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

by Gillian Andrews

  The hatches finally slid open, and they were greeted back to the binary system by the hostile glances of several Sellites. Diva and Six stared.

  “Not quite the reception I had hoped for,” muttered Diva.

  “At least we are still here.”

  The Sellites were not the only ones glaring. Tallen was too. “You nearly lost us, back there in the black hole!” His tone was so accusing that the other two began to laugh.

  “Do you have any idea what incredible odds we have just overcome to get free of that thing?” asked Six, indignant. “I was expecting thanks! It is very nearly a miracle that we are here.”

  Tallen raised one eyebrow. “It might be a miracle you are here, but I put my faith in the blue stone.”

  Six was nettled. “I didn’t see the blue stone doing any relativity calculations!”

  “It was a very bumpy ride.” Tallen’s tone was condemnatory.

  Six glared at him. “Fine! I’ll try to do better next time.”

  Tallen nodded. “Good.”

  Six’s mouth dropped open, and he watched in stupefaction as the Namuri walked away towards the space elevator. “Did you hear that?” he asked Diva.

  Diva was apparently finding something very amusing, and was only able to shake her head feebly.

  “He does realize we just broke free from a black hole, doesn’t he? I mean, a BLACK HOLE!” Six kicked at the metallic floor underneath his feet. “We weren’t just docking a shuttle, you know!” He blew a sigh of disgust. “Doesn’t he realize just how hard that was ... for us and for Arcan?”

  “Never mind, Six. I know you are a hero.” Diva gave one of her ironic smiles as they followed the Namuri to the space elevator.

  “It’s not as if I expected any thanks, of course!”

  She smiled to herself. “Of course not.”

  Chapter 14

  THE NEXT DAY the travelers felt greatly refreshed. They had washed and changed and eaten, and then they had managed a much-needed sleep of twelve hours on the 21st floor of the 256th skyrise.

  When Grace saw Diva she stared. There was something changed about her friend. For the first time since she had known the Coriolan meritocrat, Diva looked as if she were almost happy. Her face was open and shining, her posture relaxed and content. There was still the smallest trace of watchfulness, which Grace thought would always be with her, but she still looked like a completely different person. She glowed.

  “What happened to you?” she asked.

  Six grinned. “She came to her senses.”

  Diva managed a scowl, but everybody present could see that she was not really cross underneath. “I ... I ... suppose I had an epiphany ...”

  Six began to play the fool. “One epiphany medium rare, please!” He imitated a waiter bringing a loaded platter. “Would modom like to taste her epiphany? It is one of our very best – cooked in the furnaces of the singularity and battered in only the most select magma.”

  “Oh, shut up, Six!” Diva pushed at him.

  “To be followed by sulphurated sweetfruits, and pumice patties.”

  She pushed at him again, and he staggered theatrically around the bridge.

  “I WISH you would stop playing the buffoon!” said Diva.

  “I know.”

  “Well?”

  “Well, what?”

  “Well, will you stop?”

  “Stop what?”

  Diva closed her eyes, opened her mouth to say something biting, and then found herself giggling. Everybody stared at her.

  “Are you quite all right, Diva?” asked Bennel, moving forwards slightly.

  Tallen gave a frown. “Perhaps she has been given some drug?”

  But Grace knew what had happened, and it had nothing to do with chemicals or illness. Her friend was finally letting go of her past, and opening her heart to the future. She moved over to the Coriolan girl and enfolded her in her arms, finding that her own eyes were full of tears.

  “I’m glad for you, Diva,” she muttered softly. “I wish you and Six a long and happy marriage.”

  Diva’s arms tightened about Grace for a moment. “You are a good friend, Gracie.” Then she stiffened and looked accusingly at Tallen and Bennel. “—Although I fail to see why you should all think there is something wrong with me!”

  Six shrugged. “Go figure,” he said. “Must be because you are always so sweet and sunny.” He raised one eyebrow wickedly and exchanged a grin with Ledin.

  Diva’s eyebrows forked into a deep frown. “Take that back!”

  “—Oh no, that’s right, you’re the girl who glares!”

  “I so do not glare!” Diva glowered around at them and then wondered why they were all grinning. “—What? I don’t!”

  Six rolled his eyes. “No, you are the most easy-going person I have ever met.”

  “Yes! Thank you! I think I am very easy-going.”

  Ledin’s jaw had dropped and Tallen was exchanging a look of incredulity with Bennel. Diva noticed, and her eyes flashed. “I am so!” Her bottom lip came out ominously.

  Six spread his arms. “All they were saying is that being married to me has improved you greatly.” Then he gave a strangled squawk, because Diva’s Coriolan dagger was suddenly at his throat.

  “Care to repeat that?”

  Six shook his head, but was laughing so hard that he nearly nicked his own throat against the blade.

  “Take it back!”

  Six shook his head. “Oh no,” he said, “you can stick that knife in me if you like, but nothing you can do to me is going to make me say that you were better off before you married me.”

  Diva considered. The dagger wavered, and Six took advantage to duck out from behind it.

  “Don’t know about you lot,” he said, “but all this talking is making me hungry again. Let’s see if we can find some real sweetfruits. I won’t mind if I never see another nutripack for the rest of my life.”

  Diva could find nothing to fault with this plan. She sheathed her dagger and fell in behind Six. They walked off in the direction of the eating area, happily bandying insults back and forth at each other. Their voices gradually died away.

  Ledin turned to his wife, one eyebrow raised. “That must have been some journey of colour!” he said. “Before it, Diva would have buried that dagger of hers deep into his throat!”

  Grace grinned. “Before it, Six would never have let her get a knife that close to his jugular!”

  IT WAS TWO days before Arcan put in an appearance, and he was still livid with anger when he did. The close call with the black hole had not gone down well with him, although the rest under the calm greyness of Valhai had helped him recuperate. “Who were those people? How dared they risk my life like that?”

  “I don’t think they planned it that way,” Six told him, “but when they got the chance, they thought the risk worthwhile to save their people.”

  “They thought it worthwhile that I should risk my life to safe theirs?”

  Grace smiled. “You probably would have, anyway, Arcan. I can’t see you just leaving them to die.”

  The orthogel entity swelled up until he was twice his normal size. “That is not the point, Grace. These ... these ... entities never even considered anybody but themselves. Who do they think they are?”

  “I think they were desperate, and they leaped at whatever chance came their way.”

  “I do not think I shall like these aliens.”

  “Here’s the thing ...” Six cleared his throat, and everybody stared at him. “Actually ... I am sorry to say ... you may be related to them.”

  “ME?” Arcan’s rejection of the possibility was loud enough to make them all cringe. “I don’t think so!”

  “Well ...” Six explained to them what he had seen in the reconstruction on Kintara, and Grace immediately came to the same conclusion Six had.

  “The planet that escaped from the Bat constellation was Valhai.”

  Six nodded. “I think it must have been, don’t you? I mea
n, if you put together the fact that it was captured by the binary system and originated outside, and of course that the Xianthes were formed by a collision between Valhai and Xiantha, it seems pretty obvious. Clearly some of the Ammonite animas were dislodged from their suspended status by the collision too, eventually finding a home in symbiosis with the canths.”

  Grace’s eyes widened. “You mean that Arcan might contain some part of the lost animas, too?”

  Six inclined his head again, though he cast a wary eye in Arcan’s direction. “I think he must. It all fits in too well.”

  “This hypothesis seems faulty to me.” Arcan was looking distinctly icy. He clearly wanted nothing to do with these new aliens who had appeared. “I would know if I had any other lifeforms in suspended animation or stopped light or whatever they called it, inside me.”

  “I would think so too, Arcan. All the same, I think we need to direct the two lasers on the orthogel somewhere, and make sure.”

  Arcan’s answer was a confused booming inside their heads which made them all clutch at their temples.

  “Arcan! You are radiating too loud! Stop it!” shouted Grace.

  The unbearable pressure relented instantly. “Sorry. I am just ... not comfortable with what is happening here.”

  “We understand. But it will surely help you to know who you are, won’t it, Arcan?” Grace pointed out, still rather carefully.

  Arcan went black then white, then black again. Finally he gave a reluctant shimmer of acceptance. “I suppose, if there is a chance that I have some aliens trapped inside me, I am going to have to give them a way out.”

  “Good.”

  “—But I don’t like it!”

  “Of course you don’t.” Grace’s voice was soothing. “But don’t you want to know if the orthogel contains the lost animas?”

  There was another disgruntled boom inside their heads.

  “Arcan! Stop it, please!” Grace sounded quite firm, for once. “You mustn’t do that. It hurts!”

  “And can you put these laser things on me here, in the skyrise?”

  Six hesitated. “The image they gave me was of an actual lake of ortholiquid, so I suppose we should do it by the ortholake.”

  “Then you can put the necessary bodywraps and mask packs on. I will be waiting for you all bare planet.” In a flash, Arcan had disappeared.

  They all looked at Grace. She seemed concerned. “I think he is just worried he might be changed by the process somehow,” she said.

  They all hurried to don mask packs and bodywraps, and then made their way to the 1st floor, exited the skyrise through the back terrace, and climbed down past the rexelene blocks, down to the surface of Valhai.

  Grace gave a deep, satisfied sigh. She loved coming outside here on Valhai. It really gave her the sensation of coming home. She looked around at the familiar slate-grey sky and the impressive spherical lune of Cian, hanging violet overhead, amidst the larger-than-life stars, and smiled.

  Six motioned to Tallen and the men took it in turns to carry the heavy machines. It was not a hard task, compared to the difficulty of hauling them up the long stone steps in the chasm of Kintara. Before long they were standing in front of the ortholake, which shone black in front of them. For once, Arcan didn’t treat them to a show of fountains and lights. He was not, it seemed, in the best of moods.

  They began to unpack the boxes which contained the lasers. Tallen trekked away from them, so that he would be perpendicular to the other laser; one of the conditions which had been shown to them on Kintara.

  Six and Diva had already set up their laser on the shore beside the lake at the exact angle which was required. There was a long pause and then Six signaled to Tallen. They turned on the perpendicular laser beams simultaneously.

  The whole ortholake seemed to flinch as the two lasers crossed and met, deep underneath the surface. At the junction Arcan turned a bright silver colour, and they were aware that the lasers were somehow hurting him despite the extreme care he was taking to shield them from his thoughts.

  They left the beams intersecting for about a minute and then Six shook his head. “Something would have happened if it were going to. There are no trapped animas in the orthogel.” He lifted up one hand again for Tallen, and switched his own machine off.

  Arcan sounded rattled. “That was most unpleasant.”

  “You are harbouring no trapped lifeforms, it seems.”

  The lake managed a shimmer. “I told you that.”

  “But it all fits in.” Six considered. “Valhai must have been one of the planets, because otherwise how could the lost animas have suddenly arrived on Xiantha to join with the canths?”

  Grace, who had been staring up above her at the star-studded sky, turned back. “Arcan is the animas,” she said.

  Everybody stared at her. She shrugged, her hands apart. “It is obvious, isn’t it?”

  Their blank faces showed her that it clearly wasn’t. “Well, that collision with Xiantha must have created so much energy that it was not only enough to knock some of the animas out of their stopped light, and into animate life on Xiantha, but it must have somehow fused the ortholiquid with the suspended animas, forming the orthogel. Arcan, that must be how you were born!”

  There was a stunned silence for at least two minutes.

  “I used to be ortholiquid?” Arcan sounded totally stunned.

  “And animas,” Grace told him. “—But changed in some way, altered by the huge amount of energy dissipated when Valhai collided with Xiantha. The ortholiquid and the animas somehow fused together, and you came into being. It must have been a monumental impact.”

  They were aware of Arcan’s introspection as he ran Grace’s theory through all the known facts. Finally, with a touch of intense disappointment in his voice, he replied. “There would seem to be no other explanation, certainly. I believe that you must be right, Grace.”

  “Which makes you related to the canths,” pointed out Six.

  “And the Ammonites,” said Diva.

  A shadow ran through the lake. “I am not sure I wish to be related to the Ammonites,” he said. “It is, however, of some consolation to know myself related to the lost animas of Xiantha. And I suppose I always knew that I must share some common ancestry with the ortholiquid. I ... at least I now know what my origin was. Thank you, Grace.”

  “You don’t sound best pleased.”

  “I am not. Don’t you see what this means?”

  Grace looked at the others, but they all shook their heads. “No. What?”

  “It means that I am one of a kind. I am the product of the fusion of two things into a third. There will be no more like me in the rest of the universe. I am alone.”

  Grace caught her breath. She hadn’t taken in the full implications. “I am afraid that you are right. I am very sorry, Arcan.”

  Six opened his mouth. “What do you want to do about the animas?”

  “Nothing. They are in a similar position, except that they are able to reproduce. At least, the canths can.”

  “Not those animas. The ones from Kintara.”

  Arcan considered. “We will have to try to find the other planet. It seems wrong not to. The frozen animas may still be retrievable. I cannot leave them to perish as stopped light, however much I disagree with the way the Ammonites have acted.”

  “Where are you going to start?” Tallen asked Six, as he unravelled the map the Ammonites had given them and weighted it down at the corners.

  “One is in the Decipus constellation,” he said, “which is here.” He pointed to the group of stars with his finger. “But the trouble is, we have no idea how long ago that might have been. At least thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of years ago. There is no guarantee of finding one small planet now.”

  “We need the morphics,” said Grace. “They will be able to check out all the nearby ortholiquid lakes to see if there are any signs of additional planets in the area, and they might be able to sense uncharted ortholiquid in t
he vicinity.”

  Six nodded. “And that is only the first planet. There are three others marked on this map, all in different quintiles of the galaxy. The Ammonites didn’t believe in putting all their sweetfruits on one table.”

  Arcan sounded cross. His voice reverberated around their minds. “I am getting very tired of having to stay away from the ortholiquid,” he said. “I can’t see why it seems to want to attack me. It is a close relative, after all.”

  “Won’t be the first close relatives who can’t stand each other anymore,” murmured Six, rather grimly. Diva knew he was thinking of his sisters.

  Arcan scintillated. “I am the orthogel entity, and I am the most intelligent being in this system, if not in the galaxy.” There was a muttering sound from his right. “ —What did you say, Six?”

  The Kwaidian held up a hand, “No, nothing. Go on!” But Diva gave him a dig in the ribs. He telegraphed a hurt look.

  “I want to come with you. What is the point of being such an evolved entity if I can’t lead the expedition?”

  “You can be present, you know ...” said Grace, “... through the trimorphs. They contain a part of you.”

  Arcan darkened. “Yes, I know. But they are unable to transport other things by quantum decoherence. That limits their effectiveness. Only I am able to take you all over the galaxy in the New Independence.”

  Six nodded. “It must be hard for you. You always seem to be having to leave things either to us transients, or, in the case of the Dessites, to the canths. It must be galling.”

  A dark shadow passed through the diaphanous shape. “It is.”

  Diva stepped in. “Never mind, Arcan. Perhaps it will all come out right in the end. But just now, if you agree, we should find the other lost planets and try to free the rest of the lost animas.” A thought occurred to her, and she twisted on her heel. “Of course, if we do find them, then we will have to find somewhere for them to live. If none of the planets we find have the right characteristics, that is?”