"—may be able to seek help from the Maksu—"
"If it is correct. But it is from a connection that the boojum might have—" rasp "—infiltrated."
"Only after I found the reference," Li-Jared was saying. "That is why—" brrr-k-dang "—it is so angry. I am certain that it wants that information kept hidden."
"But why?"
"—does not wish us, or anyone else, to learn—"
"Or to escape?"
"—or to interfere."
"Then," Ik said slowly, "we should try very hard not to interfere. It is not the boojum we want, but freedom."
"Amen," Bandicut murmured aloud. He hadn't understood much of what he'd just heard, but he understood that last part, and he was all in favor of it.
Ik and Li-Jared fell silent for a moment, perhaps startled to find him a part of the conversation. Li-Jared broke the silence by saying, "But do not forget . . . many innocents stand to be harmed by the boojum, as well."
"I do not think that we have forgotten," Ik said dryly. To Bandicut, he added, "Li-Jared found a connection point such as you and I discussed. The kind that—" he paused a moment, perhaps to convey emphasis indirectly to Li-Jared "—you yourself are quite familiar with."
Bandicut blinked, as Li-Jared made a sound of apparent puzzlement. A datanet. Li-Jared had linked with a datanet?
"And he learned much about the place where the sort of knowledge we seek flows in streams and waves—"
"But not its precise location," Li-Jared broke in. "Ik, we should not be discussing—" Li-Jared was interrupted by a bright flash of light ahead, followed by another.
"What was that?" Bandicut asked nervously.
/// Electrical activity? ///
Charlie's speculation was punctuated by a spectacular arc of lightning across the shaft in front of them. Bandicut held his breath, as the arc was followed by another ahead, and several behind. A heartbeat later, they were speeding through a raging electrical storm. /What is this? Has it found us?/
/// I'm not sure, but— ///
WHAAAMM!
A blast knocked him into a head-over-heels tumble. As he struggled for breath, his suit righted itself and steadied its course. It took him a lot longer to stop shaking. Lightning continued to flash around him. "Ik—what—?" he panted.
Through a hiss of static, he heard Ik's voice, but he couldn't make out words. Another arc blazed directly in front of him, and as his eyes swam and watered, he was almost certain that for a moment he saw a small ball of lightning inside his suit.
"—through it soon—"
/// John, hang on.
I think your suit can protect you.
That was a direct hit we took a minute ago. ///
Bandicut stared ahead in terror as they flew through the dazzling eruptions. After a few seconds, the lightning subsided, but a bluish light continued to ripple and squirm along the walls of the shaft, all around them.
"John Bandicut, are you still there?" Ik called.
"Yeah—I'm okay!" Bandicut wheezed. He peered and saw Napoleon still in formation. "What the hell was that?"
"Energy flux. It did not seem directed. Perhaps caused by the boojum's random destruction."
Bandicut muttered as the rippling light faded along the walls. They were now zooming through a glass tube, and he thought he could see dim stars or galaxies through the walls. Ahead, he could just make out a vague, but enormous, dark shape. The next section of Shipworld? He hardly dared hope. He glanced back over his shoulder and saw the blurred patch of the Milky Way.
He shivered and looked ahead again. He'd lost the tracking lock on Copernicus. "Ik—do you have Copernicus on your scanner?"
"No longer."
Damn. Bandicut watched several glittering arches sail over his head. His suit began to decelerate.
"John Bandicut, look!" Ik was pointing with a silvery crab's claw out the left side of the shaft.
There was a definite structure out there now, far too vast for a single glance. Tiny spots resolved into marker lights along the thing's edges and lines. They dwindled out of view in all directions, except down. Below was the emptiness of intergalactic space.
Bandicut glimpsed a flicker of light ahead. "Energy flux approaching," Ik cautioned.
"Follow me," Li-Jared said suddenly. "Silently, if possible." He decelerated sharply and veered left toward the shaft wall. Bandicut did not manage even a silent ulp! before his suit followed. Ik and Napoleon kept pace perfectly. The shaft wall blurred past them at dizzying speed, very close now.
He wanted to cry, What are we doing? but his voice caught as they executed a sharp pitch-up, another deceleration, and a left sweep, straight toward an outward bulge in a section of the wall that looked like cut crystal. Unh! he started to say—and then the glass wall revealed an opening right in the middle of the bulge, and they shot through it into space.
Bandicut found himself breathless at the sudden clear view. Not that he could make out the overall shape of the Shipworld structure; it was much too large. But its surface seemed stark and bright compared to the section they'd left behind. As he scanned across the expanse, he saw several moving lights. Spacecraft in flight? They were all quite distant, and widely separated from each other. Nonetheless, his heart raced. Images of L5 City bubbled up. Was that commerce he was seeing? Normal life? For someone, anyway? His mind filled with visions of civilization—people working and living and traveling in space, people who could tell him where he was and how things worked. People, yes!
But humans? As quickly as his heart had inflated with hope, he felt a draining despair. He would be a fool to expect humans. But his spirits began to rise again when he spotted a series of converging strobe lights that looked for all the world like the approach lights to a spaceport on Earth. "Ik," he muttered, "where are we going?"
"We may be in danger. Silence, please."
Bandicut realized suddenly why they had taken this evasive course out of the power tube. The boojum might have used up its firepower in the connector, blowing up all those power nodes, but that didn't mean it wasn't waiting for them at the endpoint.
Did Shipworld have outer defenses? Could the boojum fool the defenses into thinking that the four of them were orbiting debris—or even an enemy to be destroyed?
And where was Copernicus?
They flew straight away from the power-shaft, then veered inward again, toward the outer edge of Shipworld. Every few seconds, they made new, abrupt course changes, but always drawing closer to Shipworld. Bandicut endured the jolts in silence, wishing they could just fly over to that landing port etched in strobes.
And then he understood, as a thread of green fire rippled out toward them from somewhere on the perimeter of that landing zone—and Ik and Li-Jared plunged them into further violent maneuvers. For a moment, his forward view was filled with bright green flashes, and he felt something like a body blow, insulated by his suit. His suspicions were right, then; the boojum had subverted the defensive systems. And he had just felt—
"Near miss!" Ik cried, and veered again.
/// John! ///
He blinked and realized that the suit had just put up new tracking information. He tried to focus on it: a point of light weaving against a station-shaped grid.
/// It's Copernicus, yes? ///
He stifled an outcry, while he tried to eyeball outside what the scanner view was showing him on the grid. Was that a silver flicker, close to the station wall?
/// He is flying evasively, too. ///
/Yes, but evading us? Or the boojum?/
Charlie's answer, if he had one, was interrupted by another jarring maneuver, and an emerald blaze—
—and a rocket-crackle in his ears—
His vision turned to a sheet of fire, and he began tumbling. He heard Ik's voice, full of static, and Li-Jared's. And he was suddenly very hot and prickly inside the suit, and he wondered if this was where he was going to die.
/// That was—really—bad— ///
THUD. THUD. Two much smaller impacts, and he felt the tumbling stop, and then a course change. The fire in his eyes slowly faded, and his vision began to clear. Ik was holding him on one side, and Napoleon on the other. They had stopped his tumbling and were physically carrying him through their evasive maneuvers.
"—John Bandicut?"
He began to croak an answer, but the words were taken from his throat by the view. The surface of the station was much closer now, and he could see a series of small, reflective domes on its surface, like soap bubbles. /What—?/ He saw Copernicus flicker across the surface, darting one way, then the other. Before he could draw a breath to speak, the robot zipped into one of the soap bubbles and winked out of sight. "Coppy!" he shouted.
"Stay tight!" Ik snapped, and they veered twice more, and then were flying dizzyingly close to the outer hull. A crackle of green fire thumped another near miss. Ik veered left, left again, then right, and down—wrenching Bandicut by the arm. One more twist—an emerald haze—and a huge silver bubble loomed before them. He caught a reflection in the bubble of a fiery bolt behind them, then they flashed through the bubble and it was gone.
"HRAAH!" Ik boomed. "Is everyone here?"
Bandicut was still trying to get his breath. "Yah—" he gasped "—but I saw Copernicus go into a different—"
"I know," Ik said. "We must find out where we are now." His silver-crab suit held fast to Bandicut's as they jetted inward toward a great, solid surface.
They were inside a huge, palely lit dome—probably a forcefield of some kind. Ahead, in the watery light, Bandicut expected an airlock entrance. Instead, he was stunned to see that they were dropping headlong into a wooded park.
He felt a pull of deceleration and an attitude rotation. For a moment, he lost all vision in front of him. Then, abruptly, they were standing together in a small clearing, surrounded by trees.
Chapter 14
At the Watering Hole
BEFORE BANDICUT COULD gather his wits to ask questions, Ik's suit split open and the Hraachee'an stepped out. Bandicut silently asked his own suit to do the same.
His visor went dark, there was a soft hiss, and the front of his suit popped open. He stepped out, amazed. The air smelled like moss and cedar, with an additional tang he could not identify. He turned around in wonder, thinking that he could almost have been in a domed-in park on Earth—though at second glance, none of the trees looked quite like any terrestrial tree. For one thing, they were all translucent, with a silvery-green glow shining through them. Overhead, the "sky" was the pale, silver glow of the forcefield bubble, which apparently was designed to allow objects like spacesuits to pass through while keeping air in. Perhaps it could distinguish living drop-ins from hazards such as meteoroids.
"John Bandicut, are you injured?" Ik asked, waving his arms in a wide arc. It was impossible to tell whether he was attempting to convey meaning, or just stretching.
"No," Bandicut grunted. "I'm okay. But where are we?"
"Uncertain." Ik turned to watch Li-Jared's silver suit open at the top and contract like a shrinking, elastic liquid into a basketball-sized globe at Li-Jared's feet. Li-Jared slouched forward to greet them. He was about five feet tall, and wore a blue, silken-looking body suit. His skin was covered with short, brown hair, and he appeared more simian than humanoid.
Except for the two eyes. They were shaped like a cat's pupils, vertical and narrow, but vivid gold, except for a blaze of electric blue across the middle, which appeared to be horizontal pupil slits. He stepped toward Bandicut with an almost fluid movement. "Bwang," he said.
Bandicut felt a tickle in his right wrist.
/// Hold up your stone, ///
Charlie suggested.
/// Maybe he's got them, too. ///
/I'll show you mine if you show me yours?/ Bandicut thought dryly. He raised his right wrist to display his translator-stone. The embedded gem pulsed like a charged diamond.
"Ah!" Li-Jared cried. With both hands, he tugged open the front of his body suit enough to reveal the thick hair covering his chest—and two twinkling jewels about where his breastbone ought to have been, white gem on top and emerald two inches below. Bandicut kept his wrist up, for a moment, feeling a soft buzz. Then his stone went dark.
/// Try talking now. ///
Bandicut cleared his throat. "Hi. Can you understand me now? My name is John Bandicut."
"Yes." The other's blazing eyes drilled into his. "I am pleased to meet a friend of Ik's. I see you too are an immigrant to Shipworld. What do you call your . . . species?"
"Human. Man. And yours?"
Li-Jared shifted his gaze to Ik, then back to Bandicut. "Man? I am called man."
"Uh—"
"Where do you come from, John Bandicut?" The electric-blue bands in Li-Jared's eyes narrowed to thin lines.
"Earth. It's a planet—" Bandicut gestured helplessly up toward the dome-sky "—out there in the Milky Way galaxy somewhere."
"We are all from that galaxy somewhere," Ik observed.
Bandicut frowned. "I hadn't realized that. What is your planet called, Li-Jared?"
Li-Jared scratched what might have been an ear on the side of his head. "Home. My world was called home."
/// I think perhaps we have a
small translation problem. ///
Bandicut cleared his throat. "Um—we called our world 'home,' too, but its proper name was Earth. Do you have another word for your world?"
Li-Jared blinked. It was a startling effect; the electric-blue pupils winked out for a moment, then shone again. "We called it—good home—"
"Yes, of course. But don't you—"
"Or—" bwang'ng "—Home with Green, Beautiful, Perilous Sky."
Bandicut wondered if he could shorten that without insult.
Li-Jared said something else, which sounded like "Karellia."
Ik broke in, "We should not be standing here. We were only just under attack by the boojum. John Bandicut, do you wish to free your robot from its suit?"
Napoleon was still encased in the tall silver suit, its arms twitching up and down as though waving for attention. Bandicut touched his right wrist to the front of the silver suit. It opened like a clamshell.
Napoleon clicked and stepped out of the suit. "John Bandicut, I am ready and at your service."
"Great, Nappy. I'm afraid we've lost Copernicus for now. I may be counting on you even more than usual." It occurred to him at that moment that Copernicus was still carrying his backpack. So he had no tools, no food, no clothes. He sighed darkly. "Napoleon, this is Li-Jared. A friend of Ik's. Do you remember Ik telling us about him?"
"Of course," rasped the robot. "I am on the lookout for treachery at all times."
Li-Jared blinked, twice.
"That's not what I—"
"As for Copernicus, I am uncertain. I fear he may have been touched somehow by the . . . boojum. I will endeavor to protect you from any such influence." Napoleon swiveled his scanners. "Cap'n, where are we?"
"I don't know, and don't call me 'Captain.' That's what Copernicus calls me, not you." Bandicut shivered, and looked around the park. "Ik, where are we? And where do we go from here?"
"We must find a map. Li-Jared, is there not a significant civilization on this side of the continent?"
"Indeed, I believe this is—" Buh'wang.
"Hiii? I had not realized—"
"Yes, I saw a marking at the other end of the power-connector. It is one reason I fled the way I did. There will be Maksu here. I believe they can help us find the ice caverns."
Ice caverns? Bandicut thought.
"The nexus. The connection to the Tree of Ice," Ik explained.
"Oh."
"And we must move quickly, before the boojum locates us here," Li-Jared said.
"Why hasn't it found us already?" Bandicut asked, with a flash of annoyance that everyone seemed to understand about the boojum except him.
"It's not all-powerful, you know," Li-Jared said, peering through the t
rees. He suddenly pointed. "This way, I think." He picked up the ball that was his spacesuit and set off. The others followed, carrying their empty spacesuits awkwardly under their arms.
Bandicut hurried to keep up. He refused to let go of his question. "If it's not all-powerful—"
"It lives within a system where it is not wanted," Ik said. "It works great mischief and destruction, but most of the time it stays in hiding, protecting itself from the system's defenses."
They followed Li-Jared through a stand of glimmering, translucent trees, and up over a small knoll. On the far side of the knoll, a wooden footbridge arched over a stream. Li-Jared headed that way, but stopped at a loud wheezing sound. A tall, whiplike being with an array of tiny eyes rose up from the bank of the stream and waved numerous arms at them. "We are closed now! You cannot stay!" Bandicut heard, through the translator-stones. "How did you get in?"
"We had to make an emergency landing," Li-Jared answered. "We had no choice."
"We are closed for maintenance," said the being.
"In addition, we wish to return these suits to the custody of maintenance," Ik said.
The vaguely treelike creature made a whistling sound. "This is most, most irregular. Yes, I suppose that could be done. But I must register your arrival. This is a park, not an immigration station. Really, this is not at all conventional."
Ik rubbed his chest. "We were wondering if you might tell us our actual location. And perhaps direct us to a—" rasp rasp.
There was no translation.
The being shivered. "You must consult a map, sir! It is not my job to locate such places!"
"I meant no offense. I will consult a map," Ik said hastily. "Perhaps you could direct us to one."
The tree-creature made a hissing sound. "Please follow me. And bring your refuse with you."
It led them across the bridge and through a long bower of living trees. At the end of the bower was a heavy wooden door, which swung open at the tree-being's touch. Ik held the door while the others sidled through with their bulky spacesuit-shells. They entered a wood-paneled room, and the creature went behind a counter and bent out of sight for a moment.
/Does the translator already know these people?/ Bandicut wondered, surprised by the ease of communication.
The Chaos Chronicles Page 48