by Tom Hoffman
A wave of terror ran through Orville. He did not want time to stop. He did not want his adventures with Sophia to stop. “We can save the ship. I know we can.” Orville spun the blinker around until it faced west, then jammed the right stick forward. Sophia felt herself pressed back against the seat as they shot forward, the sea below them a blur.
Proto gripped his jump seat tightly, his eyes on the sea below them. “I see a sailing ship! It’s primitive, but it indicates the presence of intelligent life forms inhabiting the coastline. I can’t tell from this altitude what manner of creature is guiding it, so perhaps we could take a quick–”
“We’re not stopping! We’re not even slowing down!”
Orville caught the look of stunned surprise on Sophia’s face. “I mean, I’m sorry, but we really don’t have any time to spare. We have to save the MV Bermitar and we don’t know what other obstacles we might run into.”
Proto gave a broad wink to Sophia. “As by your command, Master Captain Orville, Chief Navigator and Pilot.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound so bossy. I just don’t want anything to happen to... anyone I really like a lot.”
Sophia ran her paw across Orville’s shoulder. “We’ll be fine, monkey butt. Abacus knows exactly where the ship is and at this speed it won’t take us long to reach it. We’ll have at least a day to figure out how to power it up. We’ll save the world just like we always do.”
“Thanks. I just wanted... well... I didn’t want anything to...”
“I know. We’ll be okay, I promise.”
The blinker ship sped along across the sea, the wind buffeting the craft as they passed into ever darkening skies. “Another pulsar gun emplacement! That makes six of them we’ve seen. Thank goodness Abacus shut off their defenses. We never would have reached the MV Bermitar in time traveling under the sea.”
“Land ahead, but look at that storm! The sky is pitch black.”
“Abacus, should I try to fly above the storm?”
“Negative. Fly below it, just above the trees if you can. The center of the storm is miles up, and taking us into dark space would be far too risky a venture in a ship as old as this one.”
“Look at the lightning! Incredible!”
Orville reduced the ship’s speed and descended to two hundred feet. “We can avoid the full force of the storm here, but we’ll have to keep an eye out for tall structures.”
Abacus flipped on the ship’s forward scanners. “The alarm will sound if we encounter any obstacles.”
“Okay, the sea is behind us. Eyes open, everyone.”
Proto cried out, “A village! We just passed over a small village with boats and a harbor. It looks like a fishing village.” Proto stopped short, giving Orville a nervous glance. “But of course we don’t have time to stop and visit.”
Orville hadn’t even heard Proto, his sole focus being the wildly blowing trees below them. Even at this low altitude the wind from the great storm was pummeling the ship, a wall of heavy rain drops spattering madly against the clear canopy. He glanced up at the ragged flashes of lightning crackling and tearing across the black sky. “This is worse than the storm we saw in Pavorak Gorge after we found Proto! It’s a bad one!”
“Maybe you should slow down a little. It’s hard to see through all this rain.”
Orville pulled the right stick back. “How’s that? We’re steady at fifty miles an hour.”
“That’s good. We should have time to steer clear of any obstacles.”
“I don’t think we’ll have any. There’s no old cities out here and no mountains I can–” Orville nearly jumped out of his seat when the alarm shrieked out its warning.
“Creekers!” Orville brought the ship to a hover, slowly edging it forward.
“It looks like an enormous tree.”
“I can’t believe what I’m seeing! It’s the same gigantic blue tree we saw on Periculum at the Blue Monks’ monastery! Look at the leaves, they’re perfect blue circles. This one is even bigger than the one at the monastery. It must be twelve hundred feet tall. I don’t understand how the same kind of tree could be growing on Earth and on Periculum.”
“Fly around it. We have to get to the MV Bermitar.”
“Proto, mark this location on your Interworld Positioning System. I want to come back here sometime and explore this area. Maybe the Blue Monks have a monastery near here.”
“I have marked it.”
“Wait! Look at the leaves! They’re not moving, even in this howling wind! How is that possible?”
“We have to go. We’ll solve that puzzle some other time.”
Orville gave a groan of exasperation but maneuvered the ship around the massive blue tree. Soon it was far behind them, the violence of the wind escalating rapidly. “We have to get past this storm! The wind is battering us all over the place. Everyone make sure you’re buckled in.”
For almost an hour the four adventurers battled the raging maelstrom, its ferocious gale force winds buffeting their small blinker ship, great shards of lightning blasting down from the roiling black skies. Orville watched a monstrous bolt of jagged lightning explode a hundred feet in front of them, transforming a large stand of wildly flailing trees into seventy foot tall blazing torches.
“Abacus! What happens if we get hit by lightning?”
“We are perfectly safe inside the ship. It is well insulated and we are not touching the ground. We will experience only a brilliant blinding light and a thunderous boom as the heat from the lightning causes the air to rapidly expand in a most explosive manner.”
“We’ll be okay?”
“You will be fine.”
Orville pushed the right stick and the ship sped forward. “I don’t like this storm and I really don’t like that lightning.”
Sophia laughed. “It could be worse, it could be raining giant carnivorous centipedes.”
Orville managed a weak grin. “Doesn’t anything scare you?”
“I’m scared of furry caterpillars.”
“What?”
“Blue sky!” Proto’s voice rang out above the roar of the storm. Orville looked up and saw a brilliant patch of blue in the distance. He jammed both sticks forward and they blasted out of the raging darkness into clear indigo skies.
Sophia looked out the rear canopy at the massive storm behind them. “It looks almost like the Black Wall except with lightning.”
“Abacus, how far to the MV Bermitar?”
“It has moved slightly. Head southwest to an altitude of five thousand one hundred feet. The ship is decreasing the power allocated to the cloaking device, so it will be flickering in and out of view with greater frequency. We should be able to spot it without the use of enhanced scanning systems.”
Orville sent the ship soaring up into the sky. “Five thousand feet, heading southwest. How many miles did you say?”
“One hundred and twenty-nine.”
“We should reach it in under an hour. Then all we have to do is stop a gargantuan interstellar transport ship from dropping out of the sky and turning us into living statues.”
Chapter 33
The Letter
Mirus Mouse furrowed his eyebrows. This one had been a tough nut to crack. Patcher seemed to relish presenting him with the most insidious puzzles he could conjure up. He glared silently as Captain Patcher fell into an overstuffed chair and leaned his head back with a loud exhalation, casually propping his leather boots up on Mirus’ tea table. Mirus was fuming inside. A little decorum would be nice. Who puts their muddy old boots on a tea table? And that ridiculous scar. Any shaper would be able to–”
“Did you figure it out? The language?”
“A tough nut to crack, quite a conundrum indeed.”
“I’m confused, is it a nut or a conundrum?” Patcher gave a loud guffaw.
Mirus rubbed his temples. Patcher was giving him a headache. “Most humorous. I have run Eldon’s letter through the Thaumatarian translator several more times with virtually iden
tical results. I would tell you emphatically that several of the symbols used were startlingly reminiscent of the archaic hieroglyphs originating in the pre-Anarkkian world of–”
“Where’s the letter from? That’s all I want to know.”
Mirus gave Patcher a sharp look. “Indeed, of course, a mouse of action, Captain Patcher of the infamous Dragonfly Squadron. No time for thinking, too much adventuring to be done. Mustn’t overwork the gray matter.”
Patcher rolled his eyes. “So the letter came from...”
“The village undoubtedly lies east of the Symocan jungle, more than likely along the coastline of the Sutilbo Sea. Quite fascinating, the text of the letter is a curious mix of primitive Anarkkian symbols and the ideographs of an ancient Symocan nomadic tribe who settled along the Sutilbo Sea over eight hundred years ago, adapting a subsistence lifestyle as fishermice. More than likely the village is in close proximity to some long forgotten Anarkkian colony, which would explain–”
“You’re the best, Mirus. And for the record, it wasn’t me who started calling you the Mad Mouse of Muridaan.”
“I shall sleep soundly tonight, basking in the warmth of this newfound knowledge.”
Patcher gave a loud snort, slapping Mirus on the shoulder. “I like you, Mirus. Anytime you want to fly with the Dragonfly Squadron just let me know. We’d be lucky to have a master pilot like you. You should really think about it. You need to get out more often.” With tip of his hat Patcher turned and strolled out the doorway.
Mirus chuckled to himself. “Captain Mirus Mouse of the Dragonfly Squadron. A nice ring to that, I would tell you.” Mirus leaned back in his chair, a faraway look appearing in his eyes.
Twenty minutes later Captain Patcher stood facing Master Marloh. “I’ll need the whole squadron. The coastline of the Sutilbo covers a lot of ground, too much for one Dragonfly. It will take all of us to find the Flicker, whatever it turns out to be.”
“Do whatever you have to do to find Eldon. I haven’t heard a word from Orville or Sophia. They’re somewhere in east Symoca in a Dragonfly. Have the squadron members keep an eye out for them.”
“Will do. If Orville’s anything at all like his papa I wouldn’t worry too much about him. I’ll gather the crew and we’ll take off at sunrise.”
Patcher was striding toward the front door when he heard the soft melodic humming. He grinned, making an unplanned detour to the history section of the Book Emporium.
“Hey, a lot of mice are complaining about all the humming. You want to turn it down a notch?”
A very startled Amanda Mouse looked up from the pages of a dusty old tome titled Before the Comet, Volume IV: Reign of the Apes. “Mice are complaining? Was I humming again?”
“Just kidding. I like your humming. Sounds just like a Dragonfly cruising through a clear blue sky.”
“You’re saying I remind you of a bug-eyed insect?”
“Wait, no, that’s not what I meant at all. The wings of a Dragonfly make a lovely sound, and soaring through the sky is like nothing else in this world.”
Amanda smiled. “I was teasing. I knew what you meant.”
“Have you ever flown in a Dragonfly?”
“I have not, but I have a feeling all that is going to change very soon. Just so you know, Master Marloh told me all about you, Captain Patcher of the Dragonfly Squadron.”
Chapter 34
MV Bermitar
“We’re close, a few miles at most. Drop down to four thousand seven hundred feet.”
Orville eased the ship down. “Everyone keep an eye out for the flickering ship.”
Proto spotted it. “There! To the left of that big cloud.” Orville caught a brief glimpse of a massive silver ship.
“Closing in.” Orville sent the blinker ship darting through the sky toward the cloaked vessel. “How do we board it?”
“There’s a topside flight deck for scout ships. We’ll be able to set down there and enter through the main pilot station.”
Sophia cried out, “There it is again! Take us in before it cloaks!”
“Creekers, look at the size of that thing! It’s bigger than Muridaan Falls!” Orville jammed the sticks forward and the ship darted ahead, shooting up over the top of the great gleaming leviathan. “Unhh! It’s gone again!”
“Drop down fifty feet. Slowly.”
“Going down. Twenty... thirty... forty...”
“Slow. We’re almost on it.”
Orville felt a slight bump as they touched down on the MV Bermitar.
“That’s it! We’re on it! Gear down, power down.” Orville glanced over at Abacus. “What now?”
Abacus stood motionless, his golden eyes pulsing with an unfamiliar light. He tapped a violet disk on the port side bulkhead and the blinker’s hatch whirred open, forming a set of stairs leading down to the invisible flight deck.
Orville peered out through the doorway. “That’s spooky. It looks like we’ll step off and fall through the sky.”
“Abacus MV Bermitar making his presence known!”
“What?”
Abacus strode down the stairs and stepped out onto the invisible hull of the great Mintarian ship. He kneeled down and extended both his arms, lowering them slowly until they made contact with the ship’s hull. The bulbous ends of his fingers flared with a brilliant pink light. Sophia watched his hands liquify, spreading across the surface of the ship.
“I am searching for the cloaking device. There are only a few places where it– ah, I have it. Very clever indeed, it is tied in with the antimatter core field. Your Varmoran scout pilot knew what he was doing. Impressive. I’ll deactivate the auxiliary power transfer tunnel.” Abacus closed his eyes, his body shimmering with a blue iridescent light.
Orville let out an involuntary squeak when the MV Bermitar blinked into view. “Creekers, how could they even make something this big?”
“They are built in dark space Star Yards. It can take ten years or more to build an MBC Class 9 Interstellar Battle Cruiser. They are incomprehensibly complex, more so than you might imagine. There has been a great deal of debate regarding their status as a recognized sentient being.”
“Sentient being? You mean the ship is alive? That’s impossible.”
“I am not alive?”
“I didn’t say that. That’s different, you’re not a ship.”
“I am a physical form imbued with engineered intelligence. The same can be said of the MV Bermitar.”
“But it doesn’t have arms... or walk... or...”
“Does a snake have arms? Does a fish walk?”
“That’s a good point, the shape or size doesn’t really matter. A little bug is just as alive as a Gnorli bird.”
“As I said, there has been a great deal of debate on this point with valid arguments coming from both sides. In the final analysis the ship is no more and no less than precisely what it is, and labeling it as a living or nonliving entity is a subjective and ultimately pointless exercise.”
Orville nodded thoughtfully, pretending he understood what Abacus had just said. “Umm... so how do we get inside? It’s kind of cold up here.”
Abacus pointed toward a clear dome several hundred feet down the flight deck. “Follow me.”
The four adventurers strode along the gleaming surface of the MV Bermitar. “How big is your ship anyway?”
“One thousand two hundred and thirty-nine feet from stem to stern, three hundred twenty-six feet from top to bottom. There are eleven decks, nine of them reserved for cargo transport, one for personnel transport, and one for command and control. The time throttles are located on deck three inside the High Security Zone.”
“Creekers, that’s big. How do you power up the ship? Does it need more fuel? Can Sophia and I shape CDETS or something?”
“My second form is powered by antimatter, matter whose particles bear the opposite charge to those of our world. Rather than electrons, which possess a negative charge, they are composed of positrons, which hold a positive c
harge. Our prime source of the fuel is a parallel world called Ainran, a world formed of antimatter. In some ways the process for obtaining antimatter is similar to a CDET, but it is infinitely more dangerous.” Abacus stopped in front of the great dome. “We enter here.” He pointed to a twelve foot tall green tinted doorway at the base of the great curved structure.
“How do you open it?”
“There is no physical door, the dome itself is a powerful energy field similar to the sphere of defense you create. As I approach the green circle, the ship scans and identifies me, transforming the portal into a semi-fluid dry state. I am then able to safely pass through. It is much the same process as when my first form becomes a dry fluid. The ship scanned the three of you the moment we stepped off the blinker, and I designated you as fully authorized crew members. If you attempted to enter without such designation you would be unable to.”
Abacus moved his hand easily in and out of the green portal, then strode through into the dome, motioning for the others to follow him.
Orville poked one paw tentatively through the dome wall. “It tickles.”
Seconds later the four adventurers were inside the dome.
“We must access the bridge. The speed of our descent is accelerating.” Abacus pointed to a ring of large yellow discs circling the dome floor, each with a black hieroglyph in the center. He pointed to one of the circles. “This transport tube will take us to the bridge.”
Sophia eyed the circle. “We slide through a big tube to get there?”
“It is not a physical tube as such, but it will carry us safely to the bridge once activated. We must hurry. “Abacus raised one hand, the ends of his fingers glowing brightly. The circle changed from yellow to violet. “Follow me.” He stepped onto the glowing violet disc and was gone.