For the Love of Gelo!

by Tom O'Donnell

  Only the Vorem remained standing. The humans and I stared at him, and he glowered off into the middle distance. I was glad that two remaining Aeaki were armed.

  At last Becky broke the silence. “So you’re General Ridian’s son,” she said to him. “Taius, was it?”

  His eyes flicked toward her for an instant, then back to staring at nothing. He didn’t reply.

  “Well, if you ever see your old man again,” she said, “tell him he can bill me for the battle cruiser.”

  “You’ll pay the price, alien,” said Taius.

  “Both of you, be quiet,” said Hisuda, raising her weapon. “The Raefec will decide.”

  Yes, Hisuda was female. As we waited for Aloro to return, we learned that all three of these Aeaki were female. Indeed, all the hunters in their society were women. If circumstances had been different, I would have been fascinated to learn more about the culture of an alien race. But as it was, all I could think about was the fact that we were standing on a world ruled by the Vorem Dominion—with the son of General Ridian.

  After that initial exchange, though, Taius spoke no more. Twenty minutes later, Nicki noticed a black speck in the distance. It grew larger and larger until Aloro landed beside us.

  “The Raefec says we are to fly to Oru immediately!” she squawked.

  “Very well,” said Hisuda.

  “Hang on,” said Becky. “What’s a Raefec, anyway?”

  “The Raefec leads us in battle,” said Hisuda. “She guides us with her wisdom.”

  “So basically it’s like your society’s equivalent of a Little Gus,” said Little Gus.

  Hisuda shrugged. “Her word is law,” she said. “If she says we fly to Oru, then we fly to Oru.” The three Aaeki took off and flapped in tight circles over our heads, apparently expecting us to join them in the air.

  “Um, no disrespect to your culture, but . . . we can’t actually fly,” said Nicki.

  The three Aeaki landed and squawked in contempt. “But you flew here from the new moon,” said Hisuda, waving at the sky.

  Hollins stepped forward and tried to explain in Xotonian. “Hello. Of Gelo, we doing of spaceship. Now, today, spaceship is hot dinner. Fire. Hot dinner. Doesn’t flying. Goodbye!”

  Now Hisuda was more confused than ever.

  “Thanks for taking charge of the situation, brave leader,” whispered Nicki in human. “Super helpful.”

  “Long story short: We have no ride,” said Becky to Hisuda, “thanks to Junior here.” She threw a thumb toward Taius Ridian. Taius opened his mouth as though to reply, but instead he just glared dangerously and said nothing. He looked like he wanted to murder everyone present.

  “But the ground on Kyral is not safe for travel,” said Ikuna, hopping from foot to foot and glancing about nervously. “Many things want to eat the Aeaki.”

  “Well, then, maybe we could, like, ride on your backs,” suggested Little Gus.

  At this, all of the Aeaki hooted with pure derision.

  “You cannot! The aerodynamics are all wrong. Aeaki cannot fly carrying a bunch of stupid dead weight!” said Hisuda, meaning all of us. Becky was on the verge of taking offense at this description, but Nicki calmed her.

  As we gathered our belongings to leave, I turned toward the T’utzuxe. Its wreckage still smoldered.

  “Cheer up, Chorkle,” said Hollins, patting my i’arda. “She’s up in spaceship heaven now.”

  “But without the ship’s sensors,” I said, “we have no way to track Kalac’s distress beacon.”

  “Enough talking!” chided Hisuda. “We cannot waste any more time. Walking will take long enough as it is.”

  “No. We can’t leave without Pizza,” whined Little Gus, scanning the horizon.

  “Gus,” I said, eyeing the Aeaki’s blasters, “I’m not sure we have a choice.”

  And so we set out through the forest toward the Aeaki’s home, a city they called Oru. A breeze rattled the odd geometric leaves as we walked.

  According to Hisuda, Oru was the capital of a mighty nation of the same name. Our Observers had seen only scattered signs of civilization on the surface, but just as Core-of-Rock was concealed, perhaps their great city would be too. If Kyral was a world of the Dominion, though, I worried what would happen to us when we got there. Would we be turned over to the Vorem?

  Hisuda took the lead, and I walked behind her. Next came Taius, a scowl locked on his sharp face. He didn’t talk, and the Aeaki asked him no questions. In fact, I got the distinct impression that they wanted as little to do with him as possible.

  From time to time, I saw him check the small technological device attached to his belt, which now appeared to be working just fine. I cursed myself for not taking it from him when he was unconscious. Once he caught me looking at him and turned away in disgust.

  Becky and Hollins walked right behind Taius, watching his every move. Next came Nicki, who kept stopping to discretely bag and tag specimens near the path. Little Gus somehow managed to be even slower than her. He kept lingering to gaze out among the trees, hoping for a glimpse of Pizza. Ikuna took up the rear, repeatedly prodding Gus and Nicki to go faster.

  I jogged ahead so that I could speak to Hisusda out of Taius’s earshot. Her weird hopping gait meant that in order to keep pace with her, I had to alternately run and then stop and wait.

  “Hisuda, are there other Vorem on this planet?” I asked her.

  “Sometimes,” she answered cryptically.

  “Do you think your ‘Raefec’ will hand us over to them?”

  “She keeps her own council. I have no idea what the Raefec will decide. Now stop asking me questions—it is causing you to walk even slower.”

  Behind me, Little Gus thought he saw something in the forest. “Piiiiiiiizzaaaaaa!” he called out.

  “Be quiet!” scolded Ikuna.

  “But he’s out there somewhere,” said Gus pitifully.

  “Yes, and worse things too. The ground is not safe,” squawked Ikuna. “Not safe!”

  “Please, can’t we just go look for him?” asked Gus. Ikuna shook her head. She was not swayed by his emotional appeals. I joined Little Gus as he lagged behind the others.

  “Don’t worry,” I said, trying to comfort him. “Thyss-cats are tough, wily creatures. They’re survivors. Pizza can always follow our scent.”

  “I’m worried he’ll have nightmares,” said Little Gus. “Before he goes to sleep, I like to sing to him. Jazz standards mostly. A few show tunes.” Then he added quickly, “Please don’t tell anybody I told you that.” I nodded and kept on walking.

  A sheer bluff now rose from the forest floor ahead. Up close it was composed of crumbling gray stone covered with tangled clumps of blue vines. I could see now that its face was practically hollow, completely riddled with caves. It stretched upward a hundred meters into the sky, just above the tallest tops of the trees.

  “Behold Oru,” announced Hisuda. She puffed her bright plumage with pride. The humans and I looked at each other. Had we arrived? None of us saw a city anywhere.

  “Oh, it’s really beautiful,” said Nicki, trying to be polite. Inasmuch as Hisuda’s beaked face could express any discernible emotion, she seemed to frown.

  Little Gus kicked a little rodentlike skull—the ground all around us was littered with the bleached bones of tiny animals and what looked like guano. “You guys remodeling or something?”

  “Oru is not here,” said Hisuda with disgust. “Up. Above.” And she took off from the ground, beating her great wings up to the top of the bluff. She circled once and then landed beside us.

  “Yeah. As my sister already said, we can’t fly,” said Becky.

  “But you Aeaki probably don’t have roller coasters,” said Little Gus. “So let’s call it even.”

  “In fact, it doesn’t look like they have much of anything,” whispered
Hollins in human. He had articulated exactly what had begun to worry me. Still, there was a chance the other Oru or their “Raefec” might know something about Kalac and the others—if they didn’t turn us over to the Dominion, that is.

  “I think I can get us up there,” I said. I took the coil of human rope, then sprang three meters into the air and grabbed hold of a clump of vines. There are many things that I am not particularly good at: oog-ball, geology worksheets, telling all the Vampire Band Camp characters with similar haircuts apart. But like most Xotonians, I am an excellent climber. So I started to scramble up the side of the gray cliff.

  I’m not sure what I was expecting from great Oru. Perhaps I’d unconsciously focused on the phrases “urbanized” and “cultural mecca” from the cyclopaedia (now heavy as brick in my pack as I climbed). But I had seen the pride with which Hisuda beheld her home. If not a bustling society full of flying cars and robot housekeepers, I will admit I was at least imagining . . . a city.

  Instead, the totality of Oru was a few dozen huts—made of grass and garbage—surrounding a big central fire pit. It was no more than a village, and a humble one at that. The population—barely fifty Aeaki, as far as I could see—walk-hopped and flitted about on top of the table-flat mesa I had just scaled. Half of them looked virtually identical to Hisuda, Ikuda, and Aloro, with the same blazing-red plumage. The other half were smaller. Their feathers were as drab as dead leaves, with just a few fiery highlights at the tips of their wings and around the throat. I saw the same orange triangle-and-three-dots motif from the hunting trap repeated throughout the community. Oru’s logo, I supposed.

  As I stood on the edge of the cliff and observed the huts, a few of the locals cocked their heads to stare at me.

  “Don’t mind them,” said Hisuda, landing on the ledge beside me. “They have never seen anyone like you before . . . so ugly, I mean.”

  “Right, I get it,” I said, gritting my ish’kuts.

  Just then I noticed a little Aeaki child, all alone, peeping out from behind one of the huts with genuine curiosity. This one’s feathers were neither blazing orange and red nor brown, but instead pure white.

  “Who’s that?” I asked Hisuda.

  “Don’t mind her,” said Hisuda with contempt in her voice. “She is not an Oru.” I turned back, but the young Aeaki was gone.

  “Now that you have had the time to take it all in,” said Hisuda, sweeping her wing dramatically, “what do you think?” I could tell that she wanted me to be impressed.

  “It’s great,” I said, trying to keep the disappointment from my voice. “That’s a nice tall pile of, um, garbage you’ve got there.” Maybe it was all some sort of elaborate cover, but the place didn’t look like it had any starships to speak of. Without ships, rescuing Kalac and the other Xotonians—much less getting back to Gelo—was going to be a real problem.

  “Oru is a very great city,” said Hisuda. “Only Hykaro Roost is greater.”

  “I’ve heard of Hykaro Roost,” I said. “It’s the Aeaki capital, right?”

  She shook her head yes. “It was built by the gods.”

  I tied the human rope to an outcropping and tossed the other end down. Slowly, one by one, the humans ascended the bluff. We had to haul up Nicki’s samples separately since her pack already seemed to weigh more than she did. Once, when it bumped the cliff wall, a single sample bag fell all the way back down to the ground.

  “Come on, guys, be careful!” said Nicki. “That bag was full of important dirt! I mean—whatever.”

  At last, the humans all made it to the top. Taius still stood with Aloro and Ikuna, thirty meters below. He ignored the rope and started to climb, hand over hand, up the cliff. Becky and Hollins watched him the whole time.

  “Anybody got a big rock?” Hollins asked quietly when Taius was about halfway up.

  Becky looked around at Oru. “Well, Chorkle, I owe the Xotonian race an apology,” she said. “This place makes Core-of-Rock look like way less of a dump.”

  “Thanks?” I said.

  “I’m excited we’re finally in the big city now,” said Little Gus, examining a heap of wet rags on the edge of the village. “I can’t wait to take in the art museums. Go to the theater. How late do you think the restaurants stay open?”

  “Stop making fun,” said Nicki. “It’s important to be sensitive. This is our first contact with an alien culture.”

  “Come on. Lighten up, Nicki,” said Little Gus. “A couple of jokes aren’t going to destroy the Aeaki civilization.”

  “Yeah,” said Becky, “destroying their civilization would take a strong gust of wind, at least.”

  Again, everyone but Nicki laughed. Little Gus kept laughing though, too loudly and for too long. It was something he’d been doing a lot of recently when Becky told a joke.

  “Good one, Becky,” said Little Gus. “You’re super funny. Humor is a gift.”

  “Did anyone check Little Gus for traumatic brain injury after the crash?” Becky asked the rest of us. Little Gus frowned.

  “What are they saying?” Hisuda asked me.

  “They were saying that they’ve never seen a place like Oru,” I replied truthfully. This pleased Hisuda, as well as Ikuna and Aloro, who had landed beside her.

  Just then, a purple hand clawed its way over the edge of the cliff, startling us all.

  “Ugh. Just like a horror movie,” muttered Hollins as Taius heaved himself over the top. He lay on the ground for a moment, panting from the effort. Then he noticed that all of us were staring at him.

  He suddenly reached into the pocket of his threadbare uniform. We all froze, except Little Gus, who scrambled behind the wet rag heap. Had Taius concealed some weapon that Hollins hadn’t found?

  Instead, he pulled out Nicki’s sample bag filled with dirt. He tossed it to her, and she caught it.

  “You dropped your dirt,” said Taius. For a minute, none of us knew what to say.

  “Enough chatter,” said Hisuda. “All of you outlanders must be presented to the Raefec.”

  Taius strode past me. As he did, I could have sworn I saw him grin for a second, before his face reverted to its normal scowl. Strangely, I much preferred the scowl.

  As we walked, I did notice that the citizens of Oru were openly gawping at him and whispering among themselves. They looked less than thrilled to have a Vorem in their village.

  “This is the Raefec’s great house,” said Hisuda, indicating a longer hut adjacent to the central fire pit. Instead of grass and refuse, it was made of more permanent stuff: planks of bluish wood and mismatched sheets of corrugated plastic. “It is the most beautiful structure in all of Oru,” said Hisuda. “Please take a moment to appreciate it.”

  Inside, the long hut was dim and smelled of rotting meat. The only light came from the glowing coals of two braziers. The walls were painted with intricately detailed murals in bright colors: battle scenes of orange-and-red Aeaki warriors conquering other Aeaki with purple and gold feathers, green and black feathers, and many other color combinations as well. To my surprise, the artwork really was quite beautiful.

  Two real-life courtiers—their plumage dust-colored with red and orange highlights, marking them as males—stood behind a carved wooden chair. In it hunched an old female Aeaki, her once-bright feathers faded with age, a blanket over her lap. In one wing she clutched a staff—a piece of metal rebar with frayed electrical wires braided around it. Feeble as her body was, her eyes still appeared sharp.

  “Raefec Azusu,” said Hisuda. She, Aloro, and Ikuna bowed. Hisuda prodded me with a wing, and I bowed too. The humans quickly followed. Only Taius remained upright.

  “Greetings,” said Azusu, “and welcome to Oru.” Her tone was not welcoming.

  “A most sublime and amazing metropolis,” said Nicki, laying it on a little thick, in my opinion.

  “Oh, please,” said Azusu. “
What are you supposed to be anyway? No feathers. No beaks. You all look ridiculous.”

  Nicki looked a little put out. “Uh. We’re Homo sapiens.”

  “Never heard of ’em,” said Azusu. “And what about you, Ugly?” She was looking at me now.

  “I’m Chorkle. I am a Xotonian,” I said. I thought I saw something flash in her eyes, some hint of recognition. But in an instant it was gone. “I’m searching for three others like me.”

  “Haven’t seen ’em,” she said. Immediately, my is’pog sank. She turned to Taius. “And you. I know what you are. Mighty Vorem. No armor, though. How come?”

  “I lost it,” he said. Was there a note of shame in his voice?

  “Too bad,” said Azusu. “You boys look much scarier with it on.” She sized him up. “Right now you remind me of . . . an egg without a shell.”

  Little Gus stifled a laugh, and Azusu glared at him before turning back to Taius. “So, young Vorem, what brings you to Kyral?” she asked.

  “I understand that this is a world of the Dominion,” said Taius. Odd phrasing. Did that mean that he’d never heard of Kyral himself, I wondered? How big was the Vorem Dominion that they’d lost track of all the planets they’d conquered?

  “You understand correctly,” said Azusu.

  “I request a meeting with the local Dominion administrator,” he said, “to explain my situation.”

  “Local Dominion administrator? You’re looking at her,” said Azusu. She reached into the folds of her blanket and pulled out a little black ring the same size as the medallion in Taius’s pocket. She tossed it to him.

  He examined the intricate carvings on the ring’s surface. “You’re the Dominion praefectus for this region?” he said with disbelief.

  “Sure am. Most folks around here just shorten ‘praefectus’ to ‘Raefec,’ though,” said Azusu. “The fact is, I don’t do too much ‘administrating’ for the great Imperator these days.” At this, all the Aeaki in the room laughed, a shrill, unpleasant squawking sound.

  “Very well, Praefectus,” said Taius. “Then I command you to take me to the nearest Vorem military outpost.”