A Pocketful of Stars (Applied Topology Book 1)

by Margaret Ball

  Maybe I could shift them over to Ingrid’s office after this meeting.

  “We have not failed,” I announced to start things off. I reached into my right-hand pocket: oops. Little tickling things that bounced off and into my palm. Possibly giggling. Possibly not.

  Ok, left-hand pocket. I caught his neck right behind the jaws and pulled him out. “Allow me to present Mr. M. himself.”

  “Ugh,” Ingrid said. “Lia, I’ve given up expecting any feminine sensitivity from you, but do you have to bring pieces of dead animals into the office? That’s really not funny!”

  “WHO ARE YOU CALLING DEAD, ESPÉCE D’IMBECILE?”

  Mr. M. didn’t really shout as loud as those capital letters imply, but he had the same effect. I found out what Ingrid and Jimmy looked like when all the blood left their faces. Ingrid reminded me of the Snow Queen in my old edition of Hans Andersen. The look wasn’t quite that good on Jimmy.

  “Mr. M. is separated from his body, but he is definitely not dead,” I explained. “And he’s feeling a lot better now that ring is off his neck. For one thing, he can talk now.”

  “Ring?”

  “Turtles wear jewelry?”

  Of course. Ingrid and Jimmy didn’t know the whole story. It took Ben and me quite a while to tell them, mainly because they kept interrupting. You’d think someone who floats Lego bricks around her office on a regular basis would have more of an open mind about English-speaking turtles.

  Er, make that multi-lingual turtles. During the whole story Mr. M. was muttering in languages unknown to me. I suspected he was feeling neglected now that all the humans were talking to each other instead of listening to him.

  What I didn’t realize at the time was that this was a recurring condition. It recurred any time he wasn’t the center of attention.

  Finally Ingrid and Jimmy were in possession of most of the details about Mr. M. and his ring.

  “Too bad you didn’t get the ring too,” Jimmy said. “It’s got to be a magic ring of great power.”

  “Stupid human!” Mr. M. was going to have his say at last. “Not a magic ring. Anti-magic ring. It was put upon me by treachery of the high priest of Marutuk at the orders of Nabû-kudurrī-usur.”

  “Who?”

  Mr. M.’s eyes closed and he appeared to be searching his memory. “I believe that in this degenerate time you would refer to Marduk and Nebuchadnezzar.”

  “I’ve heard of Nebuchadnezzar,” said Jimmy. “Didn’t he go crazy and start eating grass?”

  “My enemy is cast down!” chortled Mr. M.

  “He probably went on a vegan diet,” murmured Ben.

  “Gluten-free,” Ingrid suggested.

  “I think some other bad stuff happened to him, but I’d have to look it up.”

  Mr. M. ignored them. “O wise young sage!” he addressed Jimmy. “How is it that thou hast this knowledge which the other humans lack?”

  “Parochial school. But I don’t know anything about this other guy, Marduk.”

  “Thou knowest not the Great God of Babylon?”

  All four of us shook our heads.

  “Then is my triumph complete at last, and those who ringed me and crippled my powers are lost. Nabû-kudurrī-usur eats grass like a beast of the field; Marutuk is utterly forgotten; and my bonds are broken. Get me a new body! I wish to go now and slay Nabû-kudurrī-usur!”

  “He’s probably dead by now,” Jimmy said. “I don’t remember where he comes into the Bible, but I’m pretty sure everybody in the Old Testament has been dead for a long, long time.”

  Mr. M sniffed. “I take it, then, that this testament of which you speak does not mention me?”

  “I’m not sure. What’s your name?”

  “Niiqarquusu Adrahasis Galammta-uddua.”

  “Nope. A name like that, I’d have remembered. Nikerku…” Jimmy gave up. “What would it be in English?”

  Mr. M closed his eyes again. After a long pause he opened them slowly. “It would appear that I have outlived my fame; there is no modern version of my name. I can, however, translate the latter part. You may call me Niiqarquusu Great-Wisdom Goes-Forth-in-Strength.”

  “How about Niko for short?”

  “What I just said is the short form of my name. My full name is…”

  “Never mind, never mind,” Jimmy said hastily. “Trust me, if we try to call you Nikerku-whatsit, we’ll just keep getting it wrong and mispronouncing it, and that will be very irritating for you.”

  Niiqarquusu Adrahasis Galammta-uddua thought it over for a moment.

  “This small dark person has been calling me Mr. M. That is acceptable – for the moment.” His tone suggested that he expected to teach us Babylonian. Well, good luck with that. Americans are really bad with foreign languages, even living languages that we might conceivably need to use some day to order a beer.

  Ben had somehow managed to keep track of the thread during this extended divagation. “You were going to tell us about the ring.”

  “That object of ill omen was made in response to a prophecy that One would destroy Babylon with unheard-of magics. Unluckily for me, I was known to be a powerful magician – I had actually helped Nabû-kudurrī-usur with the conquest of Elam. Thus came about my downfall. At a feast to celebrate our victory I was plied with unwatered wine. When I awoke the ring was upon my neck, and I could make only the slightest of workings – not enough to free myself. Long centuries I slumbered, retreating into my turtle mind, until Dzaqar the messenger of the gods brought me the key to freedom in a dream, promising that I should not die. Even then…”

  “You decided that it wouldn’t kill you to cut off your head based on a dream?”

  “As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted,” Niiqarquusu went on, “it was necessary to wait until I found an audience capable of understanding at least the rudimentary basis of magic before revealing myself; otherwise, Dzaqar warned me, the humans would ignore my demands and use me either as an experimental animal or a curiosity in a freak show. When I felt the invisibility working of this tall human I knew I was in the presence of one who was potentially as great as the Magi of the Medes, one who would understand and serve me. Or so I thought!

  “I had just enough power to ensure that I was psychically attuned to the mage. On his next visit to my domicile I exited the water and attempted to communicate with him using the crude means then at my disposal. Disappointingly, I exhausted myself without persuading him to meet my demands. I had not previously realized that a master mage could be stupid. Not only did he refuse me, he left me to the mercy of some butcher who destroyed my body, left me lying in the shambles, and did not even catch my stars. Without them I doubt very much that I shall be able to attach to a new body, even if you provide one.”

  Right-hand pocket. The little things were still there. I closed my hand very gently over what felt like a small subset of them, held it out over the table and opened it. Tiny sparks of twinkling, blue-white light came spiraling out of a miniature cloud on the palm of my hand. There were an awful lot of them – I must have grabbed more than I thought. I closed my hand quickly before any more escaped.

  “Are those your stars, Mr. M?”

  “How did you capture them? Were you lurking unseen in the butcher’s yard? No, I would probably have sensed your presence even before I was free of the ring, certainly afterwards. You did not turn up until long after I started calling for help.”

  Well, for certain values of “long after,” that was more or less true. Mr. M. didn’t have a lot of tolerance for waiting.

  “I saw them when they were just past the driveway. I wasn’t trying to catch them, I just wanted to know what the swarm felt like. I raised my hand and some of them bumped into it, then they all headed for me and made this, like, really condensed cluster. So I put it in my pocket.”

  “The Endless Lights of the Medes, carried around in a cloth bag by a small woman! And yet you too must be a sort of magus, if they really came to your hand.”

>   I’ve already admitted that I’m not very tall. He didn’t need to harp on it.

  “Will these, ah, lights help you to reassemble yourself? If we can get a new body for you?”

  “Indubitably. You may call them back now. They have danced long enough.”

  I had no idea how to collect the dancing lights. Visions of a butterfly net lined with Saran wrap came to me. Lacking that, I just raised my hands and hoped I’d be able to catch a few.

  And they came to me as before. The palm of my right hand prickled as what seemed like a million sparkling points of light funneled down into a glittering cloud which I put back in my pocket.

  Ingrid sighed. “I want to learn how to do that!”

  “Later,” Mr. M. said. “Your task now is to go out and get me a replacement body.”

  “How are we supposed to do that?”

  “Elementary. I have had ample time to observe my environment. In the place where I found you there are many, many turtles. Just pick out a nice, healthy one, bring it here and chop off its head. With the added power of a few Lights, I can easily merge with the new body.”

  We exchanged looks.

  “We… can’t do that,” Ben said.

  “Why not? One more or less will hardly be noticed. Even my departure has caused no disturbance. And if I can disappear, so can a common box turtle.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Those bolt cutters of yours should work well enough.”

  “N-no, I mean – look, we wouldn’t kill you. And we’re not going to kill another living being just to give you a means of transportation.”

  Mr. M sniffed. “Then what is your plan? To sit by the pond and wait until a turtle expires of natural causes? We are a very long-lived people. I cannot wait that long.”

  “Does it have to be a turtle body?” Ingrid asked.

  “It is not absolutely required, but that is what I should find easiest to work with. The last time I changed bodies, the Priest of Enki sacrificed two hundred turtles upon the altar and invited me to choose the most acceptable body.”

  “Must have been one hell of a big altar,” Ben muttered in my ear.

  “I was thinking, maybe a rat? From the biology labs,” she expanded. “One that was going to die anyway.”

  Mr. M made it blisteringly clear that he would not accept the humiliation of a rat body. It was remarkable how he was picking up colloquial English; star power must be giving him enhanced access to our minds.

  It was also remarkable that one of us knew that many of those kind of words.

  “I have an idea,” Jimmy announced. “I know this girl who’s working on a robotics project…”

  Ingrid made a face. I had the distinct impression she wished she were wearing a ballgown, instead of a short tight dress, so that she could draw aside the hem of her garment.

  “We don’t need a robot,” she objected.

  “No, but she’s got some spare bodies. More like snakes than turtles.”

  “You know Meadow?” Ben interrupted.

  “Everybody knows Meadow. It’s not like she’s inconspicuous.”

  I didn’t know Meadow, and Ingrid said she didn’t either. But I had a feeling that Jimmy’s “everybody” was a certain subset of the human race that Ingrid and I, by definition, did not belong to.

  Calling Meadow just got us bumped to her voice mail, and we felt it might not be a good idea to leave a message. She might write us off as insane. Ben and Jimmy promised to get on it first thing in the morning, which at least put off the time when she would write them off as insane.

  When Ingrid and I got home, Mr. M was in the full tide of a complaint about having no home but my pocket. Good thing Ingrid had given me a ride; if I’d walked home, the other pedestrians might have been slightly bothered about the fact that my jeans appeared to be talking. Loudly. In multiple languages. Thankfully, he relaxed after Ingrid improvised a temporary home for him using an empty cardboard box and a red silk scarf that I had been rather fond of. I put the box on the top of my bureau and he settled in for another long nap. I hoped.

  Chapter 11

  Ingrid had gone out to some sort of graduate student party when Brad Lensky turned up at our front door.

  “Your doormat’s wrong,” he said by way of greeting.

  I glanced down to see if the wording on it had changed. No, it was the same as always: YOU’VE READ MY DOORMAT. THAT’S ENOUGH INTERACTION FOR TODAY.

  “We haven’t had nearly enough interaction today,” he amplified.

  “Speak for yourself, spook.” But I let him in anyway, and even offered him a beer.

  “I think I’m making progress,” he said, shrugging out of his sport coat and leaving it dangling on the back of his chair.

  “On the terrorist ring?”

  “With you. I didn’t have to bribe you with beer or guacamole this time.”

  I sank down on the couch, trying to look pale and wan, and heaved a dramatic sigh. “A girl can always hope.”

  “If we go out for anything tonight,” Lensky said, “it had better be a salad bar. You eat too much junk food.”

  Definitely beyond bossy and into dictatorial. Good thing I’d already had some pizza.

  “But first, we have some unfinished business. Don’t we?”

  Funny coincidence. I’d just been thinking about that earlier. And I’d decided not to finish it. Hadn’t I?

  By the time I’d thought that far, he had somehow moved from his chair to the couch, and had one arm around my shoulders. “I don’t like leaving a project incomplete,” he murmured.

  This time neither of us was spitting mad at the other, and I have to admit that being on semi-friendly terms greatly improved the quality of his kisses. I really hated to remove his hand from under my shirt, but one has to maintain some standards.

  “I believe this is yours,” I said, dropping the wandering hand on his knee.

  “I’m willing to share.”

  “I have a roommate. And I hardly know you.”

  “The order in which you stated your objections gives me hope.” And he moved in again.

  This time he made sure that I wasn’t in a good tactical position for removing hands or anything else. In fact, there wasn’t a whole lot I could do with him leaning me backwards on the couch like that. And to tell the truth, my interest in holding him off or even removing his wandering hands was fading. In fact, I was more interested in running my hands along his back - until a sharp jab in my own back sent me rocketing upwards.

  “Ow!” Lensky had one hand over his face. “I thik you broke by dose.”

  “Oh, don’t be a crybaby.” I moved his hand, pinched his nose and wriggled it back and forth. “Nothing’s broken. I think you’ll live.”

  “No thanks to you,” he said. “What did you do that for? Next time use your words. ‘No’ works a lot better than butting me in the head.”

  I stood up and pointed to the spike sticking out of the place where I’d been reclining on the couch. “Broken spring attack.”

  “Oh, then you weren’t saying no.” His eyes brightened and he seemed to have forgotten all about the nose.

  If we kept this up, I knew where it would end. In my bedroom. The thought of Mr. M. as an observer and commenter was an instant turn-off. And just as well, because apart from that and the inevitable teasing from Ingrid, I wasn’t ready to get that intimate with somebody I’d only met three days earlier, and who couldn’t lay off the double-entendres. It was easier to remember this when he wasn’t kissing me, so I stayed vertical when he patted the couch cushions. “I’m hungry. You want to go get that salad?”

  “Salad,” he said, “is vastly overrated. “I’d rather…”

  “Whatever you’re going to say you want,” I interrupted, “it isn’t on the menu.” To be precise, I wasn’t on the menu.

  “Barbecue?”

  We wound up at the Iron Works, where he inhaled the vast quantity of protein needed to keep a body like that and all its muscles
happy, and I nibbled on a brisket sandwich and a Big Red soda because after claiming hunger I couldn’t exactly admit to having filled up on pizza earlier. And when he took me home, Ingrid’s little Honda was parked out front, and he didn’t even ask if he could come upstairs.

  We did spend some time in the car, though.

  After meeting Meadow Melendez, I understood why the guys had said that everybody knew her. I’d noticed her myself, walking through a mob of other students rather as a small tank might progress through a crowd of unarmed protestors. A busty girl with a Hispanic Afro of reddish-black curls and the personality of a bulldozer does get noticed.

  Confine her to a cluttered robotics lab, and the personality was overwhelming.

  And – at the moment – decidedly negative.

  Ben had been trying to lead up to the fact that we had a severed, talking turtle head in the box under his arm; it’s not the kind of thing you want to spring on somebody without warning. Before he got properly started Meadow brushed him off.

  “You know I don’t hang out with people who do drugs, and I have real work to do. Go away!”

  Given time – which, sadly, did not seem probable – I could begin to like this woman.

  Ingrid tried a different tack. “The project we have in mind is totally unlike any robotics project ever done before. It’ll make you famous.” That was, assuming any editor actually believed her paper. I decided not to bring up that irrelevant little detail.

  “You can’t possibly need all those discards,” said Jimmy.

  Meadow had been working on developing a snake robot that could go up and down stairs, swim, climb trees, and take itty-bitty cameras into places where you needed to see what was happening. Like around the corner of a stairway where there might be armed terrorists waiting. She’d gotten the idea from Israeli war robots and was trying to take it a step farther.

  Meadow glowered at him. “Why not? They’re perfectly functional snake bodies. My problem is the control system. It’s nowhere near sophisticated enough to use all the functionality I’ve built into the body.”

  “We might have a solution to that.”