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

by Gillian Andrews

Arcan shimmered, rather disgruntledly, she thought. “It takes a long time to buy things from the Sellites.”

  “Buy? They made you buy this thing? That must have cost a small fortune!”

  “It took all the money accumulated so far in the foundation.”

  “WHAT? That is robbery!”

  “No, Diva, I told you, I bought it.”

  “I meant … Oh, never mind … Hmm … I had better take better care of this one then.”

  “Yes. Please don’t blow it up.”

  “I didn’t want to blow up the last one! You make it sound like I planned the whole thing; did it for fun.”

  “I was merely making a statement. I have no money left to buy another one.”

  “All right. I will do my very best to keep this one in good working order.”

  “Thank you Diva. Not that I am complaining – I know you saved me from the Dessites.”

  “You’re welcome, Arcan. Now, we are taking a few more people than I planned back to Pictoria.” She explained about the extra bodyguards and then went into details about the supplies they were taking. It took Arcan only a moment to get those on board the new ship. He transported Diva directly to the bridge of the new space vessel.

  “What are we going to call it?” asked Diva.

  “Does it matter?” Arcan gave a shimmer.

  “Naturally. I think this should be the Independence, too, right? After all, the first Independence rescued you from the mindmerge. We’ll call her the New Independence.” Diva smiled around at the pristine bulkheads.

  Arcan glinted. “Whatever,” he said, sounding so like Six that Diva felt a momentary stab of anguish because she missed the Kwaidian. She straightened her shoulders. “Right. If you can get all of us over to the gas giant, then we can be on our way. Oh, wait! Cimma wanted to pick up somebody else … you will have to talk to her before you take us over to Pictoria.”

  Arcan scintillated. “I have spoken to Cimma. We must wait for a few moments.”

  “I wish I could know what has been happening to the others. Do you think Grace will be all right? She sacrificed herself for us, you know.”

  “I think you all did that. I hope that you will all come out of this alive.”

  “Me too. Did you have time to think about some way of getting out of the carbon nanographite traps?”

  A shadow ran through the orthogel entity. “Not yet. I will be working on that after I leave you inside the gas giant. By the way, how will I know when to pick you up?”

  “You don’t. Perhaps you could travel to exactly the same place you leave us every other day, at the same time? But don’t hang around – if we are not there leave immediately, and try again after another couple of days.”

  “Very well. But what if you need me urgently?”

  Diva shook her head. “You can’t risk it. You have to work on your own on some sort of mental shielding from the mindmerge and a way to escape any traps set for you with that material they use, and leave us to our fate until you can be sure you are safe.”

  “That will not be very easy.”

  “No. Believe me, I know. But you don’t have any choice in the matter. That is what we must do. Without you in danger on Pictoria, we will be able to concentrate on getting the Dessites back to Dessia. Mentally, that is.”

  “I see. You mean that if I went back I would make everything worse.”

  “Exactly! You do understand, don’t you?”

  “Of course I understand. My brain is enormous, compared to yours.”

  “I know. You have mentioned it before.”

  “Yes. Only sometimes I think you don’t listen to everything I say.”

  “No? Do you?”

  “Yes, I just said so.” The diaphanous shape that Arcan had taken on the bridge of the Orbital Station shimmered again. “Cimma is back, and she is asking me to transport—Oh!”

  “What?”

  He twinkled. “I think you had better see for yourself. They are in storage hold number 3.”

  Diva glared at him, but he had vanished, leaving her standing on her own on the bridge of the new ship. She looked around her for a few minutes, and then made her way down the corridors which would take her to hold number 3.

  DIVA WAS NOT the only person to find the contents of the hold interesting. The door was blocked by four other people, all gazing at the contents inside.

  “What on Sacras are you all staring at?” she demanded, trying to look through them. “What is going on?”

  Cimma made a sign to the others, and they parted to let Diva into the hold. When she stepped inside the large area her jaw dropped.

  “Lumina—!”

  For there, inside the space ship, and looking extremely pleased with themselves, were six canths, accompanied by the canth keeper. His face lit up when he saw her, and he came forward wreathed in smiles.

  “Valhai Diva! Thank you so much for thinking of us! You bestow such brilliance of colour that we are speechless.”

  He wasn’t the only one. Diva could only point in the direction of the canths and then around the hold, trying to imply that the metallic hold of a space trader might not exactly be the best place for some wild and untrained canths.

  The man who spoke to canths smiled. “I know,” he said. “But the canths insisted on coming. They say there is something very wrong on some planet somewhere, and that they must come with us.”

  “But … Do they know they are on a spaceship?” Diva stared around the hold, noting the stored bales of hay stacked neatly around the bulkheads and strewn over the metallic floor of the hold. She realized that her own seal brown canth was amongst them, and then was able to pick out the palomino gold of Grace’s, the dapple grey of Six’s, the sorrel of Cimma’s, the yellow dun of Ledin’s and the bay mare which was linked to the man who spoke to canths.

  “Oh yes. They know that they must be very quiet. I can sense that they will be calm.”

  “Oh. Err … welcome aboard.” Diva glanced at Cimma, thinking privately that she must have gone stark staring mad. This time there was no doubt about it. Nobody in their sane judgement would put livestock loose on a spacecraft. She shook her head, and had opened her mouth to speak when Arcan appeared before them all.

  “We are in the upper atmosphere of the purple gas giant,” he said. “I have put you in orbit, but you should navigate out of here as fast as you can. The gravity here is strong, and the atmosphere very corrosive.”

  “Yes. I remember.”

  “Don’t forget to program this position in the computer. I will check it out every forty-eight hours at exactly this time. Is that all? I shouldn’t stay here for long …”

  “No, Arcan, go! We will be all right.” Diva looked around at the assorted group and wondered if that would be true. They didn’t exactly look like the saviours that her friends stranded on Pictoria and the avifauna needed. Then she smiled to herself. There was a saying on Kwaide that even a warthog could be covered in mud. She hoped it applied to Pictoria too.

  THE MAN WHO spoke to canths stayed with the equines, his presence a reinforcing comfort to animals who must have found it strange to be trapped inside a metallic shell. He told the others that, if needed, his group of canths would be able to act as a focus for the others of their species, back on Xiantha.

  “Yes,” said Diva, “but won’t the Dessites be able to take them over too, like they have the avians?”

  The man who spoke to canths shook his head. “The canths seem quite convinced that they are immune to the Dessites. I can feel a … almost a disdain for them. It is as if the canths knew who the Dessites were, and had found them lacking. But I don’t see how that could be possible?”

  “Neither do I. After all, the Dessites are 13,400 light years away from the binary system, and the visitor is the only Dessite traveler to reach our system. I just hope the canths are right. If the Dessites could somehow take them over too we would be in worse trouble than we are now.”

  “I think we must trust the canths to know
what they are doing. I have been living amongst them for more than four decades, and I would like to think I know them better than any other Xianthan. I do not think they would have this feeling of certainty about them without good cause. They are usually scared of anything, and spook very easily. It is most unlike them to exude this aura of certainty.”

  Diva shook his hand. “I am happy to see you again, Man who speaks to canths. I hope you have not been inconvenienced by this journey?”

  “Certainly not, it is a very great privilege. Xiantha grew up around the legend of the lost animas. Now we know that the canths contain the lost animas, we are even more obligated to protect and support them. And this journey was their idea.”

  “—Their idea?”

  “The last two days there has been great unrest amongst the canths. They were kicking and plunging, tossing their heads and whinnying in discomfort. I even thought there was some virus infection loose amongst them – until Cimma appeared.”

  “What happened?”

  “As soon as Cimma arrived, there was a total silence on the farm. It was uncanny. Then I suddenly became aware of a circle of canths around us, appearing to listen to our conversation. It was very strange. The canths hardly ever jump the corral fences, but this time they had. When Cimma finished telling me about Pictoria, and the Dessites, they began to hum. Hum! I have never heard anything like that sound come out of the canths!”

  “And you felt they were asking you to bring some of them with you?”

  “I knew they were. It was an absolute conviction that they somehow planted in my mind.”

  “You know that we cannot take them down to the planet?”

  “Of course. The shuttles are far too small. The canths think that their presence in orbit will be enough. They just wanted to be in the same system, I think. I suppose it might be hard to ‘feel’ things at a distance of 30,000 light years.”

  “I thought quantum non-locality didn’t notice distance?”

  The man who spoke to canths spread his hands. “I don’t know. Perhaps there is some sort of interference by the Dessites? I suppose there must be some consequences of this mental attack I have been hearing about.”

  “Then we will leave you here. Please don’t touch any of the controls. I have put the ship into geostationary orbit, which is stable. If you change anything, the orbit might start to degrade.”

  “I will touch nothing, Valhai Diva. You may be quite sure of that. The canths and I are here only to act as a mental back-up to you all. I wish you success in your rescue mission.”

  “Thank you. I think we are going to need it.”

  THE REST OF the crew of the New Independence piled into the space shuttle. With five people inside one pod, the journey down to the surface of the planet was almost unbearable. The pods were built for two, three at a maximum. Five was more than uncomfortable. Diva noticed the way that they were looking.

  “Sorry, but none of you can pilot a shuttle, and the New Independence only came with one shuttle, so this is the best I can do.”

  Bennel nodded with an air of resignation, but Tallen and Petra glowered. Diva thought, not for the first time, that Six should probably have left them inside Lublank prison. Then a fierce expression crossed her face. Six. Was he still alive? She had to force herself to concentrate on the console in front of her. She wondered why his absence left such a feeling of emptiness inside her.

  They managed a bumpy landing on the planet, well away from both the other shuttle and the pothole where the amorphs usually could be found. The extra weight made the shuttle sluggish and unresponsive, and Diva needed all of her skill to bring them down safely. Nobody made any comments about the rough landing, but Diva could feel a sort of hostile aura coming from the two young Coriolans.

  “What? You should try landing with twice the recommended weight!”

  They said nothing directly to her, but she picked up the whispered comment which Petra hissed to her brother. “Meritocrats!”

  Diva’s eyes narrowed, and she frowned. Cimma leant forward, and asked her some question about the planet’s atmosphere, managing to divert her attention away from the two youngsters. There would be trouble there, Cimma thought to herself, but not just yet.

  They piled out of the hatch with some relief, and pulled what few supplies they had been able to squeeze in with them out onto the red particulate sand underfoot.

  The newcomers gazed around them with awe.

  “Are we really on the other side of the galaxy?” asked Bennel.

  “I suppose so. Seen from the binary system, Pictoria would be further away than the central supermassive black hole, and a bit more to one side.”

  “And the Dessites come from the same side as us?”

  “Yes. They are about half way between Sacras and the central black hole.” Diva took out her dagger and traced a picture on the sand. “See? On Pictoria, we are here, slightly over to the left from the black hole, and the binary system is way out along one of the arms of the galaxy – somewhere around here. Dessia is almost in the middle, but on a straight line between the binary system and the black hole, more or less here.”

  “The sky has green streaks!” said Petra, pointing.

  “And the ridges have smooth steps up them!” said her brother.

  “I feel a lot lighter,” said Cimma.

  Diva only replied to the last comment. “Yes. The gravity is much less on Pictoria.”

  “And look! You can see the gas giant through the atmosphere! See? Where the clouds are thinner. Over there!” Petra was excited.

  “Yes. I know. Now, can we begin to get organized? I explained about the winds, didn’t I? We only have so long before we will have to be back here, or in some fairly effective cover.”

  They sobered up instantly. “Of course. What is the plan?”

  Diva looked taken aback. “Err …”

  “Because you will have some sort of plan, won’t you?” Tallen challenged.

  Diva restrained a sharp impulse to throttle the youngster. “Of course I have a plan!” she snapped back. “We are going to make our way—”

  “Because I can’t see how the five of us are going to be able to do very much against 552 billion minds in a mind-merge, but then I’m only a Namuri, right? A meritocrat like you wouldn’t want to listen to the opinion of a Namuri.”

  Diva felt her hackles rising, and, with some difficulty, bit back a hasty retort. “I didn’t say it would be easy,” she replied, striving for some dignity.

  A welcome interruption came from Cimma. “It is not so much a question of what we are going to do,” she told the boy severely, “as what we aren’t.”

  “Oh?” Tallen dragged the monosyballic word out so far it almost extruded into his disbelieving eyebrows.

  Cimma stepped forwards. “We aren’t going to leave our friends behind to meet an uncertain fate. We are going to find them, and help them to escape. Any other questions?”

  Tallen, who rather admired Cimma, shook his head, looking away. “Let the die be cast!” he said. “We are only here to watch your back. And Valhai Six’s.”

  “Good. I have a feeling both you and your sister may be crucial to this whole plan.”

  Tallen looked slightly mollified. “Have you?”

  Cimma turned to Diva. “Will they be in the butte or the cavern, do you think?”

  Diva raised one eyebrow. “When I left, Six and Ledin were in the cavern, and Grace was at the shuttle site. I think that if she is not there now they would have taken her to the butte, but it is all speculation. We can’t even be sure that they are still alive. All I can say is that – in the end – I didn’t kill any of them.” She looked down, in case anybody should see the bolt of guilt that ran through her just thinking about what she had nearly done.

  “Then we should head in that direction, check out the shuttle site, and then the cavern and the butte, not necessarily in that order.”

  Diva nodded. “Agreed. What we really need is to locate the visitor and t
he twins, and find out what has been going on in my absence.”

  “And how do we do that?”

  “We can’t. They will have to find us.”

  “How will they do that?” asked Bennel, who was calmly sharpening his Coriolan sword with a blue namura stone he kept about his person. Both Tallen and his sister made a motion in the air in front of them as they spotted the namura stone. Their clan obviously held the prized stones they were named after in great esteem.

  “No idea. I think we just keep going until they do.”

  “Or until they don’t,” muttered Tallen to his sister. She nodded.

  “Are you always so positive?” said Diva.

  Tallen glared. “With a plan like this, what do you expect?”

  “You are the one who wanted to come, remember!”

  “I didn’t say I wanted to come; I said we had no choice. But we had naturally expected a bit better organization.”

  “Oh, excuse ME!”

  Tallen opened his eyes wide. “My, my! A meritocrat actually apologizing!”

  Diva could hardly believe her ears. “That wasn’t an apology!” she managed to get out, with some difficulty.

  “Wasn’t it? It sounded like one to me.”

  Diva stared.

  DIVA LED THE way along and across the ridges, shadowed closely by Bennel, who was determined not to lose sight of her a second time. Then came Tallen and Petra, sandwiching Cimma between them to fulfill their duty as bodyguards too. The day was bright and sunny. It was morning on Pictoria, and an almost cloudless day.

  They made fast time across the ridges, although Cimma found her legs tiring quickly at the strain of the steep steps up and down. Even though she was in great shape, there was no substitute for youth, she realized. She couldn’t stop thinking about her daughter. She felt so proud of Grace that her heart was almost bursting. It had been a great thing to sacrifice herself so that Diva could escape. Her father would have been proud of her too.

  But so much had changed in the years since Xenon 48’s death, she thought. During his lifetime, Valhai had been a safe haven for the Sellites, who had ruled the binary system and, as far as they knew, the galaxy. Now – the Sellites had been forced to recognize that Valhai belonged to the orthogel entity, there had been a war on Kwaide, and they had lost their technological advantage in the binary system. As if that weren’t enough, here they were 30,000 light years from home. Xenon 48 might have found all that hard to accept. But he would still have been proud of Grace, thought Cimma, ignoring the tiny serpent of doubt that crept into her subconscious, pointing out that he might well blame his daughter for the downfall of the 256th skyrise, and the premature death of the son who had taken over as head of house.