by John Daulton
She directed Knot around the corner carefully and slowly; rounding a bend as sharp as that was a complicated affair. Doing so required that Pernie turn to face the rock, and that Knot bend himself around the corner and stop while she scooted around him from one face to the next. But soon they were around it, and she saw that she’d come upon a horseshoe-shaped cove. It was at least two hundred spans deep and nearly as wide at its widest point toward the back. And it had a bright pink beach!
Pernie sent Knot a threatening thought and had him descend at a gradual angle until they could get to the narrow strip of sand. It was obvious that this place was like no other beach she’d seen before, and she’d seen plenty since coming to String. For starters, the sand was as pink as a poodle’s tongue, and it was so soft it reminded her of goose down like the kind Kettle made pillows with, luxurious and inviting. She stepped off Knot and hopped around in it for a time, enjoying the warmth and softness of it on her feet. She flung handfuls of it into the air and saw that it sparkled like a million tiny jewels.
She paused, realizing that she’d been giggling loudly, and turned quickly round, looking back the way she had come. Djoveeve was nowhere to be found. Though that was hardly cause for comfort given the nature of what the ancient woman had been doing these last three hundred years.
She tipped her head back and scanned the edge of the cliff all around, rather like Djoveeve had been doing while searching for her back at the crater they’d been practicing in. There was no sign of movement up there, though there might have been a hundred elves hiding in the trees for all Pernie could tell.
She brought her gaze back to the cove itself and saw that the crescent-shaped beach fronted an odd stand of trees, hundreds and hundreds of them, all roughly the same. They were palm trees, not unlike those that she’d seen all over the island here, but these, all of them, grew in pairs, two trunks wound around together, and seeming to share a single tuft of fronds at the top, a great mass of them all jumbled together like the green head of some spiked mace.
She went immediately to investigate, bidding Knot to curl up in a ball with just the right dose of fear, a mental blast of pain, his own, remembered and echoed back at him. It worked, of course, and confident that he was properly subdued, she left him rolled up there to go see about the trees.
Upon closer inspection, she discovered that the palm trunks had a texture like hard wax, each of them soft at the surface, but firm enough when pressed. She tried to cut into one of them with her fingernail, but she could not, and for a time, it amused her to think that they might be made out of enchanted snot.
She strolled from one to the next, noting that some had round growths like coconuts on them and some did not. But beyond this difference, they were all the same variety, and were it not for the random and haphazard dispersing of the trees, she might have thought they’d been planted here all at once.
The cove was much deeper than it looked from high above, and Pernie spent nearly an hour wandering around in its depths before she grew bored of its constancy. Unlike the rest of the jungle on the island, this place was completely without variety. After a time, she decided there was nothing novel about the trees at all.
So she returned to the beach and Knot still lying there in a ball.
She bade him unroll himself and checked his thoughts to see if he was hungry. He was, which was not a surprise. She didn’t mind feeding him just now, as it gave her something to do.
With a great deal of grunting and yanking, she pulled the silk bag filled with sap off her spear shaft, making it little more than a slender quarterstaff. Still, it would suffice, and she took it right out into the waves. Surely there would be some shallow-water fish to find.
She spent some time wading deeper and deeper out, and by the time she was nearly to the mouth of the cove, which she recognized by the change in water color as the seabed dropped off steeply over a shelf, she heard the familiar bark of Djoveeve calling her name. “Do not move another step,” the old woman called, just emerging from her jaguar form. “Come back inland now.”
“No,” shouted Pernie. “Don’t tell me what to do.” Just for that, she made her way directly toward the edge of the sea shelf rather than looking around for fish. Besides, she’d probably find the fish she was looking for out there.
Had it not been for the fact that her spear shaft stuck out a pace in front of her, Pernie would have walked right into the magic barrier that evaporated the smooth black wood instead. The back half of her weapon dipped into the water behind her, having lost the counterbalance of the front, and it was the reflex following that feeling that stopped her, even before her brain had time to make sense of what her eyes had seen.
She stared at the scant half-hand’s width of black wood that remained jutting out from where she gripped the weapon in her fist. There was a faint and unfamiliar smell, and the end where it had been dissolved was cut cleanly and polished as smoothly as if a craftsman had decided to make it that way.
She flipped what remained of it around and, taking a half step back, poked it forward again.
Once again the foremost portion of it simply disappeared. When she pulled it back, again there was only the strange smell, and the shaft was again cut clean and smooth.
With a shrug, Pernie turned back toward the beach, still scanning the water for some signs of fish for Knot. By the time she got back to where her bug sat, Djoveeve was sitting next to the rolled-up creature, clearly preparing for another boring lecture she was going to give. And Pernie had nothing for Knot.
Djoveeve patted the sand beside her, and Pernie plopped next to her and proceeded to ignore whatever the old woman had to say because it was, as expected, just another boring lecture, this time about “carnation trees” or something like that, and lots of stuff about why Pernie wasn’t allowed to come here ever again—just like everything else she was never supposed to do anywhere all the time. Rather than pay attention, she looked out beyond the strange barrier and watched the water spouting from a passing pod of whales. They were free, she thought. They could go wherever they wanted to, and nobody told them what to do. She wished she were a whale. If she was, she’d go home.
Which is when she realized what she should do. Suddenly, with renewed energy, she figured out how she could get home. She glanced over at Knot, still balled up next to her, and smiled. She patted the hard surface of his rounded shell. If she could tame a bug, surely she could tame a whale. And if not a whale, then some other creature of the sea. And unlike Knot, she was not afraid of getting wet at all.
Chapter 16
A great black box appeared fifty thousand miles beyond the planet R3 in the solar system known as Fruitfall. There were none to observe the appearance of the large black object, but had there been, they would have seen what looked like an enormous brick born from the very womb of space, and shortly after it arrived, they would have observed that object begin to dissolve. For it did dissolve, beginning at its top and one leading edge and then the rest, slowly melting away. The rate of this apparent melting increased, as if black paint were being washed away from an invisible box in which there had been placed a long, slender spaceship, which gleamed silvery in the light of the distant sun. Soon the black box was reduced to a black platform, a long, flat expanse of magically enchanted tiles as dark as space itself. The spaceship resting upon it was the Glistening Lady.
Inside the ship, Captain Roberto Levi was seated in the pilot’s chair, with his feet up on the small console that served him as he watched through the main ship’s monitor, enjoying the show as the black substance of the TGS teleportation platform “unboxed” itself. When the walls of the dark teleportation bay were finally melted away, he saw that his ship had arrived above the looming giant rock R3, and not so far away from their destination, the moon Orli said was Yellow Fire’s host world before the tragic solar accident. He let go a merry laugh as the last of the black walls seemed to ooze into the platform. “You see that, Deeqa?” he said. “That there is the futur
e of everything. You got to love those magical bastards. I’m telling you. A whole new era has begun.”
“It is efficient, Captain,” Deeqa replied. “I’ll let Doctor Bryant know we are here. And get word to Orli and Sir Altin as well.”
Roberto nodded, and while Deeqa was at that, he ordered the slender blonde at the helm to take them to the coordinates Orli had given them. The helmswoman called up the location on the monitor, then engaged the engines and set them on their way. Roberto watched with a broad grin as they approached, still giddy about how easily they had jumped so far across space. From a moon around Neptune in the system of Sol to a moon around R3 in the system of Fruitfall, thirty-four light-years in seconds. And with the TGS platforms that the Prosperions were going to be building across the galaxy for just this sort of thing, the Earth ships would no longer have to suffer the snuffing out of reactor cores. They were “in the box,” as the TGS teleporters liked to say, and that somehow changed the rules. It was the same way the fighter ships and transports had worked after being teleported to Naotatica in the hangar bays of the starships, a big part of what ultimately helped end the war. Roberto didn’t understand why, but he didn’t care why. All he knew was that it worked. Soon there would be TGS depots everywhere, and the problems with distance in space would be gone forever. A new age truly was upon humanity.
In less than a half hour, the Glistening Lady was settling on the surface of Yellow Fire’s moon, barely five hundred yards from the craggy stone teeth that marked the mountain pass, a pass that would lead to the caverns, which in turn would take the science team down to Yellow Fire’s dormant heart.
Roberto was about to give the order for Deeqa and a few others of his crew to suit up and prepare to accompany the science team, when a loud rush of air ruffled everyone’s hair. They all turned as one to see Altin and Orli standing at the back of the bridge.
“Permission to come aboard, Captain?” Orli quipped as she strode confidently up and embraced her longtime friend. She leaned away then and frowned. “Hey, where’s your hat?”
He laughed, then turned and looked around. It was on the floor near the command chair, blown off the back by the wind of Altin’s teleport spell. He turned a glare of mock anger on Altin. “Hey, you kink my feather, I’m going to have words with you, pal.”
“My sincerest apologies,” Altin said, though the grin upon his face suggested a distinct lack of sincerity.
Roberto went through a round of introductions then, beginning with the blonde helmswoman Tracy Applegate, a bush pilot from the free districts in northern Canada, and then his weapons officer, Liu Chun, who he bragged was the daughter of the late General Chun who was a hero of the Hostile war. The man had intentionally crashed his fighter into a Hostile orb just prior to its striking an elementary school being used as an emergency shelter during the worst of the attack. The video capturing his heroism had become iconic, the embodiment of the fight that had raged on Earth, and his name was known and revered by all. So much so that Orli gasped when she heard who Liu Chun’s father was, and tears burned her eyes as she shook the lovely woman’s hand. “I read your father’s biography,” she said. “He was an incredible man. There are few whose bravery comes so reflexively. And he sounded so calm on the audio. I am honored to know you, and very sorry for your great loss.”
Liu nodded and smiled. “Thank you. He was a remarkable person. I miss him.”
“Well, you do his legacy of giving to others justice in helping with Yellow Fire,” Altin said.
She nodded again. “Yes, I think so too. It’s why I left my commission behind and signed up with him.” She jerked her head toward Roberto.
Orli turned to Roberto with the question in her eyes. “I thought you just scooped up all the hot chicks you could find. You mean you actually had a volunteer?”
Roberto shrugged and smiled. “I did. She saw the call for the science team on the NTA boards and applied. I saw her credentials and couldn’t say no. Just my luck she’s easy on the eyes too.”
Orli glanced back from Roberto to Liu, who, like the rest of Roberto’s crew, other than Deeqa Daar, of course, wore the low-cut, corseted uniforms Roberto had had designed. The young woman did look remarkable in the formfitting attire. Liu followed Orli’s gaze down to her chest and back up. Liu shrugged, her expression that of one who has had to make some compromises. “I know. What can you say? Our captain seems like a good man, and a really shrewd combat leader from what I read. Besides, the mission matters more than the attire.”
Tracy leaned back from her seat at the helm and added, “And he pays three times better than anyone else out there. I can live with the uniform for that.”
They laughed, all but Altin anyway, for he was already thinking about the project under way. “So where is this science team you promised me?” he asked. “I’d like to meet them and get the gryphons in the air. Every moment we waste is another moment of private agony for Blue Fire.”
“You can be such a buzz kill, dude,” said Roberto as the smile died on his face. “But you’re in luck; there they go.” He pointed to the monitor, where just then a small gravity sled was being tugged out onto the powdered gray surface of the desolate moon by a pair of figures in bulky spacesuits whose off-white coloring practically glowed in the bright light of Fruitfall high above. “That’s Doctor Bryant, I’m sure. He’s been ready for this since we left Earth, probably been back there suited up since liftoff.”
“Good,” said Altin. “That’s what I was hoping for. Someone who could really care about this project with us.”
“Oh, he cares. And he’s smart as hell, so don’t let him scare you or piss you off. Either of you.”
Both Altin and Orli frowned, and for a moment, a rare one, Roberto actually looked a little embarrassed. It was strange to see that this time it was Deeqa wearing the devilish grin.
“Well,” Roberto explained, “he’s just … well—all I’m saying is if he starts hitting on Orli or something, don’t blast him with a fireball. That’s all. He’s harmless, I swear.”
“Why would he hit her? And I certainly will not tolerate it, I promise you.”
“No, not hitting like hitting hitting. I mean, if he starts checking her out. Flirting or whatever. You know, coming on to her.”
Orli laughed, but Altin looked very serious. She clutched his arm, and after a glance into her sweet blue eyes, he smiled. “Very well. No blasting. I realize that the customs of nonmilitary people from Earth may take some acclimating to for those of us from Prosperion, just as patience the other way will surely also be required. I will do my part.”
Several hours later they were all deep beneath the surface of Yellow Fire’s moon, nine of them, standing around the hole in the bottom of the huge chamber filled with the dull gray crystals sprouting from essentially everywhere.
“That’s him,” Orli said proudly as they looked down into it, the faint purplish pulse just visible below.
Doctor Marks Bryant—“Call me Professor,” the geologist had said—moved up to the edge and peered down inside. He took a reading with a large blockish device that emitted a narrow green line of light. He read the data on its screen, then turned to Altin. “This is the stone you call Liquefying Stone, correct?” His gloved hand was pointing to any number of the dull gray crystals in the hole.
“It is,” came Altin’s reply. “Or at least it sort of is. It’s not the same as the few we had on Prosperion, nor is it like those in Blue Fire’s cave. At least not anymore. Hers, and the ones that I got from Tytamon, all have what you might call an anti-glow, an odd luminescence that didn’t glow so much as absorb light in an observable way. It’s hard to explain. But they were yellow, and there is something about that which seems in operation when you look into them. It is the same with those that adorn the walls on Blue Fire, even more so, really, for they are quite bright and do emit light, glowing wondrously at all times. These here, obviously, do not glow, nor are they yellow at all. If they are eating light at all, I can�
�t tell it by looking. However, in terms of arrangement, they do seem to be of the same variety.”
The geologist nodded, his shiny bald head reflecting the white spots of several of the others’ helmet lights as he bent back down. He put his gloved hand behind a formation of crystals near the edge of the hole and narrowed his helmet’s light beam. He waved his hand back and forth, evidently looking to see if any light came through, but they were too dull and gray.
He pulled his hand back and slid a small hammer from his belt. He backed away from the edge of the hole and went to a cluster of stones near Orli. He flashed her a wink before tapping on the tip of a rather long projection of crystals with the hammer. Nothing happened. He tapped on it a bit harder. Still nothing. He struck it several more times, increasingly harder with each until he stopped. “Well, it’s tough,” he said.
He went back to the hole and simply peered into it for a time. He straightened and turned to one of his team. “Rope,” he said, holding out his hand again, this time toward the members of his team. Two baby-faced young men, obviously twins, came forward and took positions on either side of him. One handed Professor Bryant a metal clip attached to a rope, which the geologist snapped to the left side of his belt. The second youth did not wait for him to look up and instead simply clipped the length of rope he carried to the geologist’s other side. Professor Bryant was all business. “All right, let’s see what we’ve got down there that’s still alive. Stacy, run the tables while I’m down there, please.”
Another very young-looking member of the science team raised a tablet computer, much like the one Orli often used, though a good deal larger and sturdier of build. “Got it, Professor,” she said.
The twins beside the professor moved to either side of the hole as the geologist sat awkwardly down in the bulky suit and began making his way down the fifteen feet to where the glowing pulse of the heart stones was.