The Farpool
Page 15
Chapter 14
Seome
Omsh’pont, kel: Om’t
Time: 767.2, Epoch of Tekpotu
Angie knew that Chase’s audience with the Metah Iltereedah was her best chance to get help. She wanted to go back through the Farpool. She wanted to undo the em’took procedure, and get her long legs and cute butt and page-boy curls back. She wanted, desperately, so bad she could taste it, to go home and hug her Mom and run laps around the track at Apalachee High with Gwen Sandiford.
Now she was just mad. Longsee had told her that none of this was possible…at least not any time soon. Iltereedah had ruled that very day: the hearing and the trial of Tulcheah would take precedence.
Even amidst the cacophony of the sound and its relentless turbulent pounding, all of Omsh’pont was abuzz over the matter of the half-Ponkti weaver. What would happen to her? What should happen to her?
The Metah had been reluctant to furnish an expedition to take Angie back to the Farpool but when Longsee pointed out that studying the effects of what was left of the shield on the Uman machine would be useful, she relented. She questioned Angie closely about her decision, summoning both Angie and Chase to her chambers atop the central seamount of Omsh’pont.
“I do not understand this request,” Iltereedah said. “It makes sense that eekoti would want to return to their home kels, if they had only come for a short stay. But you have both gone through em’took. Eekoti Angie, even if you go back through the Farpool, you will still be…as you are. And Longsee has told me that there is no assurance that such a trip will take you back to your own time and place. Explain this to me.”
Angie always found the Metah’s chambers an intimidating place. Nowhere else in Omsh’pont did she feel so out of place, so obviously different from everybody else. The Metah was always surrounded by aides and staff…the canopied pavilion was even now draped with extra coverings and shielding to screen out the wavemaker’s vibrations as much as possible. Iltereedah hovered gracefully atop a broad flat pedestal that looked like a natural stone formation, almost a coral reef in itself, multi-hued, dazzling with textures and shapes and gilt-edged petals, almost like a tiara or a chandelier.
“Your Majesty—“ Angie replied, not sure how one really addressed the Metah, “—I don’t know if you have a word in your language for homesick, but that’s what I am. Chase and I came here with Kloosee and Pakma to try to help. I don’t think we can do much more to help. I want to go home and be with my people. Chase—“she glanced over at him—their eyes didn’t meet, couldn’t meet. Something had happened, now the spark seemed to be dying, and that made her sad. Still—“Longsee told me that em’took couldn’t really be reversed. I’m not sure I fully understood that when we went through it. But it doesn’t matter…even unmodified, I want to go back. I’m willing to take the risk…even if Chase isn’t.” There…she had said it. It hurt like hell to say it, but the words were out there now and couldn’t be recalled.
The Metah took the moment to leave her nest and circle the pavilion. She pulsed Angie, finding only sadness, determination, her words matched the echoes. Iltereedah pulsed Chase as well, sensing in the eekoti male confusion, anger, resignation…it was hard to tell with these odd creatures. They couldn’t hide anything, had no concept of shoo’kel.
“And you, eekoti Chase, what have you to say about this? You must stay…there is the matter of Tulcheah. You’re a witness. But you and eekoti Angie seem shoo’lee…I pulse something like affection here. A small core of affection, to be sure, but it’s there.”
Chase felt his throat go dry. Now that Angie had said it….
“Your Majesty, I love Angie…I’m not sure why she—“ He looked over at her, all scaly and reptilian. Was it really Angie? Had their relationship changed that much?
The Metah seemed to sense the conflicting feelings. You couldn’t hide echoes like that. “This is against my better judgment. But I will approve a trip to Kinlok, for eekoti Angie to go back through the Farpool. The eekoti have done much, endured much, to help us. Now, perhaps, we can help you. Longsee will see to it that the proper outfitting is done. And a lifeship will be made available. The shield has failed. We must seek another solution and something may yet come of this trip. Eekoti Angie…you understand that the em’took procedure cannot be reversed…not easily. You could die.”
Angie wouldn’t look at Chase. She couldn’t look at Chase. Not now. If she did—
“Your Majesty, I understand. Kloosee and Pakma have explained. I still want to go home.”
“Very well,” Iltereedah decided, “it will be done.” She nodded to her aides and they whispered the proclamation into small echobulbs. Later that day, the Metah’s words would be broadcast throughout Omsh’pont on the sound layer, and by repeater to a wider audience throughout the Sea.
Chase and Angie were dismissed. With an official escort from the Metah, they roamed together silently for awhile, heading back across the city to the Academy labs at the base of the T’orshpont seamount. A steady rain of debris, rubble and mud sloughed off the seamount and swirled like a dirty fog above the city, the effects of the Uman machine up north, of the sound that could not be shielded.
They said nothing to each other.
The newly approved trip would consist of a single kip’t, towing a lifeship. Amanh tel, an engineer with Longsee and the Academy would pilot the kip’t. Pakma tel would come along as well and train Angie on operating the lifeship. Angie was quickly reminded of how much she had to re-learn…just making the right clicks and sounds to control the lifeship was harder than she remembered. But she was glad to see Pakma again and they embraced when she showed up at the kip’t shop, nuzzling each other in the Omtorish way.
“I’m glad you’re coming along, Pakma. It’s good to have someone I know.”
Pakma pulsed the eekoti female. Her normally bemused smile wasn’t there. She could sense the sadness roiling inside Angie.
“You’re not happy, eekoti Angie. I can see that. We all pulse it. This is a distressing and unhappy time for you.”
Angie had to admit that. “I’m sad to leave all my Seomish friends behind…especially you and Kloosee. We’ve grown to know each other so well…you’re like family to me. It’s been special…what we’ve had together.”
“But your real family is not here, eekoti Angie. You wish to return to your own world.”
“Yeah, that’s true…I miss my Mom, my friends. Especially Gwen.”
Pakma and Angie watched several technicians outfitting and checking the sled for its long journey. Supplies and small pouches were laid in, fastened to the inside of the kip’t. The jets were fired and tuned. Circulators tested. Control surfaces exercised.
“Eekoti Angie, you do understand that em’took can’t be easily reversed. Longsee said to try it might be fatal. Perhaps the Farpool will take you back to your world. But it may not be the same time and place. And you will be different. You will not be the same as before…this concerns you, I can tell this.”
“If you mean…do I realize I’ll look like a giant frog, I do. I don’t care. The Farpool will make it right. I’m sure of it. The Farpool will put me back.”
Now, Pakma was truly sad for it was clear that eekoti Angie did not fully understand. “There is no proof of this…Longsee himself has said such a change is unlikely, probably impossible.”
But Angie was undeterred. “Pakma, I just want to go home, that’s all there is to it.”
And Pakma could pulse that it was true.
The kip’t departed the very next day—Amanh, Pakma, and Angie, with the lifeship in tow. Before lifting away from the dock at the Academy, Chase and Angie said a tearful goodbye. At least, they thought it was tearful. With their modified bodies, you couldn’t tell if there were really tears. But they hugged and rubbed noses anyway
“Are you sure about this?” Chase asked her.
Angie, a
ware that others were watching and probably studying them like lab rats, nodded, whispering into Chase’ echopod-enhanced ear: “I’m sure. I just need to go home, and be home.”
“Even looking like this…you know what’s going to happen, Ang. You’ll be scooped up and wind up in a zoo…or worse. You don’t even know if the Farpool works in reverse.”
Angie looked at Chase. He really did look like a frog, with jowls and bulbous eyes. She had to laugh a little. I look the same way. “I know. I don’t care. I just can’t stay here any longer, Chase. It’s not me. It’s not even—“she wanted to say human, but some inner sense told her not to “—it’s not right. I came along ‘cause I wanted some adventure too. I guess…I don’t know…I guess I didn’t think it would really happen. I thought we’d leave the aquarium and fool around at sea with Kloosee and Pakma and that would be that. I never dreamed---“
“You know I’ll come home…some day. Just not right now. I have to do this. Kloosee, Pakma, all of them, they need help. Ang, I can help them. I know I can.”
Angie pressed fingers into his rough, scaly cheeks. The eyes are still Chase. Em’took didn’t change that. “I know that. Let’s don’t make this any harder than it is, okay? Just come back as soon as you can.”
Chase heart sank. It was the way she said that. “You’ll be there? You’ll be…I mean, you know…us—“
Angie put fingers to his big lips. “Shhh. Just come back—“
With that, she climbed into the kip’t. Pakma pulled the cockpit bubble down. Amanh revved the propulsors and in a cloud of bubbles, the kip’t and lifeship were off. They disappeared into the rain of silt and swirling dirt in seconds and were gone.
Chase went back inside the Academy em’kel. His heart was in his mouth. He felt like crap and was momentarily overwhelmed with sadness, wondering if he would ever see Angie again.
He had to believe he would. He told himself that, out loud, over and over again. It would happen.
Pakma had told Angie the trip would take five days. Amanh would pilot the kip’t south, paralleling the outer bands of the Sk’ork Current, around the southern flanks of Likte Island, then across the equator into the vortex fields of Pul’kel, to catch the great sweep of the Pom’tel Current. Its counter-clockwise movement would then take them around the Ponk’el Sea, past the Pillars of Shooki and the edge of the polar icepack to the region of the azhpuh’te, the whirlpools and the Farpool. Kinlok Island and the Uman base wouldn’t be far away.
As Pakma described it, Angie thought: this is like going around your ass to reach your elbow. But the currents of Seome were the currents of Seome and she figured Amanh knew what he was doing. After Angie had left the kip’t and hopefully ridden the lifeship into the Farpool, Amanh and Pakma would continue on to reconnoiter Kinlok and the surrounding seas, collect measurements on the sound and vibration and recon any weaknesses in Uman operations that could be used in future attempts to rid the world of the hated wavemaker and its Tailless operators.
Conditions were growing steadily worse everywhere. Even Angie could see that. Despite wanting to go home, she did fear for the future of her Seomish friends.
The three of them spent many hours in silence, as Amanh drove them southeast across the great abyssal plains of Omt’orkel toward the lower Serpentine. There wasn’t much to see. The water was black, flecked with brief bursts of luminescence as small creatures lit off when the kip’t disturbed their feeding. Once, they came upon a field of flickering lights, moving slowly a few beats below them.
“Ter’poh,” said Amanh as they passed over the moving river of light. “They glow like that when they feed.”
Pakma laughed. “Omtorish mothers tell their babies that the ter’poh will come if they don’t eat all their meals…we all grew up afraid of them. But really, they’re pretty harmless…unless they clog our jets. Amah will keep us a safe distance away.”
“Sounding the Southern Gap ahead…maybe thirty beats,” Amanh told them. The sounder echoes flickered on some kind of screen on the sled’s instrument panel. “I’ll slow us down—“
They reduced speed to navigate the narrow chasm and the waters became turbulent and frothy, cross-currents mixing in a maelstrom of crashing flows. The kipt and lifeship waggled and whipsawed and careened until Amanh brought them down to a creeping speed, just barely making enough way to overcome the water’s resistance.
Finally, when Angie was sure they would be dashed against steep escarpments on either side, an invisible current reached out and grabbed them, pulling them through the gorge into the Ponk’el Sea. Ahead, the conical shapes of the Ork’nt range were dim shadows and they were buffeted by choppy waves and clashing currents as they picked up speed again.
“It’s like roaming through Omsh’pont during vish’tu,” Amanh mentioned. “When everybody gets out and roams, you can’t go anywhere…people are thick as stew. You have to twist and turn and slide and slither…the Pul’kel is like that. Vortexes and whirlpools everywhere, right on top of each other. Normally, we wouldn’t come this way, but if you can get through, the Pomt’or Current will take you up north quickly. We need to get to the Farpool as fast as we can…no one knows if it still works the same way…or even if it’s still there.”
This made Angie anxious and Pakma pulsed it right away. “You mean the Farpool might disappear? I thought it was a permanent disturbance.”
Pakma chose her words carefully; she didn’t want to say something that would upset Angie any more. They still had several more days jammed together inside the kip’t.
“Longsee thinks the Farpool is just an especially strong whirlpool…something the Uman machine, the wavemaker, creates as a side effect. He doesn’t think the Umans are even aware it exists…or if they are, they don’t care. Here—“ Pakma pulled out an echopod from a pouch inside the cockpit and activated it. “Longsee recorded his own findings some time ago…listen—“
“One of these whirlpools is especially deep and intense. In this whirlpool, the twist field has spun off a sort of miniature or daughter wormhole. It isn’t very big. It isn’t very stable, fluctuating daily in intensity and location. But it will send objects that enter to other places, other places different in both time and space.
We call this mother of all whirlpools the Farpool. By accident, we’ve learned that at certain times of the year, under certain conditions created by operating the Time Twister, the Farpool can send small objects…a few explorers and their gear…to other places and times. We believe one of those places turned out to be the home world of the Umans themselves.
In effect, we have learned how to travel back in time and space to the ancestral home planet of the Umans. The Umans don’t know this. And they don’t care, as they are engaged in running duels with local forces of their mortal enemy, whom they call Coethi.
Using the Farpool to reach other places and return to Seome requires exquisite timing and control of the whirlpools generated by the Twister. Use of the Farpool is basically at the mercy and sufferance of the Umans and how they operate the Twister. But we have learned much. We’ve catalogued the conditions we need and built an algorithm to help predict when these conditions will occur. When the right conditions appear, we know to be ready to enter Farpool.
There have been several occasions when Farpool didn’t work as we predicted. In all these situations, the travelers failed to make it to their destination, or failed to return to Seome. Where or when they went is unknown. When this has happened, we have memorial services and try to learn what went wrong. This process has led to our ability to predict and manage how to use the Farpool. In recent months, we have been able to reliably go and return from the Umans’ homeworld.
And no one outside of Omt’or, especially the Ponkti, knows any of this.”
This made Angie thoughtful for a few moments. “What will happen if the Farpool isn’t there? Is there no way to make sure it works?”
That didn’t make Angie feel any better. “First of all, Chase is not my mate. And what exactly do you mean…wherever we wind up?”
“There is talk—“ and here Pakma paused, for Amanh had given her a stern look from his pilot’s position “—that we may leave our homes. Go elsewhere, through the Farpool.”
Angie hadn’t heard this before and she was intrigued. “Where would you go? Where can you go?”
“Oh, there is great conflict and debate about this…in Omt’or, in all the kels…even Ponk’et. One of the reasons Kloosee and I came to your world was to learn if it is livable…for us. You have vast oceans, many waters, like our world. The waters are different, but there are proposals—“ Here, Amanh spoke sharply.
“Eekoti should not know of this, Pakma tek. The Metah has pledged us all-“
But Pakma wouldn’t be dissuaded. “I don’t report to you, Amanh tel…eekoti Angie should know this. There are proposals…serious proposals, even plans, to emigrate. From our world to yours. Seome to your Earth. Live in your waters. Kloosee and I were there in part to observe, collect information, take measurements…a kind of surveillance.”
Angie’s head swam with the idea. “Emigrate to Earth…all of you? Through the Farpool…could that even be done?”
“There is talk among the scientists…ways to do this…but we haven’t discussed this with the kels. But you must promise not to reveal this when you go home. The project could be jeopardized.”
Angie’s head churned with all kinds of thoughts. The Farpool…mass migration…alien invasion…jumbled images of bad science fiction movies erupted. She wasn’t sure what to make of all this.
“I had no idea, Pakma. But your secret is safe with me. I just want to be home.”
Pakma asked about Angie’s family, about her em’kel.
“If I understand the idea of em’kels right, we don’t really have an equivalent back home. We have families…mother, father—mine ran off with another woman, the jerk—brothers…I have one brother. We’re related, blood lines and all that. I guess the closest thing we have to your em’kels is like a club…or a team, like the track team at school. Gwen and I are 200-meter girls on the track team.”
Pakma didn’t really understand but she could pulse that discussing her ‘family-em’kel’ made Angie calmer, quieter, more controlled. It was a good subject for discussion.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Angie went on. “I’ll miss you and Kloosee…and Longsee and even Amanh here. I’ve got lots of friends here…I’ll always remember you. It’s just that—well—“ Angie shrugged. “Home is home. And I’m sure Chase will come home too…when he’s ready. That boy thinks he’s a great explorer…this has been the adventure of a lifetime…for both of us. I’ve never dreamed—“ She struggled for the right words—“well, I mean, I never had any dreams like this. It’s been like a dream to me.”
The remainder of the trip across the Ponk’el Sea was spent like this, Angie struggling with conflicting feelings, should I really do this, I need to do this, I should stay and help Chase, they need us, but what can I really do and I miss Mom and Gwen so much—everything ran together and she just couldn’t sort it all out and Angie found herself glad when Amanh announced that the first faint outlines of Kinlok Island and the whirlpools was now dead ahead, maybe a hundred beats.
“Time to get you into the tchee’lum,” Pakma announced. The bulbous, fish-shaped lifeship had been their companion since leaving Omsh’pont, towed behind like an unwilling pet. Amanh sounded ahead—they could all hear and feel the steady drone-beat of the wavemaker filling the waters—and soon located a small range of rubbly hills along the seabed, where they could shelter for a few moments and Angie could make the transfer with little risk.
Amanh put them down on the seafloor. The water was a deep green, streaked with shafts of light from above, and thick with broken ice. Mah’jeet fields were nearby but moving away. Pakma unsealed the bubble and Angie immediately felt the numbing cold of the polar waters.
She made the switch in quick order, not wanting to stay exposed to the icy waters any longer than necessary. Once she had wedged herself inside the tiny craft and strapped in, Pakma went over the controls one more time.
“You must make the right clicks and whistles to control tchee’lum…you’ve done this before, eekoti Angie. You have controls for the propulsors, the planes and rudder, the stabilators and the interior. You can vent the cockpit here—“ she brushed several controls with her armfins—“and re-fill here. You have communications, some navigation…it won’t work on your world. And you don’t have to navigate to the Farpool itself…Amanh will steer us as near as he can and when tchee’lum is caught in the vortex, he’ll cut the towline and you’ll be pulled in. Just stay centered as best as you can and hold on…you’ve been through this before.”
Angie swallowed hard. Am I really doing this? “I remember…it’s like riding about a hundred Space Mountains—“ When Pakma looked puzzled, Angie went on,” A kind of sport on my world…we do it for fun.”
“We will miss you, eekoti Angie.” Pakma had an unmistakable look of sadness on her face. Her normally faint smile was now clearly a frown. Even Angie could tell that. And in her own fumbling way, she could ‘pulse’ the upset echoes inside her. She reached out and stroked Pakma along her beak.
“Me too, Pakma. Maybe we’ll see each other again.” She had no idea how or when such a thing might happen, but it seemed like a good thing to say.
Pakma understood and brushed an armfin against Angie’s rough, scaly, lizard face. “I hope that em’took can be reversed. Perhaps your own healers can do this—“ With that, she closed the bubble and Angie heard the swoosh of the self-seal as the bubble settled into its grooves.
She was all alone now, in more ways than she cared to realize. But before she could feel sorry for herself, the lifeship jerked upward. Amanh had started up the kip’t and the towline strained with the weight. Soon enough, Angie’s tiny craft was in motion too, wallowing like a drunken whale in the wake of the kip’t.
They headed north, into the whirlpools, toward the Farpool.
The buffeting became noticeably stronger and Angie tried to see out but the little lifeship had only a tiny forward porthole and she couldn’t see much. On her instrument panel, Pakma had powered up all the dials and gauges…most of them completely foreign to Angie. Screens chirped and clicked, lines and waves danced across displays and vertical indicators bobbed up and down…none of it meant anything to her. She had forgotten everything Pakma had just gone over and now hovered helpless and frozen inside the tchee’lum, afraid to touch anything.
I’ll just have to trust Pakma and Amanh, she muttered to herself. And God too.
There was a strong jerk at the front of the lifeship and a feeling of being cut loose. She stained to see ahead and thought she saw the tail end of the towline whipping by the porthole. Probably Amanh’s cut me loose. I’m on my own now. Here goes—
The lifeship started shaking like a wet dog, buffeting, rocking, careening, bouncing back and forth. She had a strong feeling of being accelerated forward, like something powerful was pulling the ship in, like she was being swallowed, going down some giant’s mouth.
Then the spinning started, faster and faster, until Angie began to see only a narrow tunnel ahead—gray-out is what fighter pilots called it—pulling too many g’s—and her mind was filled with scraps of thoughts…the last homework assignment Miss Poynter had given them in Algebra II..that time she had tripped over the final hurdle in the regional finals of the 200-meter event…catapulting her into the air,
she felt like she was spinning until her face and chin slammed into the track and she woke up from the impact in the school infirmary with a mild concussion…there was that time she and Chase had been canoeing off-shore, near Turtle Key, and there was a hurricane out in the gulf—they had disobeyed all the red flags and headed out and gotten into surf they couldn’t handle and that big-ass wave had turned them bow for stern, right in the air….
All these things hurtled through what was left of Angie’s consciousness. With her last glimmer of thought, she remembered that night when Mom had come home from working at the Venetian Feast restaurant, all tears streaking down her face to say that Dad had left…no note, but she knew where he was and he wasn’t coming back…she wanted to kill the guy right then and there for tearing up Mom like that—
And then the Farpool grabbed her completely and pulled her in and she had no more thoughts for a very long time.