Escape from the Pipe Men!

by Mary G. Thompson

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “A Master would not imprint for a from,” said Grav-e. He turned his head toward the four standing in the doorway and barked something in their language.

  They came forward slowly.

  “I don’t understand. The Masters didn’t give it to me. I stole it. There’s nothing wrong with it.”

  “You cannot imprint.”

  “I don’t know what you mean. I didn’t do anything to it.”

  “It works for you only.”

  “No, that’s not . . . we’re just not in the passage with the portals.” I was too aware of the blackness behind me as I backed up, away from the approaching four Hottini. The cold of whatever the window was made of seeped into my back. I wondered if it was true. Did Front know enough about the calculator to make it work only for me?

  One of the four Hottini barked something to Grav-e. Grav-e responded loudly. His expression didn’t change much, but I knew it wasn’t good. Then he turned his face to me.

  “Create a map of all the tunnels.” He thrust the calculator toward me. “Trade the map for your freedom.”

  Behind him, the view suddenly changed. The blackness was gone, and the stars had come out again.

  I knew I didn’t know how to do what he wanted, but I just raised my arms up and brought them down. I stared at the calculator, which looked blank and dead.

  Grav-e stood up on all four feet again, gracefully placing each front foot into its boot. “Go,” he said. He turned back to the window. Under the black covering he wore, the outline of a tail pressed up.

  I turned to the four Hottini, who stared grimly back at me. The other one was still holding Becky tightly. “Come on, put Becky down.” This was enough. I didn’t like this at all.

  “Ryan, what’s going on?” A tear trickled down her face.

  “They want me to map the Pipe Men tunnels. They’re like the portals between our house and the zoo, the kind that always stay in one place, only they’re big enough for spaceships to fly through. I guess the Hottini don’t know where they all are. But I can’t do it! I only know how to get between the doors inside the passage.”

  “Let me go!” She started kicking again.

  Her captor barked something.

  One of the other four barked something back.

  Grav-e seemed to be ignoring us all, staring calmly out the window.

  Then the first one turned, still carrying Becky, who was still kicking. He had some trouble walking on just two legs, but in a strange clumping way, he managed to get through the doorway. The wall began to close.

  “Stop! Where are you taking it?” We couldn’t get separated. They couldn’t take her. But I couldn’t go anywhere with four of them in front of me.

  “You will make the map,” said one. “Follow.”

  That Hottini and one other headed for the door, which opened again. The space beyond them was now empty. Becky was gone.

  “Where am I going? I’m not doing anything without Becky!” I planted my feet.

  “No map, no Beck-y.” One of the Hottini wrapped a leg around my shoulders and pulled me into the elevator. The spicy odor overwhelmed me, and I gasped for breath. The Hottini slowly removed his leg and turned his head away, lifting his nose high.

  The wall closed in front of us. We were going up.

  “I’m just trying to get medicine for my parent.” I coughed. The space was too small for all of the Hottini, much less me. “I gave you what you asked for. Why are you doing this?”

  The one who had grabbed me turned back toward me. He had very light lavender eyes, and his ears lay flat over the top of his head. “Do you like to be a captive of the Masters?”

  The question put me off guard. “I didn’t know I was until this week. But you aren’t in a zoo. You can go anywhere.”

  “Without the power to use all the tunnels and make more, we have no freedom.”

  The elevator stopped, and the wall flashed open. The one who had spoken went out first, into another narrow passage.

  I followed. “So the Masters control everything. So what? You can’t take my sibling. You can’t make me do something I don’t know how to do!”

  Another one put a foot out in front of me. I tripped, and he pushed me through an open door that, in my anger, I hadn’t even noticed.

  The one who had spoken poked his head into the doorway. “We will not hurt the child.”

  Then the wall closed in front of me. I was staring at what looked like solid metal, still holding the useless calculator in my hand.

  Sixteen

  I STOOD THERE FOR what felt like minutes, staring at the door. I wanted to beat on it, but I knew it wouldn’t help. I was on a ship probably billions of miles from home, surrounded by froms who had Becky and refused to let me go unless I did something I couldn’t do. I gripped the calculator so tightly that its edges dug into my skin.

  Suddenly, I heard a humming sound.

  I jumped and whipped around. The room was not large, but there was enough space to walk. There was no furniture. In a corner, a Xaxor sat. Its body rested on the ground, all six of its legs splayed out in front of it, its top two sections leaning sadly forward. Its legs rubbed against each other.

  “Stop that! You did this! You put me here!” I wanted to punch the thing right in its three staring, grotesque eyes. But it looked so pathetic, all splayed out like that, that I just sat down on the opposite side of the room. I tried to stop the tears from coming, tried to get my mind together. I had to think of something.

  The Xaxor slowly stumbled to its feet. Unsteadily, it walked toward me. It did not have the light step they’d had before, and its eyes didn’t quite seem to focus. It reached me and dropped heavily, a mess of hair and legs. Weakly, it lifted one of the legs high and seemed to be pointing backward.

  “Whatever it is, I don’t care.”

  It kept pointing.

  I sighed and peeked over its head to see what it was pointing at. On its back, it wore a black cloak, the same as the kind the first Xaxor I’d met had been wearing. There was a slight opening in the cloak.

  “You want me to go in there?”

  The Xaxor blinked at me.

  I put the calculator down and reached over the Xaxor’s head. I hesitated before sticking my hand into the opening, but I did it. Immediately, I felt something hard and cold. I pulled it out and sat back against the wall again. It was the tablet device that we had used to communicate before.

  “Are you the same one that tricked me into going on your ship?” I put the device down in front of it.

  Laboriously, it typed the answer.

  Yes. I am sorry.

  “You’re sorry? Why, because they’re doing to you what you tried to do to me?”

  The Xaxor lowered its eyes and folded its legs inward.

  “And now you’re being nice to me again because you want my help. Well, I can’t help you! I’m trapped here just like you are. I’m supposed to use this”—I pointed at the calculator—“to map all the tunnels through space the Masters made. But I don’t know how to do it. I can’t do it. And now they have Becky and my parent’s going to die and I’m never going back to Earth. I’m probably never going to see another Earth person in my whole life!” I put my hands over my face. I just wanted to block everything out. I sat there for a while, until I felt a gentle nudging. The Xaxor was pressing the tablet against my leg.

  I can help you.

  “How? Have you ever seen one of these before?” I waved the calculator.

  No, but we avoid the Hottini. I know of more tunnels than they do. Its eyes stared at me.

  “How will they know I don’t have all the tunnels, if there are at least some on there they haven’t seen?” I said, almost to myself. “I still don’t know how we’ll get out, but if you help me, I’ll do what I can.”

  The Xaxor lifted its eyelids and stared at me. It pulled the three legs still splayed behind it toward its body. I got the feeling it was smiling.

&n
bsp; Just then, the wall opened up again. A Hottini stepped forward into the room, carrying a large tray on his back. With one foot, he swooped the tray off his back and set it on the ground. It contained what looked like a large hard-boiled egg, bigger than a basketball; a stack of dark, thick pieces of something like bread; a large bowl of water; and a rolled-up strip of Pipe Man fabric.

  The Hottini kicked the egg off the tray with one booted foot. It rolled into the opposite wall and stopped with a thump.

  The Xaxor whistled with its legs and stumbled to standing. Its legs shook, and one or two slid out from under it as it awkwardly shuffled across the floor. Upon reaching the egg, it threw itself on top of it, so that its hairy lower belly rested on the flatter side. It closed its eyes and sat perfectly still, except for a very small humming that came from two of its legs fluttering together on top of the egg’s surface.

  “You drink this.” The Hottini pointed at the stack of what looked like sliced bread.

  I walked over to the tray and picked up a slice. It was as big as a regular-sized piece of paper and about an inch thick. It felt so hard, I worried I’d break my teeth on it. I also couldn’t be sure I could eat anything that didn’t come from Earth. “Have you had any other Earth people here?”

  “Drink or starve,” said the Hottini.

  “Did you bring some to my sibling? Where are you keeping it?”

  “Drink or starve.”

  I still had my backpack with some food and water, but what if I needed it later? I couldn’t pass up a chance to eat. I bit into the bread. It was hard on the outside, but inside it was chewable, even though it was so dry I could barely swallow it. I knelt down and drank some of the water from the bowl. It tasted normal and clean.

  The Hottini reached a foot out of one boot and picked up the rolled piece of Pipe Man fabric. With a swift shake, he unrolled the fabric onto the floor. Pricks of light came on all over its surface. The Hottini reached into his boot, pulled something out, and tossed it to me.

  I caught it without thinking. It was a tightly rolled strip of fabric, pointed at the end like a pen.

  “Map,” said the Hottini. Without waiting for me to answer, he stepped backward through the door, leaving the tray of food. The wall closed in front of him.

  I glanced over at the Xaxor. The egg was only about half its original size now. It had flattened and spread out under the Xaxor, whose three eyes were still closed. I took another bite of the hard bread and sat down on the floor to look at the Pipe Man fabric with the points of light. Were they supposed to be stars? There were brighter lights and dimmer lights. Some of the dimmer lights were clustered near the brighter ones. That made me think they were planets, but I had no idea where O-thul-ba was, or where we were now.

  I retrieved the calculator from the floor where I’d left it and sat in front of the star chart. The screen was still full of random lines. I ran my finger around the outer edges, pressing parts that stuck out from the others. Finally, the grid came back. But there were no numbers on it, nothing that meant anything to me.

  I looked up to see the Xaxor moving toward me, the egg now completely gone. It was now walking without trouble, and its eyes were bright, peering at the calculator and the star chart.

  “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with it,” I said. “All I know is how to count doors. I don’t even know where we are.”

  The Xaxor reached out a long, thin leg and wrapped it around the pen, lifting it from my hand. With the pen, it tapped a point on the left side of the chart. It was one of the lighter dots, a planet.

  “Is that O-thul-ba?”

  The Xaxor shook its head, then turned the pen and pointed to itself.

  “It’s your home?”

  The Xaxor nodded awkwardly, twisting its top section as it bent it forward.

  “Okay, we might as well start there. There’s a tunnel from your planet to O-thul-ba?”

  It nodded.

  “Well, where’s O-thul-ba?”

  The Xaxor hesitated, then shook its head.

  “Do you recognize any of the other planets?”

  It typed, Near Xaxor, but none with froms. It pointed to a spot near one of the stars closest to Xaxor. The tunnel is here.

  “How do they expect me to do this if O-thul-ba isn’t even on here?”

  The Xaxor tapped the tunnel near Xaxor with the pen. A light appeared three eyes above the chart, floating in midair. The Xaxor then tapped the left edge of the chart. The picture changed. It now showed different stars, different planets. But there was no way I’d recognize any of them. The Xaxor tapped the edge again, examined the new pattern of stars, then tapped again. Finally it tapped another planet.

  “O-thul-ba?”

  It nodded.

  A light for O-thul-ba appeared above the chart.

  The Xaxor took the pen and drew a line in the air between them. As it did so, a blue line of light appeared, connecting the two points.

  “Can you mark any of the others?”

  The Xaxor nodded and tapped O-thul-ba again. One by one, it tapped other planets, some of them so far away from one another that it had to change the screen of the star chart ten, twenty, or thirty times before reaching the second point. After a while, the air was filled with blue lines and glowing lights. But all the points ended at O-thul-ba.

  “Aren’t there any others?”

  These are all we know.

  “Do you know where Earth is?”

  It shook its head.

  The wall opened up again, and two Hottini stepped through into the room. One came over to us and examined the map floating in the air. He glanced disdainfully at the calculator.

  “Only Xaxor knowledge,” he said. He turned his eyes to the Xaxor. “Does not change anything.” The Hottini turned to me. “Map the rest.” He turned around and, with his companion, disappeared back into the wall.

  “What did it mean by ‘does not change anything’?” I asked.

  It means they won’t release me. They are taking me to their home world to be punished.

  “For what? Why do they care what you did to me?”

  I’m sure they don’t care about you. They care about their pride. We insulted them by kidnapping you.

  “Are they going to put you in jail?”

  No one knows what the Hottini do. The Xaxor sat down heavily, folding all its legs beneath it, and closed two of its eyes. The third one watched the map we’d made, still floating in the air.

  “I’ll figure out some way to make this work,” I said. I didn’t know how finishing the map would help the Xaxor, but it was still my only chance of getting Becky and me to the Brocine. I ran my hand along the edges of the calculator again, pressing in every little bump.

  Seventeen

  THE SCREEN WAS LIT UP, but it was just a blank grid without any numbers. There didn’t seem to be any way to connect the grid to the points of light on the star chart.

  The Xaxor peered at it.

  It seemed like hours since any of the Hottini had been back to see us. They could come back at any minute.

  The Xaxor touched the calculator with two legs, looking up at me.

  “Go ahead, but it’s not going to work.” I let the Xaxor lift the calculator out of my hands and sat down on the floor. I took another bite of bread. It was still dry and tasteless.

  The Xaxor lifted the calculator with two delicate legs and pushed it slowly through the map hanging in the air before us. It poked my shoulder with a third leg.

  Sighing, I got to my feet again and reached out to take it. The light from the map made my hand blue. As soon as I touched the calculator, it started vibrating.

  The Xaxor turned one eye toward me. It was bouncing on the three legs that held it up.

  I had to lean forward to see exactly what was going on. The calculator’s screen was now filled with dots. Could these represent stars? If they did, I still didn’t know which one was which. Angrily, I poked at the screen. Something had to be better than nothing.

/>   Suddenly, the star chart was gone—and so was my right hand and the calculator. At least, I couldn’t see them. They were in the middle of the blackness, the door through space that had just opened in front of us.

  The Xaxor bounced and waved its legs at me, pointing toward the door.

  “That’s great, but it’s not a map of all the tunnels.”

  The Xaxor typed quickly. I have to go. This is my only chance.

  “You don’t even know where it goes to. I just poked a random spot. You might not even be able to breathe.”

  They will probably kill me. And you.

  “I can’t leave without Becky.”

  The Xaxor looked at me with all three eyes. I am sorry I tried to sell you. I wish you well.

  “Thanks. You too.”

  The Xaxor stuffed the tablet into its cloak and gave me a last look. Then it stepped into the blackness.

  Just as its last leg disappeared, the wall opened up again. Two Hottini rushed toward me. I poked the screen, hoping to shut the portal down, but nothing happened.

  One Hottini pulled his foot out of his boot and reached out for me.

  Without thinking, I tried to jump out of the way, tripped, and fell forward. I dropped the calculator and caught myself with my hands. They sank into the ground. I was not on the Hottini ship. I rolled over onto my backpack. The portal was still there.

  I looked around for the calculator and saw it a foot away, half sunk into the soft reddish-brown dirt. I grabbed it and was about to run back through when I felt something touch me. It was the Xaxor’s leg. It blinked at me.

  “I have to go back,” I said.

  It shook its head vigorously.

  “I told you, I can’t leave my sibling.”

  It shook its head again and pulled out the tablet.

  Anxiously, I eyed the door. What if it disappeared?

  The ship is moving. What if the door is no longer on it?

  “I came through after you. We came to the same place, didn’t we?” But what if the Xaxor was right? I didn’t know anything about how this worked. What if I stepped back through into empty space? I stood there staring at the Xaxor, not sure what to do. “I can’t just do nothing!”