Traveler_Losing Legong

by Tim Dennis

  Myles decided he'd had enough and after waiting what he felt was a fair amount of time he rose to find his way to a Caldera Shuttle. Krykowfert chose that moment to enter, alone. Myles began again, starting with the initial confusion when the ship chose Earth over Eden.

  "Yes, yes. I've heard all that." Krykowfert said. "You should have seen them Tugot, the looks on their faces. I must admit you caught me off-guard as well."

  "I didn't do it on purpose." Myles protested, but Krykowfert held up a hand to stop him.

  "It does not matter. Tell me. What was it like?"

  "Well," Myles said, "there's a bunch of those nav things in the basement-"

  "Yes, yes. Norte has told me." Krykowfert said. "I want to know about Earth. You liked it, didn't you Tugot? The place, the people?"

  Myles nodded cautiously. In contrast to his public persona, with Myles Krykowfert had always affected this casual attitude. It made Myles uncomfortable. The man spoke as if Myles were a confidant when they were practically strangers. "That nav device, you really think it can be adapted to your new ships?" Myles asked.

  "No." Krykowfert shook his head and held his hands up as if the thought annoyed him. "Traveler has already denied technology sharing. I see no reason for him to change his mind. Earth, Tugot, tell me."

  That was a straightforward answer.

  "What do you want to know?" Myles asked.

  "Your impressions, anything you feel about your trip."

  "Like what?"

  "Do you agree with Norte?"

  "In what way?"

  Krykowfert pursed his lips and thought for a moment. "That Earth is backward and this one ship represents the pinnacle of their achievement?"

  That is what she said.

  Well? Do you think she's right?

  That's not the feeling I got.

  "I don't know." Myles said. "We didn't see anything."

  "No weapons? No industry? No other ships?"

  Myles shook his head. Krykowfert didn't seem terribly interested in his answer.

  "I'd like to see Traveler."

  "What?" Krykowfert asked. "Yes, yes. Of course. There's a small apartment near my offices, but you've been there already, haven't you?" Krykowfert smiled, making Myles even more uncomfortable.

  They walked together as far as the nexus. Krykowfert made an excuse about Council business and left Myles with the Guard. Norte and Peto were long gone, and it appeared that the door to the hangar was the only one off-limits. The Guard volunteered that an elevator had been installed, communicating directly with Krykowfert's sector, where Myles could find the Earthman. Myles thanked him, but despite his calm demeanor, being interrogated by Councilors and Clerks had unnerved him. His bowels gurgled in a way that suggested imminent action. Before he posed the question he saw a worker exiting the elevator lobby. Next to the doors that had previously leaked the blue glow, the doors the Guard had indicated as the elevator, a second door stood open, revealing a toilet. Myles wasted no time making use of the facility and as he was finishing someone rattled the handle.

  Must be the only toilet in the area.

  If looks could kill it would all have ended for Myles upon opening the toilet door. The man he'd seen just moments before stood before him with a small pistol-former in one hand, a very plumbing-looking device in the other, and a mixture of disgust and anger on his face. Myles turned beat red and slipped past him.

  Let's hope the elevator's been finished.

  Myles stepped in, the doors closed and the elevator cab began to move. The first motion was predictable, straight up. The sensation of gravity increased momentarily and then dropped to a level slightly below what it had been in the hangar. The cab then took off sideways, running along a track on the inside edge of the torus, in the opposite direction of the torus spin. This had the effect of completely negating the artificial gravity while at the same time pushing him to the 'rear' of the elevator cab. The cab slowed, throwing him to the 'front' and the feel of gravity returned. The two forces combined to toss Myles to the floor just as the cab stopped its sideways motion and dropped 'down,' lifting him off the floor. He'd almost reached the low ceiling when the cab stopped completely, dropping him back to the floor.

  Pig stood over him laughing. "Ha! How'd YOU like it, eh?"

  Myles leapt up and threw a punch at the non-existent pig, his follow-through spinning him back to the floor of the elevator. The doors opened. Myles crawled out. A Guard stood at attention.

  "Where am I?" Myles asked, supporting himself against he wall as he got back on his feet. The Guard looked uncertain, then pointed down the corridor to the right.

  "Myles?" Traveler greeted him at the door. "I didn't expect you back so soon."

  "Things didn't go as planned." Myles entered, keeping a hand on the wall as he walked. Traveler invited Myles to a seat near his window, and for the fifth time Myles told a version of his trip to Earth.

  Traveler showed no reaction.

  He's upset. He's just not showing it.

  He doesn't care.

  He cares. How can he not care?

  "You liked it." Traveler said. "Didn't you, Myles?"

  The was something odd about the question. Myles looked at Traveler, trying to read that inscrutable face. "Yes." He said. "I liked it. A lot." It was only in that moment that Myles realized the depth of his feelings. Earth felt like more than just the home of his ancestors, it felt like his home.

  That's silly. You're a dozen generations removed from Earth. More than a dozen.

  Doesn't matter. That's how I feel.

  There was catharsis in saying it out loud. Traveler seemed no longer distant and mysterious. He seemed accessible, friendly, even welcoming.

  Welcoming?

  I don't know. Yes. Welcoming. He seems welcoming.

  "I am going to appear on 'Legong Digest'" Traveler said.

  "What?" Myles asked. "Oh. Legong Digest. Yes. Very nice. Everyone scans that."

  Why's he going on Legong Digest?

  Ask him.

  Traveler spoke first. "Director Krykowfert thinks it will help diffuse the tension. I'm not certain that the Council agrees."

  "No," Myles said. "I suspect the Council wishes that you would simply go away. Oh. I didn't mean-"

  "I understand, but leaving would be easier if I had access to my ship."

  That's Krykowfert's doing.

  Is it?

  A knock came on the door. Traveler left Myles by the window to answer it. Myles heard Krykowfert's voice.

  "Good day, Traveler. I am going down to check on Norte. Is there anything you would like from your ship?"

  "Yes." Traveler said. "I neglected to assemble my toiletries before moving in here. I could make a list."

  Krykowfert saw Myles sitting by the window and entered fully into the apartment. "Myles, you are still here?"

  "I was just leaving."

  "Good. We'll go together."

  Traveler finished his list and used the Manual Link that had been lent to him to transfer it to Krykowfert's implant. Krykowfert reminded him of the Digest recording schedule. A moment later he and Myles stood in the elevator corridor.

  "I was going straight to the Hub." Myles said. "Heading back to Caldera."

  Krykowfert opened the elevator doors and swept his arm out in a gesture of 'after you.' "We have things to discuss." he said.

  Myles sighed heavily and entered the elevator, putting one foot against the wall and leaning his back against the opposite. Krykowfert looked at him questioningly.

  The cab started with a lurch and the predictable weight of the initial lift. Then the sideways movement, this time in the opposite direction, the same as Central Command's spin, increasing the feeling of gravity to three times normal. Myles fell immediately. Krykowfert braced himself, shoes slowly sliding along the floor as his body slid down the wall. A moment of weightlessness as the car twisted into a new position then renewed acceleration, sideways. The men crumpled together into the corner of the car then lif
ted. Lightened, but not enough to float, they danced on their toes, scratching for traction. The inevitable final deceleration brought their weight back and then some. The doors opened. Krykowfert remained, leaning against the back wall as Myles straightened his shirt and stepped uneasily into the elevator lobby.

  "I'm heading to Caldera." He said. Krykowfert nodded. Myles exited the lobby and passed the Guard, back into the public sector of Central Command. Krykowfert stood for a moment in the elevator lobby. From the hangar, on the other side of the wall, came a deep, throaty, harrumph; loud enough to vibrate the empty vase on the refreshments table. Krykowfert rushed out of the lobby and into the hangar.

  Peto stood just outside the ship's lower hatch, holding together a pair of heavy cable couplings. There were no cables. A line of black, smoking powder described a serpentine path from his feet, across the charred floor to Norte's control console in the corner of the room. A thinning cloud of smoke slowly curled its way to the ceiling above as another, thicker column, issued from the open hatchway.

  "Is the ship alright?" Krykowfert asked. Peto remained in position, pop-eyed and blinking, making fish-lips with his mouth. He looked at Krykowfert and squinted. Krykowfert turned to Norte, already running out from behind her console. She paused to grab a fire-suppressor and climbed up into the smoking ship. Krykowfert looked around, rifled through Norte's equipment and found a flexible ventilator-tube. "Peto? C'mon son, help me with this."

  Peto came to help, but seemed confused about where to lay down the couplings. Krykowfert ignored him and dragged the ventilator, shoving one end up into the hatch. From inside the ship Norte grabbed it, pulling it along with her as she headed up to the pilothouse. Krykowfert turned to see a half dozen Guards running into the hangar.

  "Help Norte. You. Take this fellow-" Krykowfert noticed their insignias. These were Council Guards, not Shield Guards. He looked back at the ship. The ventilator had forced most of the smoke out and clean air was now flowing out of the hatch. He used his implant to get a report from Norte. Fine. Nothing damaged, except her electronic gear, which was, without exception, fried to a powder.

  Councilor Six stood in the hangar doorway. Krykowfert took Peto by the elbow and pushed passed her. "Get me a Slot-Cab," he said to the Guard, ignoring Six.

  The Councilor called for Norte and went to wait for her by the lab she'd Makered in the corner of the hangar. The gear they'd stolen from the tent-camp on Earth was laid out on benches. Some of it had come apart easily, their pieces were scattered on the bench. Six reached out and lifted a still-intact device, turning it over in her hands. An irregular box, eight centimeters on a side with a pistol grip. Five switches lined up along one edge, three concentric knobs on the face opposite. Norte came and held out her hand. Six placed the device carefully into it. Grabbing it by the pistol grip, Norte placed it face-down on the bench, then, still holding it, she pressed the center of the concentric knobs. Six took a step back. The machine emitted a whirring sound, growing in intensity. Norte waited, the whirring developed complex tones. She started flicking the switches and the tones became musical, forming rich and vibrant chords and without further warning a delicately featured young woman appeared, dancing around them on her toes, her clothing morphing from one style to another, her own skin tone darkening, then lightening, her features changing.

  "All of them?" Councilor Six asked.

  Norte shrugged. "I haven't examined them all. There's a possibility-"

  Six jerked the toy from her hands and threw it with all her force at the deck. It bounced once and came to rest under the bench. She turned as dramatically as she could manage and marched herself across the hangar to the elevator lobby.

  19

  Bento preferred her own apartment in City Center, but she knew Harry didn't like the old place. So last night she let him win. It was a nice home, just a few door away from Myles. He'd chosen the front room for his bed, and through its second story window Bento could just barely see the squat tower of City Center, rising above the still-shiny silver and gray roofs of the newer quarter, lit from behind as the peaked up over the horizon. Bento gently slipped from under the covers, not wanting to wake Harry. She stood at his bedroom window examining the Tower. Every month a few more scabs appeared, balconies and extra rooms for two hundred year old apartments. One could almost tell the age of the resident by the outer surface. Sections of smooth silver siding indicated vacant apartments, or in rare cases the dwellings of the most aged. Tr'indos cut into the exterior revealed the home of that generation's children, still elderly, whereas an actual balcony, or in some cases a projecting room, probably belonged to the generation of Bento and Myles's parents, or as it was called 'the Krykowfert Generation.'

  Bento stretched and reached to get a better view but she couldn't quite see past the City to the keys. She pushed a section of tr'indow aside and leaned out, the breeze raising goosebumps on her belly and breasts. Turning to check on Harry she saw the morning was having its usual hormonal effect and considered whether she should take advantage of it or sneak out before he awoke. Using her implant to check exactly what point she was in her cycle she turned her body back to the warming sun. Before she was born the boldest their grandparents were building the low-rise structures that blocked her view. Her parents, like those of Myles and Harry, grew up in places like that, feeling breezes as she did now, knowing rock and sand and great masses of moving water. It all reminded her she had more in common with her parents than she may like to admit.

  At that moment Harry's thick fingers grabbed her by the hips and spun her around.

  "Hey! I have to install the Gun Emplacement this morning." She twisted away backed against the wall.

  "I'll show you how to install a Gun Emplacement." He leaned in to pin her but she dropped and crawled towards the bed. Harry leapt, falling to the floor behind her, grabbing at her ankles only to get a heel stiffly pressed into his shoulder. Bento leapt to her feet and ran around the room, waving her arms to ward off approaches from behind. A meaty hand brushed the small of her back and she squealed, arching away from it and making the mattress a split second before Harry made her. Flipping onto her back and drawing up her legs only provided a more enticing target and Harry pounced, rattling the bed-frame and pressing Bento into the pillows.

  Harry stretched his legs out, tensed his thighs and fell back against into the pillows, causing Bento to tumble onto his chest. She leaned back and wriggled her legs out from under him, but remained seated for a moment, thinking. Harry lay unusually still.

  "Ha!" He cried. "That's me. They're broadcasting my interview on Legong Digest." Bento rolled off him, he shook her shoulder. "C'mon, link-up, they just released it."

  Bento joined Harry's implant link and lay on her back, lifting her legs into the air and peddling. Legong Digest had assembled satellite imagery of the actual asteroid that had holed the cafe's roof and was able to show continuous visuals of the rock entering the atmosphere and breaking up. With Central Command and eight Farm-Arks in orbit all of Legong's surface was in view, all the time. The high-altitude explosion of the parent-asteroid had set off alarms, and the instantaneous locking-on of one visual tracker turned into multiple views from several different orbiters as the cluster of fragments raced towards Caldera. Most landed in the sea outside the atoll, save the one with 'Harry's Cafe' written on it. One Ark crossed the meteor's track, getting a very brief, perfect view through the holed-roof at the crushed floor below.

  "Here it is!" Harry looked over at Bento, now with legs and hips in air, thighs together, doing an inverted belly-dance. Harry's focus shifted between his interview playing on the Digest and Bento's belly, the muscles of which were rippling in the most curious manner. That particular view of his mate, in truth any view of his mate, stimulated his animal instincts. He was about to forget about his interview when the Digest report gave way to a recorded Council announcement:

  Your Council has always been there for you, and we always will be. For over five hundred years w
e've protected the Citizens of the Colony from dangers inside the solar system and now we're prepared to protect you from threats from without.

  Images of orbiting Destroyers and Ark-based Gun emplacements swam over Bento's body, inter-cut with vaporizing asteroids. Roughly spherical flying rocks morphed into neatly rounded space-ships, collecting together into a sinister formation, ever advancing on Legong. The Council chose to represent itself as semi-transparent hand, several times the size of the planet, rejecting and diverting asteroids and anonymous 'other world' ships alike.

  And while the historic service of Shield Guard will remain to chase pebbles from the sky, it is your Council, and the new service of the Council Guard, that ensures your future and the security of your children.

  "Amateurs." Bento said, re-positioning herself into a triangle, feet and hands on the carpet in an inverted belly dance. "I don't think the Earth-man is a threat. What would Earth want with the Colonies? I mean after all this time?"

  Images of robed Councilors faded from Harry's mind and a woman's voice announced tomorrow's featured interview: Traveler. Harry's focus returned to Bento, but the distraction of the Council message had broken the mood, and from Harry's new perspective Bento's calisthenics shifted from erotic to peculiar.

  Pig danced across Myles's empty mindscape, its last vestige of modesty maintained by a small patch of leather held in place with bejeweled straps. Smooth pink skin stretched taughtly across shapely pig hips, bare midriff exposing six alert nipples, each with its own little spinning tassel. Pig's veil fell away, revealing an only slightly porcine version of Bento's face.

  Myles woke suddenly, with heart pounding and a deep metal confusion. He lay for a moment in horrified bliss, staring numbly for a few moments at the ceiling, then out his window. Myles preferred the scraggly hillside behind to the view of City Center in front, but the room was too large. As reality slowly replaced his dream state the fact struck home that it was all the larger with he the only occupant.