“Meuhhh! Cawwhh!” the avian grumbled. Ledin felt for it. He was thankful that the stones had missed him.
The avian suspiciously examined the area above it, muttered a few more raucous imprecations and then began to scale the rock face, clearly discouraged by its injuries. Ledin breathed a sigh of relief, and began to let himself quickly down the rest of the way. Thank goodness it had decided to go up. He just hoped that his stone-tossing girlfriend would have the sense to get out of the way as it emerged.
DIVA WAS WAITING crossly for him as he finally reached the floor of the entrance shaft.
“What took you so long?” she demanded. “I was just about to start up on my own.”
“Thank you for coming to the rescue, Ledin?” he suggested with amusement.
“Yes, yes. Thank you very much. Very kind of you. But what about Six? Has he managed to break out? We can’t sit around here all day. The wind will be up soon, and we will have to take refuge in the shuttle.”
Ledin smiled again. Diva, as usual, was single-mindedly fixated on one particular thing. He wondered how long it would take her to realize that the object of her thoughts was First Six?
“I am sure Six is able to take care of himself,” he soothed.
“What a stupid thing to say! How can you know that?”
Ledin nodded. One had, he felt, to make allowances for people when in the throes of strong feeling. “Don’t worry; the trimorphs will be helping him.”
“Huh! I suppose so. You are all taking your time, though, aren’t you?”
Ledin bowed. “You don’t have to worry about Six. He can look after himself very well. Now, shall we go back up together, or would you prefer me to shin up here first, and pull you up from the top?”
“I think we should go up together, don’t you? Six might need our help, and the longer it takes me to scale this, the less time we will have to spend on him before the winds get up.”
Ledin gave a slight nod. “Then I suggest we make a move.” He handed her the end of one of the two ropes which were hanging against the rock wall. “Here, take this. I will tell you where to place your hands and feet.” He unraveled a length of thinner rope, passed a safety loop three times inside itself around the hanging rope, and then rigged her up carefully with a makeshift harness with the rest. “I’ll be moving this up as you climb.”
Diva glared. “I don’t need to be treated like a baby.”
“It’s just a simple precaution.” Ledin tested the ropes, and then gave a nod. “After you, then.”
The climb back up was arduous, and Diva found herself stymied on several occasions. It took all of her courage to force herself to listen to Ledin’s calm instructions, and ignore the panic which was sitting firmly in the back of her mind. Her face was set, and tense with concentration as she moved, foot by agonizing foot, up the dangerous drop. Grace, who was back in place now that the avifauna had abandoned the area, was watching from far above as the two specks of light gradually resolved themselves into dots, and then moving parts as they inched their way up the sheer rock face. Grace kept her eyes trained on them; she was determined to help if anything else decided to stop them on their ascent.
All went well until Diva got overconfident. She went for the next stretch without waiting for Ledin to advise her on placement, and mistook a dark shadow for a foothold crevice. Next thing she knew she was dangling helplessly off her rope, and looking straight down at the floor of the cavern far below. Her stomach turned right over, and she gave a gulp.
“Close your eyes, Diva.” Ledin’s voice was gentle and reassuring. “Now, I am already alongside you. I am going to right you, and I don’t want you to do anything. Just let me pull your hand. Do not try to help in any way at all, please.”
Although her instinct was to grab at him wildly, Diva forced herself to obey, hanging there in limbo while he tried to figure out how to place her back onto the rock face. At least the rope was holding, she thought to herself. She could taste bile in her mouth, and forced back the impulse to throw up. She would not allow her body to make her suffer that indignity. But it was a hard lesson to learn, suspended over the abyss, hung by her own stupidity.
Grace, peering down over the edge, could only see that something was wrong. Her heart almost stopped and she found she couldn’t breathe. It seemed like an eternity of waiting.
At last Ledin’s slow movements began to right Diva. He drew one hand back towards a good handhold. Then he pulled the rest of the girl’s slack body towards the stone wall, and guided her other hand to a solid crevice. Once that was done, the rest was easier. He manhandled her sideways until one foot clipped into the small dent in the rock, and then nudged at her until the final foothold was attained. Then he relaxed slightly, aware that the sweat was pouring off him, and that he had doubted his own ability to correct the situation for a moment.
He jerked his head towards the surface, and they began to climb again, a chastened Diva obedient now to Ledin’s every suggestion.
Grace drew in air once more with a deep breath of relief. They were moving again, and now she could actually distinguish the tops of their heads through the shadowy light seeping down into the black depths. They were nearly at the top of the shaft. She looked down at her own ravaged hands. They were still balled up with worry. Grace uncurled what fingers she had been left with. Sometimes it was harder to watch than to do, she realized.
DIVA DRAGGED HERSELF over the edge of the precipice and lay panting for a moment in the sunlight. As Ledin finally appeared, and pulled his weary body to safety, she rolled over and gave a smile.
“Thank you.”
“You are most welcome.”
“I shouldn’t have risked that stretch.”
“No. But you won’t do it again.”
Diva grinned. “I definitely won’t!” She got to her feet and dusted her bodywrap down. “Let’s go find Six.”
Grace was looking warily at the sun. “We don’t have many hours before it gets dark,” she warned. “And the wind will be starting up at dusk, remember.”
Diva gave a toss of her head. “We will have him back long before then. He can’t be that far away, can he?”
“We need the trimorphs. They are the only ones who can help us find the section Six is in.”
“And how do we contact them?”
Grace shrugged. “They said they would come back. I guess they will find us.”
“Well, they had better get a move on. We can’t afford to wait very long.” Diva was walking around and around in circles, her nerves clearly on the verge of explosion. If she had been a cat, her tail would have been lashing from side to side.
They sat down to wait near the edge of the pothole. Ledin spent the time gathering up the ropes and coiling them carefully. The girls looked into the distance across the planet, but were both seeing other things. There was a long silence, which nobody seemed to want to break. When Ledin had finished with the equipment he sat down at Grace’s side and joined them both in looking into the distance. He covered Grace’s left hand with his own, and she turned to direct a small smile at him.
Diva was drumming her fingers on the dusty ground by the time the trimorphs finally appeared. As soon as she saw them, she leapt to her feet.
“About time! Where on Almagest have you been? Where is Six?”
The trimorphs changed shape several times before one of them answered. “He is about a kilometre over to the north. We can take you. He is all right, but he can go no further, because – as we suspected – the cavern he is in does not communicate with the surface. We have helped him to get as near as he can to the surface, but you will have to break through if he is to get out safely.”
“Take us there!” insisted Diva.
“How thick is the crust?” asked Ledin.
“I would think about two metres,” said the trimorph.
Ledin looked thoughtful.
Diva turned to him. “What?”
He pulled a face. “Two metres of solid rock
is too much for us. We are going to have to blast a hole in it – and that means going back to the shuttle.” He thought for a moment. “Look – why don’t you two go with the trimorphs, and start to scout out the area? I will go and pick up some explosive from the shuttle, and follow you. Leave me a trail – you can mark it with cairns of three boulders.”
The girls agreed, and they divided. Ledin was feeling anything but optimistic as he made his way back to the shuttle. He hadn’t liked to say anything in front of Diva, but privately he thought that the chances of managing to push a hole in solid rock with the small explosive charges they had available were not good. He was just hoping that the area where Six was would be pockmarked with faults, and that they would only have to blast away a few inches of rock. If the surface was mainly particulate, even the small charges would be enough, he thought. He gave a sigh, and increased his speed. Luckily his past life had taught him an excellent sense of direction, and he made quick time across the terrain. The low gravity helped too, of course.
WHEN HE FINALLY got back again to the area where Six was trapped, his spirits sank. The ground seemed very compacted and he could tell that there were few areas of particulate cover. That indicated a solid rock dome to the cavern.
He turned to the trimorphs. “Can you get down there, and see if there are any faults in the ceiling? We need to place these explosive devices very carefully, or they won’t be strong enough.”
The twins shimmered, and disappeared. When they returned they were whirring in a contented fashion. “There is a place,” they said. “We will show you.” They floated effortlessly over the terrain, to position themselves directly on top of the fault line. Ledin followed, taking the precaution of roping up first.
He placed the charges with great care, sending the trimorphs back underground several times, to check the positioning. If he were to succeed, he would have to follow the fault along its length.
At last he was reasonably satisfied. He shuffled back to the girls, and they all moved away to the nearby ridge. Then he sent the trimorphs back to Six, with instructions to take as much cover as he could. Not only would the blast be brutal in the confined space where the Kwaidian was waiting, but if successful, several tons of rubble would be falling on top of him. It would be ironic if they killed Six while opening up an escape route.
Once Ledin was satisfied that everyone had taken cover, he pressed the button which would detonate the charges. There was a brief wait, and then a dull crump. For several long seconds, nothing happened. Ledin’s heart sank. Had the charges been strong enough? The wait seemed interminable. Then, at last, the rock above Six began to collapse in on itself, with a thunderous shriek of rending stone. There was another pause of several long moments, and then a puff of dust shot out of the newly formed hole, and dissipated into the air.
Ledin grabbed a hold of Diva as she was about to step up to the new hole. “Oh, no you don’t,” he said.
She stiffened. “Take your hand off my arm, Kwaidian!” she snapped, eyes flashing. “Or I’ll take it off yours!”
“You are not going anywhere, Diva. I am already roped up. That edge is exceedingly dangerous, and there is every chance that it will be unstable. So you will stay here, and make sure that my rope is well tethered, you understand?”
She nodded mutely, although her eyes were still flashing. Ledin looked towards Grace, who nodded her own understanding. He knew that he could rely on her to take care of Diva, and prevent the Coriolan girl from interfering.
He edged out over the rock ground, carefully moving to the very brink. Once there, he lay flat out on the ground to extend his surface area, and peered over.
It was still hard to see through the dust and the settling rubble, and the suspended particulates in the air made him cough, but he was eventually able to discern the slim body of Six, who was looking shaken but none the worse for wear. Ledin fed the second rope down to him, and watched as his friend pulled himself up the last forty metres of the drop, keeping guard in case his help should be needed.
With Ledin’s weight splayed out across the top of the crust, and the extra weight on the rope biting into the same edge, there were moments of tension. Small pieces of rock broke away from the edge, to fall dangerously close to the exposed head of Six as he grappled to pull himself to safety. Ledin found himself holding his breath and trying not to move, in case he should dislodge any more debris.
At last Six was at the gap, and pulling himself up to safety, a grin of relief crossing his face, which was covered with dust. They both crawled carefully away from the edge, and then, as they reached the ridge, got to their feet.
Six pounded Ledin on the back. “Thanks! I knew you would figure out a way to do it!” They did a complicated sort of handshake. Then he looked past Ledin, to the girls.
“Diva. Everything all right? Grace?”
Grace nodded, smiling at him, but Diva was looking distinctly rattled.
Six stared at her. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.” Diva turned her back, and began to walk away. Six glanced over at Ledin, who shrugged, and then at Grace. She clearly didn’t know what was wrong with Diva either. Six walked after the Coriolan girl, and grabbed her arm. She shook him off crossly.
“Not glad to see me, Diva?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Worried about me?”
Her eyes flashed again. “Of course not! I knew you would get out.”
“Because if you were …”
“I already said. I wasn’t.”
“Come on, Diva! You look like a Tattula cat on the prowl!”
She shook his hand off again. “Leave me alone! What do I care if you fall off a stupid rock and break that thick Kwaidian head of yours?”
Six stepped back and a slow smile spread over his face. “You were worried!”
“Was not! Just thought you might be lying there hurt, is all.”
“And I didn’t think you cared …”
Diva made a sound deep in her throat. “As if!”
Six grinned. All of a sudden he found that his spirits were soaring. He hesitated, wondering if he should make some other comment, and then decided that his best strategy was to leave things just as they were. As the others caught up, he looked around at the already darkening sky.
“Come on. We had better make tracks back to the shuttle. Otherwise we are going to have to survive a night out here with hurricane-force winds, or do a Diva and find a booby bird to snuggle up to.”
Diva growled again. “I do not snuggle up to booby birds! And they are not booby birds, you Kwaidian no-brain!”
Six felt generally pleased with life. Things were back to normal. And Diva was showing signs of fatigue. He had known it would be a long and drawn-out campaign. Whistling cheerfully, he set off at a spanking pace in the direction of the space shuttle. Perhaps it was time to plan a new skirmish. He wasn’t going to give up, however long it took. It was not in his nature.
Chapter 6
THEY WERE ALL panting by the time they made it back to the space shuttle. Although it was cutting it a bit close to the hurricane force winds, Six decided to take the ship back up into space. They had the trimorphs, and, by all accounts, the visitor was a very long way away from Pictoria right now. There was no reason to spend a very uncomfortable night on the surface of the planet listening to the wind buffeting the shuttle.
The shuttle lifted smoothly away from the planet, and then started to shake as it traversed the pressures already building up in the higher troposphere and stratosphere, before freeing itself of the remains of the Pictorian atmosphere, and docking safely in the Independence, in the mesosphere.
They made their way out of the air lock, where they found Arcan waiting for them. He darkened as he saw that they had brought back the trimorphs, but then seemed to freeze as he was able to communicate with them, and realized that these were the trimorph equivalent of himself. He turned first black and then iridescent as he listened attentively to the a
ccount which the small beings were clearly giving him.
“The visitor has been transported somehow to Dessia!” His voice thundered in their heads, and they all tried to cover their ears with their hands; a particularly useless move since Arcan spoke to them by other means than sound waves.
“Yes, Arcan, but please don’t shout. It hurts us!” Grace told him.
The orthogel entity shimmered apologetically. “I am sorry. I didn’t realize. What are we going to do? How can we get the visitor back? How did the Dessites find him? How did they get him to transport back to Dessia? How long has he been there?”
The trimorphs situated themselves in front of Arcan. “He would have been very excited at being finally mobile. He must have been transmitting that to the Dessites in some way, as well. Of course, the old visitor couldn’t have transported anywhere, but this visitor bimorph can. He may not have known how to dominate his abilities, and somehow they seem to have managed to pull him out of this world, and get him to decohere in Dessia.”
“Then we will have to go and get him back. Is there anything you two can do?”
The trimorphs shimmered. “We only have a tiny part of the Arcan brain. You can’t expect us to solve all the problems. Why … we only have the same amount of brain as … as … as Six here!”
Six stiffened. “Here! Be careful what you are saying, microbe! I’ll have you know that my brain is perfectly capable.”
Arcan scintillated. “You keep telling me that, Six, but I can’t say I have seen much evidence. Of course, you do very well for a transient.”
Diva grinned and turned to the trimorphs. “I feel for you,” she told them. “To have to exist with only the same amount of brain as Six! Imagine!”
“At least my few neurons were able to pass the quantum mechanics exam, my lady, if I remember correctly,” snapped Six. “Not like some.”
Ammonite Stars (Omnibus): Ammonite Galaxy #4-5 Page 7
