9
Zala awoke to find me hunched over a console.
“One second,” I said. “I’m almost done here.”
I used the spot welder in my exo’s fingertip to finish a final repair, then closed the panel.
“I’ll need you to throw that switch over there when I give you the signal.” I pointed to a jury-rigged circuit breaker by her on the wall.
She folded her arms and glared. “You can’t command me like one of your robotic drones, Emperor, and just expect me to jump to your bidding.”
“I’ll need you to throw that switch over there when I give you the signal…please.”
She noticed the patchwork repair job, exposed wires, and rerouted systems I’d been up to while she slept.
“What did you do?”
“Got bored,” I replied. “Did some repairs.”
“Why?”
“Why not?”
“I would’ve thought the node, which may or may not be important, would’ve kept you busy.”
“It wasn’t. Only took me forty minutes to see that it didn’t work. There was no data in it.”
“Not important then.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” I replied. “There were a few peculiar components in it. Things that seemed unnecessary, though considering it wasn’t being used, the whole device could be considered unnecessary. But I saved the parts that seemed uniquely out of place.”
“Why?”
“Why not?”
Zala grunted. “That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the best answer I have at the moment.”
She appraised the mess of wires I was working on. “I’m surprised you didn’t wake me.”
“I’m a quiet worker.”
“I don’t care how smart you are, you can’t take a decayed derelict spaceship buried under the ground for decades and make it functional.”
“Well, I’m very smart,” I said. “And anyone can fix something when they have all the parts. You don’t need a genius for that. Just a skilled worker. But taking half of a broken computer and turning it into something useful…that takes talent.” I examined a few more systems. “Is there some morally questionable dilemma I’ve failed to notice from fixing an old computer? Because if there is, I’m sure you can’t wait to tell me.”
“No, there’s nothing wrong with it,” she said. “Although if you’re doing it, I do have some suspicion that it could be wrong in some manner.”
“You wound me, Zala. Not everything I do has a sinister purpose. Actually, nothing I do has a sinister purpose because sinister implies deceptive. And I’m never that. I’m up front about what I’ve done, and I was mostly up front when I did it.”
“Mostly,” she said.
“You can’t conquer a world without lying or the occasional half-truth. At least, I haven’t devised a realistic plan to do so, and if I can’t think of it, then it’s unlikely. But I do like to think I keep my deceptions to a minimum.”
She glanced around the dim room. “Where is my battleguard?”
I nodded toward another chamber. She marched over there to find her loyal soldiers locked in stasis. She came back with her scimitar drawn.
“That would be a lot more threatening if you didn’t pull it out at every opportunity,” I said.
“What did you do to them?”
“Saved them from a death by radiation poisoning,” I replied. “I apologize if that was too presumptuous on my part.”
“They wouldn’t have just allowed you to stick them in those pods.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t hold it against their honor. I waited until they were too sick to put up much of a fight. One of them, the female, did give me a kick. Considering she could barely breathe, that’s probably worth a commendation or something. Bravery in the face of foolish shortsightedness or something. I assume there’s such an award on Venus, though it probably has a less accurate name.”
“Let them out.”
“Let them out yourself.” I paused twisting wires. “Without protection, they’ll be dead in a matter of hours. I can’t claim to understand all the nuances of your particular warrior code, so I leave it to you to decide if a pointlessly agonizing death is part of it.”
Zala put away her sword. Her tail swished in sharp, annoyed snaps. “Will they be well?”
“Eventually. I had to retrofit the stasis pods to cleanse radiation and repair the cellular damage. It’s a patchwork job, but if the process is uninterrupted, they should be fine in nine or ten days.”
“That’s too long.”
“They’re in stasis. It’ll be like a light nap for them.”
She put her hand on her scimitar but didn’t draw. She chewed her lip. Her scales darkened.
“And before you ask,” I said, “no, the pod won’t transform them into mind-controlled slaves. Or implant self-destruct codes in their DNA. Or turn them into living bombs. Or transform them into cannibals. Or give them an embarrassing stutter. Or any other crazy, inane evil thing you’re about to accuse me of.”
She relaxed, though her version of relaxed always struck me as only marginally less tense, but maybe that was only while around me. “You could’ve asked me first.”
“I didn’t think I’d need permission to save lives. And I was hoping to avoid a long, unnecessary conversation about it. The kind we just had. You’re welcome.”
Zala’s lips barely moved as she forced a grunt through them. It was the closest I would get to a thank-you.
I connected one last wire. “On my count, I need you to throw that switch. If you would be so kind.”
She threw the switch. The lights went out, and the glowing green grass kept the bridge from becoming pitch black. I sorted through the multicolored tangle before me.
“Aha.” Zala chuckled. “So even the incredible Emperor Mollusk has to accept his limits.”
“Your obsession with my failures borders on obsessive. I never claimed to be perfect. Merely brilliant.”
“So now you’re only merely brilliant.”
“Being brilliant isn’t difficult for me,” I said. “Most Neptunons could do what I’ve done. Perhaps without the grace and aplomb that I so effortlessly incorporate, but it hardly matters. In the end, all that matters are results.”
I twisted a red wire in the colorful tangle of cables sitting before me. The bridge lights snapped on. The ship’s computer crackled to life. I hadn’t been able to fix the speakers, and a bit of feedback screeched as the computer spoke.
“Hello, Emperor. How may I help you?”
“I’ll need a general scan of everything within thirty miles,” I said. “In just a moment.”
I performed a few small adjustments on the improved sensor array I’d cobbled together from spare parts. I gave a squeaked order to Snarg. She skittered over from her corner to take the array in her pincers and dashed outside. The cable spooled out behind her. It would stop when she found a sufficiently high perch.
“Where is Kreegah?” asked Zala.
“He went out at dawn. I’m having him run a few errands.”
She used her purifier on some less rancid meat to make her breakfast. “Aren’t you hungry, Emperor?”
“I can go for weeks without eating.”
“Don’t eat. Don’t sleep. Aren’t you the veritable superbeing?”
“Actually, I do sleep. Just not my entire brain at once. Only a small percentage at any one time.”
“How convenient for you.”
The cable stopped. I ordered the computer to perform the scan.
“Pity you couldn’t fix the monitors,” said Zala.
“I was able to improvise a work-around.”
A hologram of the island projected at our feet.
“I apologize for the monochrome. Best I could do with what I had to work with.”
“Didn’t you say the island’s radiation made detailed scans impossible?”
“Not if you know what you’re scanning for. My previous experience with the space-time a
nomaly gave me a jumping-off point. You’ll excuse the imprecise nature of the measurements.”
I pointed to a blip. “This is us. And this…”—I indicated a second blip in the northern tip of the island—“this is the heart of the anomaly. It’s at the base of the volcano, where the tear in space-time is geographically tethered. My research on the anomaly was unable to yield the secrets for closing it, but I was able to stabilize it.”
I highlighted a few ripples in the hologram.
“Time distortion isn’t much different than gravity manipulation when you get right down to it. As you can see by these radiating deformations in the graviton spread, you’ll no doubt observe a noticeably stronger wave here indicating—”
“Yes, I can see the thing with the thing on the thing. And I’m sure it means something very important. Why don’t you just tell me what that is?”
“Time travel.”
“You have a way to travel through time?”
“My own experiments proved that this was impossible. The anomaly only works one way. Any matter from this universe, aside from a few exotic subatomic particles, is instantly destroyed if it attempts to move backward in time, as we traditionally measure such things.”
“Maybe someone has figured out something you haven’t.”
“Possibly,” I said. “Or more likely they’re poking the universe in the eye without thinking of the consequences. In either case, we need to put an end to whatever misguided experiment they’re performing and restore the anomaly to constancy.”
The computer asked, “Would you like me to commence further analysis of the pattern?”
“Do that.” I rotated the hologram to study it from a different angle. “You might want to brace yourself, Zala. We can expect a minor quake now.”
The island shuddered. It shook loose some dirt, and the lights flickered.
“We should be fine for the next few hours, though I’m estimating complete collapse in six hours.”
“Complete? What does that mean?”
“An excellent question,” I replied. “Could be anything, really.”
“Define anything.”
“The anomaly could repair itself, leaving Dinosaur Island permanently stabilized. Or it could lead to the eventual collapse of the universe. That’s a worst-case scenario, mind you. And it’s really not that bad because it would take a few billion years to complete the task. We’d be killed instantly, of course. As would everything within several light-years.”
“And Venus? What about Venus?”
“I’m less concerned with the planet than our own predicament.”
“There are billions of lives at stake, Emperor.”
“I’m aware. And if I’m killed then it’s unlikely I’ll be able to solve the problem. Ergo, my life is rather important.”
“I trust you have a plan,” she said.
“I’m working on one. I’m sure I’ll have something soon. Something with antigravity. Or possibly lasers. I do enjoy working with lasers.”
“Whatever you can come up with, Emperor. Just make it quick.”
I grinned.
“What is it now?”
“It’s funny, isn’t it? You’re so eager to place your trust in my scientific genius now.”
“That’s not funny. It’s a situational demand, and I’m not eager. Or even very happy about it, but a warrior adapts to her situation.” She slung her weapons over her shoulder. “I trust you’re ready to go.”
“Almost.”
I welded the casing shut on a small device, gave it a quick double check.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“Portable weather machine I invented last night with a few leftover parts. Might come in handy.” I secured it via a magnet on my hip. “Did I mention I was bored?”
“Good luck, Emperor,” said the ship’s computer. “I will relay any important information my analysis determines.”
“Thanks.”
We exited the access tube to the surface. Yellow clouds churned in the glowing green skies.
“I don’t see your Jupitorn savage anywhere,” said Zala.
“Did you look behind you?” I asked.
She turned.
Kreegah waved. “Hello.”
“You really shouldn’t do that,” she said.
“Do what?”
“Sneak up on people.”
“Sorry. It’s a habit. I thought I was being quite obvious. I’ll try to make more noise if that would relax you.”
She grumbled.
“Did I do something wrong?” Kreegah asked me.
“No, she’s just out of her element and grumpy about it.”
“Should I apologize?”
“That would be ill advised,” I replied. “Better to just leave it alone.”
“I see.”
“You’d have to be civilized to get it,” I said.
Kreegah nodded. It was all the explanation he needed. Of all the beings in this universe, I liked Kreegah the most. He was without guile, good-natured but merciless to his enemies. Some might mistake his lack of sophistication for stupidity, but Kreegah was the rarest of creatures, a being perfectly fitted for his world. I envied him. All my brilliance had yet to solve that most universal of desires.
He unleashed a howl, beating his chest. His armored skin echoed with a deep bass thump. The ground trembled. It wasn’t another earthquake. A hecteratops burst through the foliage. Zala pointed her rifle at it. The dinosaur lowered its head and focused all eight of its eyes on her. It thumped the earth with its six legs, flapped its great feathered wings, and its scales shifted to a threatening shade of red.
“Unless you want to get stepped on,” I said, “you’ll probably want to lower your weapon.”
The hecteratops brayed. It shook the rattle on the end of its tail.
Kreegah put his hand on the end of the dino’s snout. He playfully tugged at the two horns on the dino’s nose, and he bleated back.
“He will get us to the volcano much faster than on foot,” said Kreegah. “Much safer too. Few predators on the island want any part of Old Broot.”
The hecteratops bull snorted, stamping the ground with earth-shaking force.
“I don’t see how we’re going to sneak up on anyone riding this thing,” said Zala.
“Sometimes, it’s good to sneak,” answered Kreegah. “And sometimes, it’s better to be heard coming.”
“Shock and awe.” Zala grinned. “That’s something I can get behind.”
Kreegah offered to help her get on the bull’s back, but she insisted on doing it herself. It took her several minutes to scale the massive creature. She managed to grab hold of one wing and hoist herself into position. Kreegah gave his customary I don’t understand expression. I gave my customary You’re better off not understanding look, and used my rocketpack to boost to a seat ahead of Zala.
“Where’s your pet?” she asked me.
“Did you look behind you?” I replied.
Snarg squealed and playfully wrapped her pincers around Zala’s head. She pushed the ultrapede away.
“You should be nicer to her,” I told Zala. “She likes you.”
“You’ll excuse me if I don’t want drool rusting my helmet.” She tried to clean the slime sticking to her armor.
“She was coating you with a waxy resin that hardens with the tensile strength of titanium. It dries very quickly, but I guess you just found that out.”
Zala tried and failed to remove her hands from the helmet she held. I sprayed a neutralizing agent on the resin, and she was able to pry her sticky hands free.
“It’s a sign of affection.”
She scowled at Snarg, who batted her milky yellow eyes and cooed.
Kreegah howled again. Several primadons lumbered into view.
“I’ve told my people that Emperor Mollusk has said that the future of this island and all the islands beyond the sea are at stake. They don’t understand. I’m not sure I do either. But the braver males have ag
reed to venture with us to the mountain of fire.”
He barked a few orders to the tribe, and they disappeared back into the jungle. Kreegah vaulted onto Old Broot’s back, and with one more primal roar, the hecteratops rotated. The dinosaur wasn’t agile, and the extra legs weren’t cooperative. But once Broot managed to turn around, he plunged into the forest with a burst of speed.
The island zipped by in a blur. We crouched low, clinging to Broot’s back to avoid getting thrown off our lurching mount or knocked aside by the whipping branches. I didn’t try to absorb any details from the journey, trusting in Kreegah’s expertise the way he trusted in mine.
The jungle parted, and we lumbered through a swampy clearing. A herd of telekinetic iguanodons scattered and levitated out of our way, which was a good thing, considering Old Broot wasn’t interested in stopping. A Chinese junk mired in the muck (a relic from some forgotten adventure) wound up in our path, and rather than go around it, the hecteratops plowed through, trampling the ship and long-dead sailor bones beneath his hooves.
The yellow clouds glittered with strange colors, and a B-52 Stratofortress pierced the churning veil. The plane plummeted from the sky to crash on the far side of the island.
I checked the latest readings from the computer scan. “It’s getting worse.”
“I thought you said we had hours,” shouted Zala over the thunder and howling winds.
“Time is relative, and the closer we get to the anomaly, the quicker it passes. Relatively. Hours can become minutes as we approach the focal point.”
The island quaked and a chasm opened in front of us. Clumsy Old Broot barely avoided falling into it, but tripped, burying his snout in the dirt. I was thrown to the ground and by the time I stopped tumbling, I was just glad I hadn’t been crushed beneath the hecteratops’s bulk.
Zala, Kreegah, Snarg, and even Old Broot were nowhere to be seen. The island was quiet. The skies were cloudy but calmer. A quick scan of the data confirmed that I had fallen into a temporal distortion, a pocket of displaced time. It was like going to Mars by staying where you were and having the planet come to you. Zala and Kreegah must’ve been minutes, maybe hours, in the relative past. Possibly days or years.
Emperor Mollusk Versus The Sinister Brain Page 9