by Tom Hoffman
“This is astonishing, you say you had red scales? The only creatures I know with red scales come from Varmoran, but the ring you found is a Mintarian memory ring. Varmoran must have formed a secret alliance with the Mintarians. That would explain the Mintarian presence.”
“What’s a memory ring? I still don’t understand where I was. Did I blink somewhere?”
“No, you did not blink anywhere. When a Mintarian trooper, or in this case a Varmoran pilot, performs an extraordinary act of bravery he is awarded with a memory ring containing a four dimensional neuro record of his experience. The ring is seldom worn, as the events are almost always traumatic, but it is one of the greatest honors a warrior can receive.”
“Oh, there was something else. While I was wearing the ring, my scout ship scanned the MV Bermitar’s cargo hold for weapons. They said it contained nineteen thousand time throttles plus something called a Size 15000 M2 Galactic Time Throttle, which really scared the pilot. He said if the MV Bermitar went down the whole galaxy would be frozen in time. The pilot said he was going to board the MV Bermitar and cloak the ship so the Anarkkians couldn’t find it.”
Abacus’ golden eyes flashed wildly. “Clearly a breach of Mintarian Arms Service protocol. I was not informed we were transporting a Size 15000 M2 Galactic Time Throttle. An outlawed weapon of that magnitude should never have been placed aboard a private cargo ship, it should have been traveling in a heavily shielded armada.This is far worse than I thought. Your Varmoran pilot was correct, a time throttle of that size will not just stop time on Earth, it will stop time in your entire galaxy. It is an impossible coincidence that you found this memory ring, that you inadvertently placed it on your paw, that you witnessed the arrival of the MV Bermitar and prevented her destruction, and yet it has happened. Your revelation that the Varmoran pilot cloaked the MV Bermitar clearly explains why its beacon vanished from my holomap. The ship is hidden by a cloaking device which is functioning only sporadically, due to the degradation of power. Now that I am aware of this, I will attempt alternate methods to determine its location. Your Varmoran pilot may have unwittingly saved our galaxy.” Abacus paused. “I cannot help but suspect that your finding of the memory ring was not accidental, that there were unseen forces involved. Forces beyond my comprehension.”
Sophia said, “It was not an accident, the ring was where it was meant to be. A famous rabbit named Bartholomew the Adventurer once said, ‘Every atom, every molecule, and every bouncing marble is exactly where it should be at every moment in time’. The memory ring was no exception to this rule. We will never know how a Mintarian memory ring belonging to a Varmoran pilot found its way into an Elders’ blinker ship which was captured by the Anarkkians and hidden in this obscure military complex. What I do know is after fifteen hundred years the ring was precisely where it needed to be for Orville to find it.”
Abacus’ eyes were filled with a strange intensity. “It is reason enough to question the underlying fabric of our world. Abacus MV Expergo spoke much of an invisible order hidden beneath our seemingly chaotic world, but until now I did not understand his meaning.”
“Your Abacus MV Expergo sounds very wise.”
“I am just beginning to understand the depth of his wisdom.”
Orville rose to his feet. “I’m going to put the ring back in the pilot’s coat pocket where it belongs. We’d better get going. Time is running out.”
Chapter 29
The Stranger
Amanda Mouse was humming quietly as she browsed through the history section in the Book Emporium. Most of the regular customers were familiar with Amanda’s unconscious humming and found it to be an endearing trait, but there were a few who judged it to be a minor annoyance. One or two had even complained to Master Marloh. Any book containing historical content would start her humming, and in the Book Emporium she was practically swimming in a sea of them. She enjoyed reading about history so much that she had taken it on as her vocation, currently holding a position at Muridaan Falls Easterly School as the Symocan History Scholar. Only three years prior, one of her students had been a certain young Orville Wellington Mouse.
Amanda was perusing with great interest a massive tome titled When Rabbits Ruled the Earth, a study of the Elders, the advanced race which had vanished mysteriously at the end of the Anarkkian Wars. When she lifted her gaze, however, she was abruptly pulled back to the present moment. Directly in her line of sight on the other side of the book shelves was the menacing face of a rough looking mouse.
Amanda slapped her paw over her mouth, afraid she might give a spontaneous squeak of fear. The rough and tumble character she was looking at had a dreadful long scar running down the side of his face. He was also sporting a ragged adventurer’s hat pulled down so low it almost covered his eyes. It was quite obvious to Amanda this coarse looking individual was trying to conceal his identity. Her eyes narrowed, the initial wave of fear replaced by her overpowering sense of curiosity. Amanda loved a good mystery almost as much as she loved history. “I must determine what this ruffian is up to. Who knows what skullduggery he may be contemplating.”
She slid out a weighty volume titled, The Dark Anarkkian Night, A Comprehensive History of the Anarkkian Wars. It would make good reading and a fine heavy weapon, should this mysterious stranger decide to cause any trouble. Clutching the massive volume with both paws Amanda strolled around to the other side of the book shelves. The rough looking mouse had moved to the far end of the aisle. “He’s up to no good, I can feel it.” Amanda froze. The scarred ruffian had a long silver Quintarian Sleeper strapped to his hip. Only a few mice in Muridaan Falls would have recognized such a weapon, but Amanda Mouse was a voracious reader and identified it instantly, having seen a photograph of one almost two years earlier in Ancient Quintarian Weapons of War, Volume III. She knew that with a sharp flick of the wrist the device telescoped out and emitted a low hum. When the humming stopped the user would select the weapon’s power level. At low power it would do what its name implied – cause an enemy to instantly fall asleep. At higher levels the sleep effect became far more pronounced, and at maximum level it became permanent. At level twenty the Sleeper sent out a powerful electronic pulse beam which caused a fatal overload in the enemy’s brain.
When she spotted the Sleeper on the stranger’s hip Amanda lost all confidence in the defensive value of the heavy book she was clutching. She watched as the stranger slipped like a shadow around the rack and disappeared.
“This is serious, that mouse is carrying a Sleeper. Master Marloh needs to be made aware of this dastardly fellow.” Amanda set down The Dark Anarkkian Night with a loud thump and strode purposefully down the aisle, making her way toward the front desk. When she turned the corner, however, she stopped in her tracks. The armed stranger was engaged in conversation with Master Marloh, and it was quite obvious they knew each other.
“Great heavens!” Amanda skittered back behind the shelves, peering through the books at the two conversing mice. “Why in the world would Master Marloh be acquainted with such a scalawag as that?” Amanda studied the mysterious stranger’s face. He wasn’t quite as scary as she had first thought. He’d removed his hat and she was surprised to see he was close to handsome in a rough sort of way. She was trying to decide whether his scar added or detracted from his appearance when to her utter horror Master Marloh turned and looked directly at her.
He gave her a friendly wave, calling out, “Pest control. We’re having a moth problem in the basement. I’m afraid they might damage some of the rare books.”
Amanda stepped out from behind the rack, attempting a casual demeanor, allowing an amused smile to cross her face. “Better safe than sorry, I always say.”
The tough looking mouse grinned at her and waved. Amanda found herself uncharacteristically embarrassed, but strangely flattered by his attention. She decided he had a kind face, and she especially liked his eyes. Every mouse had scars of one kind or another. His just happened to be on the surface where you co
uld see them. She gave him a pleasant nod and turned on her heel, heading back to her history books.
“We should go down to the Metaphysical Adventurers headquarters. I’m afraid your appearance might be a little alarming to some of our customers. Probably best not to carry that Sleeper around in the shop. You know, Patcher, I could get rid of that scar for you in less than a minute using my shaping skills.”
“I’ll pass. I’ve gotten used to it. Besides, it gives me a certain look the ladies seem to appreciate.” Patcher gave Master Marloh a wink.
Master Marloh held up his paw. “That’s all I need to know, thank you. Shall we go?” He turned and headed toward the blue door at the back of the shop, the blue door which had been quite a puzzle to Orville when he began work at the Book Emporium. When Master Marloh opened the blue door with his left paw, the door opened to the largest shaping library in Symoca. When he opened it with his right paw, the paw which bore his silver Metaphysical Adventurers ring, the door opened to a massive spiral staircase leading to the Metaphysical Adventurers headquarters. The headquarters was an extensive underground complex containing thousands of technologically advanced artifacts brought back from other worlds over the years by MA members.
When Master Marloh was certain they weren’t being watched he swung the blue door open using his right paw. The pair of mice stepped onto the ancient stone stairway. Master Marloh sent a glowing sphere of light down the stairs. Five minutes later they stood facing the magnificent main hall of the Metaphysical Adventurers headquarters, three hundred feet long and two hundred feet wide, with ceilings that towered fifty feet above the smooth stone floor. Three enormous stacked walkways constructed of massive ornately carved wooden beams ran around the perimeter of the room, each lined with wide iron mesh shelves holding thousands of mysterious high tech devices brought back by MA members.
Patcher eyed the enormous hall. “This place amazes me every time I see it. I don’t think even Mirus Mouse knows what half the tech here actually does or how it works.”
“Did you have any luck tracking Eldon? I’m not entirely certain I should have raised Orville’s hopes by telling him his papa might still be alive, but I didn’t know what else to do after the tech hunter found his ring in central Symoca. I sent Orville and Sophia on a hunt for some blue stones they were curious about. It might lead to something important, but mainly I did it to keep them occupied while we’re searching for Eldon. Orville is an extremely gifted shaper, but he needs a few years of experience before he’ll be much help in the field.”
“The short story is I had some luck, but not a lot. I talked to the tech hunter who found Eldon’s ring. Ever been to Varmoran?”
“Varmoran? You tracked Eldon to Varmoran?”
“Turns out the tech hunter didn’t just find Eldon’s ring in the East Symocan jungle, he also found his pack dangling at the top of a ninety foot tall tree. It had a few clothes in it, a letter written in some crazy language, and a big purple flower tucked into a side pocket.”
“His pack was hanging in the top of a tree?”
“Strange, I know. Not sure why he’d be up a tree, unless he was trying to get away from something. It doesn’t make sense though, the tree wasn’t strong enough to hold a full grown mouse up where the pack was.”
“Odd. The ring was nearby?”
“About a hundred yards away at the edge of a big meadow in the central Symocan forest. The tech hunter was using a heavy metal scanner and found it.”
“Wait, suppose the pack didn’t get carried up the tree, suppose it fell down into the tree?”
“That’s it! He must have done a loop in his Dragonfly and the pack and ring fell out. He could have been trying to dodge some kind of flying creature. Who knows what he ran into. Could have been a lot of things in that area.”
“Any idea where he was going, where he’d been?”
“The purple flower was my first clue. Couldn’t figure it out until I saw the thorn. It’s a mutation most likely caused by an Anarkkian greenstone. I recognized it right away. I had a friend who almost died on Varmoran after getting stabbed by one of those purple nightmares, so I figured Eldon must have been there.”
“I’m familiar with Varmoran, although I don’t know why he would go there. It was devastated by the Anarkkians, the entire planet obliterated in less than a week. There’s nothing left but ruins, the sun hardly ever breaks through the toxic cloud layer. Those purple flowers are just the tip of the iceberg as far as mutations on Varmoran. Anarkkians peppered it with greenstones before their invasion. Dreadful place. Were you able to translate the letter?”
“Took a while, but Mirus Mouse came through with some ancient Thaumatarian device he found buried on the tech shelves. He put his paw on a white panel and talked to it for a few minutes, then held the letter in front of it. Some crazy striped light scanned over it and a minute later the machine read the letter to us. I have no idea what language the letter was in, but it must have been one that Eldon understood.”
“He speaks a number of obscure languages. What did it say?”
“The translation was a bit confusing, but someone was writing to him about something they called the ‘Flicker’. I couldn’t figure out what it was, but the whole village was terrified and they were asking Eldon for help. They were afraid the world was ending. You know how superstitious some of those isolated areas are.”
“Indeed. You have no idea the true nature of this Flicker? Some sort of mutation maybe?”
“Don’t really know. Some villagers thought it was a gigantic eye, some thought it was a door opening up to let demons in. They were afraid creatures from ‘the other side’ were going to eat them.”
“The other side of what? That doesn’t help us much. Could you tell what world the village was on?”
“Another puzzle. The letter said they live at Earth’s End.”
“What does that mean?”
“No idea. Maybe on the edge of an ocean or something? You know, the earth ends and the ocean begins?”
“It could be something like that. You went to Varmoran?”
“I spent a month there and was lucky to get back alive. Like you said, it’s a dreadful place. They still have Anarkkian spiders roaming around. I hate those things. I’d be dead if it wasn’t for the scramble beam Mirus gave me. Does something to their engineered intelligence and they just wander off. Most of the time, anyway. I scoured the area where my friend got bit by the purple flower but didn’t find anything. Problem is there’s no one there. Eldon could have spent a year on Varmoran and nobody would know. The good news is I didn’t find any bodies, if you catch my drift. He definitely could still be alive. My guess is he went to Varmoran to look for something, came back and then headed off to wherever this Flicker thing is. It could be near where we found his pack, or he could have dumped his ring and pack and kept on flying for a thousand miles. No blood on the pack, by the way. No claw marks, no teeth marks.”
“That’s something. We still have good reason to be hopeful. The rest of the Dragonfly Squadron is back from the jungle. Twenty thousand square miles and they found nothing except a few old cities.”
“What do you want me to do now?”
“Take the letter to Mirus and see if he can identify the language. That might help us locate the village. After you talk to him we can regroup and compile our information. Whatever Eldon was looking for on Varmoran must have been important. I just wish he’d filed a mission report. You know how much Eldon loved filling out mission forms.”
“No news is good news I guess.”
“It will have to be for now. I’ll let Orville and his Mum know we still have good reason to be hopeful and we’re continuing the search. I have a sense Eldon is alive, but something’s not right. I can’t put my paw on it, but something is definitely not right.”
Chapter 30
Down Under
“Relax, Orville, it's just like flying The Dragonfly. Left stick is vertical velocity and rotation, right stick is
forward, backward, left and right. There’s nothing to it.”
“Maybe Abacus should fly us out of the building. I don’t want to bump into one of those blue force tube cylinder things and blow us into a billion pieces.”
Sophia gave a sigh. “You need to learn how to fly a blinker ship and there’s no time like the present. Proto and Abacus are indestructible and we’re safely buckled in. Tap the violet disk in the center of the light circle.”
Orville reached out and tapped the disk. “Check.”
“There, see how all the yellow lights have all turned violet and you can hear the antigrav displacer units humming?”
“The what?”
“Never mind, just pay attention to the controls. All right, the doors to the building are wide open. Push the left stick forward and the ship will go straight up. When we’re about fifteen feet in the air, push the right stick forward and go straight across the room and out the doors. Nothing to it.”
“So it’s exactly like flying The Dragonfly?”
“Exactly the same.”
“Okay, I think I’ve got it.” Orville furrowed his brow and peered out through the blinker ship’s cockpit window. “Here we go!”
Much to Orville’s surprise when he pushed the left stick forward just as he did in The Dragonfly, the blinker ship shot up at two hundred and fifteen miles per hour, smashing through the roof with a horrendous squealing and tearing of metal. By the time Orville realized what was happening the blinker ship was over five hundred feet in the air.
“AAGGGHHH!!” Orville pulled the stick back and the ship plummeted down toward the metal building, which was now sporting a gaping hole in the roof.
“Too much! Too much!”
Orville pushed the left stick and the ship came to a halt, hovering silently above the building.
Abacus nudged Proto, whispering loudly, “Orville is why Mintarians created the Abacus.”
Proto snickered. “And why the Elders made me indestructible.”