Please.” The last word was a whisper, and I think it was meant just for me. For a parsec, I wondered if this was how my father would have spoken to me.
Then his tone changed — it got bigger, louder. He shouted to the other kids, “Come on, everyone. I bet you’re hungry. Let’s eat!”
I couldn’t question that. I was starving.
Our new home (I liked those words) was equipped with a chow synth very similar to the one we’d had on the Renaissance. No more food tablets or the protein glop Odran forced us to eat. Instead we feasted on peaches, nuts, and heavy chunks of dark bread with something Charlie called peanut butter. He said it was from Earth, and it took him a long time to get the chow synth to replicate the smooth substance. Ketheria devoured it, but then again, she loved every kind of food. I liked it, too, and piled it on my bread as thick as I could. We each took turns trying to talk with the stuff stuck to the roofs of our mouths.
After lunch Charlie handed out new skins to everyone. They were amber yellow and matched the crystal at the center of his belt. He informed us that the new skins would work for this house and the grounds, and then he showed us where we would sleep.
Apparently, the previous tenants didn’t care much for sleepers. Charlie said that they had rested inside stimulation tanks of vitamin-fortified liquids. The nurture pods we slept in on the Renaissance worked in a similar way, but I could never see myself sleeping in a tank of sludge. The former owners, however, did employ knudniks and therefore had installed sleepers for their slaves’ needs. But the Citizens wasted little space on such luxuries, and to my disbelief the sleepers were stacked six inside the wall. Each sleeper was loaded one at a time and then rotated up and over the next one, disappearing inside the wall. I gave my new sleeping arrangement a try. When the thin sleeper rolled on its side and then tucked back into the wall, it reminded me of the ancient burial rituals humans used on Earth, where they stuck people in the ground after they died. I didn’t think this was going to be very popular with the other kids.
“I use one, too,” Charlie said, noticing my discomfort. “Maybe we can change them later.”
“I doubt it,” Dalton whispered to the kid next to him.
Charlie overheard the remark and frowned. Max gave Dalton a shot in the ribs.
“Ow! He’s your friend, not mine,” Dalton complained.
After examining the sleepers, we followed Charlie out to the garden, where he told us to take seats on the stone benches or on the ground. I sat on a bench under a tall plant that seemed to shy away as I moved closer. Max slipped in front of Grace and sat next to me.
“What do you think?” she whispered.
“About what?” I asked.
“About this.”
“I love it. Who wouldn’t? It’s almost too good to be true. I’m waiting for the catch.”
“What catch? Don’t you think they might be rewarding us a little? Think of the work you did with the central computer and with the Samirans. I think this is how they’re thanking us.”
“I also remember making a lot of Trading Council members very angry. I’m not so sure the Citizens are interested in rewarding a bunch of knudniks. I don’t know. Something’s wrong. I mean this is everything I dreamed about. There has to be a catch.”
As if on cue, Charlie centered himself in front of us and announced, “There is one small issue we need to discuss.”
I knew it! A couple of the kids groaned. I didn’t even have to look at Max.
“Now, wait,” Charlie said. “It’s not that bad. Every human needs to go through this. I did. It won�
��t be hard. You kids are the smartest I’ve ever met, but you still have to go to school.”
“Nooooo!” came a collective groan. Not school!
“There’s nothing we can’t learn with a simple uplink,” Dalton protested.
“Yeah, just give us the files,” shouted another kid.
“Really, Charlie?” Max moaned.
“It’s important for your future,” he said. “If you hope to be a Citizen one cycle, then you have to learn the ways of the Citizens. You must interact with them and, hopefully, discover a way in which you can live here with some sort of purpose.”
“What’s your purpose?” I said.
Charlie looked away.
Finally he turned back to me and replied, “To take care of you.”
I don’t know why I put Charlie on the spot like that. In fact, I don’t know what I was feeling at that moment. Something was off. Maybe I wasn’t too keen on spending my cycles with a bunch of Citizens. But what did I expect, really? That we would hang out with Charlie in the house all cycle? Even I knew that was dumb. I reminded myself that Charlie was a Citizen now and that I liked hanging around him. Maybe they weren’t all bad. Maybe it was just the Trading Council that made me dislike the Citizens so much. But then I thought of the Citizens on the shuttle and how they ignored us even after the wormhole pirates attacked. No, they were all bad. School on the Rings of Orbis was not going to be fun.
“Look,” Charlie continued. “Don’t judge it yet. Wait till you see the school. The Illuminate is an amazing facility.”
“Where is it?” one of the other kids asked.
“It’s in Tromaine. You get there by chute,” Charlie replied.
“What’s the city like?” Max asked.
“It’s simply amazing, but you must promise to never go there without an authorized escort or clearance by a Citizen — by me — for a particular work rule. Knudniks are not allowed to roam the city freely. The vest you’re wearing can inform any Citizen if you have been cleared or not. There are serious consequences if you break their rules. Do not challenge them.”
Wormhole Pirates on Orbis Page 2
