Escape from the Pipe Men!

by Mary G. Thompson

  You can open a door to one of the Brocine planets. If that machine can open doors, you don’t need the Hottini.

  “But I don’t know how to do it! I just punched a random spot.”

  We have time to work on it.

  “Do we? They have my sibling! Is there nutrition here? Is there water? Are there any round white things for you to drink? We don’t even know where we are!” I shouted the last line in English, not caring if it understood me.

  “Don’t you recognize my home?”

  I spun around, searching for the voice.

  The Xaxor turned its head, flitting its eyes this way and that.

  “I am not here. You are on the opposite side of Frontringhor.”

  “Front?”

  “Has the Earth been here?” said a different voice.

  I stared at the Xaxor. “Did you speak?”

  It stared back. “I thought.”

  “You think in English?”

  “What is English?”

  “I am translating,” said Front’s voice in my head. It didn’t sound quite like the physical voice that I remembered. It was more clear, less deep.

  I was looking away from the door now, out into the landscape. There were clouds, but it was much lighter than it had been near Front’s cave. The landscape was even more uniform, a seemingly endless expanse of the same soft dirt we were standing in. A few tall, thin trees with a few twisted branches stood here and there.

  “Front! How did we get here? How can I get back on the ship?”

  “You have found my escape hatch. I set it to return here in case you were in danger.”

  “Is it safe to go back through?”

  “It is safe, but—”

  The Xaxor let out a shrieking hum.

  I spun around and saw half of a Hottini. His head and front legs were on Frontringhor, but the rest of him was still in blackness.

  “Go back!” I cried.

  Instead, he jumped through and tackled me. The Xaxor sprang onto the Hottini’s back, and the Hottini growled, pulled one foot out of his boot, and grabbed the Xaxor. With one strong tug, he wrenched the Xaxor off his back and hurled it, sending it flying like a football, screeching.

  The Hottini wrapped me up with his front legs and lifted me right off the ground, standing straight up on two feet, then pulled me backward into the blackness.

  I kicked it.

  Then, with a growl, it dropped me. I landed with my face in the soft dirt.

  “It is a one-way door,” said Front’s voice.

  “Who said that?”

  I rolled over, coughing the dirt out of my mouth, to find the Hottini glaring regally down at me.

  In the distance, the Xaxor was limping back toward us, holding one leg close to its body.

  The Hottini glared at me. “Open the door back.”

  “I don’t know how.”

  He closed the two feet between us and stuck his nose up against mine. The spicy smell was distinctly pungent, and the anger in his purple eyes made me turn my face away.

  “I really don’t know. I want to get back, too! You have my sibling.”

  “You got here somehow.”

  “It was an accident.”

  “You!” the Hottini shouted. “Xaxor! Undo this!”

  “Eat my eyelids,” said the Xaxor.

  The Hottini shot a look at me. “How is it talking?”

  I shrugged, not sure what Front wanted me to say.

  “Since we are all here,” said Front, “I would like us all to understand each other.”

  The Hottini took a step backward and looked around.

  “Tast-e, member of the Hottini guard, meet Ryan, a boy from the O-thul-ban zoo, and one of the Xaxor, a species that does not give names.”

  “I know all about the Xaxor.” Tast-e glared at it, and the Xaxor glared back.

  “Front, I have to go back for Becky! Please help us get back to the Hottini ship!”

  Tast-e looked around him, still trying to find the source of the strange voice. “Are you responsible for this? Where are you?”

  I held the calculator in front of me. “Tell me what to do to get back to the ship!” I was almost ready to cry. The ship was getting farther and farther away from where we’d left it.

  “It is all right, Ryan. The calculator will take you where you need to go. It remembers every place where it’s been activated.”

  “It’s not all right. They could be hurting her now that I’m gone. I have to get back!”

  “No one is going to hurt the child,” said Tast-e.

  “That’s so reassuring, coming from you,” I snapped.

  The Xaxor limped closer to Tast-e, glaring up at him.

  “Look, whoever you are. We’re all in agreement that we must go back to the ship,” said Tast-e.

  The Xaxor glared and shook its head vigorously.

  “Well, everyone who matters agrees.”

  “You will have to wait a short time. I would like to see Ryan again. Please hold the calculator up, Ryan.”

  I lifted it up so I was staring at its face. The screen was glowing, but it was blank.

  “Press the upper right-hand corner.”

  I did, and a series of date and time notations appeared, in Pipe Man script.

  “The time stamps mark the places where the calculator has been activated. The Hottini ship will be the most recent.”

  “Oh, thank you!”

  “The calculator was last activated on my side of Frontringhor at 18:16, day 186.”

  I scrolled down a few screens and found the time and day Front was talking about. Finally, something that made sense. I glanced at the Xaxor. “Front wants me to go see him. Will you be all right here?”

  The Xaxor glared up at Tast-e. “This thing will behave, or it is not getting a ride back to its ship.”

  I looked pointedly at Tast-e. “That’s right. If you hurt the Xaxor again, I’ll leave without you. Whatever it is you doggies drink, I doubt it grows here.”

  Tast-e said nothing, but sat down carefully on his haunches, staring calmly ahead. Probably, he didn’t know what doggies were.

  “Good. Okay, Front, here I come.” I pressed the time stamp. Sure enough, a door of complete blackness appeared in the air in front of me. I nodded at the Xaxor and stepped through.

  Eighteen

  I WAS OUT IN THE SWAMP AGAIN, between the two caves we’d been in before, but it was dark here, so I could only see by starlight. Both of Front’s heads stood a foot in front of me. All five antennae leaned forward, close enough to touch me. Both mouths were even across the faces, not smiling or frowning. The necks stretched out behind each head, followed by bodies going so far back that, in the dark, I couldn’t see where they connected.

  Then both mouths turned up in smiles. “It’s good to see you again, Ryan,” the head on the left said. The head on the right just smiled at me, not moving. “But tell me, how did it come that you needed to escape?”

  I told him about how the Xaxor had kidnapped us and the Hottini had rescued us, only to lock us up and insist that I use the calculator to help them. I hesitated, trying to figure out how to tell him that I’d actually tried to give away the calculator. I forgot that Front was telepathic.

  “It is all right, Ryan,” said Front. “You thought you had to do it.”

  “I didn’t know it could actually open a portal,” I said. I hung my head, not able to look at him. I wanted to ask him why he didn’t tell me, but I knew. I’d been in such a hurry to leave the first time. “Did you really set it up so I’m the only one who can use it?”

  “It seemed safer that way. In case it falls into the wrong hands.”

  “Wouldn’t it be better if everyone could open portals instead of just the Pipe Men?” I asked.

  “If everyone could come to Earth and kidnap its people? If everyone could strip primitive planets of resources?” Front spoke with his left-side head, which smiled, but the right-side head frowned, its three antennae drooping.


  I hadn’t thought about that. “But how did you even know how to make it only work for me? The Pipe Men wouldn’t teach you that.”

  The smile on the left-side head grew bigger. “I understand bok better than the Pipe Men. Someday when we have more time, I will explain it all.” The right-side head smiled a little. Then the left-side head spoke again. “I would have taught you how to make a portal, but I did not want to put you in danger. It was not time.”

  “I’m in danger now! Please, teach me how we can get to the Brocine planets. And then home!”

  “I will teach you. But you cannot give the calculator away.”

  “Why does it matter, if no one else can use it?”

  “They can take it apart,” said the right-side head, its mouth straight and grim. Two of its three antennae reached out toward me. “They must not learn what is inside it.”

  “All right,” I said. “I won’t give it to them.” I would really have to find a way to escape the Hottini now. “Please, tell me how to get to one of the Brocine planets, and how to do it fast, because I’m going to have to grab Becky and run.”

  Front reached out one antenna from its left-side head and tapped me lightly on the chest. “I will not let anything happen to you or Becky if I can help it. Here is what you need to do. Your calculator has never been to the Brocine native system. This means you will have to calculate the point in space.”

  I stared down at the calculator. It was showing a blank grid.

  “The calculator draws on the essence of bok. At its core, bok is life. The Brocine systems are a concentrated burst of life. They live far from here, but once you are onboard the Hottini ship, you will be much closer. You will find the Brocine where there is the largest concentration of froms within billions of miles. Run your finger under the calculator, top left corner to bottom right.”

  I did it, and the screen lit up with dots. Some were bright, but others were so dim that they were barely there.

  “Brush from left to right over the middle of the screen to change the picture.” Front cocked both heads, and both smiled.

  “The biggest dot?”

  The left-side head nodded. “There will be many large dots, concentrated in a cluster. The very largest dot will be Brock itself, the main Brocine planet. This is all I have time to teach you now. But one thing is very important. When you are ready to leave Brock, you must not go by spaceship. No matter what happens, you must use the calculator to open a portal.”

  “Why?”

  “I will explain everything someday. Please trust me,” said Front, “and promise.”

  It seemed like the best idea anyway. “I promise. Thank you, Front!” I reached down and threw my arms around both heads together.

  One of Front’s antennae tapped my head. “Good luck, Ryan. Come back whenever you need to.”

  “I will, thank you.” I looked behind me. The door from the other side of the planet was still there, but around it, I could just see the entrance to one of the caves in the starlight. I knew there was a portal in there, one that would take me close to home. But I couldn’t go back yet. What if I couldn’t go back at all?

  “The future will not be what you expect,” said Front, reading my mind.

  “I know.” I tried to shake it off.

  “Go safely,” said Front, beginning the traditional Pipe Man goodbye.

  “And hold your eyes still,” I finished. I took one last look at Front, whose heads were now both smiling at me, then stepped into the portal.

  Nineteen

  THE XAXOR WAS STANDING IN FRONT of Tast-e, almost close enough to touch the Hottini with its eyeballs. It was still holding one of its legs against its body. As I stepped through the portal, the Xaxor turned one eye to look at me.

  Tast-e took a few long seconds to continue glaring at the Xaxor, then turned his head slowly. “Well, have you learned how to get off this wretched planet?”

  The Xaxor rubbed its legs furiously, causing a screeching hum. It turned a second eye to me.

  “So you agree on something now?”

  Both froms glared at me, without taking their eyes off each other.

  “I can’t stay here, but I’m not going back to that ship either,” said the Xaxor.

  “You can come with me,” I said, “but we have to go back to the ship first. Once we get out of there safely, we’ll figure out how to send you home.”

  The Xaxor turned its middle eye back toward the Hottini, then blinked at me with the single eye still facing me.

  “And you’re not going to stop us,” I said to Tast-e.

  He slowly turned his full glare toward me.

  “I don’t have to take you back with me,” I said.

  “I doubt you have learned how to close the portal behind you.”

  “Press the same button again,” said Front’s voice in my head.

  “I know more than you think I know,” I said, standing up as tall as possible. “If you try to stop us, I’ll send you back here, or someplace worse. I once went to a planet with no air.”

  Tast-e slowly raised himself to all four feet, much more gracefully than expected from something that looked like a blue dog. He left the Xaxor and walked right up to me, almost pressing his nose against mine. “My fellows would hunt you down.”

  I shoved the calculator in between my face and his and pressed the right-hand corner, too hard. The time stamps appeared on the screen. I pressed the one for the Hottini ship.

  The Hottini’s purple eyes widened, and then his whole body was replaced by blackness.

  “Maybe it’s lost in space,” said the Xaxor, limping over to me.

  “Yeah, maybe.” I doubted it. That would be too good to be true.

  The Xaxor pointed all its eyes at me. “Before I lose the ability to speak to you, shall we talk about a plan?”

  “I’m going to act like I really know how to use this thing and I could send any one of them to some far-off planet, like what I did to Tast-e just now. You just stick by me and act like you believe it.”

  “Well thought out.”

  “And your plan to sell me to the highest bidder worked out great. You have something better?”

  The Xaxor hung its head over its middle section.

  “I didn’t think so.”

  It looked up at me. “It was nice talking to you.”

  “Yeah.” I turned and looked around at the barren landscape. “Thank you, Front. I’ll be back to see you when I can.”

  “Hold your eyes still, Ryan.”

  “You too.”

  The Xaxor was looking down again.

  “Hey, it’s okay. I forgave you already for all that. Just stick by me and act like I know what I’m doing, okay?”

  “Okay.” It held out a leg toward the portal, waving me forward. I stepped through.

  The room was full of Hottini. Tast-e was standing in front, his mouth curled into a smile. The Xaxor’s top section and three legs appeared through the blackness of the portal. It hesitated for a second, then stepped all the way through.

  I pressed the same spot again. With a slight whoosh of air, the portal closed behind us. I held the calculator up and gave Tast-e my best sure-of-myself look.

  “Take me to Becky! Or I’ll open another one right in your face. And you don’t want to know where you’ll be going.”

  Nobody moved.

  “Then bring Becky here!” I yelled, waving the calculator at them.

  A door in the wall flashed open, and I heard a giggle. I couldn’t believe what I saw. There was Becky, looking happy as ever, sitting right on top of Grav-e’s back, clutching his black cloak like a rein.

  The other Hottini looked just as surprised as I was. Even Tast-e lost all interest in me as he stared at Grav-e, who stared back at all of us with a slight smile.

  “It asked to ride,” he said.

  There was complete silence as Grav-e bent at his knees, allowing Becky to clamber off.

  She ran toward me. “Ryan!”

  I grabbed he
r and hugged her, then pushed her away, looking at her up and down. She seemed okay, if a little dirty, and she was smiling.

  “They made me eat stale crackers, but then we played hopscotch.”

  “These guys played hopscotch?”

  “They hop on one leg better than I do!”

  “Okay, that’s nice, Becky, but you have to listen to me. We’re not going to stay with them. We’re going to go now. You have to just trust me and follow me, okay?”

  “Can we take one of the doggies with us?” She turned and flashed a smile at Grav-e.

  Grav-e had recovered his regal air and was now glaring lasers at us with his deepest purple eyes. The other Hottini had formed a half circle around us and were moving slowly forward.

  The Xaxor tapped lightly on my back with one leg.

  I ran my finger underneath the calculator like Front had showed me. The dots appeared. Quickly, I found the biggest one and pressed it.

  Grav-e barked in their language, just as a portal appeared between them and us.

  Before I could say anything, Becky jumped through it. I jumped after her. She screamed. I hit my head on something and fell to my knees. I tried to stand and hit my head again. Everything was dark. I reached out and felt Becky’s leg.

  “It’s okay, don’t worry, we’ll figure out where we are.”

  The Xaxor’s body pressed against my back. Its legs were flailing. I had barely moved at all and realized it could still be half inside the portal.

  “Becky, can you crawl forward? Don’t worry, we’re on a Brocine planet. They’re going to help us.” I hoped it was true. They certainly weren’t expecting us to show up this way.

  “Okay.” She was sniffling a little, but she moved forward.

  I followed, still keeping a grip on her leg.

  The Xaxor wrapped a leg around my neck. I had to get the portal closed. I punched at the calculator, and it lit up, showing the same screen as before. I twisted my head around, wrapped in the Xaxor’s leg, and saw that its third section was missing and its middle section was stretching painfully into the blackness.

  “Hang on, I’m closing it!” I pressed the largest dot again.