Theodore nodded.
Before I could pry him for more information, Theylor stepped into the room.
“They’re clean,” said the attendant.
“Thank you,” Theylor’s left head said while his right smiled at us. “Humans do seem to have an affinity for conflict.”
“I’m sorry, Theylor,” I said.
“No, I am sorry that I have not seen you sooner. We are forced to leave the Citizens to themselves on Orbis 3. They prefer it that way, and unfortunately, it limits my time here.”
“Nasty bunch, those Citizens,” Max mumbled.
“Not all of them,” the Keeper offered in their defense. He looked around the room. “Who was here when the attack happened?”
“I was,” Theodore confessed.
“Where were you three?” he asked us.
“At the Labyrinth,” Max replied.
“Do you know of anyone who would want to hurt Charlie?” he asked.
We looked at each other, shaking our heads. “Nobody,” I said. “Charlie stays at home most of the time.”
“Did the central computer see anything?” Max asked.
“Most Citizens use a blocking device — a bubble, if you like — that can prevent the central computer from prying into their affairs. One was activated over this estate when the attack occurred.”
“Then a Citizen must have been behind the attack on Charlie,” I exclaimed.
“The attacker was not a Citizen,” Theylor informed us.
“No, he was a wormhole pirate,” Theodore said.
My head spun so fast when Theodore announced that Cala was a wormhole pirate that I hurt my neck.
“How do you know this?” Theylor asked him.
“He told me.”
“What?” I yelled.
“Well, he didn’t really tell me; it was something he said when he attacked Charlie.”
Theylor remained patient and asked, “What did he say?”
“Yeah, what did he say?” Max pushed him.
“He said, ‘No one sees a pirate coming.’”
“That’s it?” Max said.
“It is an expression,” Theylor informed her. “But it does not mean that he’s a wormhole pirate. The attack on the shuttle when you came to Orbis 3 was the first time a wormhole pirate ever ventured out of their dimension. I highly doubt that one is roaming freely on this ring.”
Max started to say, “But we —”
“Know nothing else,” I said, cutting her off. I had a hunch that Cala wasn’t the only wormhole pirate roaming Orbis 3. First Buzz and then Cala. Ceesar must be a wormhole pirate, too.
“Do you know how to find Cala?” I asked Theylor.
“I am afraid he has disappeared,” he replied.
But I knew how to find him.
I would have had to be a split-screen not to see the connection between Buzz, Cala, and Ceesar. Of course they were all wormhole pirates. But what were they doing on the ring? And what was the connection to the shuttle we arrived on? They certainly weren’t afraid of getting caught. They played in the Labyrinth right out in the open. Someone must be protecting them. Athooyi? If I was going to find Cala, that’s where I would start.
“You’re thinking about something, aren’t you?” Max whispered.
“How could you tell?”
“You’re pulling at your hair. You always pull at your hair when you’re about to do something you shouldn’t,” she said.
“I pull my hair?”
“Always.”
I stopped pulling at my hair. Max smiled.
“There is something I want to check out,” I whispered.
Once the emergency crew stabilized Charlie and Nugget, they elevated their bodies into the craft still hovering over our garden. We watched as security-bots scrounged the grounds for any evidence left by Cala. There must have been twenty of them combing the immense garden. Ketheria stepped around the bots to reach a small group of Keepers who had come to help tend to the crisis, huddled on the path. She yanked on Theylor’s purple robe and pointed up at the craft hovering over the garden. “Can I go with them?” she asked.
“You can visit them in a few cycles, after your classes. I will leave you the coordinates,” he said before introducing Ketheria to the other Keepers.
The Keeper Drapling entered the compound with a flourish. “Is everyone all right? Who was hurt?” he demanded. “I came as swiftly as possible.” Drapling knelt next to my sister and quickly examined her. When he seemed satisfied, he did the same to me.
“What about us?” Max mumbled.
“You all seem to be fine,” he said, casually checking Max’s ears. “Who was attacked?”
“It was the adult,” Theylor informed him. “Charlie Norton.”
After a very long pause, Drapling said, “Oh, I was worried it was the children.”
Max spun toward me, stifling a laugh. I swallowed a laugh, too. When we first met Drapling on Orbis 1, the Keeper was always very cold toward us. In fact, I was convinced he hated us. Yet ever since our staining last rotation, Drapling had changed. Now he was nice. Almost too nice, as if he were forcing it, making up for lost time, I guessed. It was something we just couldn’t get used to.
“We’re fine, Drapling. Thank you,” I assured him.
“We will search for the attacker at once,” he announced. “I will see to it personally.” His robe swooshed as he turned to the other Keepers. “Theylor, may I speak with you?”
Drapling dragged Theylor inside, and we turned to watch the small spacecraft slip through the dome.
“Who’s gonna take care of us now?” Ketheria asked.
“We’ll take of ourselves,” Max assured her. “We’ve done it before.”
I glared at Theodore.
“What?” he said.
“What do you think?”
“Don’t worry,” he mumbled. “I have no intention of sneaking out. I’m finished with the tetrascope.”
“Johnny Turnbull,” Theylor called me from the house. “Would you come inside, please?”
I did as I was told and met Theylor at the top of the stairs leading to the house. “I am leaving you in charge,” he informed me. “Temporarily, until we assess your Guarantor’s condition. If things are not better in a few cycles, I will return to assist your reassignment.”
“To a new Guarantor?”
“Of course.”
“No! I don’t want another Guarantor. I want Charlie.”
Theylor’s left head looked back outside while his right head focused on me. “You need to prepare, JT.”
“Prepare for what?”
“The situation is very severe for Charlie and Nugget. I worry most about Ketheria and how she will respond if Nugget dies. I know about her spells. You do not need to worry, as those are just growing pains, but it will be much harder for her if she loses her friend.”
What was he saying? “It was just a plant, Theylor. You can make them better, right?”
Theylor smiled, not a happy smile, but rather a What-do-you-want-me-to-say? smile. I felt my stomach drop to my feet.
“I have posted security around the estate and sealed the dome from further entry. You are to contact Vairocina immediately if anything suspicious happens.”
If I ever got my hands on Cala, I would make sure he paid for this.
“JT?”
“Sure, Theylor,” I assured him. “I can take care of things.”
Theylor frowned. “Johnny, I am aware of your history dealing with these matters yourself. I even find it commendable. But this time, it is not necessary. Please leave this to the Citizens. The Keepers are not active on this ring, but I’ve been informed that the Citizens of Orbis 3 will do everything they can to apprehend this person. I have an added concern for your well-being because Drapling believes that the attacker may have been after you, since you are a softwire. We are simply unaware of the motive at this time.”
I didn’t say anything to Theylor. I lived on a ring where my status was slightly above
that of a broom. Did he really believe a Citizen would spend a single chit trying to solve this, let alone protect a knudnik? No, if I didn’t take care of this myself, then no one would. If Drapling was right and Cala attacked Charlie because of me, then I would find Cala and expose his motives myself.
“Whatever you say,” I finally told Theylor.
It was getting easier for me to lie.
No one could get to sleep that spoke. Grace spread a rumor that the wormhole pirates were going to attack again. She said that if they could sneak up on a space shuttle, then the security posted by the Keepers was useless to protect us. I tried to convince her that the idea was preposterous, since Cala had had a zillion opportunities to get to me in the past. The logic didn’t sway her conclusion one bit.
I found Ketheria balled up in a corner, rocking back and forth.
“No one’s coming,” I tried to comfort her.
“I know.”
“Nugget will be all right.”
“You don’t know that,” she croaked, her eyes filled with tears.
“Yes, I do. That’s what brothers are for. We know things like that.”
Ketheria lifted her head to show me a smile, and I covered her with my blanket. Every time someone walked past the room, I glanced up to see if it was Max. I wanted to find Max, but I couldn’t leave Ketheria, not like this. We all slept there, together, that night on the floor. No one wanted to be alone in their sleepers. I dreamed of Charlie and Nugget. I even dreamed about the wormhole pirates and Quest-Nest. But all I really wanted to dream about was Max.
The next spoke, everyone shuffled around the house like robots. There were no smells from the kitchen since Charlie wasn’t cooking, and the sound of Nugget’s big feet stomping on the stone floor was noticeably absent. I found Max fussing with the chow synth, and I grabbed an apple. Standing next to her, waiting for everyone to get ready, made me feel that everything was going to be all right.
“I don’t think Theodore slept last night,” Max whispered as she searched for something to poke at the chow synth.
“You’re not taking that apart, are you?”
Max held up a magnetic driver and said, “No. Something is stuck in there.”
“Leave it. We’ll get something to eat at the Illuminate.”
“We’re going?”
“Yeah, why not?”
“I thought we’d just go see Charlie,” she said. “And then, you know . . .”
I didn’t know what you know meant. There were two possible explanations. One meant we’d go looking for trouble; the other was very new. My heart rebooted, imagining the latter.
“Uh . . . It’s better if we do everything like we always do. We can see Charlie and Nugget after studies. Besides, if Charlie’s conscious, he will be upset that we’re not at school.”
“That’s your plan? Last cycle you said you wanted to check something out.”
I did want to check something out.
“Spill it, Johnny Turnbull. I want to know what you’re up to.”
“Spill what?” Theodore yawned, stumbling into the kitchen.
“You don’t look too good,” Max told him.
Theodore used his hand to force a lump of hair to lie down, but it only sprang up again. “Thanks,” he replied. He slunk onto one of the stools. “Are you guys still mad at me?”
“Wouldn’t you be?” Max said, but Theodore was looking at me for an answer.
“I wouldn’t want to be you when Charlie gets back,” I told him. “But I am glad you’re off the tetrascope.”
Theodore slumped over the counter and nodded slowly.
“We’re going to look for Cala,” he said. “Aren’t we?”
I nodded as I watched Max smile.
To be honest, I didn’t have a plan yet. I only had an idea. Really it was just a suspicion, a bunch of images that didn’t reveal much, but every one of them included Ceesar. Cala was just the messenger, I had convinced myself, a pawn used by someone with far greater ambition.
I needed more information from Ceesar. The only time I ever saw him was at the Labyrinth, and he was usually with that gambler, Athooyi. I needed to get Ceesar alone. I needed to get into the Labyrinth and challenge Ceesar to another match.
Riis was not at the Illuminate that cycle, either. I didn’t think anything of it because she had been missing school a lot lately. At the lockers, Max asked me if I wanted to sit with her in studies, but I reluctantly declined. I had a few questions for Theodore. We found a pod and I waited for the device to slide toward the enormous screen.
“Did Cala say anything to you that seemed unusual?” I asked him.
“Nothing. We were talking about the scope and the Chancellor’s Challenge. He said he could get me a ride. I used the pob to hold my place. He was being very nice to me. He was acting like a friend.”
“Did he say anything about Ceesar?”
“He never mentioned him. He was always alone when I talked to him. Ceesar only came to the shed once, and Sul-sah wouldn’t let him scope.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Sul-sah yelled at him, saying he was a liar or something.”
I couldn’t imagine anyone yelling at Ceesar. “But Cala stayed?”
“Yeah, Sul-sah never had a problem with him.”
“Ow!” I yelled. The pod had sent an electric shock, zapping us for not linking up. Theodore reached for the hardwire while I interfaced with the computer.
“Stupid machine,” Theodore mumbled.
“But why did he come to the house?”
“It was weird. We were just talking, walking back to the chute, and he just followed me through.”
“But he needed a code,” I said.
“He must have watched me punch it in.”
“Didn’t that seem strange to you?”
“Maybe, but I had been on the scope for a long time. I was tired, and we were having a really interesting conversation about Earth.”
“Earth? How does Cala know about Earth?”
“I don’t know, but he knew a lot,” Theodore said.
It seemed obvious to me that Cala had planned this. Why else would he learn about Earth if not to distract Theodore or gain his confidence? But why did Cala want to hurt Charlie? That’s the part I couldn’t figure out.
I was still trying to figure it out when the spoke ended and we gathered in front of the Illuminate. Everyone wanted to see Charlie and Nugget. Even Dalton was eager to see our Guarantor.
“Theylor mentioned he would arrange clearance,” I told everyone. “But I think we should stay close together anyway. The chute will take us just outside the quarantine building. Once you’re through the chute, wait for me and we’ll all go in together.”
I stood by the light chute and punched the code for each person. I was the last person through.
I arrived at a part of Orbis I had never seen before. It was already in shadow.
“We’re on the other side of the ring,” Max whispered.
I looked up through the thin atmosphere and squinted to see some recognizable landmark. We just came from there, I thought, looking at the sun glinting off things on the other side of the ring.
The building in front of me was an enormous hoop floating in the air. There were no windows, at least none I could see, and the building looked like a miniature ring, only plump and smooth.
“Charlie must be in there,” I said, pointing.
We crossed metal walkways, past Citizens who glared at our vests, and reached another chute under the large donut rotating in the sky. Once inside, we were greeted by aliens dressed in brilliant white robes of the same clingy material the emergency crew was wearing when they picked up Charlie. They ushered us into a plain room and closed the door. Before I could ask what we were doing there, a soothing recorded voice informed us that we were being scanned and deloused of parasites, infectious materials, or any other biological microbes that might be along for the ride.
“Don’t we get to wear those wei
rd outfits?” Max asked.
“I guess not,” I said as an opening appeared in the room that led to a small shuttle. With no other option available to us, we piled in. Effortlessly, the machine pulled away but stopped midway through a bright curved tunnel. There were no markings of any sort along the tube, and it simply stopped against a blank wall that suddenly disappeared. I shuffled into the sterile nothingness with everyone else and fanned out along the curved white walls.
I don’t know about everyone else, but I was not prepared for what we saw.
My eyes were glued to the glass container floating at the center of the room. Suspended by thin copper wires in a murky green liquid floated Nugget, inside a square tank. At least a hundred copper wires bore into his skin and every opening of his body. The tiny white creatures that infected him gathered on the wires, crawling in and out of the holes. It was disgusting.
I noticed a sole attendant sitting near a collage of O-dats when he said, “Welcome.” No one responded. “Don’t be disturbed,” he added.
“How long will he be like this?” I croaked weakly.
“Quite some time, I’m afraid. The Sepius parasite is always reluctant to leave such a suitable host, but this one’s a fighter. It also helped that the parasite was native to his home planet of Krig.”
“Why all the wires?” Theodore asked. “Do you really need eighty-eight of them?”
“The more the better, actually,” he said. “Sepius loves copper. It’s the only thing they’ll eat. Other than their host, of course.”
Ketheria let out a cry and nuzzled against me, hiding her face from Nugget.
“I’m sorry,” the attendant said. “I don’t mean to upset you.”
“Can you tell us more?” I asked him.
“As the copper oxidizes, the parasites unknowingly gobble up the by-product. The copper oxide then kills them. It’s just a matter of coaxing all the little guys out and having them start feasting on the wire.”
“That makes me want to throw up,” Ketheria muttered.
“Try not to do that in here, please,” the attendant said.
I had to look away from Nugget’s ghastly skin, all wrinkled from the water. He was a pale, craggy version of himself, not the little guy I knew. Grace screamed when Nugget’s body jerked inside the tank, sloshing the water and straining the copper cables. I admit, I almost screamed, too, but Ketheria moved toward Nugget and put her hands on the tank.
Wormhole Pirates on Orbis Page 18
