For the Love of Gelo!

by Tom O'Donnell

  “Halt,” he said to them.

  “What are you supposed to be, outlander?” squawked one of them.

  “My name is Taius Sovyrius Ridian,” he said. “I am a legate of the Vorem Dominion.” He flashed his golden insignia.

  The hunters looked at one another. It was hard to read an Aeaki to begin with, but under the masks it was impossible.

  “Well, you happen to be standing in Eka territory,” said the leader.

  “Last I checked,” said Taius as he waved expansively, “all of this was Vorem territory. Kyral is a Dominion world. That means all of you are Dominion subjects. And I demand you stop dismantling that starship right now.”

  I held my breath. He was coming on awfully strong. Revealing his rank had saved him once before with Hisuda. But didn’t he understand that even the Aeaki who professed loyalty to the Dominion on Kyral still hated his kind?

  At last, the Eka leader looked to her companions and then bowed low. His gambit had worked!

  Then she laughed. “How about we dismantle you instead?” she said, standing. “The Eka never surrendered to the Dominion, and we’re not about to start now. We’re not your subjects.”

  Taius blinked. He hadn’t expected this. “But,” he said, “this is—Kyral is a—”

  “In fact, being a Vorem in Eka territory is a very serious condition.” She cocked her blaster rifle and leveled it at his head. “Probably fatal.”

  “Wait,” cried Becky, leaping forward. “Don’t shoot him!”

  This startled the three hunters. They looked about uncertainly, considering the possibility that the whole jungle might be full of strange outlanders.

  “What are you?” asked the Eka leader, now aiming at Becky. “Another alien?”

  “I’m his . . . ” she sighed. “We’re his prisoners.” She waved toward us. We looked at one another and stepped out of the brush.

  “He conquered our worlds,” said Becky. “Isn’t that right, guys?”

  We nodded. I got the sense that this was probably the strangest day of these three Eka’s lives.

  “Well,” said the Eka leader, “after we vaporize him, I guess you’ll be our prisoners.” All three laughed again.

  “Don’t shoot him,” said Becky. “Or . . . or . . .”

  The Eka looked less than impressed. “Or what?” asked the leader. Becky had no answer. Her eyes darted around frantically.

  “Or he’ll rain fire from the skies,” said Nicki.

  “Yeah. That’s it!” said Becky, nudging Taius hard with her elbow. “Isn’t that right, Taius—uh, Legate Ridian?”

  “What?” he said. “Oh. Yup. Rain fire.”

  “His ship is standing by in high orbit,” said Nicki. “Nuclear missiles armed and ready to launch.”

  “See it?” said Little Gus, pointing at the sky. “It’s just behind that cloud.” The Eka squinted upward. They no longer looked so confident.

  “They’re watching from space,” said Becky, “waiting for his signal. Or for something to happen to him. Because if it does—”

  “Ka-boom!” yelled Hollins. All three Eka jumped into the air, reflexively flapping up a meter or two before landing again.

  The Eka leader chastened the other two hunters (though she had jumped just as high). Then she turned to Eyf. “What about you?” said the leader to Eyf. “You’re no alien. Why are your feathers white? What are you?”

  “I was an Oru from across the mountains,” said Eyf sadly, “but this Vorem one drained the color from my feathers. All he had to do was wave that little black box toward me.” She pointed to Taius’s zowul and whimpered in faux despair.

  Taius looked around, then held the device up ominously. The distress beacon chimed, and the three Eka hunters moaned in terror. The thought of white feathers—of losing their own clan identity—was even more frightening than a nuclear strike.

  “Now I repeat,” said Taius, “don’t touch that starship.”

  “Okay, okay, Vorem!” said the Eka leader, now bowing in earnest. “No need to be hasty! Praise the Dominion.”

  Taius looked to the rest of us.

  “Praise the Dominion,” we repeated in unison. He nodded.

  “Let us just be going back to Eka,” said the leader. “No need for you to bother with us anymore, mighty Vorem lord.” She screeched up toward the sky as though they could hear her in Taius’s imaginary ship. “Praise the Dominion!”

  The three Eka hunters spread their wings as though to fly away. I was close enough now to see that the Phryxus II was empty. Did that mean that Kalac, Ornim, and Chayl had survived the crash?

  “Wait!” I cried. “If you want to stay in the legate’s good graces, you need to help him with his secret mission.” Taius stared at me, confused.

  “He is searching for three fugitives,” I continued. “They look like me, only taller. They’re, uh, escaped prisoners!”

  The three Eka glanced at one another. The leader spoke. “Yes, some of the Eka saw them. More strange little outlanders running through the forest weeks ago. We shot at them a few times, but we missed.”

  “Where were they going?” I cried.

  The Eka leader squinted at me. Perhaps I was overstepping my bounds as a humble prisoner. Taius could sense that I was on the verge of blowing our ruse.

  “Quiet . . . knave,” said Taius to me. Oddly, when he actually tried to sound like a villain, he was totally unconvincing. “I’ll, uh, ask the questions around here,” he said, clearing his throat. “So, yeah, where were they going?”

  “Toward Hykaro Roost,” said the Eka leader, pointing out into the jungle. “That way. Fifty kilometers.”

  “Very good,” said Taius, nodding. “Now leave here at once. And I trust we shall encounter no further hassles while we are in ‘Eka territory.’” He slathered the last two words with contempt. The Eka assured us that we would not. They bowed and nodded, nodded and bowed, and then took flight.

  We watched them as they dwindled to nothing more than black specks in the sky. When they were finally gone, we breathed a collective sigh of relief. Immediately, we all started talking in an excited mix of human-ese and Xotonian.

  “Good show, Becky!” cried Hollins, cuffing her on the back. “You just jumped right in there and saved his purple butt.” He threw a thumb toward Taius, who still looked completely dazed.

  “Yeah, Becky, bold move!” said Little Gus. “Side note: Your hair looks really nice today.”

  “No it doesn’t,” she said. “And when I saw Taius flopping around like a fish out of water, I just knew I had to jump in there”

  “Yeah, real smooth, Taius,” said Little Gus to Taius in Xotonian. “That Aeaki called your bluff, and suddenly you got quieter than a library full of rocks.”

  “What?” said Taius, snapping back to reality. “Oh yeah. After they weren’t impressed by my badge, I had absolutely nothing. Without Becky, I was done for,” he admitted with a laugh. His laughter startled the others (as it had startled me before). Taius frowned. “Eyf!” he said sharply, spooking the little Aeaki.

  “Yes?” she said, cowering behind her wing.

  “The whole draining-the-color-from-your-feathers thing?” said Taius, holding up the tracker. “That was pretty smart!”

  “And they actually believed it!” squeaked Eyf. “They are very, very, very simple on this side of the mountains!”

  “They saw Kalac, Ornim, and Chayl! They’re alive!” said Becky. “I mean, not that they wouldn’t be. But they definitely are!”

  The others cheered. Hollins clapped me on the back. Even Taius smiled, though I thought there was a touch of melancholy in it.

  “It sounds like they’re headed for Hykaro Roost,” I said. “What do you know about it, Eyf? Lately, I’ve found my cyclopaedia to be a bit out of date.”

  “Hykaro was once a great city,” said Ey
f. “The gods themselves lived there, but they left it empty. But all the clans come to trade. No fighting among Aeaki is allowed. When you visit the Hykaro Roost, it is customary to bring an offering—something from the time before the Vorem—and toss it into the Midden. It is a little ritual to help us remember what was lost.”

  We were silent. Eyf took two of my thol’grazes in her wings. “I am very, very, very happy that the Xotonian ones you’re looking for are still alive,” she said.

  “Me too,” I said. “It’s no one’s birthday, but I feel like celebrating.” I rummaged around in my pack and found what I was looking for. “Hollins, can you use your knife to cut this into seven pieces?” And I tossed him the only Feeney’s Original Astronaut Ice Cream bar on the whole planet.

  “Sure. Seven pieces,” he said, unfolding his pocketknife. “But loath as I am to admit it, I think Becky deserves a little extra.”

  Hollins cut it up and distributed the tiny slivers. Taius didn’t like the taste; he claimed it was so sweet it made his fangs hurt. Meanwhile, Eyf started talking twice as fast as normal. We’d each already had a piece when we noticed that there was one left. Nicki was gone.

  I wandered off a little ways and found her alone in the jungle, sitting on a fallen log. She had her holodrive out, and she was playing a very angry game of Xenostryfe III. The way she was blasting those poor flying saucers, I almost pitied them. She snarled as she lost her final life.

  “Something wrong?” I asked. “I mean, aside from the fact that you’re marooned on a planet full of monsters and hostile bird-people.”

  “No. Nothing’s wrong,” she said. “I’m perfectly fine. It’s probably the humidity. Look at this weird leaf.” She pointed to an octagonal one on the ground beside her. “I’m so into stuff like that. Isn’t it fascinating?” Her teeth were clenched as she spoke.

  “Are you angry about something?” I asked.

  She sighed. “Everyone gave Becky credit for stepping in back there,” she said. “But she didn’t have a plan any more than Taius did. I was the one who thought of saying that his ship was watching.”

  I hadn’t realized it, but she was absolutely right. “That’s true!” I said. “It was your idea! If you hadn’t thought of that, we’d be prisoners. Or worse.”

  She nodded.

  “So you want more credit?” I asked. “I can tell the others—”

  “No!” she said. “I’m not some showboat. It’s just . . . it’s just . . . I was scared. I had the plan, but I was scared.”

  “So was I,” I said. “They were pointing energy blasters at us. It was scary.”

  “But what if Hollins is right?” she asked. “What if I’m just ‘the smart one’? What if I’m not brave? Not a leader?” She pulled out the little carved statue of Athena that Hollins had given her. I had no idea she’d brought it with her.

  “Come on,” I said. “Hollins didn’t mean anything by that. He cares a lot about you. And you are brave.”

  “Am I?” she asked. “I never just rush into danger like Hollins or Becky. Or you.”

  “I think there are different kinds of leaders. And different types of courage,” I said. “And most of the time, rushing into danger isn’t bravery at all, it’s stupidity. You have to pick your moments—”

  But just at that moment, Hollins burst into the clearing with all the tact of an angry rahk. “Nicki! So here’s where you’re hiding!” he said, laughing. She frowned. It was the exact wrong thing to say and the exact wrong time to say it. She deactivated her holodrive, got up, and quietly walked back to camp.

  “What?” said Hollins to me. “Girls. Am I right?”

  “No, you’re not right,” I said, and I followed Nicki.

  We returned to find the others in the throes of an argument.

  “No fire,” said Eyf. “No, no, no.”

  “But the Eka aren’t going to give us any more trouble,” said Little Gus. “They said so. Don’t you want to eat hot food? We can tell ghost stories! You’re going to love the one about the haunted mini-fridge.”

  “No fire,” said Eyf. “It’s still dangerous. Very, very, very dangerous.”

  “We should eat more wryv,” said Taius, ignoring her.

  “But who knows what beastly things live in this new jungle forest!” cried Eyf.

  “Oh,” said Little Gus to Taius, also ignoring Eyf, “so you’re the head chef now? You want to choose the menu?” It seemed an awfully churlish response to what amounted to praise for his cooking. “If you want more Little Gus Soup”—Little Gus refused to use the Vorem word—“you can make it yourself, Taius!”

  Taius glared at Little Gus. “Fine,” he said, “maybe I will.”

  “Oh, no you won’t!” squealed Little Gus. “Little Gus Soup is a registered trademark of LG Enterprises Incorporated, a limited liability corporation!”

  “Can both of you shut it, please?” asked Becky, rubbing her temples. Then, in human: “Can’t we all just leave the pointless arguing to me and Hollins, like the good old days?”

  “Hey!” said Hollins. “I don’t argue for no reason. Shut up!”

  “Don’t you talk to her like that!” snarled Taius, standing and facing Hollins.

  “Whoa! Taius, you don’t even know he’s talking to me,” said Becky in Xotonian. “You can’t understand what he’s saying!”

  “I know but—but he . . . sounded . . . upset,” said Taius, scratching his head. “I was just trying to . . .” He trailed off.

  “You heard the lady,” said Little Gus.

  “I’m talking too. No one is listening to me,” squeaked Eyf despondently. “It is just like Oru.” She slumped to the ground.

  And so our moment of triumph and unity seemed to have passed.

  Becky tried to comfort Eyf. “We can sleep inside the Phryxus II,” she said. “We can seal the hatches. The ship is mostly intact. We’ll be safe from ‘beastly things’ or whatever.”

  Eyf nodded. She seemed a little mollified. “Can we vote on it?” she asked.

  Becky nodded.

  “Can we vote on what to have for dinner?”

  Becky sighed and nodded.

  “Can we vote on what is the best smell?”

  Meanwhile, Taius and Little Gus continued to argue. “And when I cook it, maybe you’ll be one of the ingredients,” growled Taius. “After all, you can’t make Little Gus Soup without the Little Gus.”

  “Are you guys hearing this?” whined Gus. “He’s threatening me. I just want this to go on the record. He’s threatening to cook me in a soup that would probably be delicious!”

  Hollins and I ignored them and joined Nicki as she surveyed the crashed starfighter.

  “Looks like it would take a week of work, at least, to bring her back online,” said Hollins. “What do you think, Nick?”

  “I guess I know everything because I’m the smart one, huh?” said Nicki.

  “No.” Hollins sighed. “Check that out,” he said to me. He pointed to several blackened holes on the wing of the Phryxus II.

  “Blaster marks,” I said.

  “Looks like some angry Aeaki got a lucky shot off and brought the ship down.”

  “I hope it was the Aeaki,” I said.

  Practically everyone was sulking now. To cheer up Eyf, Hollins actually did call for a vote on what we would have for dinner. Though Little Gus himself voted against it, everyone else wanted more borscht/wryv/Little Gus Soup. I volunteered to try to make it, but Little Gus had some choice remarks about the sophistication of the Xotonian palate. He declared he’d do it himself.

  Eyf, Hollins, and Becky went out to find the required herbs. Taius set about building a fire. Nicki studied her holodrive map of Kyral. I stayed behind and helped Little Gus peel and chop a pile of the reddish roots.

  “Man, I thought I didn’t like that guy before,” said Little Gus, g
lancing toward Taius. “But I really don’t like him now.”

  “Why?” I asked. “I mean, I know he stowed away on our ship, but—”

  “Just look at his dumb face,” grumbled Little Gus.

  I shrugged. Taius’s face didn’t look particularly dumb to me as he kindled a small flame with a bit of dried grass. Sad, perhaps. Dangerous, certainly. But not dumb.

  As we watched, Little Gus pretended to narrate Taius’s internal monologue. “Duuuuuh, I’m Taius, I’m a mysterious loner with a troubled past,” he said, affecting an extremely stupid voice. “Duuuuuh. Look at my little gold badge. It gets me ten percent off movie tickets at select theaters. Duuuuuh.”

  “Dude, what?” I said, genuinely confused. “Are you . . . jealous of him or something? Is this about—”

  “No! What? No!” snapped Little Gus, hacking a reddish root in half. “I just don’t like him, that’s all. And I’m just glad we don’t need him anymore.”

  Until Little Gus said it, I hadn’t realized. It was true, though. We didn’t need Taius now. His zowul had led us to the distress beacon. But Kalac and the others had traveled onward toward Hykaro Roost. We would have to find them on our own.

  I walked toward Taius. He now had a small fire blazing away in a little pit surrounded by stones. He stared into the flames, his face expressionless. I sat down beside him.

  “I know,” said Taius.

  I sighed. “It’s just that—”

  “I understand,” he said. “I remember the terms of our bargain: You help me get back to General Ridian if I guide you to your Xotonian leader. But I can’t help you anymore. Taius Ridian fails again.” He jabbed at the fire with a stick, causing a little flare and plume of sparks.

  “I’ll go my own way in the morning,” he said. “Believe me, if I were in your position, I would do the same. Why keep an enemy close by if you have nothing to gain?”

  “I don’t consider you an enemy,” I said. “Not anymore.”

  “You don’t?” Taius stared at me for a moment. Then he looked away.

  “My grand-originator once said, ‘Nobody is all bad. Not Xotonians. Not humans.’” I said, “Well, I’m extending it to Vorem too. Even if we are on different sides of a war, you tried your best to help us. That means something.”