Skylar Mars and the Crystal Claw

by Drew Seren

  “Okay, I’m now sure these are thermal vents,” Felonia said. “It’s the only thing they could be. Tunnels like this shouldn’t exist otherwise.”

  “Then why aren’t we roasting?” Skylar asked. He’d already noticed the temperatures were warmer than on the surface, but if they were in some of the tubes that carried the geothermal vapors and gasses that previously powered Wegascu, it only made sense they should still be hotter than the four of them could handle.

  “It appears that whatever is taking the power has drained off enough that we’re not in any danger.” Felonia shook her head. “But that doesn’t make any sense either. Something that powerful should be able to be detected from orbit.”

  “Unless it has some way of cloaking itself from satellites,” Solaria said. She paused and leaned on the side of the tunnel.

  Filzbalm had picked the passageway they were traveling in, since he was the only one of them who could detect the soft breezes that flowed underground. He’d claimed the other ones didn’t have much of a flow, so weren’t worth going down if they wanted to find a way to the surface.

  “Do you need another stimpatch?” Felonia asked. “We’ve got two left.”

  Solaria shook her head. “Just give me a moment. Let’s save the patches in case we get into a spot where we need my mover powers.” She slumped to the smooth rock floor. “I doubt I can do much without either them or a nice long sleep.”

  “And none of us are going to get any real rest until we get out of here,” Felonia said. “We’re not safe down here. We have no idea where the thing that’s attacking us is, or when it’s going to attack again.”

  “I bet it won’t attack until after dark,” Skylar said. “That’s what’s it’s been doing, coming out at night.”

  “But why?” Felonia asked as she sat next to Solaria. “There’s too much we don’t know about this thing.”

  “Other than the survivors in Glacier City kept saying ‘she.’” Solaria closed her eyes as she leaned against the tunnel wall.

  “She. Yes, I keep forgetting that,” Felonia said. “That doesn’t give us much more information either. You’re right, she does seem to strike at night. But that doesn’t help us much at this point, unless she has some kind of aversion to sunlight. There are more than a few creatures in the universe that do. Particularly things that evolved in the depths of space.”

  “But that wouldn’t explain why she’s here,” Skylar said. Talking didn’t help with the deep fatigue he felt, but it did help his brain push back the strange psychic humming they were all hearing. No matter how far they got from the cavern they’d dropped into, the buzzing was the same strength. It was like the geothermal tunnels were alive and broadcasting it, but if that was the case, it would mean Pantheria itself was alive, and everyone knew planets weren’t alive in the sense of having psychic abilities or emotions. It shouldn’t be possible that people had overlooked life forms as large as planets for thousands of years.

  20

  Thermal Tunnels

  SKYLAR HAD totally lost his direction in the winding passageways they went through. They were following Filzbalm’s feeling of the air movements and Felonia, who kept saying that she could feel Aniu reaching out to her. He knew from his classes that most married psychics ended up forming either empathic or telepathic bonds, much like the bonds parents had with their children. Since Solaria agreed with her mother about the direction they needed to go, he just followed along.

  “I believe they’re this way,” Filzbalm announced and pointed down a passageway. “Fairly close too.”

  “Filzbalm says that way,” Skylar announced for the others.

  Felonia closed her eyes, then nodded. “I think he’s right. I can almost touch Aniu’s mind, but there’s something blocking me.”

  A lot of debris littered the passageway, even more than the spot where they’d been dropped into the tunnels. The chunks of ice were huge, some of them taller than Skylar and two or three times his girth. More often than not, they were scrambling over huge boulders of ice.

  “Too far,” Filzbalm said after they had gone a couple hundred feet.

  “Need to go back,” Skylar relayed.

  “But there’s no way to get through back that way,” Solaria said, then she sighed. “Unless we move all this ice, and it’ll have to go down the tunnel one way or the other.”

  Felonia patted Solaria on the shoulder. “Then we all work together to move the ice. You, Skylar and Filzbalm are used to working together. Let me join the link and we’ll be able to lift much heavier loads, and maybe we can push enough ice down the tunnel to reach them. They aren’t far now. Your father is coming in strong, even if there is something blocking him. It almost feels like someone is shielding him.”

  “I think so too.” Solaria put her hand on the boulder in front of them. “Okay. Movers gotta move.”

  Skylar put his hand on her shoulder and let his own energy flow to her. “Take what you need.”

  “Okay, but we’ll try not to take too much.” Solaria let out a long breath, then closed her eyes. “Mom’s better at fine control than I am. I’m going to let her direct our energy.”

  Filzbalm’s strength flowed into Skylar and he didn’t even try to hold it the way Professor Aduncus had been teaching him to. He simply added it to his push out to her. The ice boulder shuddered, then slowly rose off the tunnel floor and floated away from where they’d come from.

  When it landed a short way down the corridor, Felonia sighed and the pull of energy subsided. “We don’t want to block a passage that we’re fairly sure will let us out of here.” With a long breath and a creased brow, she went to work on the next chunk of ice blocking their way.

  For fifteen minutes they worked, then Solaria collapsed between them.

  “You need a rest,” Felonia said. “Sit down over against the wall. We’ve got one more stimpatch. Use it.”

  Solaria shook her head. “What if Dad or Uncle Phil needs it worse than I do? We’re almost there. I can feel them just beyond the ice.”

  “I can too, and something in there with them.” Felonia crossed her arms and frowned. “I think we need all our power to get through the debris, and right now that means you using the stimpatch to get you back on your feet. You know I don’t like you using those things, but at the moment, they’re a necessity.”

  Skylar had never had any experience with stimpatches before. He’d always heard they were something that helped psychics more than regular people, or at least that was what his mother had said. “What’s wrong with them?”

  “They can become addictive,” Felonia snapped, sounding tired and stressed. “She’s used several right in a row. That shouldn’t be enough to start a problem, but we never know.”

  “Mom, I’m not going to become a stim-addict.” Solaria reached for the patch her mother was holding out for her. “And let’s face it, if I do, it’s for a good cause. We need Dad and Uncle Phil.”

  Felonia hugged her. “Yes, we do.” When she released Solaria, she looked at Skylar. “Sorry for getting short with you, Skylar. I keep forgetting you’re new to this world, and you’ve still got a lot to learn. Most of us know a lot more about what we are before we reach Stars’ End.”

  Over the years, he’d gotten used to his own mother becoming short from time to time when she was tired or stressed, and to his knowledge, she’d never endured anything like their past hours. His mother had also been a lot slower to apologize to him. He really appreciated Felonia saying something. “I understand.”

  “Thanks.” She gave him a quick hug. “You’re a good young man.”

  Solaria took a deep breath. “Okay, Mom, I think I’m ready.”

  Skylar glanced at her. The stimpatch was on her palm, where the fur didn’t interfere with its connection to her skin. “Don’t push yourself too much.”

  “We’re in this together,” Solaria said.

  “And movers gotta move,” Felonia added before she could.

  THE LAST ice boulder n
early rolled down the tunnel as voices called out from behind it.

  “We’re back here!” Phil’s voice rang out.

  “Careful with your voice,” Felonia said as the boulder stabilized and floated over to join the rest of the pile.

  “Felonia?” Aniu was softer, then emerged from the darkness.

  “We came looking for you, and the ground collapsed under us,” Solaria explained as she rushed forward to hug her father.

  “Same thing happened to us,” Phil said as he helped Mayor Lusino and Cafpar O’Byrne forward. “We’d have been killed if O’Byrne hadn’t managed to get us all down, then shield us from her mind.”

  “So it was the same creature that attacked Glacier City?” Felonia asked as she joined Solaria in hugging Aniu.

  “Yes.” Cafpar O’Byrne was pale and shuddering, leaning heavily on Phil. He pulled at the bottom of his heavy coat, and glanced into his pocket. “She’s very powerful. I don’t think our current psychic scale is adequate to categorize her. I’ve never touched a mind so powerful.” He looked nervous about something.

  “So how do we stop her?” Skylar asked. He wanted to offer to help, but he wasn’t sure his lanky build was up to helping a grown man like Cafpar O’Byrne stand, and Lusino was larger still. There was no way he’d be able to help the Pantherian move around the tunnels. Of the lot of them, the mayor of Wegascu looked to be in the worst shape.

  “That’s the question on everyone’s mind,” Phil said. “I hate to say it, but we may have to evacuate Pantheria until we can come up with a plan.”

  Solaria took Lusino from Phil. “We might have a way to track her.”

  “Track her?” Phil raised an eyebrow as he adjusted his hold on O’Byrne.

  Skylar nodded. “She’s absorbing geothermal energy. We can tell where she is by the energy she’s stealing.”

  “And it’s showing up on planetary thermal scans.” Solaria sighed. “At night.”

  “Sounds like you kids have been busy,” Phil said.

  “Absorbing geothermal energy?” O’Byrne muttered. “Then she’s a lot more powerful than I thought. We may not be able to stop her. I need to get to my ship and access my databases. If I can’t find anything, I’ll need to go for help.”

  “We haven’t found a way out yet,” Felonia said. “We were lucky to find you.”

  “O’Byrne has very powerful shields,” Flizbalm said. “I can’t reach his mind. I think he’s what was blocking Felonia and Solaria from reaching Aniu’s mind.”

  “It’s not nice to try to read minds without permission,” Skylar said, but he was curious about the statement. He hadn’t tried to read O’Byrne, but then he was a little more tired than Filzbalm from lending Solaria and Felonia his energy to get the ice blocks moved.

  “I know, but there is something about him. Something familiar.”

  “Don’t start in sounding like Solaria and saying we look alike.” Skylar had to admit their base features were similar, same brown hair and blue eyes, same pale skin tones. But O’Byrne was a lot more muscular than he was. Skylar wasn’t sure he’d have it in him to work out that much, unless a lot of his bulk was his coat, or something else. It was hard to tell.

  It was impossible to tell if O’Byrne had heard their mental conversation. He sighed and took a couple of steps away from Phil. “Well, now that I’m not keeping all the ice and snow from crushing us, I can get myself up there. I’ll send a search party for you, if you haven’t checked in by the time I locate the information I need.” Then he vanished in a soft puff of air.

  Skylar stared at the spot where he’d been. “Where’d he go?”

  Phil frowned. “I knew he was powerful, but there aren’t many movers strong enough to teleport.”

  “I’m not surprised he left us down here,” Aniu said. “He’s the head of the largest corp in the universe. He’s got to save his own hide first. Keep the shareholders happy.”

  “We should be thankful he didn’t desert us when we were caught in the collapse. We’d be fewer people he has to worry about with Council secrets.” Lusino spoke for the first time. “My city is gone, isn’t it?”

  Solaria nodded. “I’m sorry sir, but it’s worse up there than Glacier City was.”

  “We need to keep going if we’re going to get out of here,” Felonia said. “We can only hope we don’t run into any more major ice debris fields. We might not be able to get past them.”

  “The air was getting better before we turned away to find them,” Filzbalm said. “I think I can find us a way out.”

  After Skylar relayed the information, they followed Filzbalm’s lead and endured another two hours climbing through the tunnels before reaching a massive cavern.

  “I think this is the main chamber at the heart of the local geothermal system,” Aniu said as they stood on the rim of a deep hole.

  “So how do we get around to keep following the fresh air?” Skylar asked. He peered over the edge, shone his palm light down and couldn’t see the bottom.

  “We might not be able to,” Felonia said. “We might have to try a different way.”

  “Let me check.” Filzbalm crawled out of Skylar’s hood and took off flying.

  “Filzbalm!” Skylar shouted with his mouth and mind.

  “It’s warm enough with my ring, I’m fine.” Filzbalm was already outside the range of the lights. “I’ll be right back.”

  Skylar slumped against the wall of the tunnel they stood at the mouth of. As they’d reached the central chamber, it had become wide and smooth enough for them to walk all abreast, and not single file as they had in some of the tighter places.

  “He’ll be fine,” Solaria said, touching Skylar’s shoulder.

  “I hope so,” Skylar said staring off into the darkness. “If he’s not, I won’t be.” But he was a lot more worried for Filzbalm than he was for himself.

  “I know.” Solaria squeezed his shoulder.

  Without Filzbalm blocking for him, the psychic humming that had been with them since they entered the tunnels was louder and more uncomfortable than ever. Skylar was pretty sure the others were also feeling it, but weren’t making any show of being affected. He was determined not to express any discomfort.

  “I wish I could tell if this is just residue, or something more,” Phil said as he leaned Lusino against the wall opposite Skylar. “It’s really irritating. Has the psychic field been down here the whole time?”

  “As long as we’ve been down here, it has,” Felonia said. “I figure it’s coming from the being that’s attacking our cities.”

  “Skylar and Solaria might be onto something,” Aniu said, then tapped the smooth tunnel wall. “It might be about geothermal power. She might be tapping into it.”

  “But there are no geothermal vents or tunnels near the dig site,” Felonia said. “If she was something we awakened, shouldn’t she have been near a geothermal site?”

  Phil closed his eyes and frowned. “We don’t know exactly what we’re dealing with here, but if I was going to imprison her, I’d do it well away from somewhere she could draw power. I wish we had a map of the geothermal systems on the planet, something with all the vents, lava tubes, convection zones, the works. That might help us figure things out.”

  “If we could get a signal out to Del, he could go over things and let us know,” Skylar said, desperately wanting to contribute something.

  “I think right now we need to focus on getting out of here,” Felonia said as a soft buzzing of wings heralded Filzbalm’s return.

  He landed on Skylar’s shoulder and shivered. “The air comes from above. You might be able to reach it if I fly a rope across to where the opening is, but there’s a problem.”

  “What kind of problem?” Skylar wished he could just let Filzbalm explain to everyone without having to relay things.

  “I have discovered a colony of ice bats living in the tunnel. They are very protective of their territory. They were almost fast enough to catch me.”

  “We also d
on’t have a rope,” Skylar pointed out.

  “But we might be able to fashion something,” Solaria said. “Is the rope the only problem?”

  Skylar shook his head. “He says there’s a colony of ice bats over there.”

  Solaria grinned. “Ice bats are worthy quarry.”

  “Yes, they are,” Felonia agreed. “But we need to get everyone to safety.”

  “Mom.” Solaria rolled her eyes. “I promised Skylar a hunt while he was here. Even though looking for survivors in destroyed cities is close to hunting, it’s not the same thing. If we disturb them too much, this could be a good hunt.”

  “Relying on our primitive sides might help us.” Aniu patted Solaria on the shoulder. “But we have to remember, we have injured and Skylar. Safety first, then hunting.”

  Solaria grinned. “Safety first, then hunting.”

  Skylar hoped they were all going to get across the chasm in one piece before Solaria and the other Pantherians decided to lose themselves to their animal sides, slaughter all the ice bats, and possibly doom themselves in the process.

  21

  Killing Bats

  SOFT CHIRPS filled the darkness as Skylar let go of the rope Felonia had fashioned from everyone’s clothes except Skylar’s. Since the Pantherians were used to personal nudity, they didn’t seem to mind. The idea of being naked in front of several people he didn’t know well—or worse, Solaria—wasn’t something Skylar wanted to entertain.

  What had been interesting was the way Felonia had reshaped the clothes into a sturdy rope using her psychic mover gifts. She’d taken the opportunity to explain to Skylar and Solaria that sometimes movers weren’t just about heavy work, but delicate things too. She’d shown Solaria how to move the molecules of the fibers around in such a way that they could be recombined into something stronger, thinner and in a single strand. It had taken her several minutes to do the work, and they almost didn’t have enough raw material for her to work with, but before she’d resorted to asking Skylar for as much as a sock, she had a sturdy, delicate fiber long enough to reach the other edge of the chasm so they could get across.