“It was in my self-interest,” he said.
“As far as I’m concerned, you held up your end of our deal. So I still intend to help you get back to your father. Except . . .” I trailed off.
“Except what?” he said.
“Except I don’t know if the others feel the same way.”
I caught up with Becky, who was busy tightening one of the damaged hatches of the Phryxus II. After Little Gus, she seemed to have the biggest problem with Taius, so I wanted to ask her opinion.
When I did, she said, “Taius should go.”
“His society is harsh, and his father is, as we know, basically a wad,” I said. “I know he’s rude and kind of rough around the edges, but deep down . . . I think he’s not all bad.”
“No, he’s not bad,” she said. “He’s sad. But he should still go. It’s dangerous to have him around.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she said, and she stared at the ground.
• • • •
The pot of Little Gus Soup simmered over the fire. All seven of us stood around it. We prepared to vote on something more important than the dinner menu: Taius’s future.
“We’ve found the Phryxus II. We no longer need Taius’s tracker,” I said. “But he still needs our help. He led us here. That’s all we could have asked of him. I vote that he stays with us.” I held out my thol’graz with a frib pointed upward. One vote in favor. I turned toward Taius. “You get a vote too.”
He seemed a little embarrassed. “Then I vote to stay with you as well,” he said. “You’re still my best hope of getting off this world, so I pledge to help you however I can. You see, over time I’ve . . . that is . . . spending time with you all, I’ve come to regard you as . . . strategic . . . allies.”
“Strategic allies?” said Nicki, wrinkling her forehead.
Taius glanced at Becky. “I mean . . .” He trailed off and simply held out his hand and pointed a clawed thumb skyward. That was two votes in favor.
“Aw, boohoo,” sneered Little Gus. “Can we ditch this guy already?” He gave a thumbs-down accompanied by a raspberry sound. One vote against.
Becky gave a second thumbs-down. She declined to state her reasons. That put the count at two to two. Little Gus’s jaw fell open when he saw her choice. I guess he’d expected her to vote a different way.
Eyf cocked her head. “I’m an Aeaki, and I’m supposed to hate him for what the Vorem ones did a very, very, very long time ago,” she said. “But that’s not his fault. He might be grumpy and scary, but he helped us. I vote for him to stay.” Three in favor.
“Kyral is incredibly dangerous,” said Nicki. “Hostile clans of Aeaki, terrifying beasts, raging dust storms. Any of these hazards could easily prove fatal. . . .” She noticed that we were all frowning at her. “Sorry. Thinking out loud. Point is: We stand a better chance of survival if Taius is with us.”
That was four votes in favor, a majority of the seven. Taius would stay.
Though Hollins didn’t have to, he voted yes as well. He said a deal was a deal.
At the last second, Little Gus even changed his vote, flipping his thumb upward with a chuckle.
“Maybe I was a little hasty before,” said Little Gus. “Anybody who likes my soup that much can’t be all bad. Glad you’ll be staying with us, Tai. . . . Can I call you Tai?”
“No,” said Taius.
The final count was six to one. Becky remained resolutely in the “nay” column. This made for a somewhat awkward dinner. However, the Little Gus Soup was more delicious than ever.
We slept inside the downed Phryxus II, with the hatches sealed against any wildlife. I was reasonably confident they’d be strong enough to stop an angry rahk.
After the others had gone to sleep, I laid awake and thought of Kalac. I missed my originator terribly, but I was glad to know that it was alive. The humans’ parents were on the other side of the galaxy. The pain I felt—the young humans had had to live with it every day since their vessel took off without them. I listened to their sleep sounds and the muffled noises of the alien jungle. Outside, it started to rain.
“Hey,” came a whisper. It was Taius. I could see his eyes gleaming in the darkness. “Thank you,” he said.
At the first light of dawn, I deactivated the ship’s distress beacon. And we set out for Hykaro Roost.
Chapter Sixteen
“Ugh, my foot!” cried Little Gus. I turned back to see him stuck up to his knee in the mud. The same thing had happened to all of us, many times, as we crossed the fetid marsh.
Hollins and Taius yanked Gus free with a squelching sound and a spray of slime, some of which got on my face. I didn’t even try to clean it off. All of us were caked with centimeters of mud. It brought an odd kinship to the group. Vorem, human, or Xotonian, we were all equally filthy. Only Eyf stayed (relatively) clean as she circled overhead, landing only occasionally to point us in the right direction.
Eyf said that—like the Glass Desert—no Aeaki dared to live in the fetid marshes of Kyral. Not because they were cursed, but because they stank. Indeed, she was right. If I’d discharged my own stink gland, no one would have even noticed. If an usk-lizard had choked on some rotten stink-pods and dropped dead in front of us, it might have improved the air quality a little.
Other than a putrid stench and slimy weeds, the nameless marsh had little to offer. Once, we gazed into an oddly clear pool and saw that it was filled with tiny, scuttling arthropods. Eyf said they were edible. None of us was particularly tempted to do a taste test.
The good news was that, according to Eyf, we were most of the way across. I could even see the dark smudge of the tree line on the horizon.
Taius was checking his zowul when he made a false step and fell face-first into a puddle of murky water. It was a pretty undignified move for a patrician legate of the Vorem Dominion. Little Gus giggled. Gus had face-planted six times already, so perhaps he’d earned a laugh. Nicki and I went to help Taius up. When we did, we found that his arms and neck were covered in fine vines. They were a shockingly bright shade of pink.
“What is this stuff?” growled Taius as he ripped them off. They didn’t come away easily. Nicki and I tried to help. The vines were sticky, and they seemed to be covered with tiny suction cups.
“No,” said Eyf, when she saw what we were doing. “No, no, no, no, no! Don’t touch it!”
“We already touched it,” I said. I felt a subtle tickling around my fel’grazes. I looked down to see more of the strange vines snaking out of the murky water of the marsh. Slowly and subtly, they were coiling themselves around me! I tried to kick them away.
“Eyf, your planet is super gross,” said Little Gus, hanging back with Becky and Hollins.
“That is the creeping sleem!” said Eyf as she hovered a few meters off the ground. “You must not touch it!”
“But I need to get a sample,” said Nicki as she held up a mass of the stuff. It writhed gently in her bare hand. “A sample. Sample? Sample. Ssssssssaaaaaaaample. That’s a funny word. Isn’t it?” Nicki’s speech sounded strange—slow and a little slurred.
“What’s happening?” I asked Eyf.
“If the sleem touches your skin,” cried Eyf, “it will spread a poison that makes your brain go weird! And then you won’t even care when it pulls you under the mud!”
“What’s under the mud?” I asked, flopping down. “Is it something cool? Maybe we should, uh . . . check it out.”
“Everybody get up!” said Becky, yanking me back up off the ground. She was careful not to touch any of the vines.
“Why are you yelling?” Taius asked her. He had an idiot grin on his face. “Just be . . . cool.”
“Yeah,” I said, “be cool, Becky. Wait, are you Becky or Nicki? Or Bicki? I mean . . .”
Taius and Nicki laughed hysterically.
“Look, that’s Nicki,” said Nicki. She had put her glasses on a writhing wad of the creeping sleem.
Nicki and Taius and I laughed again. Becky sighed and used a stick to retrieve her sister’s glasses. The creeping sleem had wound itself around my fel’grazes once more. It suddenly looked very beautiful to me. Such a nice shade of pink, just like my own sunburnt skin. For some reason, Hollins, Becky, and Little Gus were panicking.
“You guys are too stressed,” I said to them.
“We must go!” cried Eyf from above. “Quickly!”
“Okay,” said Hollins. He yanked Taius up by the collar of his uniform, avoiding the sleem.
“Sorry I kicked you in the face . . . that one time,” said Taius slowly enough for Hollins to understand. “We cool?”
Hollins nodded and pulled Taius behind him.
“Come on, sis,” said Becky, lifting Nicki to her feet. “Time to go.”
“But I’m happy here,” said Nicki. “I was thinking: If we don’t make it back to Earth . . . this can be our new home.” She waved at the marsh around us.
“I know. It’s great,” said Becky, leading her sister by the arm. “Maybe we can get a timeshare. Let’s talk about it later.”
“What, are you scared?” asked Nicki. “I’m not scared. . . . I’m saaaaample.”
“Chorkle,” said Little Gus. “On your fel’grazes, my second-best friend. You can’t stay here.”
“You’re no fun,” I said as he pulled me along behind the others. “I thought you were supposed to be the fun one.”
We ran toward the forest now with big sloshing steps. All around us the pink vines were wriggling out of the mud. The creeping sleem was moving faster now, twitching and curling and whipping as we passed. It almost seemed frustrated. We avoided touching it, though now I couldn’t quite remember why.
“Yikes! Not cool!” said Little Gus as a wet tangle of vines flopped across the path ahead of us. We stopped fast and gingerly stepped around it.
“Bye-bye,” I said, turning backward as Gus pulled me. The creeping sleem looked so pathetic, so lonely, just squirming there on the ground.
At last we reached the dry embankment of the forest on the edge of the marsh. The others sat Taius, Nicki, and me together on the ground. They eyed us nervously. It made me feel very uncomfortable.
“What’s wrong with them?” whispered Nicki. I shook my head. I couldn’t figure out why they were acting so heartlessly toward the creeping sleem. “Bet they’re scared. Scared of my power.”
“Don’t worry,” said Eyf to the others. “The effects are not permanent. They should be back to normal in their brains in a few hours, I hope. In the meantime, though, they might feel more, uh, emotional than usual.” Hollins, Becky, and Little Gus nodded knowingly.
“Can the three of you handle staying in one place?” asked Hollins, slowly and in human.
“Chorkle,” Taius said to me in Xotonian, “am I freaking out, or is that guy speaking some weird, alien language?”
“Habla inglés,” said Nicki.
“Whoa,” said Taius, more freaked out than ever.
“Just stay put!” said Becky. She repeated it in both languages for good measure. And the others set about building a fire and foraging for dinner.
Taius looked around furtively. No one was watching. “Hey,” he whispered to Nicki and me, “check this out.” He reached into the breast pocket of his black uniform and pulled something out. There, wriggling in his palm, was the broken tip of a creeping sleem vine, just a few centimeters long. “I saved one.”
“You got a sample!” cried Nicki, grabbing it from him. It curled and uncurled around her fingers, leaving tiny red marks where its suction cups had attached. She pulled out her notepad.
“Um, I’d like to hold it now,” I said, taking it from her. It wriggled in my thol’graz. It was so cute! “I’m going to name it Hudka II.”
“But I haven’t catalogued its morphololo—morlopho—molorph—what it looks like yet,” whined Nicki.
“It’s mine,” said Taius as he snatched it from me. He held it in his hands and cooed to it a little.
“Ooh, can I see?” asked Becky.
Taius looked at her. He looked at the little vine. Then he held it out.
Becky grabbed it—her hand covered by one of Nicki’s inverted sample bags. “Come on, guys. Get it together,” she said. Then she tossed the creeping sleem into the fire.
“What are you doing!” cried Nicki. “The loss to astrobiology is inestimable!”
Becky shook her head in disappointment. “‘Astrobiology.’ That’s not even a real word, sis,” she said. And she went back to collecting firewood.
The sleem had shriveled to ash. Tears welled in my eyes. I missed the pretty vines very much. By their miserable faces, Nicki and Taius felt exactly the same way.
“Why would she do that?” muttered Nicki. “Deeply incurious.”
“She hates me,” said Taius, pointing to Becky. “I thought we were friends—I mean . . . strategic allies.”
“She can be mean sometimes,” said Nicki, wiping her eyes. “But he’s the worst!” She pointed to Hollins as he made camp. “He gave me a statue! That stands for wisdom! Can you believe the nerve?”
“It’s okay. Becky should hate me,” said Taius with a choked sob. “Everyone should. I’m a failure. I can’t do anything right. My uniform is covered in mud. I suck.”
“You think you’re a failure?” I said. “Somehow I got all these humans trapped on the wrong side of the universe! And my originator’s in danger, and I don’t know where it is! It might even be . . .” I started to weep.
“It’s okay, Chorkle,” said Nicki. “It’s not your fault. Me? I’m afraid of everything.” She hugged me, and I realized that she was crying too.
“If I can get back to the Vorem Dominion,” said Taius, suddenly filled with hope, “we have ships with hyperdrives. I could take you humans back to Earth! Then Becky wouldn’t—I mean the humans wouldn’t . . . but my father . . .” He trailed off.
“Don’t worry about your father,” I said.
Taius stared at the ground for a long time. “Chorkle, you have to know that I betrayed—”
“You didn’t betray him!” I said. “Maybe—maybe he’s just kind of a jerk. Maybe you’re better than him.”
“No, I’m not,” said Taius, shaking his head. “I’m not.” And he was silent after that.
It took hours for the effects of the creeping sleem’s toxin to wear off. Afterward, Nicki and I felt vaguely embarrassed. Taius seemed positively humiliated. He refused to speak at all.
It didn’t help that whenever our backs were turned, the others seemed to be doing impressions of us in our sleem-altered state. Once, I turned around to see Little Gus sitting on the ground, eyes crossed and petting his shoelace and drooling. Eyf and Hollins were giggling.
I slept fitfully, perhaps due to residual effects of the toxin. I dreamed I was chasing Kalac forever through an endless marsh. When I finally caught up with my originator, it withered to ash in my thol’grazes, just like the little sleem vine in the fire.
I was awakened in the night by the mournful wailing of some beast. Eyf had no idea what the creature might be. But I had the strange feeling I’d heard it somewhere before.
Chapter Seventeen
The next day, the forest opened onto a wide and misty plain. Several kilometers ahead of us, a towering mass began to resolve itself through the murk.
“That is great Hykaro Roost,” said Eyf with awe in her voice. “I always, always, always hoped I would see it.”
As we approached, we saw signs of civilization. The shattered remnants of a road snaking through the grass. The burned-out shell of some vehicle covered in weeds. The warped, half-melted girders of long-destroyed buildings. The place reminded me of the Xotonian ruins of F
lowing-Stone.
“You ever get the feeling you’re being watched?” asked Little Gus as he stared back the way we had come. The fog was too thick for us to see more than ten meters in any direction.
Directly afterward, we nearly bumped into a group of purple-and-gold-feathered Aeaki. They were Uji—the ancient enemies (and occasional allies) of the Oru—on a pilgrimage to Hykaro to trade with the other clans. The Uji hopped and squawked and squinted at us—at Eyf most of all—and fingered their energy blasters.
“What clan are you?” they asked her.
“No clan,” whispered Eyf.
The Uji gave each other sidelong glances. But they didn’t attempt to hinder our passage. Even Taius the Vorem was met with nothing more than dirty looks.
“Good thing we are close to the city,” said Eyf after we passed them. “By custom, the Aeaki are forbidden to fight with one another at Hykaro Roost. The clans from all over Kyral send traders here.”
Soon we saw more Aeaki swooping through the mist, three or four at a time. Some had the telltale drab feathers of males. Most were female warriors with blazing plumage in every color combination. They represented dozens of clans for which Eyf didn’t know the names.
The day wore on, and the fog parted. We saw Hykaro Roost clearly at last. It was a massive city, thousands of skyscrapers all jumbled together.
“It’s like New York times Hong Kong,” said Nicki, shaking her head in awe. “Or it was.”
Big chunks of the buildings had crumbled, leaving them open to the elements. Some had fallen in on themselves. But their superstructure remained. Hundreds of meters off the ground, these ruins were connected by a web of rope bridges and makeshift wooden platforms. Above us, dark specks flitted among them: more Aeaki.
My is’pog was racing. Somewhere in this great ruined city, we would find Kalac, Ornim, and Chayl.
For the Love of Gelo! Page 16