by Frank Tuttle
“Approximately, yes,” Donchen said. “A meal is being prepared. They have coffee, and biscuits, and sausages.”
“Might as well cook it all,” Mug muttered. “So how far away does Skoof believe the nearest port to be?”
“Fifty miles, give or take. But we’ll need to travel low and slow to spot it. The ports are marked, with a pair of black circles, one inside the other.”
“Looks like they could have strung up some lights,” Mug said. “Whoever built this wretched place, I mean.”
Skoof came sailing into the room.
“The ports are indeed equipped with a variety of marking beacons,” he said. “None are visible to your eyes. But I doubt that the beacons remain operational in any case. Still, I am confident we will locate one before you expire.”
“Thanks, Sunshine,” Mug said. “Hopefully we won’t pop out into a Mag anthill.”
“Hopefully,” said Skoof. “This hull will offer no protection. I am amazed it survived the journey from your homeworld at all.”
“This hull will be vastly improved, the next time our folk venture into the void,” Donchen said. “We’ve never done this before, you know.”
“I disagree, friend,” said Skoof, who wrapped a slender silver tendril around a rail to fix himself. “The language of these you call the Hang is known to me. With a few variations, as was the tongue of the Realms. That is proof that your folk have traveled tripping wheels before.”
“Oh, this is going to make a good column if we make it home,” Mug said. “A series! From Whence We Came, question mark, by Mugglesworth Ovis. Smaller font, centered below – Is Our History A Lie?” Mug whistled. “We’ll double our circulation overnight.”
“We are quite a long way from home, yet.” Meralda frowned. “Um. I assume this craft is equipped with sanitary facilities?”
Mug’s cage buzzed, coming to hang right in front of her face.
“Oh, it is!” he said, his eyes bobbing in merriment. “Mrs. Primsbite, tell Mistress here about the bathrooms!”
The spymaster pushed herself away from the curved glass of the viewing port. She sailed to Meralda and took her hand. “There are facilities. All the trials we have faced. All the terrors – dear, I must warn you, these are trivial compared to what you must now endure.”
Mug exploded in laughter and then buzzed away.
“That bad?” Meralda asked.
Mrs. Primsbite nodded gravely. “We’d better hurry.”
“I’ll wait here,” Donchen announced. He and Skoof peered out the glass, both pointing and speaking softly.
“Steel your nerves,” Mrs. Primsbite said, her face betrayed by a hint of a grin on her lips.
“I’ve got a flask full of something blue,” said her Meralda’s mother. “It’s potent, whatever it is. You’ll need it, daughter. It’s a chamber of horrors, behind those doors.”
A voice rang throughout the spaceship. “Fifteen minutes until we get underway,” translated Donchen.
Meralda nodded and followed Mrs. Primsbite out into the gangway.
26
The red bell rang. Meralda’s feet sank quickly to the red-painted deck as a semblance of gravity returned to the Yangzhou.
The sudden return of weight left Meralda momentarily dizzy. She raised her hands, found they moved too easily, as though she was very light, or buoyed by unseen water.
Beside her, Donchen leaned forward, gazing through the pilot’s glass. Mug kept his cage in a steady hover above Meralda’s right shoulder. “Meralda, you’ve got to invent a camera that takes moving pictures. Moments like this need to be captured.”
Meralda nodded. “I’ll do that, first thing,” she said. She saw the Royal Laboratory in her mind’s eye, and a pang of homesickness pierced her heart like an icicle.
“We’ve begun the search pattern.” Donchen entered into a hushed conversation with the Yangzhou’s captain and her pilot. “Nothing to do now but watch. And wait.”
Meralda’s reverie broke. She tapped Donchen’s shoulder. “Is this craft equipped with a telesonde?”
“I never asked. Since there are no other ships to talk to, I didn’t think it important. Shall I inquire?”
“Please,” she said.
Donchen spoke to the Captain, who replied wearily.
“They have a device, but he switched it off, to conserve power. He also noted its range is insufficient to reach home.”
“Nevertheless,” Meralda said. “Ask him to activate it.”
“If you wish.” Donchen relayed the request, and the Captain shrugged, reached to his control panel, and twisted a trio of knobs.
A noise like the fall of heavy rain filled the Yangzhou’s cramped pilot house, and the Captain turned his head back toward Meralda.
“Ask him to start at the lowest band, and work his way slowly up,” Meralda said.
Skoof came tiptoeing up between Meralda and Donchen. “A radio!” he exclaimed. “How ingenious of you. If you are attempting to raise Celestia, I fear your effort is in vain. The Hub will block such a faint signal.”
“I’m not trying to raise Celestia,” Meralda said. Before she could explain, the roaring, senseless static changed, becoming a sharp whistle that rose in pitch and intensity as the Captain made delicate adjustments to his machine. “I was looking for that.”
Mug crowed. “The Arc’s song!” he shouted. “Mistress! We’ve found the source!”
Skoof’s dome tilted and spun, as though his eyeless face searched the void. “I too, have located this emission. It is modulated. Artificial.”
“That’s the song that brought us here,” Meralda said. “We called it the Arc song because all we could see of the tripping wheel was a section of the outer rim. An arc. It presented itself in our sky.” She took a step forward, realized there was no room to pace. “The signal originated here. There must be a mechanism, a transmitter of some sort, close by.”
Skoof’s dome continued to rotate. “I am familiar with tripping wheel structure. There are no external transmission stations. Certainly nothing so primitive. I mean no insult,” he added quickly. “But this is a very crude transmission, little more than noise itself.”
“In that, you are quite mistaken,” Meralda’s mother said. “It took the Mage weeks to unravel the song, but it is filled with information. What was it you called it, dear? A compressed lexicon of mathematical symbology?”
“Oh.” Skoof paused for a moment. “Oh. This is – this is new, Mage. You are correct. Amazing.” A pair of silver antenna emerged from his dome, each waving back and forth as though sniffing the air. “My people have a combined forty thousand of your years of experience with tripping wheels, and we do not know such a thing.”
Mrs. Primsbite spoke. “Can you locate the source of it?”
“I already have,” Skoof said. “The transmission originates from a point on the Hub some seventy miles distant.”
“Is it anywhere near an entry port?” Meralda asked.
“None of which I am aware. Searching the area will take us well out of our way.”
“Still,” Meralda said. “We know there is a transmitter. Perhaps there is also a way back inside. Another vehicle. Who knows what might be there?”
Donchen nodded. “I’m sure the good Captain would remind us that we are losing air, we have no stores, and our flying coils are, at best, unreliable,” he said. Then he grinned. “Shall I commence convincing him that a brief diversion is in order?”
“Mistress, it’s not up to me, but I say we go for the song,” Mug added. “Even if we find a port, there’s no guarantee it isn’t swarming with bugs. Too, if Skoof is surprised by this, think of what other surprises might be there! But what do I know, I’m just a journalist.”
“Turn on the charm, dear,” Meralda said, to Donchen. “We’ve come this far. Let’s get a look at what brought us here, shall we?”
27
“Ten miles,” Skoof said. “No response to my signals on the same band.”
Meralda nodded, closed her eyes, and gazed out into the void with her Sight.
She shivered. Even empty rooms shimmered and sparkled with the primal energies that held atoms together, but the void was just that – a vacuum. Oh, there were flashes here and there, trailing faint across her Sight like tiny comets. But aside from the almost imperceptible glow that touched the farthest reaches of the void, there was only emptiness.
“See anything, Mistress?” Mug whispered.
“Nothing,” Meralda replied. “It’s quite disconcerting—”
The Yangzhou rang like a struck bell. Meralda was tossed, barely keeping her grip on the back of the captain’s chair. She heard the others falling and stumbling all around her. The pilot spoke, his calm voice booming throughout the ship as alarm bells sounded.
Gravity failed. Meralda floated, hearing shouts, feeling hands upon her, but she kept her Sight ahead and gasped at what she saw.
Hanging just beyond the pitted grey plain of the Hub was a needle, easily five times the length of the Yangzhou. The bone-white needle was awash in writhing, shimmering energies bright enough to nearly blind Meralda’s Sight.
The pulsating glow spun and turned, spiraling out and away from the needle before driving to a single blinding point on the Hub’s dull surface.
Where the energies touched the Hub, its surface shone as well. The Hub rippled, its surface rendered fluid in a perfectly circular area a few hundred yards across. Meralda took a deep breath, held it, and forced her Sight close to the rippling. For the first time, she saw the Hub’s subtle energies where they gathered.
The needle’s beam of arcane light stabbed like a dagger. The Hub’s subtle powers resisted, and at once Meralda realized the needle wasn’t a part of the Hub.
The Yangzhou jerked again. A loud hiss filled the cabin as air rushed out. Meralda’s Sight failed, and when she opened her eyes, the pilot house was in chaos.
Every indicator on the pilot’s panel flashed red. Both pilot and Captain worked their controls with calm precision, turning knobs and flipping switches while Donchen, Skoof, Mug, Mrs. Primsbite, and her mother grabbed for handholds.
“We crossed another spatial anomaly, like the one surrounding Celestia.” Skoof extended half a dozen tendrils to steady his airborne comrades.
“We’re losing air from a dozen new breeches,” Donchen said. “Half an hour left.”
“I said this was a bad idea.” Mug flew his cage close to the glass. The Yangzhou spun lazily along her long axis, causing the needle and the Hub to spin in and out of view. “Mistress, what is that thing?”
“It’s not part of the wheel. I got my Sight on it for a moment. It seems to be attacking the Hub.”
“I don’t see any weapon fire,” Donchen said. “Attacking magically?”
Meralda nodded. The air in was getting cold, and though fans were pulling out the smoke, it burned her throat and eyes. “It appeared so, yes. The signal? Are we at the source?”
“We are,” Skoof replied. “But with the air depleting at this rate, we should leave and seek the port immediately.”
“Skoof. That object. Is it anything you know?”
“It is not. I surmise it is a craft of some sort. It is emitting a variety of odd magnetic and other fields, of a type and purpose I cannot determine.”
The pilot spoke, and then the Captain. “They’ve managed to get the coils back,” Donchen said. “They’re preparing to get us underway again.”
“No. Ask them to wait. I need two minutes. No more.” Without waiting for a reply, Meralda closed her eyes again and willed herself to relax.
She heard Donchen speak with the pilot, listened to his terse reply, and then she pushed her Sight back out into the Void.
The needle’s determined influence flared to life in her mind’s eye, and the Hub’s rippling countermeasures came back into view. She concentrated on those, trying to make sense of even the smallest part of what she Saw.
The raised voices of Donchen and the Captain faded away. The burning in her throat, in her eyes, the sensation of floating – all of it vanished in an instant, as she pursued the pattern emerging from the Hub’s complex magical constructs.
Suddenly, and without fanfare, Meralda was back in the Royal Laboratory. She found herself seated in her new chair. A steaming cup of coffee appeared in her right hand.
Fromarch and Shingvere were nearby, working on a towering column of glass and steel beside her desk. She could see their mouths move, see Fromarch throw a wrench to the floor in disgust, but the Laboratory was as silent as the heart of the void.
Goboy’s glass flashed. Words crawled across it the familiar font of the Times.
“Greetings, Mage,” they said. “I trust you find these surroundings comfortable.”
Meralda sipped, but the coffee lacked warmth or taste. She put the cup down and gathered her thoughts.
“I surmise you are the tripping wheel.” Her words were loud and harsh in the utter silence of the Laboratory. “We received your signal.”
“So it appears,” spelled the new words on the Glass. “I detected your crude radio signals years ago and created a signal to match them. I confess I did not expect a reply, much less a visit.” The wheel paused. “Pity my entire message was not understood.”
Meralda nodded. “Much of it remains uncompressed,” she admitted. A faint scent reached her briefly, an acrid, burning smell. “I don’t have much time. None of us does. The craft close to you – it is a threat?”
“It is not a craft,” spelled the Glass. “But no matter. It is a threat. My transmission included plans for a weapon. You do not possess it.”
“No. We do not. Can you perhaps help me construct this weapon now?”
“That is not possible,” wrote the Glass. “You lack the materials, resources, and time. My energies are wholly consumed in fending off the attack.” The Glass cleared. “I am undone. I will be unable to resist much longer.”
The stench of something burning intensified. “What happened to you?” asked Meralda.
The words fell away. An image formed in the Glass, of the bone-white needle approaching the wheel.
“It came,” said a voice, faint and ghostly.
A bright, furious light enveloped the needle and then leaped toward the wheel.
“It struck.”
The scene shifted to an interior view of the wheel. Meralda saw chaos – flying machines falling, weapons, firing, smoke and death and chaos spreading as thousands of scuttling Mag spread from brief holes in the air before falling upon the panicked travelers.
“I sealed the doorways,” said the voice. The flood of Mag ceased, though the ones that emerged remained. “My last act before total system failure.”
The scene returned to the Void. The needle flew closer to the Hub, and closer still, before slowing to a near halt. Still, the invisible energies radiating from it continued to assault the Hub.
At first, the rippling circular pond that marked the Hub’s resistance was enormous, covering half the gargantuan structure. Meralda watched it shrink until it resembled the tiny space she had Seen mere moments ago. “When it touches you – that is the end?”
“That is the end,” came letters, spilling across the Glass. “Soon.”
“That is unacceptable,” Meralda said.
The wheel chuckled. “I concur,” it replied. “But it is inevitable. I apologize for bringing you here. I find your demise unacceptable as well.”
“We are hardly dead yet. This craft has weapons.”
“Does it? I detected none.”
“They may be so crude to you as to be unrecognizable,” Meralda replied. “But they are all we have.”
“They will not be enough. The level of sophistication displayed by your craft is wholly insufficient to destroy my opponent.”
“I understand that,” Meralda replied. “But perhaps we can distract it for a moment. Might that not allow you to mount some form of counterattack?”
The Glass remained dar
k for a moment. “The prospect seems unlikely, though I cannot offer a definitive answer.”
Meralda shrugged. Shingvere and Fromarch argued in silence. “If you fall, will these creatures use you to go forth, and ravage the worlds to which you have access?”
“It appears that is their intent,” said the wheel. “Your world is the closest. My regrets.”
“No,” said Meralda. “No. That I will not have.” She stood and began to pace, her footfalls utterly silent. “This is merely a simulation, is it not? I cannot use any of the devices I see?”
“Correct,” said the wheel. “I thought this a comprehensible method of communication.”
“And you cannot contact your – your people? The other wheels?”
“I am cut off, by the attack,” it replied. “My absence will be noted, at some point. Assistance will be dispatched. It will arrive too late.”
“Then it is up to us.”
“We are undone.”
“Please stop saying that,” Meralda said. “This attack – it somehow rendered all the machines and magic inside you useless?”
“During normal operation, I maintain a bubble around each craft and being which allows their native physics to continue, while aboard. When my adversary attacked, this function was interrupted. I kept the creatures alive. I could not save their craft, or all of their devices.”
“What do you know of this – thing?” Meralda asked. “Of the creatures we call the Mag?”
“Nothing,” replied the wheel. “The creatures you call the Mag are merely weapons, deployed to eliminate travelers. The object you perceive as a vehicle is only partially material. That which your senses can observe is a small part of the whole.”
“Partially material. Of what is it constructed?”
The wheel sighed. “Metals, organics, some gasses,” it said. “They serve mainly to act as an anchor for higher energies.”
“Did you attempt a purely physical assault upon it?”
“My influence beyond my structure has been negated,” said the wheel. “I lack any means of projecting mundane force against it. Its initial assault rendered such an assault impossible.”
