Nopileos: A novel from the X-Universe: (X4: Foundations Edition 2018) (X Series)

by Helge T. Kautz

  The Earth woman turned her head and briefly put her hand on the Teladi’s shoulder. She smiled. “Double lucky for you. Soon you’ll see Ianamus Zura.”

  Chapter 30

  Childhood ends where innocence melts away.

  Didan Navanje,

  Taurus’s Suns

  Ion Battler sat on a wicker chair and crossed his legs under the leather-skin seat. The boy’s head lay at an angle in his left hand, his elbow propped on the lab table. Ion’s gaze moved dreamily through the large, blue-tinted pane of metal glass pane, behind which three figures leaned over a long, cylindrical object. In the background, two more people sat in front of a data terminal and scanned over the information available about the subject of the investigation. It was the heavy, black cylinder at the core of the Earth jumpdrive that had been removed from the jumpship USC Getsu Fune. Ion knew almost everyone who worked in the secure working area quite well: there was his half-sister Ninu, who lived more and more in the role of a guardian of truth—at least, it seemed so. Ion wasn’t sure if he liked it or not. Ninu and Kyle Brennan, the man from Earth, were a couple: they should be together, not apart!” Ion had taken the always cheerful Brennan strictly to heart in the minute the Earthly space pilot came onboard the AP Aladna Hill. Ion suspected that his half-sister was expecting a child from Brennan. One more reason that they should stay together and not constantly pursue each other from light-jazuras away. The boy decided to speak about it with Ninu later.

  Next to Ninu Gardna sat Dr. Ruuf Vondran, the elderly astrophysicist and singularity expert. Ion respected the ever cold-seeming scientist, but didn’t like him very much. Of course, he made an effort not to let Dr. Vondran know that, but it probably wouldn’t matter to him, anyway. Above the black cylinder—the jump unit—Asaneus floated in her translucent environmental suit. In addition to the male and female sexes, in very rare cases the Boron produced a third sex, called lar. Menelaus, the revered princess of the Born Queendom, was also one of them. The lars never used the one or two syllable, playful names that were otherwise so beloved by the Boron, but instead used sonorous titles of honor; they were constantly taking on the above average roles: studying philosophy and science, or occupying high government offices. They were referred to by female pronouns and humans couldn’t distinguish them in the slightest from other Borons. Like all teenagers, Ion loved the Boron people, because they were amusing, yet studious and intelligent.

  The boy’s mouth twisted into a silent grin. The gaunt man, who had Asaneus hovering near his head, seemed distracted and moved uncertainly, as though he were about to knock over one of the expensive instruments and destroy it at any moment. But Dr. Zakk Folkna was actually one of the most capable space engineers in the Argon Federation. He held numerous patents on advanced propulsion systems, including a reactionless space drive! Not many children could acquire a taste for Dr. Folkna, but Ion liked him with all his heart, because the scientist always knew something interesting to tell him from current research and was never condescending to him. Zakk took a step back and half-turned to exchange a few words with the beautiful Dr. Siobhan Inja Norman.

  Ion had only seen Dr. Norman once up to now, namely upon her arrival, even though the long-lived astrophysicist had been in the temple for nearly two Wozuras. Of course, Ion didn’t visit the materials lab everyday, but only occasionally in Ninu’s company, when she was informed about the state of the research on behalf of the Supreme Guardian. Usually, it annoyed Ion that the scientists didn’t want to let him into the secured area and he had to wait outside the blue window every time. Veithman Wolsh, the AP Aladna Hill’s ship’s engineer, never acted so fussy when it came to a stroll through the engine room of his ship! But since he could encounter Dr. Norman and admire her from afar, the boy didn’t mind.

  She looked really cool! Thin and tall and with long, blue hair that fell down her back in a ponytail. He tried to imagine what she was wearing under her gray lab coat and how her hair would look when she took the absurd hairnet that everyone had to wear here.

  Ion was startled out of his daydreams when a sudden jolt went through the small group behind the blue metal glass pane. Dr. Vondran and Ninu jumped back hastily, and the remaining scientists took a giant step back almost as one, and looked at the black cylinder of the jump unit in surprise. Alarmed, the boy slid out of the wicker chair to step closer to the glass. Inside, words were being exchanged excitedly, but of course he couldn’t hear what was being said from the outside. What happened in there?

  Shock spread across their faces as thick, gray clouds of smoke billowed. Now Ion recognized that a faint halo had formed around the black cylinder. The appearance resembled a milky film or a very close-fitting energy screen. There, where the jump unit touched the workbench, the light dug its way through the rugged material, evaporating it and causing even more smoke. The strange energy field began to pulsate. And became more intense and continued to expand in small, jerky bursts. Eventually, the front end of the cylinder slid through the dissolving workbench. For a moment, the long and massive object hung between the work surface and the floor. Small trickles of molten metal rushed down its sides and began to bubble where they touched the field again.

  Behind Ion, a siren howled loudly. The boy looked around anxiously: he had to go in, had to help his sister and Dr. Norman! He raced over to the terminal and demanded that the lock to the security room be opened, but the computer stubbornly ignored him. Ion had to watch helplessly as the rear end of the cylinder-shaped jump unit now slid through the glowing workbench and so much material went up in smoke that he could no longer even catch a glimpse of the trapped scientists.

  The dense fog in the secured area cleared for a fraction of a sezura with a mighty implosion-like countermovement like a vortex, as if someone in the room had pulled the plug out of a drain. All the offshoots of the plumes of smoke moved at the same time, as if by command, streaming forward, coming back, whirling into the blackish gray patterns of a descending storm cloud. Small beads of glowing material penetrated through the smoke, squirting on the metal glass pain with a loud chang and freezing into bizarre patterns. The computer had obviously switched off artificial gravity. Its next measure would certainly be to erect a strong energy field around the room. Maybe this had already happened!

  Ninu! How was his sister supposed to be able to get out without being able to see, in the scorching heat, with dwindling air and, to make matters worth, without gravity? Ion looked around in panic, then with both hands he grabbed the chair he had sat and dreamed on only a mizura ago, drew it far back, and threw it against the pane: without any success. The chair bounced harmlessly off the metal glass without leaving so much as a scratch! The boy screamed in disappointment, raised the chair, and tried again. Again and again he struck the pane until a door slid open behind him and a woman in a gray coat as well as two uniformed security forces rushed into the antechamber of the materials laboratory.

  “Bring the boy out!” one of the uniformed men shouted in command. The woman in the coat, a scientist whose name Ion didn’t remember, nodded briefly.

  “Out!” she squealed, and grabbed Ion’s hand, but he pulled away from her grasp.

  “No! Get Ninu out of there!” he screamed. Inside the secured area, clouds of smoke billowed weightlessly, backlit by occasional reflections of light.

  “Come right now, damn it!” the woman cried, and snatched at Ion’s arms again. This time she caught him by the wrist. Reluctantly, he let himself be dragged out into the corridor.

  “Please help my sister!” Ion cried with a heavy breath as the door closed.

  “Wait here,” the woman ordered in place of an answer, then she stormed back into the laboratory. Ion barely had time to get his thoughts straight because now some scientists and Goner, startled by the alarm sirens, poured into the corridor. Excited questions flitted around in the corridor as a babble of voices arose. Several security guards arrived at the same time as the first scientists, and were busy blocking the throng of people fro
m entering the lab.

  Behind the wall came loud and threatening rumbles. Ion felt the deep rumble in his stomach and almost ran away in a buzz of panic. The ground trembled and swayed underfoot! Within a few moments the tremor increased to a full-blown quake. People cried out and fled from each other in horror. The boy was sick with fear, but he held out.

  A few sezuras later, the quaking abruptly stopped. Ion immediately tried to open the door to the lab, but the mechanism didn’t respond. After another mizura, the sirens stopped and silence broke over him. He knelt in front of the lab door and slammed his fists against it. “Ninu! Ninu!” he sobbed. One of the uniformed men pulled him gently but firmly away from the door.

  A little later, an emergency medical team arrived with biostatis equipment and hover-stretchers. Hurried words were exchanged with the security people, but Ion ignored them. After a seemingly endless amount of time, access to the laboratory was unblocked and the door opened. The boy had enough presence of mind to let the emergency medics and the security people go first, but then he ran into the room before anyone could stop him.

  The blue pane of metal glass had burst: a wide, jagged crack slanted diagonally across its entire width. In the security area behind it, the smoke still billowed, but it had already cleared considerably because no new smoke was pouring out. The workbench practically no longer existed; only a few, charred slag heaps suggested where it had been. All the equipment in the small chamber seemed to be destroyed, either shattered or licked with flame. Shrapnel made of metal, glass, and slag lay all around. There was no trace of the black cylinder the scientists had been studying: it had simply disappeared. But Ion hardly noticed the unbelievable amount of destruction in the security zone. In the antechamber, Ninu lay on the floor, her face like chalk, her breathing shallow. Dr. Norman knelt by her side. Her face was just as white and she looked drained and exhausted.

  “Unconscious. Smoke inhalation,” she said, and glanced at Ion.

  “Ninu!” Ion cried. He leaned over his half-sister, stroking her pale face, until one of the medics pulled him back and slipped an oxygen mask over the unconscious Goner. “Nothing’s going to happen to her, right? Nothing’s going to happen to her!” Ion cried, and it was less a question than a statement.

  “She was lucky again,” the medic replied curtly. He turned to the blue-haired scientist and asked if if she was in a condition to leave without the help of a hover-stretcher.

  “Oh Earth,” Ion whispered in nameless horror as his gaze fell on a charred figure being carried out of the security zone by uniformed men. The silhouette was that of Dr. Vondran. The old singularity expert hadn’t made it in time to get to the lock to the antechamber. A little while later, the scorched and busted membrane of the Boron was recovered. Lar Asaneus was also dead.

  Chapter 31

  I have a dream, that one tazura the colleagues of the Community of Planets and the egg-brothers and egg-sisters from Ianamus Zura will come to the muddy hills of our mutual planet in friendship, and sit down with each other—and for each other—and continuously rediscover the breathtaking beauty of the Aurora.

  Inalamas Samolodes Sumirasos VII,

  Elected Administrator of Ianamus Zura

  Nopileos stared at Elena, frozen, for a speechless moment. He noticed out of the corner of his eye that Ghinn was also watching the Earth astronaut sharply, but why she did that, he didn’t know, and at the moment he didn’t care, either. The last words of the star warrior stirred up confusion in his head. See Inanamus Zura!

  “Kho, we’re taking this barge without delay to the empire of the… a Patriarch of the Split.

  Now Nopileos also understood what Ghinn’s expression was: unconcealed anger, clear lack of comprehension over Elena’s decision. And long with that, a light also went on over his head. “Elena, you want to go there, but we really can’t…” he stammered.

  “To Ianamus Zura? Well, what course did you punch in, Nopileos?”

  “The coordinates of the next stargate, as the computer recommended.”

  “And that leads where?”

  “Ianamus Zura!” Nopileos’s eyes shined. “To Ianamus Zura!”

  Elena nodded, smiling. Although there wasn’t much legroom in this painfully cramped dinghy, she leaned back in the seat as far as she could and folded her arms behind her head.

  “I do not want to go to this place!” Ghinn t’Whht insisted with a clearly imperious undertone. She sat stiffly in her far-too-narrow seat. “I demand that they bring me to Lho-Ingtar, or at least back to Nif-Nakh.”

  “Ghinn, have you forgotten Nola Hi, Uchan, and Kalmanckalsaltt? We need to organize help as soon as possible, if we’re going to—”

  “Send a messenger drone!” Without realizing it, the former Patriarch’s wife constantly changed back and forth between the different forms of address.

  “They don’t work in the New Sectors, because…” Nopileos dared to object. Ghinn threw him a gesture that he vaguely classified as “lost voice and coughing.” “It’ll work,” he spouted through his nostrils with closed lips, and remained silent.

  “This pilot and his Paranid creature do not interest me,” Ghinn shouted loudly. She apparently didn’t feel the name of the Boron even worth mentioning. She stood halfway.

  “Be careful!” Nopileos cried, startled, as she wobbled due to the cramped space and leaned precariously against him and the control shafts. The position monitoring system corrected the dinghy’s course deviation with quietly hissing control thrusters.

  Elena didn’t know if she should just ignore Ghinn, or if it would make sense to tell the woman that she wouldn’t have found herself here on board if she and Uchan hadn’t thrown out the carefully prepared plan on Nif-Nakh. Technically speaking, Elena thought, they probably wouldn’t have even fallen into the hands of the slavers and by now would already be on their way back to the Community of Planets after a completed mission. Only rarely had she met such a self-centered person. So, by her behavior, Ghinn apparently considered this entire undertaking as being for her own private affairs.

  “Ghinn, we’re going to Ianamus Zura. There will be Teladi traders there from the Community with services that can be bought. You’ll have the opportunity to be transported to any place you desire, and we’ll find someone to bring us back to the drifting pirate ship.” She found that to be a fair reasonable suggestion.

  Ghinn suddenly screamed in range and slammed her clenched hands on the seat back and console and everything within reach. A few warning lamps flared up and the forehead ridges of the reflexively cowering Teladi grew a shade paler.

  “We are flying nonstop to Lho-Ingtar!” Ghinn screeched with a flushed face. The tall, gaunt woman had in the meantime straightened herself as far as the low cockpit of the barge would allow. Half-ducking, she reached over Nopileos, trying to grab Elena’s throat. The astronaut was faster. She effortlessly avoided the six, clawlike fingers without even having to get up. Elena was certain that she could immobilize the Split woman, who was severely hampered by her advanced state, at any time.

  If anybody had looked through the cockpit window in those moments, the would have noticed the rapidly approaching jumpgate, but no one looked.

  “Ghinn, listen to reason!”

  “Listen to reason!” Nopileos also echoed as he ducked under the brawling of the two women. Elena jumped up and banged her head on the low ceiling with a dull sound.

  “Never!” shrieked Ghinn, and that made Elena quickly lose her composure. The Earth astronaut wanted to grab Ghinn’s arms over Nopileos and tie them up—she looked around feverishly—with something, but it didn’t come to that any longer. With a long, drawn out cry of rage, the former Patriach’s wife broke off. Ghin fell back in the seat. If it was even conceivable, her skin color changed to an even paler shade of ash gray within a fraction of a sezura.

  “Ghinn? Is everything all right?”

  Outside, the stargate’s ring grew ever larger.

  “Hai,” Ghin snapped, and then remai
ned silent. Not for much longer, she thought to herself, I will not give birth to my child on a Teladi planet! Something had stirred in her, demanding, pushing for freedom.

  “We’re arriving at sector Ianamus Zura,” Nopileos said breathlessly. The tiny ship was swallowed by the swirling energy fields of the stargate.

  On board the FL Raindragon, the Teladi had already flattened his muzzle against the cockpit glass as the ship hurried across the outskirts of this mystical sector. He hadn’t see much more of the planet that gave the solar system its name than a small, white dot. Now it was different: far ahead the home planet of all Teladi slowly grew.

  No one could claim that the small barge was a paragon of speed and engine capacity, but her engines also worked unceasingly. Length by length, she crept toward the once-missing planet, the burn cutoff would be soon, and the reverse thrust would slow the barge down again relative to the position of the planet. Once-missing, Nopileos thought, who—like the two women—daydreamed his own thoughts. Ianamus Zura was only recently rediscovered. And it wasn’t just anybody who had found the planet, but Elena! Through computerized correlations between ancient star catalogs and the current maps, Elena had succeeded in finding the long-believed lost home planet, if only theoretically at that time, on the maps. At that time there had been no possibility to arrive there.

  The Teladi was startled from his reflections as the onboard computer opened a rectangular video field above the center console. He excitedly nudged the astronaut on his right. “Sister!”

  “Hm?” Elena blinked. She had actually managed to doze for a while. Her gaze shifted to Ghinn: the Split woman was awake, too, but she looked tense and weak. Then Elena’s gaze found the projection floating over the console.

  Someone was staring at them through the video field, and into the cockpit. A someone who looked very odd: over a stocky body stretched an extensive texture of drab, red blotches, with randomly distributed patterns that looked like a false color image of a spotted argnu. Everything that wasn’t red was a dark green that flashed as though polished, and was obviously a thick body crust, a natural armor with quite massive scales which formed broad ridges along each edge. Two large, right eyes shown orange above a—Elena didn’t believe it at first—royal blue muzzle, which stood halfway open in an inclined position of interest. A light pink tongue occasionally passed over the nostrils and nearby, white nictitating membranes swept over the eyes. But what left both Nopileos and Elena speechless was the fact that it was obviously a Teladi! After a while, the colorful Teladi on the video field had obviously seen enough. He inflated the scaly fin on top of his heat, which was an unmistakable sign that he was delightfully amused.