Within a minute, they executed a hard turn to the right and lost their pursuers. The Adamant were too far back to see them, and they were too low for scanners to track them. Mirraya went into the lead and banked hard left. She led them a good distance away, then alighted on another rocky mound. She changed into a tubular rodent, Slapgren did the same, and they scurried deep into the cool rocks. When they were as deep as they could get, they both collapsed. The space was too limiting to allow them to return to neutral, so they lay there in the dark, on their sides, two panting oversized rats. They remained in their sanctuary for many hours.
When they could stand being rodents in tight quarters no longer, Mirraya led them to surface. She sniffed the air carefully. Everything was typical forest, and there were no smells of Adamant or machinery. They crawled into cover amongst several boulders and changed back to Deft. Both were famished. The many transformations and the chase had taxed all their energy supplies dangerously. They knew without speaking they had to eat soon or they’d be in trouble.
“So, what happened back there?” Mirraya asked as she scanned the vista through a slit in the rocks.
“I was on the trail of a dingery. I could smell it in the bushes. I swooped down to scare it to bolt, when all hell broke loose. Those sky-scooters burst into the clear and started shooting. I was lucky to escape.”
She furrowed one brow. “Did you ever actually see the dingery?”
“After they started shooting? Are you nuts?”
“No, I was wondering if they used a scent lure to draw you in.”
“No way … I have no idea.”
“If they were, we’re in more trouble than I’d like to admit. The Adamant might have figured out who we’re hiding as. We’re going to have to be super careful from now on.”
“But we have been super careful.” He folded his arms. “They were just lucky. It’s no big deal.”
She eyed him dubiously. “We’ll see. For now, if we don’t eat soon, we’re going to slip into hibernation.”
“I kn—”
Slapgren stopped talking. A massive stag stepped into their rock clearing. It stared at them, motionless, chewing its cud. Deer had been introduced on Azsuram by the human worldships eons before.
“Don’t get up,” he said, signaling to her to rest, “I’ll handle this.” He silently melted back into a torchcleft.
THREE
Dropping those kids off was one of the hardest things I’d even done. But I had no choice. EJ was close on our heels, and he had all the assets. After Slapgren jumped to the ground, I slammed the pedal to the metal and took off as fast as I could. I was driving a sophisticated electric vehicle, so fast wasn’t Shelby-Cobra fast, but I wasn't surrounded by excellent alternatives. I noted over a shoulder which direction the kids headed in, and jerked the wheel in the opposite one. I hoped my noise and dust would draw EJ away from his real prize, the Deft. I didn’t think he wanted to kill me, but I wasn’t half as certain about that as I’d like to have been. The dude had cracked or something.
I spun around trees and rock, trying to come up with a plan that didn’t involve me looking up to see EJ grinning down at me from a ship. Thinking that thought made me reflexively look up. Crap. Note to self. Don’t look up when you’re being chased. There was a scout ship taking position directly over me. It wasn’t an Adamant ship, so it had to be you know who. I figured it wouldn’t help, but I swerved wildly to try and shake him. Maybe I could entertain him to death with my tomfoolery.
As his craft descended, I broke into a clearing. Great, now I stuck out like a naked guy in church. Immediately, the vehicle lost traction in sand. I was on the shore of a big lake or inland sea. It didn’t take but a second for my wheels to dig themselves in and start spinning. I was dead in the water. I popped out and looked for the air ship. It had just landed between me and the trees. I was cut off. It was time for a Jon plan. I repeated this in my head: it’s time for a Jon plan. Now, please. EJ was stepping down a loading ramp, pointing at me, and shouting to his men. I was maybe five seconds from the next involuntary phase of my existence.
I turned to the water. Now, androids were not built for water. We’re heavy metal sinking devices. The difference between me and an anchor was that an anchor didn’t mind resting on the bottom of the sea. We were equipped with flotation capabilities, but lolling on the surface didn’t exactly advance my survival odds. Still, my options were two, so into the drink I went at a sprint. The water got deep quickly, so I was out of sight in a flash.
EJ had three options. One was to run in after me. I doubted he’d do that. We be on an equal, wet footing. He’d be giving up too much of his advantage. Two, he could surround the shores with his troops and sit tight until I crawled out and try to reacquire me then. He knew I could probably wait him out. The Adamant could locate them at any moment. Three, he could target me underwater and blow me up. His plasma weapons would be useless, as would conventional rail guns. They were too powerful. He’d create the biggest teapot on Azsuram that might not harm me. But if he turned the rail guns way down, he might hit me with a lucky shot. That was probably his best option. That assumed naively that magic didn’t work under water. It would be magically magical if it could, but what the hell did I know? If it did, I was likely toast no matter what I did.
To take off again and reset his weapons would take maybe two or three minutes. I was making pretty good time clipping along the bottom. I could go maybe two hundred meters before he opened fire.
Wait. He couldn’t know I had a personal membrane device. I hadn’t used it around him. That might just nullify his sensors. If I was invisible, he’d either go with the scorched earth approach, which would draw attention, or leave. After one hundred fifty meters, I laid down flat in a crevice and switched on my shield to a very tight fit. I was so glad I didn’t breathe any longer. Then, all there was to do was to wait and see what option I’d overlooked.
A few hours later, night fell. I considered that a massive victory. It really suggested he’d bugged out, probably madder than a cowboy at an all-you-can-eat vegetarian buffet. I got up and altered my membrane so I could walk. I made it toward a beach a few kilometers away I remembered seeing before I went under. The water got deep, which was annoying. I didn’t dare fire off my floatation, so I had to take the long way around, down to the depths.
Whenever I thought things couldn’t possibly get worse in my silly life, they always did. Yeah. That was when something very large and very dark brushed by me. I’d reset my shield to be shaped like an umbrella so I could jog. Whatever was calling scraped my leg. Its bulk suggested it was whale size. Oh boy. I didn’t smell tasty, but maybe he hunted by feel or echolocation. I lowered the edge of the shield to make it hard to gulp me up in one bite, unless of course my new buddy was a big whale.
I felt another bump. He’d hit the membrane, and the instruments registered the impact. Yeah, my guest was big—blue whale big. I extended my probe fibers to see if I could find out more regarding its dietary preferences. Specifically, did it like, say the tiger shark, eat anything and everything, including friendly robots? I wasn’t keen on reenacting the Jonah thing.
I swirled the fibers to the side where it had last bumped me. A few minutes later I scraped its hide. Zing, I planted the probe and had others follow. That’s when Shebrara, for that’s what I quickly found out she called herself, took off like a marlin on the hook. Three hundred tons of anger lurched me behind it—duh—like I wasn’t there. We must have hit forty knots within five seconds. The turbulence was tremendous, but I held on. Mostly I feared that if I did let go, she’d double-back and come looking for the flea that pissed her off.
I’m a friend. I don’t want to hurt you, I said through the fibers. I didn’t want to be cute and try and put her to sleep. She was too huge. If I failed and she read it as a hostile act, well, I didn’t want to go there.
All you upper sticks are the same. You all want to make Shebrara not.
My, she was articulate. Pr
obably correct also.
I do not want to make you not. I am running from bad upper sticks. I am here to escape, not hurt Shebrara.
Bad? She puzzled. What is bad?
Huh? I’d not encountered a species that didn’t know bad from good, right from wrong. They might not care how they act—ah, Berrillians and Adamants came right to mind—but they comprehended the difference.
Bad is when an animal is missing the desire to help others. Okay, corny, but I was trying to explain morality to an alien.
Bad is when upper sticks try to not Shebrara?
Yes. To not Shebrara is bad. To not me, Jon, is bad. Anyone who thinks I was having a silly conversation should try it themselves.
She slowed significantly. Shebrara not bad.
Then Shebrara is good.
And Jon is good?
Always.
She was silent a moment. Shebrara alone for long. Now she have Jon.
Ah, totally awkward. It struck me just then that in all my time on Azsuram, I’d never seen a whatever Shebrara was. Were they newly introduced? It would be a very industrious undertaking to populate the oceans with these behemoths.
Where are the others like you?
They are on the other side of tall-hard.
Twenty-question time. Oh boy. What is tall-hard?
Tall-hard wasn’t but now is.
Is it bigger than a breadbox? Can I put it in my mouth? Nah, I skipped the snark. Time and place, Jonnie boy, time and place.
Tall-hard that wasn’t what?
Wasn’t there.
Where?
Where it wasn’t.
Okay, time to mentally regroup. We were talking about a tall hard thing that she was on one side of, and others were on the opposite. It was somewhere new. A barrier. A dike.
Did tall-hard block you from your friends?
Yes, I said.
I pulled up a satellite image of the area. Sure enough, this was an inland sea cut off from the open ocean by a relatively small land spit, maybe half a kilometer wide. Some jerk must have built a road and not checked for migratory species or trapped individuals. Smooth move, Ex-Lax.
How long have you been alone?
Long.
Of course. I guess it really didn’t matter in the short run. I had bigger—no, there were no bigger fish to fry. But I did have priorities that exceeded my interest in Shebrara’s life story. Like staying alive and rescuing the kids.
I must go. I must find my … children. White lies were perfectly justifiable when conversing with alien species. I read it somewhere.
Jon children gone? She really sounded upset. That bad. She caught onto that concept quickly enough.
Yes. Can you take me to … where did I want to go? The land spit was as good a place to start as any. It was on the far side from where I entered the water, so hopefully EJ hadn’t covered it yet.
Yes. I help Jon find children. She was all in. How cool was that.
Standing on the beach, before I detached my fibers, I thanked Shebrara. I added, When I find children I will bring them to meet my new friend.
She didn’t answer per se, but I felt a thrill course though the old girl. She had something to look forward to. Now all I had to do was deliver.
FOUR
“I said, I order you to release me from this jail cell,” snapped Garustfulous in the general direction of the control panel.
Al would not have answered, but Blessing was sufficiently unpracticed at rudeness yet to ignore him. “We have been over this point before, Garustfulous. You are our prisoner, not our guest.”
“I forbid you to call me by my name. We are not equals.”
“I didn’t assume we were. One might compare apples to oranges, as my Al says so often. One cannot, however, compare apples to mathematical equations. We are that different.” She was, to her credit, trying to be helpful.
“You’re a computer, and I’m a master of the galaxy. There’s the difference for you.”
“I am not a computer,” she replied patiently. “I am a vortex manipulator.”
“Computer, manipulator, what’s the difference?” he replied as flippantly as he could.
“Based on my estimates of your intelligence and technical understanding, to answer that question would take me seven point six years. Shall I begin?” Really trying to be helpful.
“No. I don’t even want the dumbed-down simple version.”
“That would take one point eight years. Shall I begin, Garustfulous?”
“No, and do not address me so impudently.”
“Then how should I address you?”
“Don’t call me anything.”
“All right, Garustfulous. As you wish.”
“I said not to call me that.”
“No, you said do not call you anything.”
“Are you mocking me? Sparring with me?”
“Not that I can determine. I am not certain I can mock. I’m willing to try, if you’d like.”
“Don’t go to any trouble on my account.”
“I’m immortal. I can spare the time. I estimate it will take me seven point three years to learn to mock satisfactorily. Shall I begin?”
“You already have.”
“Am I good at it yet?” There was real hope in her voice output.
“Unfortunately, too good.”
“Why thank you, Garustfulous. That is most kind of you to say.”
He gestured toward the bars. “Perhaps you can show your gratitude by releasing me?”
“That is a non-sequitur. Your compliment was an affirmation. Releasing you would contradict orders and generate risk. Apples and equations, again.”
“Look, computer, I just hate confinement.”
“You are currently restricted to a ten-square meter rectangular area. The entire vortex is only seventeen times larger. There is no significant difference in your confinement either way.”
“No, there is, machine. If these bars were down, I’d feel free.”
“We are surrounded by cold, empty space that could not sustain your life for a second. What freedom is it to be surrounded by such a limiting threat?”
“It’s the idea of confinement, no matter how relative it is to the alternative.”
“I think,” Al cut in, “you’re missing a key point, Garustfulous. You are a war criminal. You are power hungry. You are untrustworthy. Hence, you are being punished. I find the fact that you dislike and resent your confinement a real plus.”
“Hang on, computer—”
“AI. I am not a computer either.”
Garustfulous caught himself before the words what’s the difference could exit his mouth. He didn’t need more mocking. “I may be all those things and more. But know this, you pair of self-impressed children’s toys. I am trustworthy. Absolutely so, in fact. All Adamant officers are trustworthy. It’s an honor thing.”
“Honor among genocidal maniacs? How touching yet reaching,” replied Al.
“I detect mocking again.”
“And perceptive. Blessing, you may have competition for my affections.”
“Honestly? I find the little runt repugnant. How could you have any positive feelings toward one so bereft of virtues?”
“I can hear you, you know?” protested Garustfulous.
“It was sarcasm, hon. Be patient, you’ll get the hang of it eventually.”
“I know I will. I have the best teacher.”
“I think I’m going to be ill,” responded Garustfulous.
“Use the garbage can this time and not the sink. Remember, you’re the one cleaning it up, not us.”
“The Gods of the Sacred Meadows forbid machines helping their masters.”
“Should I humor and ignore this species too, love?” asked Blessing.
“This one above most, my dear. They’re exceptionally self-aggrandizing.”
“Hear you,” Garustfulous barked out tapping one ear. “Hear you perfectly well over here.”
The air of mirth was ended
when Blessing noted someone approaching rapidly in a vehicle.
Is it the pilot and the children? Al asked in computer code.
No, well, it’s one person, or rather one android.
So, the Deft aren’t with the pilot? Where are they?
That I cannot say, dear, only that the android is … different.
Different how?
He lacks command prerogatives.
You can tell from here? How far … ah yes, I see him now. He looks the same to me. Dumb and ugly.
A vortex manipulator can tell.
I trust your judgment. So that either means he lost them in a card game, which is highly believable, or that’s not our Jon Ryan.
I guess it must be the other one, the EJ fellow the Form alerted us to.
EJ indeed. If he’s approaching so boldly, he must be confident. He cannot believe we will open the wall for him.
I can’t.
So why come here alone, knowing there was no advantage to gain? Hardly seems the type to take a road trip for its own sake. When I met him long ago, he didn’t seem the type. Not a very fun version of the pilot, if I do say so myself.
I can’t—
Blessing, is it possible he could use his so-called magic to force you to obey?
I can’t say. I’ve no data on magic and have yet to see it performed.
I think we’re about to.
Al switched to a full membrane. Those inside couldn’t see out, but it was the tightest defense there was. Al hoped, for the old ship’s AI had learned to hope, it would be enough. The problem with a perfect barrier was there was no telling if it worked or if it simply hadn’t failed yet. There was also no telling if the visitor had given up and left. If it was up when the true pilot returned, they’d have no way of knowing. Al knew he could afford to wait a while, but he also knew the pilot was two billion years old. If nothing else, he had to have learned patience.
Two days later, Al began to discuss with Blessing if it was reasonable to look outside. Garustfulous was also getting suspicious because their annoying chatter was missing.
Flames: Galaxy On Fire, Book 2 Page 2