"Thank you." Elena stepped forward. She had to duck a little in order not to bang her head against the low ceiling - an unmistakable indication that this ship had been built exclusively by and for the smaller saurian creatures. The lock chamber of the alien ship was a sphere with a flattened floor and the deep red light seemed to pulse to the rhythm of a bass background hum. Behind Elena the outer hatch hissed shut, she expected one behind the Teladi to open but could see no outline of an airlock in the smooth curved walls of the docking sphere. The fact barely registered when the door behind her slid open again. What was wrong?
"What...?" She turned abruptly, expecting to see the airlock of her own ship. Instead she looked into a spacious semi-circular chamber of the Nyana's Fortune. How was that possible? She didn't feel any movement at all, and between closing and re-opening of the lock had been barely two seconds.
"Impressive." she said.
"Yes, isn't it? Spherical board transporters are a Teladian development. We expect to draw large profit thereby!"
Elena stifled to mention his stated disinterest in profit; instead she followed Nopileos, finding the room outside was in fact a complete circuit, with a transparent dome for a ceiling that came down to her shoulder level. If she wasn't mistaken, this was the command centre she'd previously seen on the images brought back by the modified message drone from its espionage trip.
"This is my humble empire," proclaimed Nopileos, not without pride. "If you wish, I will gladly show you the ship. But I would like to visit yours later also!"
Elena nodded. "Of course, that's fine. And I am very curious to see more of your ship. It seems to be very luxurious!"
"Indeed, it is! Come along, brother!"
In the following half hour Nopileos led the Eurasian pilot through all the areas and decks of the yacht. Elena was impressed. The Teladian technical designers had truly worked wonders. Each deck possessed different gravity fields, at one place the gravity pointed to the bow, somewhere else to the stern or to outboard. It was an incredibly efficient use of space and because of the ingenious construction of the elevator system one did not even notice that gravity shifts as you moved from deck to deck. You simply stepped into the dark red ball and moments later out into another room without any shaking, jolting or disorientation.
"The Getsu Fune seems to me, if you will pardon the expression, comparatively austere, sister Elena. But the control centre has a sleekness that the Nyana's Fortune is missing. And it is roomy!"
Nopileos rocked back and forth in the co-pilot seat. It wasn't easy for him to fit in a seat designed for humans but once he managed it he found it not so uncomfortable. Well, not as much as he had been afraid it would.
"Thanks, Nopileos. But I wish I had a beautiful ship like yours at my disposal."
The adolescent Teladi had been practically incandescent with curiosity over her ship and so she gave him the tour right after he'd finished showing off his fine vessel. She'd expected him to be disappointed in the old bucket but quite the opposite. He did not comment on the somewhat basic equipment of the ship but he had questions by the dozen. Every piece of equipment had to be explained, touched, shaken or sniffed. Somewhere within the whirlwind of curiosity she managed to get across she was a 'sister' not a 'brother' and the Teladi switched his form of address to the informal. This was absolutely fine with Elena, because she found it difficult to formally address Teladi or Boron, but not out of disrespect, they were just so inherently comical and cute! Unlike the Split and the Paranid, who she found so intimidating and aloof that formality was no trouble whatsoever.
"I am curious, Nopileos," said Elena, "you said profit is not what you look for. What is it then?"
"Actually my mission is to fly to Kingdom End - I mean, I have been invited!" Nopileos answered evasively.
She shot him a quizzical look. "So it was not your mission to keep me under observation?"
"No, no... I only saw the Getsu Fune and you in the trading station, and an idea rushed into my mind..."
"Namely?"
"Hmm hmm hm. Tsh!"
Elena put her feet up on the instrument panel and leaned back comfortably in her seat, a position that enabled her to look the Teladi in the face. Nopileos crumpled under her gaze.
"I do not know whether I should tell you," he said meekly.
"You don't want me to pull it from you like teeth from a mule now, do you?"
"Please don't! I don't even have teeth!" replied the Teladi, who apparently didn't know the phrase. "Look, Elena," he took a deep breath, raised his eyes and stared blankly through the cockpit window, "there is a secret I may not tell you anything about, unless my assumption is correct, because then it would be no secret at all for you."
Elena nodded slowly. It sounded obtuse but she knew exactly what he meant. Strictly speaking, they were in the same boat, she unable to tell Nopileos that she came from Earth, looking for Kyle, unless he already knew it. The more she thought about it, the more convinced she became that the Teladi already knew. Should she try him? But Nopileos pre-empted her.
"Elena, please do not be angry with me, but I have investigated a little using the authority of my grandfather, the Ceo," he said and added "Shame on me!" as he noticed Elena's glance.
She shook her head. "Nonsense, I would have done exactly the same in your position. Go ahead!"
Nopileos sighed. Apparently he had taken heart and decided to tell her everything. "I know that the on board computer of the Getsu Fune requested the latest information about unknown spaceships on various occasions."
"Go on."
"Sister Elena, tell me please one thing first: are you really a Goner and come from the Commonwealth of Planets?" Nopileos squatted almost motionless in the co-pilot seat and looked at the woman from the Earth with his large, yellow eyes.
Elena was silent for some seconds and gazed at the instrument panel on which her crossed legs rested – against all regulations. Finally she abruptly sat up, pulled up the pilot seat on its rail close to the command desk and activated a switch on the console. "Marc, show me the Earth on the HUD, please." The HUD of the spaceship immediately became opaque, flickered a little and then they were no longer in the empty space between the Teladi sectors, but floating only a few hundred kilometres above the surface of the blue planet.
"This is my home world - a planet named Earth."
Nopileos squatted with bended legs and open mouth on the much too large co-pilot seat. A silence grew and spread until finally he breathed a long drawn-out sigh.
"Tsssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Sometimes I am amazed about myself!"
Elena burst out laughing. "If you are looking for someone to give you a little wake-up slap in the face I'm at your disposal!"
"Thanks, but I can do that for myself," answered Nopileos his scale crest flexing. He continue: "Some tazuras ago an unknown spaceship appeared and I asked myself whether someone would look for it. When I saw the Getsu Fune for the first time, I recalled it and began to collect information."
"You assumed correctly, clever saurian! But who else knows?"
"Only me - perhaps also Inanias, my onboard computer."
"No authorities - government, military?"
"I did not inform anybody so far, but I am not completely sure whether Inanias does not report independently to the Ceo. But don't worry - the Ceo is our friend!"
Elena doubted that, but in principle it did not matter - as soon as she found Kyle and had returned with him to Earth, they'd arrange a diplomatic mission to officially establish contact with the governments of the Commonwealth. Now, at this moment, she had a more important question. "Where is Kyle now?"
"Kyle?"
"Kyle William Brennan, the pilot of the X, the unknown ship! He is my colleague, my best friend. Something like my egg brother."
Nopileos' scale crest blanched.
"Oh, my poor sister Elena..."
Elena felt an ice chill spread though her limbs at these words.
"What - what has happened?"
Nopileos twirled his right ear between two claws, but took heart again and looked sadly at Elena.
"The unknown ship was destroyed twenty Stazuras ago. Nobody survived."
"God. Kyle," whispered Elena. It was always on the cards that anything could happen to Kyle, but discussing it in mission briefings and staring the cold hard fact in the face were two different things.
"Are you sure, Nopileos?"
"Yes, Elena." answered Nopileos quietly.
"How did it happen?"
"A Paranid escort was accompanying the ship from Priest's Pity to Argon Prime. But the pilot - your egg brother - departed without advance notice from his escort protection. He crossed the next jump-gate completely alone and was rammed by a stray Xenon."
Elena stared speechlessly at the image of Earth rotating in the cockpit window display and then finally summoned the will to turn it off. The cold, empty blackness of space mirrored the spreading numbness consuming her soul. Kyle had been her friend, the only true one she had ever had, and he had been her role model. A tiny, narrow smile appeared for a split second on her lips – he had also been her greatest cautionary tale. In the nine years they had known each other they had not argued more than once or twice, despite the long weeks and months they had spent together in cramped conditions.
How many times had they come close to crossing the thin line between friendship and love? And how much it had surprised and especially frightened them both, when they had - just once, never repeated?
Later, Kyle got to know Annabel and barely one year later Elena had asked for a transfer from the active patrol service to the X-project, in order to not unintentionally get in their way. In the end this hadn't helped Kyle and Annabel much. Elena thought back to all the countless practical jokes Kyle had played on her, his inexhaustible supply of cranky jokes, but also to his profound, serious side and all the bloodcurdling experiences they had shared.
"Thank you," she said, surprised that Nopileos had scrambled out of the co-pilot seat and was looking at her quizzically. She shook her head. All good memories and no bad, she was glad to have known him. She had just thanked him.
Nopileos came closer to her and put his claw on her hand. His scales were rough but warm, but the gesture seemed much too human for a Teladi. "Sometimes water comes from the eyes of humans when they are sad, doesn't it?"
Elena nodded. "Yes, Nopileos, but not from mine. I am... I am a warrior."
"Tsh. I understand. Will you avenge your egg brother?"
"No, - but I will make sure that his death was not in vain."
The young Teladi looked to Elena with his yellow eyes. "You humans have something from all," he said after a while. "The fanaticism of the Paranid and the unrestrained rage of the Split. Your financial expertise approximates to those of my people and sometimes… yes, sometimes I believe that in your heads circulate Boron endorphins."
Elena felt a chuckle swelling in her throat, but it came out as a sigh. Even though her original task was finished now, there were still things to take care of before she could return to Earth.
"Nopileos, somewhere in this sector there is an old, inactive jump-gate, which led once to Earth. I must destroy it, before the Xenon find it and find a way to use it against my home planet. Do you want to help me with this?"
Nopileos, surprised, stepped back. "Rotten egg!"
"Does that mean yes?"
"Yes, sister, it does!" Nopileos declaimed. He would explore ancient secrets together with a warrior from a far galaxy! And destroy, whispered a voice in the back of his head. To destroy something could never result in profit - or maybe sometimes it does? Well, who cared anyway!
Adventure he sought, and adventure he had found!
CHAPTER 31
Mathematics should be an intrinsic example of logic clarity. In reality though, you will find more queer terms and thus queer ideas in the book of mathematics than in any other area of science.
Gottlob Frege
Mathematician
On the other side of the gate the Bone Scout found itself staring down the barrels of a dozen laser towers but they remained quiescent as the Split ship sailed onward to the central station Our Salvation. As it cruised towards its destination, Cho ordered the computer to perform a full sensor scan, but it revealed nothing. Also the gravidar couldn't add anything to this result, and so he assumed the alien craft must now be in the giant station.
Even compared to the limited aesthetic of Split installations, the space stations of the Three-Eyed were little more than gigantic geometric blocks in space, so ugly that even space flies would have torn their own wings off in disgust were they forced to live in one.
Cho's ship slipped into the allotted orbital slot and he took the shuttle, Son of Scout A, across to the station. Looking around the docking bay he could see more shuttles and a few other small craft but nothing out of the ordinary. But, he reasoned, the station would have more than one landing bay and the alien craft would be hidden in an empty one, assuming it was on board.
Cho gave the smallest possible bow commensurate with diplomatic protocol to the two tall bony figures approaching him, noting their three eyes were almost devoid of pupils.
"You are the unholy Special Representative of our ally, the Patriarch of Chin – Cho t'Nnt!" one of the Paranid stated matter-of-fact, without looking directly at Cho. This Paranid wore not the flowing robes characteristic of his people but a close fitting functional battle uniform, which accentuated his spindle thin and overly long limbs. Even to Cho, these Three-Eyes looked as dangerous as they undoubtedly were. Of all the races of the Commonwealth, only a Paranid would dare to confront a Split hand-to-hand if they had any other choice. Usually, such conflicts resolved in favour of the Paranid rather quickly.
The reception committee turned out to be anything but talkative. Without saying a word and without even adjusting their long strides for the comfort of their shorter-limbed guest the two warriors hurried Cho, smarting at the impertinence of it all, through the corridors of the station at an uncomfortably brisk pace.
The hectic station hummed like a disturbed insect hive and the imperious swathe cut by his escort only contributed to the organised chaos. Other races abounded, even the awful Boron with their repulsive pressure suits and suspicious stalk eyes that tracked his movement. What did these water ramblers know that he did not? More, probably, than he, the Paranid and the rest of the Commonwealth combined. They always somehow did and no amount of bribery, threats, drugs or torture could ever force one to speak of something they did not want to. It was sometimes said these repugnant tentacled beings had telepathic abilities but Cho hoped this was just space-talk.
The station was a maze of high ceilings and angled corridors, down one near the landing area Cho glimpsed a unit of at least twelve fierce-looking and heavily armed Three-Eyes guarding a high, semi circular hanger door. Cho was pretty certain he knew what they were guarding so assiduously, so he refrained from asking his taciturn guards. He'd have to see if he could get a sneaky little look later, but it seemed improbable considering the guard detail. Maybe, if he were cunning, he could get the Priest Duke to give away a few unwary words. It would be interesting to know whether the crew of the alien craft might still be behind the doors of that hangar or if they were somewhere else within the station. Maybe these aliens were already on the surface of the planet or had even been moved to another sector? They passed the hangar door and burrowed deeper into the heart of the huge station, finally stopping outside an impressive gate at least two and a half times the height of the tallest Paranid.
The arch was pure, polished Nividium, inlaid with artificial precious stones the size of Cho's fist. It was a little garish for his tastes but perfectly suited for a pompous, high-ranking Paranid dignitary. As the door opened, Cho's fingers at his side unconsciously formed the Split sign for 'excruciatingly bad taste'.
"Step inside!" ordered one of his escorts without showing any sign of entering himself. "His Excellency Inmanckarselt is rece
iving you now." Cho did as he was told and without reply stepped inside.
The room was twilight-lit but the additional illumination provided by the fluorescent finishing of the ornately decorated chests and cabinets scattered through the room provided enough light to see by. More than enough in fact to make Cho wish even the last light source would extinguish. But he changed his opinion quickly when he noticed, that near to a strikingly illuminated Paranid in a flowing robe stood two other beings. Humans – Argons or Goner, but he couldn't see them in more detail as they were practically silhouettes in a shadowed corner of the big room.
"We bid thee our Welcome, Special Courier and Ambassador from the Patriarch of Chin!" The Priest Duke took a step forward and turned his three eyes toward the much smaller Split.
Cho sketched a bow. "I thank you, Excellency Inmanckarselt."
The Paranid raised his multi-jointed arm to half his height and pushed it forward with his palms spread open. "We are pleased to see our ally the Patriarch possess the foresight to send his envoy and confidante to us. You have come at the right time, but do you come here with the right enthusiasm?"
Cho felt the anger rise slowly and begin to pulse hot in his veins. The Paranid had already begun to lie, with his first sentence, right to his face. He was neither happy to see him nor did he show enough respect toward the Patriarch! In any case it had been an insult to put such a question to a Split! I will break every bone in his body, every single one! In the unlikely event he'd ever get the chance, that is. After all, this was a Paranid… Cho quelled the urge with an effort of will.
"Why certainly!" he answered. "The alliance between the God Realm of Paranid and the Grand Patriarch is a precious commodity, which justifies any effort."
The Priest Duke made a gesture with his stretched arm that could either mean agreement or refusal – Cho was not sure which but he was leaning toward the first one. "Well! As much as we appreciate your presence here, your time and effort is far better utilised being at the side of Pontifex Maximus Paranidia on our beloved home planet than it is here in this insignificant border area of the God Realm. But while you are here, partake in this magnificent present our Holy Three-Dimensionality had sent to us!"
Farnham's Legend: The beginning of the X-Universe saga (X Games Book 1) Page 24