by Gini Koch
Spotted a machine that looked more futuristic than anything else anywhere on this planet. Saw a variety of rabbits going to it, getting something out of it, and eating.
Eat nothing from that machine, Lilith said urgently. It is the source.
Of evil? I think it’s some kind of food replicator.
It is not food as they’re growing aboveground. That is the food of rage.
Noted that there were giant telescopes, or things that certainly looked like telescopes, on platforms that raised and lowered just like the one we were on. So they were definitely able to look at what they were shooting.
Are those the telescopes of rage? I asked Lilith.
“We’ve found the industry,” White said in English, which I was starting to think of as Our Secret Tongue, before Lilith could reply. “They’re building the rockets here, as well as other machines.”
Looked for the machines. There were vehicles like the one we’d driven in on rolling off of an assembly line. There were also things that looked suspiciously like parts of a rocket, but not the bomb kind. These were bigger and likely for spacecraft.
“Have your people ever traveled to other stars?” I asked Telzor.
“Not for a long time.”
“Why not?”
“We had . . . things that had to be done first. The Mad Lord Johpunnt, may the sun continue to love his reflection, will share what he feels is best with you.”
“Gotcha.” We were still a good ways from the bottom, but that was because the pillars were so very high—twenty stories if they were one, and potentially more—when the song ended and we went right back to the Cosmic Thing playlist, this time with Lifehouse crooning “The Beginning.”
My phone beeped right after. “Kitty,” Jerry said softly, “I’m going to connect you to Tim. We know you’re going underground and I assume you don’t want to be caught talking to no one, and we really don’t want you losing your communicator and earpiece. Tim won because we think he’s the best at deciphering all your clues, particularly in situations like this, so you should be good. Oh, and some of your team is in the shuttle, hovering over the hole you just went into. The rest are with you in there, using stealth and Siler’s skills. Everyone’s listening in, but only Tim can talk to you.”
“Um hum,” I said softly. Telzor seemed not to notice.
“Hey, Kitty,” Tim said, “we found more information. We can’t translate it—it’s not in any language the Universal Translator knows, Wheatles and Grentix don’t recognize it, and it’s not one of the languages Ixtha taught to us in our sleep.”
“Wow, this trip down is boring except for looking at all the cool underground architecture, which is amazing and impressive, like something out of Tolkien.” Didn’t speak in English, because I had to figure that was going to make Telzor suspicious at this juncture. Wondered who was in the shuttle and who was, presumably, on the huge platform with us. Wished Jerry had told me, but I’d just have to roll with the surprises.
“Yeah, yeah,” Tim said. “I know that was a dull preamble. But you needed to know it, because we think whatever we found is important. It’s definitely from the first solar system, the one whose star went supernova. We were able to use some equipment the Ignotforstans brought with them and carbon-date it. Close to what everyone thinks is the beginning of the galaxy, maybe even the universe.”
The beginning. Just like the song playing.
“Chuck says we can’t be sure without Wruck’s input, though,” Tim continued, “but the hackers are checking.”
So Chuckie was, presumably, in the shuttle, and Wruck was, presumably, on the platform. Wondered if Wruck was disguised. Possibly as Telzor. Really hoped that wasn’t the case. Though he could be Roanach or Clorence. Or Buchanan. Or one of the extra rabbits. Or else Siler was on the longest blend of his life. Perfect time for it.
“Telzor, this deep underground, how is it that we can all breathe?”
He seemed shocked by this question. “It’s complex.”
“Do I need to table this?” Tim asked. “You sound like you’re in trouble. Like always.”
“I’m sure it is. But I’m also sure it’s fascinating.”
It appeared I’d found Telzor’s hobby. He started talking about how the air was pumped in, and White, being the quick study that he always was, asked questions and kept Telzor rolling.
Thankfully, Tim picked up that I wanted him to keep on going, too. “Gotcha. Like the stalling technique. Try not to let your eyes glaze over, though.”
Telzor paused for breath. “Can you tell me about why there aren’t more people than the ones I’ve seen? Races, I mean. I’ve only seen sheep, opossums, rabbits, and cattle. We have more races on our planets, which is why I’m asking. From little jellyfish ones all the way up to huge elephants, and more besides.”
Telzor shook his head. “That is for our Mad Lord Johpunnt to share.”
“I’m very interested in how you keep the temperatures so moderate,” White said, not missing a beat. Wondered if he and Buchanan were on the call, too. Kind of hoped so. “Particularly with all the active volcanoes.”
We’d hit another one of Telzor’s interests. He started yabbering away about airflows and such.
“Got it,” Tim said. “We’ll deal with your concern first—Mother’s scanned where you are and you’re not in some weird fake world—what you’re seeing should be real. The animals scan as the sizes you’re seeing, based on where you’re all looking when you talk to them and what the others described to us when they ran away at the start of your interaction with the natives.”
“Hmmm.” Ensured I looked fascinated. Telzor seemed to buy it.
“We’re certain that the planet that sent this meteor spaceship—because that’s what Wheatles is certain the meteor actually is, a spaceship—is the same one that sent the Mykali to Earth. And—”
Tim stopped talking. And I didn’t hear voices on the other end.
CHAPTER 102
HAD NO IDEA WHAT TO DO. Really wanted to panic, but now was the definition of not the right time. “I’m amazed that we’re not witnessing eruptions, though.” Went with lame, because it was all I was up to.
“I just explained that,” Telzor said.
“Sorry, it’s just a lot to take in and it’s so interesting. And I’m kind of afraid of being blown up, call me a silly worrywart.”
“The Queen enjoys this kind of thing but she has, ah, people for it back on our home worlds,” White said.
“Ah,” Telzor replied knowingly. “I will explain again.” He started talking, this time more slowly. Actively chose not to be offended, mostly because me acting stupid was currently the best cover I had for this weird call.
“Sorry,” Tim said, sounding excited. “We saw movement and I had to be quiet just in case we were being attacked. We’re not. Everyone’s fine and, great news—Ixtha’s found us!”
“Really?” I said to something Telzor said, doing my best to sound fascinated. Again, Telzor seemed to buy it, if me getting a kindly look and more Explanations For The Slow Of Wit were indicators.
“Yeah! They were underground, just like we’d suspected. But Christopher moved so fast, they couldn’t make contact with him and Butler on any of the other landmasses.”
Heard more voices in the background, but had no way to make a comment—Telzor was in full explanation mode.
Tim returned. “Ixtha says we were hard to find because we chose to land in what they consider the ancient dead city. What we’ve been digging through hasn’t been touched for thousands of their years, possibly longer. And she’s not sure that anyone ever found the room we’re in, which is where the meteor spaceship is. A-Cs for the win, and Real Naked Apes are pretty great, too. By the way, they love that nickname you gave them. And, get this—Ixtha’s not alone. There are lions. And tigers. And bears.”
“Oh my.�
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Telzor took this as my being hella impressed by volcano containment and carried on.
“Knew you’d enjoy that. Literally there’s every animal we’ve ever seen. And I mean ever. Christopher’s done a fast run through—every animal we know of, at least its original, unadulterated form, is represented, including animals that are extinct. But no crossbreeds, so nothing like Labradoodles, though I see more than one dog. And there are humans, too. Ixtha’s one, or at least looks like us, at least as much as the A-Cs do.”
“Huh.”
Telzor took this as my not quite getting the explanation of how they had to dig deep into the planet to find water, not only to drink but to power things like the volcano containment and airflow. So he explained again.
“It’s like Zootopia here. They can all speak, and they’re all walking upright and wearing clothes.”
“You are so lucky.” Whoops. That one slipped out by accident.
However, Telzor seemed pleased by my enthusiasm for their finding vast springs underground. He continued on with his explanation.
“We heard,” Tim snickered. “Better all of you than all of us is the Blue Team’s reaction to the nudist colony you landed on. Anyway, it’s not just creatures from our planet. We can see examples of everything. There’s a bird that looks like it could be where both Peregrines and peacocks come from, for example. Beings from all the other planets we know, but, as with ours, nothing that’s a hybrid created by humans or A-Cs . . . what?” Heard voices in the background. “Oh, yeah, good point, no Apatan hybrids, either. Christopher’s found things none of us recognize, too. He says the only things he can’t find are Poofs.”
Which made sense. Poofs weren’t from this galaxy. My brain nudged, hard.
“Oh,” Tim went on, “James says to tell you that they do have sheep, opossums, rabbits, cows and bulls here—all dressed. All what we’d call normal sized, too.”
My brain nudged again. Ran through the songs on the Cosmic Thing playlist. I’d heard them so much that I had their titles and order memorized so I didn’t need to look at my phone.
“Ixtha’s explaining things as best she can,” Tim continued. “Their society is definitely utopian. No violence, they don’t eat each other, they have some kind of replicator things that allow them to make whatever it is their internal systems need to survive. Hang on, some of the team are going to check those out. Huh, most of the team. Sorry, that means I’ll be doing handshakes and stuff for a couple minutes, so as to keep these people at ease, and that’s an order from your husband.”
“Uh huh,” said to a particularly boring bit of information about airflow systems. The Blue Team was definitely scoring the far more interesting information share. It was also nice that Tim seemed to feel that I had all the time in the world. Chose to believe he felt that this meant I had the situation in hand, not that he was just so excited that he was forgetting that the Red Team wasn’t in Zootopia but were still hanging out in Apokolipse.
Wished I could share that there was a replicator here that Lilith was afraid of, but couldn’t come up with how to do that in this situation.
Telzor had covered all of volcanic containment and airflow issues, and White and I had gotten him onto how the platforms worked and how they chose where to dig one and why before Tim finally stopped shaking paws and patting backs and returned to our call.
“Okay, the others are back. Jeff says to tell you that their civilization has gone up and down in terms of technological knowhow. This current regime is more, ah, mystic than scientific. The food replicators are ancient—Wheatles and Grentix feel that they are easily as old as what we found inside the meteor spaceship. But they run perfectly. Wheatles feels strongly that they were created by an extremely advanced race and set up to run indefinitely somehow. We’re afraid to fiddle with them, just in case. Jeff says that, based on what you two learned from Wruck when you met the Mykali, these weren’t created by either the Z’porrah or the Anciannas, so the prevailing theory is that they were created by the same people who sent the meteors.”
“Interesting.” Telzor looked gratified that I gave their reasons for choosing where to dig a big thumbs-up.
“Oooh!” Tim sounded really excited. “Grentix says that, thanks to Serene’s help, she’s pretty sure that she’s found a way to break the code on the recording. And Wheatles says that he’s about ninety-nine-point-nine percent certain that he’s found a DNA listing. It’s long, like thousands of codes, maybe more.”
Cradle indeed. Well, Algar had to work with what he and I both had, in that sense.
“Ha, great,” Tim said. “Butler’s running these codes through his systems, it’s even faster than sending them up to the hackers. One is definitely the code for a form of chimp DNA. He says that the important thing for you to focus on is that he feels that everyone here, like the rest of us, have adapted to the planets we live on. The DNA he’s reading from the list Wheatles found seems purer than our DNA now. I have no idea what he means by that, though. Claudia and Lorraine are working on it while Serene and Grentix work on getting the recording to work.”
Was pretty sure that I knew what that DNA list meant, and had a good bet I was going to come up with what the girls did. Because everything had finally clicked into place and, besides, genetics were my jam. Meaning I knew why this solar system mattered, more than all the other ones combined.
“Telzor, do you have films here, movies? It’s a form of entertainment. Moving pictures, some are animated.”
He seemed shocked by this total subject change, not that I could blame him. “Ah, no, we don’t.”
“Pity. I would have loved to have shared a favorite of mine with you, called Titan A.E.”
“Holy crap,” Tim said. “You really think so?”
We reached the ground. “What I think is that it’s time for me to go meet Mad Lord Johpunnt and find out why he’s got such a hankering for the ultraviolence.”
Right on cue, my music changed to “Top Jimmy” by Van Halen and I heard it in both ears. Either Tim had hung up or, more likely, Algar had ended the call for me. Managed to control the Inner Hyena, but it took effort. Checked out the bulls. Nope, didn’t help. The Inner Hyena was really ready to roar.
Forced my mind back onto the platform and its Approved Design. Because it was part of all of this, too, in its own way. Managed to get back into the serious mindset of being about to meet the top man of this world.
Telzor stepped off the platform while Buchanan and White helped me off. Wisely. No reason for me to trip and fall flat on my face at this particular juncture. Roanach and Clorence hurried off after us.
The rabbits leaped off the platform and formed what might have been an honor guard around me, White, and Buchanan, but what I figured was more of a security setup guaranteed to not allow us to make a fast exit. The bulls went behind them, basically forming a wall. Yeah, Telzor might have been being nice on the long platform ride, but now we were all back to business. On the plus side, it reduced my desire to laugh, so there was that.
He led us down a long hallway. “I’m getting Nazez flashbacks again,” I said quietly to White and Buchanan in English.
“That’s why I’m here,” Buchanan said calmly.
Took us a while—Algar had time to change the song to Lifehouse’s “Smoke & Mirrors,” which didn’t tell me if I should feel that I was being fooled or needed to do the fooling, particularly since I’d been told by Tim that what we were seeing was real—but we finally arrived at two huge doors. Two of the bulls trotted up from behind us and opened them. Looked like they were straining to do so. Really wished I had more A-Cs with me all of a sudden.
Straightened up and did my best to look regal as we followed Telzor through the doorway, Roanach and Clorence scurrying along behind us, my music changing to “Get The Picture” by Kool Moe Dee.
The interior was interesting. This room had the intr
icate latticework all along the ceiling, too, and had many things hanging from it. In addition to what I was pretty sure was Johpunnt’s living quarters—the largest house-thing I’d seen so far—large, bottomless metal cages hung from the lattice, too. How often they were used these days was up for debate, but what they existed for wasn’t. They were on a pulley system, and it didn’t take genius to guess that they were used to capture prisoners.
The walls were covered in tapestries, and, based on my musical clue, focused on them. All of them were orangey with some yellow, black, and red in there. Didn’t want to verify, but was pretty sure that these were made out of the fur, wool, and hides of the planet’s residents, hopefully collected after said residents had died of old age, though I wasn’t willing to bet on it. Those cages might have multiple uses.
The tapestries told a story, as tapestries everywhere were apparently meant to do. A world that looked perfect, and a sun exploding in the distance. What looked a lot like what I thought a meteor spaceship would look like sailing through the heavens. Several meteor spaceships landing on a fiery red planet. Lots of sheep, some cows and bulls, opossums, and rabbits staggering out of the crashed spaceships, along with a few other animals, all smaller rodents. Said animals on their knees, appealing to a sun that was bright yellow; this tapestry had what looked like that food replicator off to the side. Horrible monsters that looked a lot like the sandworms from Dune only bright orange and with a lot more teeth attacking and the animals fighting back. The four races that were still here crying over the bodies of the smaller rodents. Another few tapestries showing various lamentations or sandworm attacks, and in many of them the food replicator was represented.
Then the story changed. The next tapestry showed a sheep standing on top of a sandworm, clearly victorious. He had a splash of bright orange wool on his chest. Then a tapestry showing the animals shoving the sandworm’s body into the food replicator. The next tapestries showed either a sheep, a bull, or a rabbit leading—and each of them had a swath of bright orange somewhere on them, usually on the back or sternum, but one of the rabbits had a bright orange cottontail. No possums led, or if they did, they didn’t score a tapestry. In many of these they were feeding sandworms to the replicator in what looked like a religious ceremony. Then we had the digging and building tapestries. Followed by the making machines that worked tapestries, and the creation of telescopes and more advanced weapons.