by Chris Reher
“Yes, but you didn’t hear. Tried for years! Bad energy gets in the way and voices are lost in the dark. Sub-space really complicates things. You have no idea! You were there sometimes. But so far away and you didn’t hear.”
“Until I went to Tava,” she said. “That khamal amplified things. That’s how you found your way to Delphi. To send the pod.”
Jovan nodded. “I think so, too. What you were getting wasn’t any withdrawal or residual effect. I was wrong about that. It was Kiran trying to reach you.”
“Very bad for the brain,” Kiran muttered. “Sorry about that. Had to try. Had to. Had to.”
“And then you were able to steer the Jur in the pod to me. To let her tell us what’s going on out there. But how can we help you? What can we do that the Tughan can’t?”
Kiran looked at Tik. He got up and paced. He went to the entrance and peered outside. Paced some more. “Only one way now,” he said. He slapped his head with both hands. “Noise! Can’t do it by myself. Not now. Not here. But he can. He must.”
“Who?”
“The Shantir,” Kiran said impatiently. “That one right there. And Tychon. And you.”
She frowned. “Tychon isn’t here. He can’t help us. They won’t get here in time.”
“I know.”
“So what’s your plan? Will you stop pacing?”
“Have to exercise. Look at my arms! This is what happens when the gravity spinner spins its last and you can’t get a new plane. And then you get stuck here. Bad for the body. Very bad.”
“Kiran,” she said evenly after taking a deep breath to keep from snapping at him. “What do you intend to do?”
“What I said. Divert the cloud. Bring everyone here and do it together.” He faced a wall to draw his fingers over the uneven surface. If there was some design he painted there, they did not see it. “Tughan lost its mind so I can’t do this by myself. I need Jovan and Tychon for this. And Little Blue.” He half turned to them. “Are there any other Shantirs with you?”
“Three. On Nova’s ship.”
“Good. Use them, too.”
“How? And if we divert it, what about the Jur? They’ll be stuck out here.”
“Yes, two years plus, as Delphi tells time. Another keyhole awaits. But they did not believe me. They wanted to kill me when I tried to tell the others about it. Just two more years and no one gets hurt. But they wouldn’t listen.” He glanced at Tik and whispered. “In case you didn’t notice, they’re hard to talk to sometimes. Very single-minded.”
Tik made a fluttering gesture with her hands.
“She’s laughing at me,” Kiran translated. “Anyway, you let me worry about the math, Cy. But it’ll take all of you to do this. You have to get them here.” His last comment was directed at Jovan. “That bit might be a little difficult.”
Jovan scratched his head. “Indeed. Did anyone mention to you that our ship crashed? We barely have cruising speed, if we even manage to break away from the asteroid.”
“Yes, that’s a problem,” Kiran said. “You have to use one of the pods.”
“What?”
“Out of the question,” Cyann exclaimed. “Have you lost your mind?”
“Yes, I have. I thought we had established that. But I’m still the Tughan and, given the proper tools, such as a dangerously fluctuating energy field dragging a pile of rubble through space, I am still very much functional. Mostly. We put the Shantir in a pod and throw him into the keyhole. He’s caught by your people on the other side and brings them back here.”
“Is that all,” Jovan said. “For a moment I thought you were going to propose something utterly lunatic.”
Cyann frowned at him. “That is a huge risk to take.”
“So is waiting around to see if Nova will come to our rescue before this thing starts feeding its energy into that keyhole.”
“Yes.” Kiran walked to the back of the room where a bed-shaped nest of rags had been piled. “I’m tired. Leave me alone now. Wait for the good energy and then we launch the Shantir.”
“And then what?” Cyann said, ignoring his request as he curled up on his bed. “Let’s imagine that, for whatever bizarre reason, Jovan survives this and gets Tychon back here. Then what?”
He turned his shoulders to look back at them. “You’re going to shove your ship off the asteroid, Tychon will pick you up, I’ll direct our khamal to use the energy field to divert the cloud.”
“How’s this even possible?”
“It’s possible if you try to remember for a moment that I am the damn Tughan Wai. I steered a damn pod to Delphi through damn sub-space! Try doing that without brain damage. If you keep me steady I can do this, too.”
“Is it going to hurt you?”
“Yes.”
“But—”
“Go away! Tell Uncle Anders I love him. I remember him teaching me how to write. Tik will come for you at the next turn. She can’t be outside in the cold. They don’t feel the cold. They just drop dead after a while. The plasma charges will be at their best then, too.”
Cyann stared at Jovan, speechless.
“Go!” Kiran shouted.
Tik rushed to them. “Yes, go now,” she said. “This is upsetting him. He’ll be fine by the turn. I’ll take you back.”
“Take you back,” Kiran muttered. “Back on track. Pe Khoja says hello, Cy. Tell her that. Kiran didn’t kill them. Kiran is sleeping now. Never coming back. Never!”
Cyann felt tears burn in her eyes. She stood undecided, looking at Kiran’s broad but emaciated back. “Oh, Jovan...” she said, unwilling to leave this place. She ached to go to Kiran, to hold him until, somehow, his madness passed.
“Come on. Let’s do as he says.”
“Yes!” Kiran shouted. “Do as he says! Do as he says! Listen to the Shantir. They always know best, don’t they? They can even turn babies into monsters!”
Tik was now pushing them toward the door. “Come, let him sleep.”
Cyann saw little through the tears that blurred her vision when the Jur led them back to the conduit to the main habitat. Some of her people passed them, moving toward Kiran’s room and Cyann was somewhat comforted that he was not alone.
She crouched down and touched Tik’s shapeless arm. “Thank you for looking after him,” she said. “Did he... did he get sick here or did he come to you like this?”
The Jur considered a while. “He was not like you when I met him. Not still like you. Not calm. But he saved us and he built this and showed us how to survive here. He touched my head and taught me your language. He gave names to us and told us stories about Trans-Targon. But his mind pain got worse here. His thoughts come in strange ways. The shouting. The laughing. He has many regrets. There are... people in his head. The ones he killed. Not all of them are kind, I think. They torment him, especially in sleep.” She made some small, trembling motion with her hands at her side and her bands of color shifted to a deep violet. “He cannot be like this! He will help you, if he can. Then he will die. He wants to leave the voices.”
Cyann looked up at Jovan. “He must be in such pain. Did you see no way to help him?”
He hugged her briefly when she stood up again. “There is nothing I can do here. By myself. I can’t even tell what’s wrong with him. If there is help for him it will take a long time. There is much... damage.”
She sighed. “So much depends on him, and he’s barely coherent. It’s probably safer if you stayed out of his mind entirely. This could affect you in a bad way.”
He started to say something but then just nodded. “Come, let’s get back to the dome.”
A noise from above drew their attention and then two of Tik’s companions slid from the chute into their midst. They warbled something to Tik but were already done and gone by the time the Delphians had reached for their translators.
Tik stood silently for a moment, moving her hands in some peculiar fashion around her head. She looked oddly thoughtful doing that, but Cyann wasn’t sure why s
he assumed that. Finally, Tik spoke. “The guides are looking for you.”
“Oops, we better get back here,” Cyann said.
“No,” Tik said. “They are angry now. You did wrong.”
“We’ll just tell them that we went for a walk. He didn’t say we had to stay in that room.”
Jovan nudged her. “Yes, he did. He said to rest there.”
“So? That doesn’t mean...” She considered. “You’re right. They seem to be a little yes-no in their thinking, don’t they? This or that. Right or wrong.” She turned to Tik. “What will they do?”
“Put me outside,” Tik’s color band shifted to a purple that was almost black. “Maybe hurt you. Come this way.”
Chapter Nine
Cyann had begun to worry long before the Jur guide stepped into their path. They had made their way back to the main asteroid and below the dome. Likely now several levels below where their original host had left them, they moved through series of domed spaces, most of them low enough to force them to stoop. Tik had hurried them along, navigating this warren with ease. Several times she motioned them into recesses or side passages while other Jur moved past them. Eventually they moved up a level and that’s when one of the taller Jur barred their way, head bobbing and colors flashing in agitation.
“Visitors,” he said. “Stop here.”
Cyann pulled Tik to stand behind her and activated the translator. “We are now returning to our ship. Thank you for the visit, Jur. We must go to our ship now. And eat our food. Jur food is not good for us.”
“It is cold outside,” the Jur said. “Dangerous. So sad. Stay here.”
Jovan took a step closer to the guide and raised his gun as if to inspect it. “I think we’ll just hurry before we get too cold.”
The Jur’s color bands shifted into a blue spectrum when he saw the pistol. “I will find your guide.”
“You do that,” Jovan said. “We’ll wait right in there.”
“Yes, wait.” The Jur gestured toward Cyann but clearly meant Tik cowering behind her. “She comes with me to the guide.”
“Well,” Jovan said. “No.”
The Jur stared at him for a long moment, perhaps unaccustomed to being disobeyed. He moved around Cyann and grasped Tik’s arm.
“I’m done with this.” Jovan leveled his pistol and shot the Jur. Tik slapped both hands over her mouth to cover a scream when the guide crumpled to the ground.
“Gods!” Cyann exclaimed. She had read about Jovan’s travels and heard stories about the things his crew had encountered but to actually see him use his gun startled her. She shook herself out of the moment of surprise and bent over the fallen Jur. “What setting did you use? I can’t even tell if he’s dead or not.”
“It’s not set to kill. Let’s keep moving. I’d like to get back to the ship before they’ve got the entire population looking for us. I think we need to assume that these Jur brains do not work like ours.” Jovan picked the oddly stiff body up and folded him neatly into a gap in the wall.
“Tik seems to think like we do,” Cyann pointed out.
“Yes, but she was touched by Kiran. Who knows what he did to her. Wouldn’t be the first time he’s altered someone. And he’s obviously tampered with his own systems to be able to breathe this air.” He squatted beside the frightened Jur. “Tik? Let’s go, all right? He won’t hurt you. We need to keep moving.”
She stared at him round-eyed before slipping past him to continue along the hall. They followed her into ever more narrow passages that soon no longer showed much evidence of being manufactured. Raw stone tunnels led into several directions and they had the impression that they were climbing through a densely packed and fantastically large clump of gravel. In places it looked like individual boulders had been removed to widen passages that now slanted upward. Soon they had become so narrow that it took considerable maneuvering to squeeze their bodies through the gaps.
“Getting colder,” Cyann shivered. “We must be close to the surface.” She helped Jovan push through a fissure in the rock, careful to adjust his air pack as he moved on.
“Yes,” Tik said from somewhere ahead of them. Cyann turned to illuminate the space with the small lamp attached to the chest of her suit. Tik’s ghostly shape flashed shades of yellow in the dark. “Up this way.”
They entered a slightly larger space to see a jagged shaft lead upwards from here. The lazily spinning fan bolted into the opening appeared to be salvage. Tik climbed up along the wall by inserting her boneless limbs into the stone crevices. Nimbly, she began to unfasten some pegs that held the fan to the shaft. Her waxen skin seemed unaccustomed to the chore and soon a clear liquid dripped from her cut fingers.
“Wait,” Jovan said. He dug into his kit pocket to find a small hand tool. One of the attachments was a set of pincers. “Try this.”
She took the device from him and cooed over it for a moment before getting back to the task at hand. Soon Jovan was able to lift the fan out of its position in the ceiling. “You can keep that,” he said with a smile.
Tik made a pleased gurgling sound. “We are not allowed... things,” she said and carefully placed the tool under a nearby stone. “I will hide it here for next time.”
“You come this way a lot?” Cyann asked.
“Yes. When Jur are sent outside we bring them back through here. Sometimes Kiran can fix them.” She pointed up. “You will fit. It’s very cold outside.”
“Nigel,” Jovan opened his com unit. “Scout, come in.”
“Jovan,” came the reply a few moments later. “How was the nap?”
“Enlightening. Can you get a fix on us?”
There was a brief pause. “Yeah. How did you get over there? You’re at the edge of the dome, looks almost like you’re outside. Something venting above you. Waste gases from the dome, I’m guessing. Don’t breathe too deeply.”
“How far from the ship and can we make it there?”
“Hmm, I’d run. Crank the suits up to max. The Scout is just beyond a small rise to your left. You should see the array though.”
“How’s Anders?” Cyann said as she adjusted Jovan’s temperature controls.
“Staying still, finally. We sent the crawlers outside and found the virus all over the place. So now he’s resting. Still got a big headache with that concussion.”
“All right,” Jovan said to her. “We’re going to climb up this shaft and make a run for it. I think I ripped my suit but I have the feeling Nigel will make us take a bath anyway.”
“You bet your blue fur on that,” came Nigel’s unhurried drawl.
Cyann bounced around the small space in an effort to raise her body temperature while her suit warmed up. Given the shortage of gravity, it did little but bring an amused smile to Jovan’s face.
“You’re laughing at me?” she said.
“Yeah. I have a better idea.” He grasped her collar to pull her close.
“Ooh, yes, body heat,” she smiled.
He kissed her, a little awkwardly around the thin oxygen tubes running across their upper lips but there was no obstruction to his touch on her mind. She gasped when he used a delicious combination of the khamal shoi and more conventional Shantir manipulations of her core temperature until soon they were both quite ready to tear out of their bulky suits.
“Stop,” he breathed. “Or this is going to end up really weirdly.”
She pulled her visored hood over her head and smiled down at Tik who was staring up at them with orange flashes of confusion. “We’re going now. You will come to the ship when it’s time to go?”
“Just before the turn. No one will be outside then.”
Cyann nodded and reached up to grasp the stone edge of the shaft above them. The climb was easy and there were enough spaces in the rock for hand and footholds. Jovan, behind her, cursed once or twice when his larger frame threatened to get stuck in the narrow space but soon they tumbled out of a gap in the rubble to find themselves outside.
“Run!”
They raced across the space between the dome and the waiting Scout, leaping over boulders and ditches with almost comical ease. Despite their increased core temperature, she soon felt the bite of the asteroid’s frigid atmosphere cut through her suit as if it wasn’t even there. A red warning strip helpfully appeared on the inside of her visor to inform her that the current conditions were less than optimal. She pushed on, feeling her fingers and cheeks grow numb, and leaped after Jovan over the rocky outcropping barring their way until, finally, the ship came into view.
The Scout sat at a precarious angle; clearly part of the landing structure was damaged. But its main door opened smoothly and soon they were inside, heavily blasted by the strong formula Nigel had cooked up to decontaminate them.
“Leave your suits in the lock. I don’t even want them in here.”
They peeled out of their coveralls and, after another, entirely gratuitous blast of decon, gratefully removed the air tubes from under their noses. Cyann rubbed her lip, happy to be back aboard their ship. It felt a little like coming home. She submitted blissfully to a vigorous arm rubbing by Jovan, less in need of having her arms warmed and more so of just having him touch her. Eventually, Nigel declared them clean and allowed into the ship.
Cyann rushed to the Scout’s small med lab where Anders rested on the single gurney, a respirator over his face. She added some compounds to the gas mixture to allow him to breathe more deeply. The scanner showed damage caused by the splintered ends of the broken bones but they had not punctured his lung. Jovan added his skills to help him manage the pain in his head and ease the bruising of his concussion.
Gradually, Anders responded to the treatment. “Oh, Cyann, did I nod off?” He smiled but his breathing came in ragged gasps. “I don’t feel so good. Time to go home now, I think. Is there any tea?”
“Soon, Uncle,” she said. “I’m going to give you another shot. Just give it a moment.”
“Did you find Kiran?”
“Yes! He says hello. He remembers you well. He sends his love.”
“He was such a bright boy,” Anders said. “A head full of blue curls and nothing but mischief on his mind. Hmm, actually, that might have been you. Things are a little blurry. I think maybe I’m getting too old for these jaunts into nowhere. Remind me to retire when we get back home.”
