Ammonite Stars (Omnibus): Ammonite Galaxy #4-5

by Gillian Andrews

  “You think you can manage on your own?”

  Six looked miserably upwards. The walls of this cavern looked particularly vertical; he had no rope and no light. He gave a sigh.

  “You might like to check back on me from time to time.”

  “We will come back to you as soon as we can.”

  “I will tell my butler to admit you.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “No. It doesn’t matter. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Very well. Be careful with your ascent.”

  “That advice is definitely superfluous.”

  DIVA STOOD FOR a few minutes, looking around with dismay. There was no sign of Six anywhere. He had obviously been taken to another cavern, or left up at the top of the butte. She wondered what she should do. It suddenly seemed an awfully short-sighted mission. How would she get back to the surface again? This time there was no Six to help her out. Diva shivered. Was it her imagination, or was it darker and colder? She felt utterly alone in this huge mausoleum, and she found that she didn’t like the feeling one little bit. She had become used to having Six beside her, she realized, had forgotten what her life had been like when she had spent all that time alone in the orthogel bubble back on Valhai. Even then she had known that he was close by, that he was undergoing the same thing that she was.

  Six had been the one constant in her life. She thought about it. He had once told her that he would guard her against backswampers, and he had fulfilled that promise to the letter. Even though those mythical beings no longer existed on Kwaide, there had been plenty of danger. She thought back to the fighting for the independence of New Kwaide, and realized that Six had always been there, had never stopped watching over her. The danger may not have consisted in creatures that latched onto a person’s shoulders with their claws and hung on grimly until their quarry fell under their weight, but they had been life-threatening all the same. She had never told Six so, but she knew that she probably wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for him. She remembered how he had ventured up into the icy mountains in the unsurvivable north to rescue her when her shuttle fell during battle. And how he had taken a knife which had been meant for her.

  She shivered again in the cold and empty chamber. Now there was nobody, and for the first time in her life she felt her strength dissipating, like a wave of heat running through this abominable ortholiquid.

  Diva heard her own heart beating like a drum in her ears and throat, and was furious with herself. This was not the way Coriolan Elders behaved at the least sign of danger! Whatever was the matter with her? The only time in her whole life that she had felt anything like this was when they had operated on her back on Valhai, when they had removed all her oocites and left her to die in her orthobubble. She shook her head to clear it. Where had that Kwaidian got to? She would have a few words to say to him when he got back!

  Allowing herself to feel cross helped her get her determination back. She would show him, wherever he was! He might think that she would give up, finding herself alone down here in the dark. But she would ignore the feeling of absolute panic that was creeping up her spine, and get the job done. That was what a Coriolan meritocrat would do. No question. One didn’t sit down and cry when things got tough. One pushed and fought and clawed one’s way through. All her genes told her how to act. The only thing she had to do was listen to them. She put the fiercest expression she could find on her face, and sat down, a small dark figure lost in an immense cavern of darkness.

  Some short time later she stiffened, and froze. Out of the corner of her eye she was aware of something moving slightly in her peripheral vision. She waited, like a cat, tensing her muscles and preparing herself; then she lashed out with one arm – a fluid movement that connected with some sort of solid material before the thing that she had touched suddenly disappeared, and reincorporated itself directly in front of her eyes.

  “Do you have to attack everything that comes into range?” it said reproachfully, changing its shape over and over again in irritated pulses.

  “Err … Visitor? Oh no, I see there are two of you now. You must be the Arcan trimorphs.”

  “Yes. We are the twins.” The little trimorph introduced itself, and its twin, who gave a flash of colour to greet Diva.

  “Have you seen Six?”

  The trimorphs explained what had happened to Six, and their fears about the visitor. Diva found her initial relief tempered by a new worry.

  “Then we have to get out. We need to get to Dessia, to help the visitor.”

  “We are going to ask Ledin to come back down from the butte. He will be able to help you on the last part of the ascent.”

  Diva gave a sigh of relief. “Thank Sacras for that! I was definitely not looking forward to trying that climb on my own. What about Six?”

  “He is attempting to climb out of the cavern he is now in, although I believe that he might find that difficult. There may not be a surface exit to that particular zone.”

  “Surely – between you – you can help him?”

  “We may be able to find some sort of exit. We will try, once we have told Grace and Ledin what has happened.”

  “Are there many underground lakes?”

  “Hundreds. You are lucky we were here.”

  “And why did the ortholiquid transport him to a different place?”

  This question seemed to flummox the two tiny beings, for they consulted together with flashes and patterns of light that traversed from one of them to the other. Then one of them answered. “It does not know that these are different places. All these hundreds of places are the same to the ortholiquid; it cannot differentiate between them. And some of the places it travels to are a long way away.” It swiveled in the direction of its twin, which sparkled agreement.

  “A very long way away,” it confirmed. “We have not dared to go so far, not yet.”

  “Well, the first thing Six and I have to do is get out of here. Then you must come with us up to the Independence.”

  “I suppose we must.” The twin who was speaking sighed. “I can’t say we are looking forward to that. We like it here on Pictoria. We are … complete here. And happy. It is our home.”

  “Well, it would make me happy if you could hang around while I get myself out of here. If you can. Not that I need any help of course.”

  “We will go and check that Six is still unhurt first,” said the trimorph. “Don’t worry about it, Diva. You start up the first reach and we will come back to you as soon as we can.”

  “I shall keep a dance for you in my card,” she said politely.

  “I don’t think we can dance in these new bodies,” the trimorph told her. “But we can do lots of other things. Much better than dancing.”

  “Just a joke.” Diva made her way over to the stone cold wall of the gargantuan cavern, and put the toes of one foot into the first small crevice.

  “We’ll come back as soon as we can,” said the trimorph.

  “Please do.” Diva stared in haughty dislike at the sheer rock face, took a deep breath and fixed her thoughts on her maternal forebears – she was pretty sure none of them would have turned a hair at this. She began to climb.

  Chapter 5

  LEDIN AND GRACE had just reached the chamber at the top of the butte when the Arcan trimorphs made contact with them. Ledin was staring at one of the avifauna, which was making crooning sounds deep in its elongated throat, and had brought its sharply pointed beak to within a few inches of Ledin’s face. Its head was tilted to one side and it was examining the newcomer with great attention through almost reptilian eyes.

  When the trimorphs materialized in front of him, Ledin gave a start, and the avian close to him squawked in terror at the appearance of the small creatures in mid air. The avian retreated, sounding a bugle of alarm to its fellow birds, many of whom tried to escape the imagined danger by taking to cumbersome flight. There was much loud flapping of wings, shrieks as wing tips caught other wing tips, some fighting betwee
n the more closely-packed avians, and a general chaos in the chamber that left Grace ducking to the floor and covering her ears. They waited as those birds which could reach one of the ledges took off, and many of those who couldn’t scaled the curved walls of the chamber, taking refuge out of reach of the imagined danger.

  Finally the chamber quietened down and Grace uncovered her ears. Ledin pulled her to her feet, and they regarded the new arrivals solemnly.

  Grace looked at Ledin. She had felt instinctively that these beings contained the two canths who had died, and their symbionts. “You did survive!” she exclaimed. “Oh, I am glad!”

  “Thank you, Grace. And we were grateful for the attention you both gave the canths as they were dying. It was appreciated.” Both of the small beings flashed over their heads, in an explosion of light and colour, and movement. Grace was captivated. “You can remember, then?”

  “We can remember being canths, and being Arcan, and the ortholiquid, and even the lost animas of Xiantha. It is a good combination. However, we are here for something rather more sinister,” one of them said to her. Then he explained what had happened to Six and Diva, and the visitor. “You must go down to the surface of the planet immediately. Diva will not be able to exit the cavern on her own.”

  Ledin nodded. “I can help Diva. What about Six?”

  The trimorphs shimmered. “We do not know if there is an exit to his cavern. He has started to climb, I believe, but he may not be able to make his way out. Many of these underground lakes are sealed off completely from the exterior. His cavern may well be one of those. We have never tried to find an exit from the area where he is.”

  “Can you find out?”

  “Certainly. We were asked to come here first, but now you are aware of the need for your assistance we will return to Six. We think we might be able to find a route out for him.”

  Grace wrinkled her brow. “Surely if he can get high enough up, Arcan could transport him out of there. If it were very quick?”

  The trimorph turned completely black. “NO! That is not possible! The ortholiquid is now aware of Arcan. It sees him as a missing part of itself. It has a need to fusion with Arcan, and will destroy him. He is the only powerful quantum entity it is aware of, and it seems to want to come face to face with him. If he ventures off the Independence it will sense his presence, and it may even be able to trace him back to the binary system. That must never happen. The ortholiquid here on Pictoria will follow Arcan anywhere it can, and is not sentient enough to know of the damage it can cause.”

  Grace pulled a face. “Then it will be up to us to help Six.” She looked at Ledin, who nodded and held out his hand to her.

  “It will be quicker if we help each other,” he said calmly.

  There was a moment’s pause, and then she slipped what was left of her hand into his, and smiled shyly. “I am ready.”

  They watched as the trimorphs shimmered and disappeared, and then they turned back to the dark corridor of stone behind them. Hopefully it would be quicker going down than it had been going up.

  ONCE DOWN ON the surface of the planet again, Ledin lost no time. As soon as Grace had shown him the entrance to Diva’s cavern, he made haste to check the ropes Six had left, making sure that they were still secure, and then threaded one easily about his own person.

  He could feel Grace’s impotence as if it were a spoken sentence. She hated not being able to help. He paused for a moment, before going over the top of the drop.

  “We all need you, Grace. We always have. You are the one who solves all our problems. You don’t need fingers to do that.”

  She managed a wan smile, and bit her lip. “Thank you.”

  “I mean it. You must stay here for now, but I have the feeling that if we are going to get the visitor out of Dessia then we are going to need your ability for problem solving.”

  She nodded slowly. “I will try not to be impatient,” she promised. “Sometimes it is hard to admit to my limitations.”

  He stared hard into her eyes. “They are only physical limitations,” he said firmly. Then he tapped her skull gently with one finger. “What really matters – what really matters about anybody – is up here.”

  “I know. I am sorry. I will try to adapt better.”

  “Hmm.” He gave her a quick hug and then a small wave. She watched, heart in stomach, as he balanced himself over the precipice, and began to make his way down the smooth rock, ignoring various spiders and huge crawling things as only a Kwaidian no-name who had survived in the uninhabitable zone could.

  Grace shuffled over to the edge and peered down into the gloom, the combination of the sunlight on her back and the coldness of the dark drop in front of her bringing goose bumps to her skin. She was aware of a shiver of premonition; she had a strange feeling about this impending visit to Dessia, and she didn’t like it one little bit.

  Ledin let himself down into the dark mouth of the cavern with mixed feelings. It had been a long time since he had needed to scale anything taller than a space shuttle, and he hated having to leave Grace alone on the planet’s surface. The easiest solution might have been to pull Diva up, but Ledin was worried about the Coriolan girl’s safety. He would have had to do all the pulling on his own – Grace wouldn’t be able to help, and if anything went wrong both he and Diva could become exhausted very quickly. The option of going down to her had felt safer.

  He ducked as something furry flew past his head, and then let himself thankfully down a few more feet. It seemed that the bats were not in attack mode today. He was relieved, but unfortunately that feeling didn’t last very long. A few metres further down the rope, something at the edge of his vision drew his attention, and he stared as he caught sight of one of the avifauna. It was suspended casually from the rock face by one of the clawed hands on its wings, and was snuffling out a nest of spiders with its long beak. Spiders were pouring out from the nest in all directions, and the avian was contentedly picking off those that were too slow in their escape. The spiders ranged from the size of the back of a spoon to something twice the size of Ledin’s own hand. His eyes met those of the avian, which gave a questioning warble and turned its head on one side to examine him more efficiently. Ledin froze. One thing he definitely did not need right at that moment was an avian flapping around his rope. The thing must be twice his own size!

  But the avifauna was most interested in this new apparition in its hunting territories. It scooped up two more spiders, ate them absent-mindedly and then scuttled over to Ledin as fast as its talons could take it. Ledin gave a swallow, and tried to extract his knife – not an easy procedure whilst abseiling down a rope.

  There was a strange pause as Ledin stared into the avian’s eyes and the avian examined the new discovery in front of it carefully. Ledin tried to look like a friend, and not a rival. He nodded his head, and hung on to the rope with one hand as he edged the knife into a position of attack with the other. There was no way that he wanted to hurt the creature, but he was far too vulnerable just at this moment. Even a friendly overture on the part of the avian could cause him to fall.

  “Go away!” he said to it in a determined voice.

  “Ulk?” it responded, turning its head from side to side, and examining him first with one eye, and then with the other.

  “Shoo! Vamoose! Skedaddle!” The hand which was taking all his weight was beginning to hurt, and he wondered how much longer he could hang there without moving.

  “Ulk-eckle?” it demanded, now sounding distinctly irritated.

  “I don’t want any of your stupid dinner!” replied Ledin, glaring at it. “No wonder Six christened you the booby birds!”

  “Gak!”

  “So if you wouldn’t mind awfully, I would really prefer it if you slithered off elsewhere to scavenge. You are getting in my light.”

  “Gak! Gak!”

  “How very true. I couldn’t agree with you more,” Ledin replied politely. “And I am amazed that time is slipping by so quickly, aren’t
you? So if you don’t mind, I think I will just—”

  “—ECKKKK!” And it batted out at him with one large and feathery wing, causing him to swing like a pendulum from one side to the other.

  “Oh Sacras!” Ledin scrabbled to grab a tighter hold of the rope, and managed to drop the knife in the process. He felt totally impotent as he heard the delayed click as it hit the rocks below him. He scrambled hastily upwards, but the avian easily kept pace with him. It did not seem aggressive, but clearly did not want any other animal interrupting its breakfast.

  Suddenly a voice came echoing down from above.

  “Ledin! Swing to your left! As far as you can!”

  Ledin grabbed at the rock, pulled himself hand over hand to the right, and then pushed off away from the wall of stone, and over to his left. As he passed the avian, still staring at him from the centre, he heard the whizz of something falling past him, narrowly missing his position.

  There was a bellow of pain from the animal near him, and it screeched as a fair sized pebble hit it squarely on the torso. For a moment it seemed as if the creature would fall, then it regained its clawhold on the rock, and clung on grimly as several other large pebbles rained down on it. The avian flattened itself to the rock, and then looked up, correctly realizing that the missiles were coming from the surface.

  As Ledin swung back to his previous position, he saw that one or two of the stones had hit their mark; the animal was bleeding from several superficial wounds. It snapped its head round as he went past, but was now more preoccupied with its pain. Ledin grabbed a fresh handhold on the rock and tried to disappear into the shadows.