Valhai (The Ammonite Galaxy)

by Gillian Andrews

  “You have to get up, Grace.” Diva’s voice penetrated the worry.

  “Go away!”

  “I can’t do that. And we need you. So you will just have to be upset some other time, won’t you?” The voice was harsh, critical.

  “Sure. And just when does her ladyship feel it would be convenient?” Grace hated her friend at that moment.

  “All I know is that you can’t fall apart now,” Diva said. “If that means you have to do it later, well tough! Get over it!”

  “Let me be!”

  Diva shook her head. “Not going to happen. We have given you a couple of hours sleep, and there just isn’t that much time. Now get up, and come out. We have to talk to Arcan.”

  Grace thought of Arcan. He might have some news of her mother. Of course he was bound to know something! She started to get dressed, hardly noticing that Diva had handed her one of the bodywraps, rather than normal clothes. Her movements were slower, her mind sluggish. But she was trying.

  The two girls made their way out into the family area. There, the rest of the company was waiting. The nine Sacrans they had rescued, and Six. All were wearing bodywraps, and all had several mask packs around their waists. Grace blinked.

  “Right,” Diva stepped to a point in front of them. It seemed the natural place for her to be. “We have to speak to Arcan, so we will call the lift and then we can see what solutions there are.”

  “Who is this Arcan?” the tallest of the new boys demanded.

  “Wh—” Then Diva was interrupted by an intense hissing noise.

  “Masks on!” She shouted hurriedly. “Quickly!” She drew her own on in one rapid movement and then went around the rest, checking they had all put them on correctly. Grace found Six beside her, quietly helping her to fasten her own mask in place.

  “They have turned off the oxygen supply and depressurized the House!” Diva told them. “They are hoping to finish most of us off, and that any survivors will surrender in a couple of hours, once they see that they are going to run out of mask packs. It was an obvious move on their part. We were hoping we had more time,” she signed to Six. “Tell Arcan!”

  Six moved to the edge of the corridor and called the lift. There was no answering hiss. Orthogel used its own energy of course, but the auxiliary electricity used to summon the lift had been shut off. “No use!” he called.

  Diva glanced at Grace. There was a question in her eyes. Grace tried to make her brain work, but she couldn’t think of any way they could contact Arcan. She shook her head.

  “Where’s the interscreen?” Six asked.

  “In the office.” She indicated vaguely.

  “What would you do without me, girls?” Six wondered.

  Diva caught on. “You can contact Arcan through the interscreen? Great.”

  Six held up a hand. “It might not be as easy as that,” he warned, “because the bubbles are no longer in place. But I should think he would be monitoring Atheron, and I think I can do the same thing I did before, only the other way around.”

  “So go to it!” Diva said.

  But they didn’t need to because just at that moment a bubble of orthogel materialized out of thin air in front of them, enveloped Grace and Six, floated gently over to Diva and engulfed her too. The remaining candidates stared as they disappeared into thin air in front of them.

  Arcan transported them to the lakeside, and there the bubble merged with the rest of the orthogel, leaving them on the shore. They all moved to place their hands on the surface.

  Arcan was the first to sign. “I am so sorry about your mother, Grace. I regret I was not able to act faster. I wish I had been more alert.”

  “Do you know how she is? Can you tell me anything?” Grace found her fingers trembling as she signed the question.

  “She is still alive at the moment. I am sorry but I cannot tell you any more than that. Vion finished the operation, and he has stayed on the ground floor with her. You did not teach him to sign, or tell him about me?”

  Grace shook her head. “I wasn’t sure I could tell him, at first; whether you would mind or not. And then at the end, there wasn’t time to tell him about everything.”

  “A pity. He is unaware that he can contact you.”

  Grace bit her bottom lip. “At least she is still alive at the moment.” She felt relief wash over her.

  “How long can you breathe with the mask packs you have?” he asked, moving on to the matter at hand.

  Diva and Six had been the ones who had foreseen the possibility of punitive action by the Sellites, and planned accordingly. She answered with certainty. “Twelve hours.”

  “Not very long.”

  “No.”

  “Suggestions?” Arcan asked. Nobody moved their hands to sign an answer. “Grace?”

  She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I can’t seem to think straight at the moment. If we had something they need we could negotiate, but I don’t think we have.”

  The lake took on a greenish shimmer. “But we have,” Arcan signed slowly. “At least, I have.”

  “Now would be a good time,” Six pointed out.

  “They need me in order to work all the orthotubes and lifts,” said Arcan. “And that includes the main supply tubes as well. Everything you eat, drink or breathe comes through orthogel tubing. I can close it all down in a second.”

  “That’s great,” breathed Diva. “let’s go negotiate!”

  “They resupply us with air, or they get their own cut off.” Grace considered. Then she thought of something. “We should do it first.”

  “Do what first?”

  “Cut them off. That way they might be more prepared to come to an agreement.”

  The lake glittered a moment, and then: “It is done,” said Arcan.

  “Great,” said Diva. “Now they will have to listen to us. Come on Arcan, take us to . . . ” She looked at Grace, “where, Grace?”

  “The Valhai Voting Dome,” Grace said without hesitation. “All the tridiscreens are linked there, so we will be seen either in person or virtually by all of Sell. It’s the only public place in Sell, except for the university lowrise. It’s a sort of government building.”

  “The Valhai Voting Dome,” Diva repeated. “Do we tell them about you, Arcan?”

  “Yes. They must know that this planet is no longer theirs,” was the simple answer. Diva and Grace exchanged looks. Such a lot had happened since they had first speculated on this possibility. Grace’s point of view had changed too. She felt as if she hardly cared what happened to the rest of Sell anymore.

  “But you can’t talk to them directly,” Diva pointed out.

  “I do not see the problem.”

  “They might not believe us.”

  “They still have no oxygen or supplies coming in,” Arcan said. “That will be a powerful argument, whether they believe you or not. I am sorry, I am working on a different way to communicate, but I am not . . . developed enough yet.”

  “OK.” Diva gave a shrug. “Let’s go see what they say, then.”

  This time individual bubbles had surrounded each of them, and transported them to the Voting Dome, where they were set down in the centre part of the huge hemisphere. The bubble did not disappear, however, maintaining a discreet envelope of safety around them.

  Their appearance caused turmoil. Shouts of outrage, and sharp fear were the results of their unexpected arrival.

  “How did you breach our security? What have you done to the air supply and the food supply?” The voice of Mandalon, the principal Sell interlocutor grated with shock. “What is all this?”

  Diva stepped to the fore, and the others gazed at her in surprise. She seemed to have gained about a foot in stature.

  “Born to it,” murmured Six. “In her element.”

  “When you repressurize and reconnect the 256th skyrise,” she said in a clear voice, “your other systems will come back on line.”

  “Who says? Who are you?”

  “I am empowered to
speak on behalf of Arcan, the orthogel entity who has inhabited this planet for thirty thousand years.”

  There was a loud guffaw. “And you are expecting us to believe this because . . .?” Mandalon demanded.

  “Because you have no air supply or food and water supply, and time is running out,” Diva said calmly. “Think about it. You are going to get awfully hungry and thirsty, even if the air lasts for a long time because of the lower floors of your skyrises. And that applies to the whole of Sell. All of you. When you accept Arcan’s conditions, then activate the controls to reconnect the 256th skyrise. All supplies will then be reconnected, pending a full agreement between both parties, to be negotiated in the next week.”

  “If you are trying to tell me that that bubble you are standing in is alive,” Mandalon taunted, “tell it to do something!”

  The bubble surrounding Diva darkened to show Arcan’s anger, and then grew until it dwarfed the man who had spoken, hanging over him in intimidation. He automatically took a step back.

  “Do you want him to do anymore?” Diva’s serene voice sounded from the centre of the bubble. “Or is that enough to be going on with?”

  Six whispered to Grace. “Got more than he bargained for there, I could have told him no good would come of insulting either Arcan or Diva!”

  Grace giggled, and then remembered her mother, and felt guilty.

  She looked at Mandalon and was forced to giggle again. The man was trying to retrieve his dignity but his face was ashen and the tridiscreens were registering his shaking hands on the lectern.

  “We will consider the proposition,” he conceded. “We need time to discuss it.”

  “Take all the time you need.” Diva was generous. “Oh, that’s right, you only have the time it takes you to die of thirst. Or hunger. Or asphyxiation. Whatever. We will be waiting.”

  “I don’t think you have so long, Sacran. Or your traitor friends! How many mask packs have you got? Five each? I think you will be dead and decomposing long before we Sellites feel the first pangs of hunger!”

  “Maybe. But Arcan doesn’t need oxygen and you do; so you will die all the same. We will just die a little sooner. And if you want to live you will still have to deal with Arcan. If I am dead you won’t know how to do that. And he might be a little annoyed with you by then. Maybe he won’t want to reconnect you Sellites if we die?” Diva looked down her nose at the interlocutor. “You might want to consider that possibility?” she said sweetly.

  Violet blue waves of agreement shimmered down the bubbles, which grew again in the air. Mandalon quaked. “We will consider your offer,” he said grudgingly.

  Arcan transported them all back to the skyrise, and the twenty-first floor. He deposited them lightly in the corridor in front of the back lift and the bubbles quickly disappeared again.

  “Wonder how he did that?” mused Six. “I thought he could only transport us if there were previous tubes or lifts? Those bubbles came out of thin air!”

  “You’re right,” Diva said. “I guess he has been developing new skills.”

  “He might have stayed long enough to talk!” said Grace.“I wanted to know what he thought.”

  “He’ll be back when he can,” decided Six. “Let’s see if the rest have left us any breakfast. I’m starved!”

  It was quite hard to attempt to eat in a low atmosphere, Six found. Every bite entailed removing the mask, taking a careful but quick bite, then replacing the mask again rapidly. There was a danger of passing out if the mask was off for more than a few seconds.

  “Hey Diva!” he called. “You should have tried this a few years ago, you might have lost a bit of weight!”

  “And it would have taught you to eat like a person instead of assimilating your food like a Coriolan vacuum cleaner.”

  “Don’t tell me you know what a vacuum cleaner looks like?”

  “Do they even have vacuum cleaners on Kwaide, or do you use stray warthogs to suction up the dirt?”

  “Warthogs are far too valuable. We use our womenfolk.”

  The discussion terminated abruptly there, because two very angry girls threw themselves on top of him and tried to pummel him to death.

  Chapter 25

  EIGHT HOURS LATER nobody was laughing. The mask packs were running out and Diva privately thought that they would be in danger of asphyxiating within two further hours. It was evident that Mandalon hadn’t taken their threats seriously.

  The new apprentices they had saved were huddled together in a corner; they had not asked to be rescued in the first place, didn’t believe that the Sellites had been going to kill them in the second place, and thought that Arcan was some sort of physics experiment that had gone wrong in the third place. They were not happy, and didn’t care who knew it. If there had been anywhere for them to go then they would have gone.

  Six and Diva were keeping themselves busy, each privately determined to carry on as if nothing was happening. Diva had badgered Grace into helping, to stop her mind from dwelling on her mother’s operation. The three of them were busy tying the medicines Vion had brought they into handy packages, just in case they needed to be transferred to a safe place by Arcan.

  So when an orthobubble appeared again the only people who saw it were the three of them.

  “Arcan!” Diva jumped up to sign on the outer skin of the bubble. “Have they agreed?”

  “Arcan!” Grace ran over, signing furiously. “And my mother?”

  “Your mother is still alive, but I know no more, Grace,” Arcan signed back. “And I am afraid not, Diva. But I have had a thought. Maybe we should give them a taste of their own medicine?”

  “How?”

  “I thought I could transport a few of them into the lake, with just the air they have around them for company.”

  “Great!”

  “Grace, would you like to come along to translate?”

  “Yes please.” They waited as the bubble swirled around her. Then, without feeling any movement, she found herself back in the Valhai Voting Dome.

  There were some twenty of the most important Sellites there. Mandalon was in the centre of what appeared to be a heated debate. As the bubble appeared they all looked up.

  On this occasion, however, Arcan did not give them time to make their comments. The bubble simply absorbed all twenty of the Sellites, and transported them to the lake, where they abruptly found themselves.

  Mandalon swiveled to confront the teenager, and took a step towards Grace. Instantly another bubble formed, separating her from the rest, protecting her. It was just thin enough for them all to hear each other.

  “You are a traitor to Sell!” screamed Mandalon. “You will be executed for your part in this!”

  Grace was shaking, but she hoped it didn’t show. “You will run out of air very quickly in this bubble,” she said. “And Arcan can transport the whole population of Sell here in a flash. You decide. Give the walls a tap when you are ready to come to an agreement.”

  “Your whole family will be excommunicated!”

  Grace stared at the man. “I have done nothing wrong,” she said with dignity. “It is you who were killing innocent Sacrans. Neither Arcan nor I have perpetrated any violence on anybody. If that is wrong, then I don’t want to be part of your culture.”

  “You have brought us here. What is that if not violence?” The man was furious, spittle forming at the sides of his mouth as he spoke.

  “We have hurt nobody . . . yet,” said Grace. “If you do not reconnect the oxygen to the 256th skyrise, well . . .” She let her gaze fall away for a moment, and then moved it back to the leader of Sell. “. . . I am afraid that we will have been responsible for your deaths. I can live with it.” She hoped she sounded fierce enough for them to believe her.

  Behind her back she signed quickly to Arcan to return her to the skyrise, and so disappeared again, leaving the Sellites to their deliberations.

  The scene she left behind was chaotic. The twenty Sellites all wanted to speak at once
, all using much more air than was prudent. They kept falling into each other too, for Arcan had left the floor concave in shape, and the ones on the outside kept slipping towards the middle of the floor. There was pushing and shoving and there were many curses. Mandalon’s fury raged unabated. He was screaming at all of them but in the general hubbub his voice was unintelligible, simply a peaked sound wave added to the rest. Arcan was amused. These men considered themselves invincible, the great leaders of the Sellite people. They looked very stupid right now, he thought. There was not a shred of dignity left in any of them.

  It was becoming harder to breathe in the bubble, and a sudden silence ensued as all the men realized that their lives would be extinguished in a matter of minutes if they did nothing. One of them, rather fatter than most, slumped to the floor clutching at his throat. The rest stared down at him, and then looked towards Mandalon.

  “A doctor!” he shouted. “This man needs a doctor.”

  Arcan didn’t need to sign to understand him, and a bubble appeared before Vion, on the ground floor of the 367th skyrise, where he was taking care of Cimma.

  Vion stared at the bubble, but not in surprise. “You are Arcan. I saw you on the tridiscreen. You are friends with Grace. Do you want me to come?”

  The bubble scintillated.

  “Do I need my case?”

  The bubble scintillated again.

  “Then I am ready.” And the Sellite stood patiently while he was transported to join the dignitaries in the lake.

  Vion made his way firmly through the men and bent to take look at the man who was ill. He snapped open his medical case, and was able to administer a strong heartcalmer under the tongue. The man had a long history of heart problems. He made him as comfortable as possible and then moved to one side, trying not to fall into the centre. The rest of the men, once he had attended the casualty, took no further notice of him.