The Space Between

by Scott J Robinson

  "I do not think it is worth the risk."

  "What are they going to do?" Kim asked. "Kill us?"

  "Perhaps."

  Maybe they would. Kim wasn't sure, but she was going to find out. She licked her lips.

  "So why do we need the alien?" Keeble asked. "I thought Dongoske said it was a human ship."

  "He did, but I want to talk to the alien and find out what the hell is going on."

  Tuki followed Kim out of the room without complaint or question. He'd probably been following women without question all his life and wasn't about to change now. Kim didn't really care if Meledrin followed at this stage, though she doubted the elf would go off on her own.

  "We need some stairs or a lift," Kim said once she was back out in the main passage. There were no doors leading directly into the hangar from this level, but there were several others on the other side of the hall. The second door contained a stairwell.

  Keeble started through. "No. We should look for the alien up here first. Come on."

  But it was just more offices and more utility rooms, so a few minutes later they made their way down to the next level. Straight away there was more activity. When Kim opened the door, she found herself face to face with the same harried woman who had almost caught them earlier. They both stared stupidly for a moment.

  Kim reacted first, grabbing her and dragging her through the door. Keeble slammed it shut behind them, hopefully cutting off her shout.

  "Shut up," Kim said, centimeters from her face. She said it in Tuki's language first then again a moment later in English, but the woman kept shouting. Kim slapped her. That did the job. Kim didn't know what she would have done next. Punching her didn't seem right. "You got any tape in that box of tricks, Keeble?"

  He did, and he put it to use binding the woman's hands and feet. Kim apologized before gagging her as well.

  Out in the hall she checked both ways then picked a direction at random. More offices. A mess hall with a tired looking soldier.

  Kim faltered, swallowed. "Ahh, was Brian here?"

  The soldier shook his head and Kim got out of there as quickly as she could.

  "Who is Brian?" Meledrin asked.

  "Don't worry about it."

  Sleeping quarters next, with the sounds of snoring. Then a blank wall.

  Back the other way, well past the end of the hangar, Kim checked another door, opening it up and poking her head through. More soldiers. And she knew immediately that she wasn't talking her way out of this one. The guards here, closer to the important stuff, were more experienced and more alert. They were on their feet in an instant, weapons drawn.

  "Put down your weapon," one of them shouted as his three companions spread out.

  It took Kim a moment to sort through the English words and work out what he was actually saying. She got the point anyway.

  "Put it down now."

  Keeble was ready to fight but Kim held him back. The guards looked serious. One of them had an edgy look that made Kim's heart pound even faster. Her finger was well away from the trigger and the safety was on. But they weren't to know that, so she slowly, carefully, did as she was asked.

  She cleared her throat. "I don't think General Hilliard is going to be very happy with us."

  "Was he ever happy?" the dwarf asked vaguely.

  "Good point," Kim replied. "It was fun while it lasted though."

  She shifted her focus past the guards to examine the rest of the room. It was big — twenty meters to a side, at least — and was full of a lot of busy looking people. There were a dozen or more scientists of one kind or another working at computers and consoles plus a couple of dozen soldiers who, until a moment ago, had been checking their equipment. Now all those serious looking men and women were starting to relax after realizing the excitement by the door was under control.

  "Brian may be amongst these people," Meledrin said softly, "but I am not sure she will be able to assist us, whoever she is."

  Kim took a moment to start thinking in English again so she could talk to the Americans. "I should probably let you know there's some lady tied up in the stairwell."

  "Jack, go and check it out. All of you, shut up and get into the corner." They shifted so Jack could slip out.

  "So what happens now?" Kim asked the Americans while trying to keep an eye on Keeble.

  Apparently that wasn't immediately obvious.

  Keeble was muttering to himself. "There's another gate through there," he said.

  "You mean the gate to the other world?" Kim said, shocked out of her nervousness. "How do you know it's there?" There were five other doors in the room, and Keeble was looking at the largest of them, on the wall opposite the hangar. It didn't look very special, apart from its size.

  "I can hear it. I can feel it." He muttered and wound the gears on his hand. "It isn't right there, there are five or six walls between us and it, but it's close."

  "You two shut up."

  "We'll put them in a cell until the General gets here. Somehow I don't think this was part of his plan."

  The leader shanghaied another couple of soldiers into his detail and led the way across the room, past a lot of curious people, to a small, metal door with a glowing green hand scanner. Beyond was a short passage, then another guardroom.

  From there, they went through another door and Kim muttered, "Great, we broke into jail."

  But, one of the three small cells held the alien prisoner.

  Kim stopped in her tracks. Keeble ran into her back. A moment later the guard was swearing. He pushed roughly, and Kim stumbled into an empty cell. She couldn't take her eyes off the alien. It was an ugly bipedal thing that was actually closer to Keeble's height than Meledrin's though the size of the armor they wore has suggested otherwise. It had rough, tough looking leathery blue-tinged skin, a flat nose, and two large brown eyes. Wearing only a pair of trousers, it stood silently in the corner of its cell, staring at the floor. "Bad science fiction," she muttered. "A humanoid alien." She'd called it ugly, but maybe it was considered gorgeous by others of its kind.

  Kim jumped when the door clanged shut. There was a hint of finality about the sound. The soldiers left them alone.

  "What do we do now?" Keeble asked. He was looking at the alien as if it were nothing more than a puzzle to be solved. Maybe it was, for now.

  Kim looked around. There wasn't much to see. One long, uncomfortable looking bench, three barred walls, and the alien. No pinball machine. No spa bath.

  Meledrin was sitting on the bench, as if preparing for a long wait. Tuki crouched on the floor by the pack, skyglass in hand. Kim tested the bars near the door. She tested the bars to the adjoining cell. They were as solid as they looked.

  She stood by the bars, looking at the alien. "Now we wait for General Hilliard."

  "But I want to go in the spaceship." Keeble looked over his shoulder. "Or see the other gate." But the gate was obviously a poor second choice.

  "Well, unless you can get us out of here in the next few minutes it isn't going to happen."

  The dwarf pursed his lips and turned to look at the stone wall. "I might be able to."

  Kim turned to look at him. "You were saying something about that before." Her mind kept twitching back to the alien, making it hard to concentrate. She wanted to talk to it. She wanted to grab it and shake it and ask it what the hell was going on.

  "I failed the Rock Singing Test. I shouldn't Sing at all."

  "What is this singing?"

  He wound the gears on his hand. "I shouldn't Sing at all."

  Kim went and crouched down before him. "Keeble, if you want to go in that spaceship we have to do it now. If General Hilliard comes down here we won't get another chance. We'll all be put in a more secure cell than this one, with guards there to watch us all the time."

  "But if I get it wrong, someone could get hurt, or die."

  "Meledrin can talk to the alien." Could she? Kim didn't stop to think about it. No time. She licked her lips. "We may
be the only people who can stop this war anytime soon, but the American's won't let us. Not because they don't want to stop the war, but because they don't understand." Kim couldn't blame them for that. She wasn't sure she understood. "We need to get out of here, Keeble."

  He looked at her, but Kim wasn't sure he really saw.

  "I shouldn't Sing at all." He wound the gears on his hand in and out, in and out, until Kim grabbed his twitching fingers.

  "I trust you, Keeble."

  Meledrin shook her head. "It is pointless. Even if we could get out of here we still must get into the space ship."

  She was right of course, but Kim didn't care. The ship was their one chance to stop the war anytime soon. And if they couldn't get into it, if there was no chance, she could at least see it. She could touch it before Hilliard turned up with his handcuffs and his questions. That would be pretty cool if nothing else. Kim held up her hand to silence the elf, but she kept going anyway.

  "The Americans have been trying to breach the hull for more than fifty years, and you think we might be able to do it in a matter of moments?"

  Kim kept her eyes locked on the dwarf's face.

  25: Song of Being

  Keeble looked at Kim. He saw hope and fear in her eyes, but he didn't see any doubt. Meledrin didn't believe he could do anything, but Kim did. She believed he could do something to help, simply because he said he could. So he nodded once and started to construct the Song in the air. He hummed the foundations carefully, making sure everything was right, before building it up with a wordless, dancing cadence, and sealing the joints with a series of clicks. When it was all there, he kept it going perfectly, all of the sounds combining like the stones of the mountains, or the water of a stream. He could feel the power washing through him.

  After he had been Singing the completed Song for a few seconds, Keeble started to change it again, condensing it, whittling away the edges, honing it until it was focused tightly at one small section of wall.

  He stepped forward. He reached out towards the focus of his Song. And paused.

  Keeble looked at his metal hand. He could feel the power of his Song, but still he doubted. He glanced towards the others. They probably couldn't feel anything, but they watched him and trusted that he would do something. Kim and Tuki trusted.

  Keeble returned to the rhythm of his Song, making sure all the elements were still in place, making sure he was still focusing on the stone in front of him. He reached forward, and his mechanical hand passed into the wall. Then his arm, up to the elbow. He could feel the stone there, mist on his skin, and the Song was like a mountain in his mind.

  But he remembered how he'd lost his hand. He'd been in the Testing Chamber, Singing. He'd felt his Song, like he did now, but still he had faltered and the Song had died. It had died with his hand still in the wall.

  Keeble tried to calm himself with another deep breath. He had lost his hand inside the wall. That proved he could Sing, didn't it? His hand was in the stone now, and still the Song continued.

  "Holy shit."

  He turned to see Kim staring.

  "Holy shit."

  "I've passed through one gate," he said, shaping the Song around his words, "and I can still hear that other one. They've helped make my Song stronger."

  Kim snapped her mouth shut and blinked. "Right. Ummm. So we can just walk through, can we?"

  He changed the rhythm slightly then nodded.

  "I cannot just walk through stone," Meledrin said. Keeble had almost forgotten she was there. "It is not possible."

  And Tuki, too. He was standing on the far side of the room, clutching his crystal ball like it might somehow save him. This was not quite the escape he had expected.

  Keeble turned back to Meledrin. "It is possible," he said, and he stepped through the wall to prove it. Even as he did it, his heart raced, but the Song remained strong. He was in a small office with two desks and bookshelves that covered most of one wall.

  A few seconds later, Kim pushed him aside as she stepped through, dragging Tuki by the arm. Meledrin came through a moment later but didn't look pleased.

  "We need to get the alien," Kim said.

  "Are you sure?"

  "Positive."

  So Keeble shifted the focus of his Song to the left and entered the alien's cell. He didn't even consider how the creature might react to his reappearance. The Song made extraneous thoughts difficult.

  The alien held up its hands to cover its eyes and cowered away.

  "Hello," Keeble said around his Song.

  The only response was more cowering. Keeble, though reluctant to ask a dwife for help, was about to call out to Kim when he noticed she was already standing by his side. She didn't waste any time with talk. Crossing the room she grabbed the alien by the arm and tried to pull it towards the hole in the wall. But, apparently, if the alien didn't want to go somewhere it was going to take more than one dwife to make it.

  Kim swore. "Mel, get in here and tell it what we're trying to do."

  "It is not that easy," Meledrin replied from the other room.

  "Yeah, I know. Without a context it's difficult to even start." Kim looked around the cell as if for inspiration. She grabbed the alien again and tried to pull its hand away from its face. "Keeble, help me."

  "I need to concentrate."

  "Right. Tuki."

  The moai, looking very nervous, poked his head through the wall, as if being half in was safer than going all the way through. "Yes, mo'shi?"

  "Move this guy's hands away from his face for me."

  Tuki didn't look comfortable with that idea either, but stepped forward to do as asked. He towered over the creature but struggled, teeth gritted, to make it move at all. For ten seconds it looked as if it had turned to stone. Finally, Kim smiled at the alien and beckoned it after her.

  "[Hey, what the hell is going on?]" There was an American standing outside the cell. He didn't look happy.

  Keeble looked from the guard, to the alien, to the hole in the wall, which couldn't really be seen anyway. He knew he should be worried but merely stayed where he was and sang his Song.

  Fumbling with his keys, the dwarf outside called for help. At that moment, the alien seemed to decide who its friends were. Showing as much emotion as an elf, it followed Kim and Tuki through the gap into the next room. The American, keys forgotten, was staring with his mouth open. Keeble smiled around his Song, waved, and went through as well.

  Back in the office, Kim already had the door open and was looking out into the hall. "We've got to find the door to the hangar," she said. "We've got a couple of minutes at most."

  "Why can't we just go through the wall?" Keeble asked. "The ship is in the next room."

  "Are you sure?"

  He nodded. Of course he was sure. He'd seen the room so he knew the dimensions perfectly. He also knew exactly how far they had walked since leaving the viewing room. Since starting to Sing his Song, he was thinking much clearer than he had in a long time. "The wall is one meter thick, and the ship is ten meters beyond that."

  "Well, tell us when you're right."

  "Move the shelf. I can't sing through metal and books."

  "Right."

  The alien was as bad as Tuki, standing by passively while Kim spent a second trying to move a shelf before giving up and simply toppling it onto the floor.

  Keeble punched his Song at the wall as he heard the door opening. He went through the hole with the others on his heels. The moment they were all safe, he shut off the Song with a snap that was almost painful. He didn't notice though, because the ship was right there. It was bigger up close than it looked from the room above but was still a bit disappointing if it was meant to fly between the stars. Dwarves had made steam trains that were bigger. He started to do a lap around it, examining the hull, running his fingers over the rough surface.

  "What is the next course of action?" Meledrin asked. "As was previously pointed out, the Americans have been trying to gain entry to the vess
el for some years. You can not expect to succeed in the next few minutes where they have failed."

  "That bit there is stone," Keeble said. He knew it as soon as he saw it, though the small square section didn't look any different to the rest. It was on the side of the ship right next to another recessed panel, 2.6 meters to a side. "It's the densest, toughest stone I've ever seen, but it's stone."

  "Which bit," Kim asked.

  As Keeble pointed it out, he started his Song again, building it quickly. By the time Kim arrived at his side it was filling his mind. He climbed up on the scaffolding and slipped his hand into the stone.

  "It's an access panel like they have in planes and elevators." She probably didn't know what he was talking about. He'd have to explain. "They let you get to equipment and machinery in the walls."

  "I get it, Keeble."

  "There's a handle." He turned the handle and the large panel slid silently upwards.

  Kim's mouth was hanging open again. Meledrin and Tuki had come to see. The alien was hanging back near the wall.

  "That was easy," Keeble said.

  A pile of metal crates blocked half the doorway.

  "Easy for someone who can stick his hand in solid stone, maybe."

  Keeble saw Kim take a deep breath before sticking her head inside to have a look. It seemed she had walked through the stone with less trepidation. Either way, he decided, she did show a remarkable amount of courage and decisiveness for a dwife. She was almost like a dwarf. Almost.

  "Alrighty then. All aboard, I guess, before somebody else turns up."

  Keeble nodded and went inside while Kim went to talk to the alien, as if that was going to do any good. The crates occupied a storage compartment 2.8 meters high and three meters square. It was neat and tidy and everything was secure. Keeble gave a nod of satisfaction.

  "Are you able to move further, Keeble?" Meledrin asked from close behind. "If not, then all our struggles will have been for naught."

  Keeble grunted but walked into the room. Meledrin followed close behind, and when Tuki came in as well, the room seemed to halve in size.

  There were a dozen access panels to the rear of the ship and another door leading forward. After a moment of hesitation Keeble headed for the door and found himself in the driver's cabin, the cockpit. There were two chairs and hundreds of screens and controls. He reached out and pressed some buttons at random and gripped the edge of the panel, choosing the next button while he waited for something to happen. Nothing happened. Inside the ship, anyway.