The Skirni again: “Do not concern yourself; Pokt knows… around a starship… will achieve access… deliver the nexus… And all Skirni… have their reward… justice...”
Then she lost all traces of the conversation as it blended into the churning sea of chattering voices. She fought to find it again, made herself reach out through the confusion and noise, searching, straining. But it was no use.
“…mistress?” A new voice. Closer. Clearer. “Can you hear me ?” Unusual accent. Female.
Abruptly, the strange sensations drained away from Zenn, the hundred voices went silent, vision returned – she was leaning against the wall of the hall, near the exit. She must have been “gone” for just a second or two.
“Are you unwell?” It was a Fomalhaut; yes, the Skirni’s slave, concern lining her face, one hand on Zenn’s shoulder.
“I’m OK,” Zenn said, pushing away from the wall, trying to clear her head. “It was just… a dizzy spell. I’m fine now.”
“I am pleased to hear it. For I come to you in my master’s name,” the slave said, her crescent eyes looking off into the corridor. “I am called Carm Sivit. And I bear a message to you.”
“Yes?” Zenn said, her thoughts still clouded, unable to imagine what Thrott’s slave could possibly want.
“I am to say: forgive me, mistress, for disturbing you,” the Fomalhaut said, eyes now cast down. She raised her head, gave Zenn a quick look of pained misery, looked away again, and began speaking very rapidly, hardly stopping for breath. “Master Thrott’s Encharan slug – the one you saw – it has been injured, grievously injured in a fight. My master beseeches you humbly to come at once and attend to its wounds which consist of deep slashes to vital organs. It will surely die if you do not come. My master states he will pay extravagantly for your services. Please do not allow this innocent animal to perish by refusing to come. My master thanks you.”
In her shaken state, Zenn had to concentrate to comprehend the Fomalhaut’s words.
“The slug… it’s hurt? How long ago?”
The slave started in again on her memorized speech. “Master Thrott’s Encharan slug – the one you saw–”
“If it’s wounded… I’ll have to come.” Inside the room, she saw that the Alcyons had given up harassing Cleevus and had gone off into the crowd. “But I’ll need to go get my field kit.”
“Yes. Thank you. Quickly, please, mistress.”
At Jules’s cabin, Zenn changed out of her costume, checked on Katie – sound asleep on her bunk – and then hurried back into the corridor, where Carm Sivit waited.
On their way to Thrott’s cabin, Zenn tried to organize her scattered thinking enough to extract further details about the slug’s condition. But between the aftereffects of her link with the mudlark and the slave’s near-panic, she could learn nothing new. The distressed Fomalhaut would only repeat her earlier words about deep wounds to vital organs. Zenn realized Thrott must have seen Jules at the party and deduced that it was her with him. Maybe he’d been at the dinner in order to arrange a fight with another animal owner. That would explain the slug being wounded. Apparently, he was willing to forgive her earlier behavior, at least when his prize slug was at risk. She would make sure he promised no more fights as a condition for her services.
They stopped in front of a cabin door.
“The animal… is inside,” the Fomalhaut said, motioning for Zenn to enter.
Zenn had just stepped into the room when the slave’s voice stopped her.
“My master Thrott,” Carm Sivit said, eyes down, in a voice so low Zenn had to strain to make out her words. “He… holds my family in bondage. I must do all that he says or they perish. I wish you to understand this.”
“But, that’s terrible, can’t you go to the authorities and–”
“No. I am sorry. I am so sorry,” Carm said, her voice a pained cry. Then she toggled the outer door switch, and it hissed shut.
The interior was so dim Zenn couldn’t make out any details. Moving further inside, she told the lights to turn themselves up, but nothing happened. She turned and told the door to open. No response. She went to the wall, flicked the manual override, still no lights. And the door also refused to respond.
“Master Thrott?” she said, setting her pack down on a chair. “Your servant said the slug was injured. Hello?”
A faint sound came from a dark corner of the room: a liquid, rasping intake of breath. Zenn squinted into the shadows.
“Thrott? Are you there?”
There was movement at the back of the room and a soft sputtering sound. A shape lifted itself up beyond a table, emerging into the scant light. The Encharan slug. It was… out of its cage! The creature’s broad muzzle swung slowly to and fro. Had it picked up her scent? She kept still and held her breath.
Keeping her eyes fixed on the slug, she then risked a step backward and felt behind her, hands searching for the manual door switch. She found it, toggled it frantically. Again, nothing happened. The slug’s eyestalks extended, raising the weak eyes upward, where they slowly panned across the room. Panic flooding through her, Zenn gauged the distance to the cabin’s nearest high point – a shelf running along one wall. If she could reach it in time, it might let her get out of the slug’s striking distance.
She eased her foot back until it contacted the door behind her, braced herself to make a run for it. The eyestalks swiveled, catching the motion. With an ear-splitting, high-pitched squeal, the slug reared and fell forward, toxic slime splattering off its body as it humped toward her.
Zenn sprang for the shelf, reached it, hands scrabbling to gain a grip on the smooth metal. Would it hold her weight? She hurled herself up, rolled her body onto it, knocking books to the floor, felt the impact of the slug hitting the wall beneath her. She forced herself into the small space, barely able to hold herself in place.
Below, the slug raised itself, its boneless form narrowing, extending, reaching up towards her. It was just inches away. Now, the barbed ribbon of the slug’s radula-tongue shot out from the oral opening, scraping on the shelving beneath her, leaving deep gouges in the metal where it struck. The radula slid out again, hit the shelf – and stuck, embedded in the surface. The slug pulled its radula back into its mouth. It was hoisting itself up, its entire weight coming off the floor. It was climbing up to get at her.
Zenn realized she couldn’t stay where she was. There was nothing else to be done: she pushed away from the wall, threw herself off the shelf and into the air. Passing just over the suspended slug, she landed hard and came up against the front of a table. She dove through the opening between its legs and turned to see the slug release its grip on the shelf and drop to the floor. It hit with a fleshy splat opposite her, re-oriented itself, eyestalks fully extended, the head waving back and forth.
The head stopped waving – it had spotted her. It heaved itself into motion, snorting and gurgling, wet body slapping hard on the floor as it came.
Zenn looked around frantically. No. There was no other place to hide. She was trapped. She turned again toward the door where she’d entered. Even if she could reach it, it was jammed. Then, she saw – the door… was open! Yes, she could see into the corridor beyond.
With no time even to stand, she scrambled madly backwards on all fours, crab-style. The slug slid around the corner of the table, zeroed in on her and pursued, squealing, the spiked radula sawing in and out. But the door was too far. She’d never make it.
“Get down.” A man’s voice, booming behind her. “Down, now!” She obeyed, dropped to the floor, drew her body into a ball, covered her exposed face with her arms and waited for the feel of slashing spikes and burning acid.
The sound of the onrushing slug filled her ears. It would be on top of her in another second. Then a shocking blaze of blue-white light filled the room, a sensation of searing, concentrated heat rippled through the air inches above her and a short, sharp animal shriek was followed by the sound of a something big and wet hitting the f
loor next to her.
Zenn lifted her head. The front of the slug’s body lay six inches away. The creature was dead, a steaming, oozing stump of flesh where its head had been. Turning, she saw a figure silhouetted in the doorway. It wore a red soldier’s jacket and held a flux-pistol in one hand. A wisp of smoke curled into the air from the gun’s faintly glowing tip.
Later – Zenn wasn’t sure how much later – she was out in the corridor, sitting on a bench set into the bulkhead. Someone had draped a blanket around her shoulders. Jules had arrived and had located a cup of hot tea for her. He stood over her now, fidgeting nervously, and, for once, apparently speechless.
A short distance away, Stav Travosk spoke in low tones to Captain Oolo. “I overheard two of the stewards talking. Something about a disturbance on this deck. I… thought I’d investigate.”
“Well, a lucky thing you came along, Lieutenant,” the Captain said. “Wouldn’t you agree, Novice Bodine? Lucky the lieutenant came along?”
“Yes. Lucky,” Zenn said, forcing a smile, her emotions jumbled. The young lieutenant had dropped the slug in mid-lunge. Obviously, the man had just saved her life. But the animal hadn’t attacked her out of malice; it did what came naturally to a creature bred to fight, trained to attack. Instead of feeling glad to be alive, she felt sick to her stomach.
“Sure you’re not hurt?” Stav asked her, his piercing look now edged with concern.
“No, I’m OK,” she said, her voice still wavering. She added, almost inaudibly, “I just wish… you didn’t have to kill it.”
“Not much of a choice,” Stav said. “It was almost on top of you. You could have been badly hurt. Worse.” He regarded her for a few seconds. “You really do have a… special feeling for creatures like this, don’t you? For creatures in general. I suppose it goes with the territory. Being an exovet.”
She nodded, let her eyes stray to the slug’s smoking carcass, then looked quickly away.
“I don’t see how it could have gotten loose.” The Captain craned his long neck to peer into the cabin. “Guest Thrott would have been apprised of ship’s regulations regarding the transport of dangerous animals.” The Captain shook his head, turned to Stav. “Thank the gods you came along when you did. If the creature had escaped into the passageways, there’s no calculating the damage it could have caused.”
“Just lucky, like you said,” Stav replied.
“Guest Bodine, I apologize again for this entirely unacceptable event,” the Captain chittered, his warble rising half an octave as his he turned his hooded eyes to her. “If there’s any way I can make it up to you, anything at all, you must not hesitate to let me know.”
“It wasn’t your fault, Captain.”
“No, no. The Helen is my ship. All that happens aboard her is my responsibility.” He smoothed his chest feathers with one claw. “Please, you must allow me to make it up to you.”
“No, really,” she said, not wanting any special attention, not wanting any attention at all. The only thing she wanted was to be away from everyone, back in Jules’s cabin, safe, unnoticed.
“Actually,” Stav said, addressing the Captain, “I have a suggestion. The Novice is clearly someone who appreciates… exotic life-forms. I understand that under certain circumstances, a guest might be invited to visit a starliner’s Indra chamber, to have an up-close encounter with a stonehorse. I understand you’ll be conducting pre-tunnel preparations tomorrow morning? What do you think, Captain?”
The Ornithope’s head bobbed in agreement.
“Outstanding idea, Lieutenant,” he said. “That would be the perfect opportunity. Novice?”
“The Indra chamber?” Zenn’s unsettled state cleared considerably at the words.
“But only if you feel up to it,” the Captain said.
“No, I mean, yes, I’d love to. Thank you.”
“Guest Vancouver as well. And your father, naturally.”
“Oh…” she stammered, “…Dad’s not feeling so great just now. All the excitement of traveling. The strange food, you know, his stomach.”
“I’m sorry to hear it. But it does affect some passengers that way,” the Captain said.
A pair of stewards had arrived and were now gingerly covering the slug’s body in what appeared to be a sort of plastic body bag.
“I can only repeat, I’m mystified how this could have come about,” the Captain said.
“Perhaps Thrott’s servant can shed some light on it all?” Stav Travosk said. “You did say it was his slave who brought you here?”
Zenn nodded.
“Yes. Perhaps,” the Captain said. “When we locate her.”
“You can’t find her?” Zenn asked.
“No… “ the Captain said, eyes squinting as he scratched his lower bill with one taloned finger. “I suspect this tragic affair has to do with her master’s illicit animal fighting. Guest Thrott has a fondness for gambling, I’m told, legal or otherwise. He too seems to have gone missing. There will be hard questions for him when he is located.”
“Well, if you don’t need me any longer,” Stav said to the Captain, “I’ll turn in for the night.” His silver gaze turned to Zenn. “Novice, you’ll be a bit more careful wandering about the ship? Please?”
“Yes. I’ll try,” was all she could manage. She focused on sipping her tea, but her
thoughts were a fractured mosaic of conflicting images: the slug’s ferocious form bearing down on her, the heat of the soldier’s weapon scorching the air above her – and now, the giddy prospect of again being in the presence of a Lithohippus indrae. The combination created in her the uncomfortable sensation of no longer being anchored in her own body but standing somewhere outside it, looking back at a trembling, red-headed girl sitting on a bench, covered in a blanket.
TWELVE
“The mudlark,” Zenn said to Jules as they finished their breakfast in his cabin the next morning. “It was afraid, and it was picking up all the voices at the party. That’s when I heard the Skirni’s voice. Pokt. He was there, in the hall, or nearby. They recognized me somehow.”
“They?” Jules said, going to the sideboard in his cabin for another helping of oysters. “You heard more than one?”
“Yes. I couldn’t identify the other one. Too many voices, too much interference.”
“And you say these two spoke of being on a schedule, to deliver a nexus to someone, or someplace? Do you know what they mean by this?”
“Jules, I have no idea. All I know is that they seem to think I have this nexus. But I don’t even know what it is.”
“A nexus, I believe, has the definition as being a point of intersection,” he said. “Like a central thing that connects one thing, or many things, to some another things. Is that of any assistance to your understanding?”
“No,” she said. “Whenever a link happens, I can’t even think straight, after. Makes me tired and foggy. It’s hard to even remember exactly what happened. And then the slug, in Thrott’s cabin. I’m having a little trouble… organizing.”
“That is why I go to the pool on this ship. It helps my thinking to become more ordered.”
“So,” Zenn said, “did you enjoy your swim?”
“Swim? No, no, I was not engaged in swimming this morning.” He gave a mournful chirruping sound. “I was feeling remorseful. About not escorting you from the party gathering last night. It was my duty to bodyguard you and I went to gamble. This was selfish behavior and thus you were nearly slain by the poison-slug.”
“Jules, I told you,” she said, shaking her head at him, “that was not your fault. And besides, I’m OK now. So, if you weren’t swimming, why go to the pool?”
“I went to stand at the edge and observe,” he said. “There are often lizard children at play in the pool at this early hour. It is entertaining to see their antics. And I find the water has a calming effect, as I said, on my thinking. I thought of my failure at bodyguarding and how I might improve my future behavior. Have you had any news during my a
bsence? Of Master Thrott or his servant’s whereabouts?”
“No, nothing,” she said. “I told the Captain about the animal fight, about stopping it, what Thrott said. The Captain thought if Thrott was really behind the attack, he’d probably go into hiding down in steerage. Apparently, a person can disappear for weeks down there.”
“Yes, your Liam Tucker is fortunate in that regard, at least.”
The door to the corridor chimed, then, and it announced a visitor. It was Yed.
“Good morning to you, Guest Vancouver,” the steward said. Then, seeing Zenn, he added, “Ah, Guest Bodine! I come with news for you.” The steward stood grinning and rocking back and forth on his wide flipper feet. “Captain Oolo requests that you both join him for your visit to the Indra chambers.”
“Oh,” Zenn said. “Right now?”
“Yes, if that suits you,” Yed said. “I can take you to the Captain as soon as you are prepared.”
Retreating to her bedroom, Zenn wrapped her scarf around her face. Now that the Skirni Pokt knew she was aboard, she would have to be more careful than ever to avoid being identified. But a trip to the Indra chamber? It was simply too enticing to resist. Besides, she rationalized, her refusal now could also raise suspicions.
They were about to leave the cabin when Katie confronted her, plopping herself down in front of the door.
“Friend-Zenn goes now?” she signed, sitting up on her hindquarters.
“Yes. But only for a little. Coming right back.”
“Katie go with?”
“No. Sorry! Not this time.”
Katie’s ringed tail whipped in agitation. “How soon coming back?”
“Very soon,” Zenn spoke the words to her, to see if she recognized them, which she apparently did.
ARC: Under Nameless Stars Page 11