Ammonite Stars (Omnibus): Ammonite Galaxy #4-5

by Gillian Andrews

  “Will you shut up, nomus?”

  “Hah! It’s not me who needs to shut up. I swear he’s already read this page twice. We could be here forever.”

  “Shh!”

  “Oh, very well.” Six subsided again, passing the time by imagining more ways of wiping that supercilious smile off Tartalus’s face. Diva wondered at the sudden still expression of pleasure which had come over him.

  Finally the Coriolan leader came to the end of the litany.

  “... Reinstating the said marriage, with all its obligations and benefits, and reiterating latent rights to the leadership of the meritocracy. May Sacras bless this union!”

  There were half-hearted cheers from some of those present, but most kept a wary sort of silence. The new measures about to be announced were not popular amongst Diva’s peers, most of whom could see no reason at all to change any of their archaic privileges.

  “You may kiss your wife.” Maximus sounded even less enthusiastic than before.

  Six turned to Diva, and kissed her. This time he made sure that the kiss was a proper one, not just the peck on the cheek that he had given her last time they had stood like this before the head of Coriolis. For one moment, all the other people present disappeared into a faint hum of background noise, and he felt her respond. Then she pulled away. He sighed. She reminded him of quicksilver.

  Just when he thought that the evening’s fun was over, Diva’s father turned back to the podium. The ripple of conversation which had started up died down again and people looked expectant.

  Maximus cleared his throat, and turned a slightly indignant gaze upon his daughter, who stared back quite serenely.

  “Unfortunately it has been pointed out that the new measures suggested by my daughter and her consort, which were to be announced today, may be unconstitutional.” Maximus’s eyes slid across to Tartalus, who seemed to be congratulating himself on something.

  Diva’s jaw dropped.

  Six half-turned towards Tartalus, before Diva’s slim hand on his arm stopped him.

  Bennel immediately moved closer to Diva, and Petra and Tallen took a step forwards.

  Grace and Cimma looked at each other in dismay.

  Maximus cleared his throat again, and looked momentarily towards his own wife, who was standing like stone on the other side of the ornate plinth. He exhaled, and then went on, “The ruling council has decided to postpone further discussions of these reforms until a full investigation into their possible illegality has been carried out. That may take some months ...”

  Six felt a quiver of some strong emotion run through the body of the Coriolan girl standing next to him. He could see Tartalus’s faction grinning around at each other, and Tartalus himself was permitting a huge complacent smile to cross his face beneath the bandage. For a savage second, Six wished that he had broken more than the man’s nose.

  “... Further promulgation of the new reform bill is forbidden by decree until the result of the legal investigation is announced ...”

  Tartalus seemed to be restraining himself from clapping with some difficulty, and was commenting some witty aside to one of his cronies.

  “... However, none of this affects the line of succession, and the right of one of the first-born offspring of the union just reinstated in this ceremony to the future leadership of the meritocracy is not at this time being challenged.”

  Tartalus made another comment to his crony, who appeared to find it most amusing.

  Without realizing it, Six clenched and unclenched his fists.

  Now that Maximus had stopped talking there was a sudden burst of sound, but Diva stepped with huge dignity up to the plinth, and then turned to face her countrymen.

  “There can be nothing illegal about these reforms. All civilizations must move forward, and changes are necessary to do so. I am confident that the legal investigation will find no grounds of unconstitutionality.” Diva looked around at them all, her gaze imperious and condemning, before stepping down again from the dais to make her way back to Six’s side.

  Six looked around at the rest of his group, eyebrows raised. They all nodded slowly. It had become apparent to each of them that they had overstayed their welcome in Mesteta. Six nodded to his newly reacquired mother and father in law without much enthusiasm, and then he and the rest of his party abandoned the chamber. As soon as they were out, Six pressed the bracelet of orthogel on his wrist, his fingers flashing as he asked Arcan to transport them back up to the New Independence, which was docked at the orbital station.

  Diva kept her glacial posture as they left the chamber, and her eyes met those of her mother. Indomita’s eyes were regretful, but cold. She made no attempt to say goodbye to her only daughter. Maximus simply looked away.

  DIVA WAS STRIDING up and down the bridge of the New Independence, getting more and more irate. She was muttering to herself, and her eyes were flaring, daring the world to approach.

  Six had settled himself comfortably at the main console and was ignoring his wife.

  Cimma wandered up to him. “Aren’t you going to say something to her?” she asked him.

  Six opened his eyes wide. “Are you crazy? I don’t want to get my head bitten off, thank you very much!”

  “But I thought you and she ... that is, I assumed ...”

  Six gave his usual feckless grin. “Doesn’t mean I’ve completely misplaced my brains, does it? No, the only thing to do is wait until she has calmed down a bit.”

  Unfortunately Diva had overheard the last bit, and was now standing in front of both of them, glowering.

  “Calm down! How can you expect me to calm down? I spent weeks getting them to accept the new laws. How could they do this to me?”

  “Yes, yes,” said Six, “—very terrible.” He looked again at the console.

  “Are you making fun of me?” Her eyebrows drew ominously together.

  His mouth pulled down at the corners. “Just a little,” he acknowledged.

  “You think it is funny?”

  “N-o-o, not really.” Then he relented. “Well, a tiny bit, I suppose. We should have realized how ingrained the need to rule is in the meritocrats. They are really just like the Elders of Kwaide. I, at least, should have predicted what would happen.”

  “If my suggestions are found to be unconstitutional, I would lose all credibility. Do you realize that means that we might never be able to go back to Coriolis?”

  “Amazing how good things come out of bad, isn’t it?” Then he tried to rectify. “—Although, in your case that must be a very painful thing to have to face.”

  “All you can think of is you’re GLAD you don’t have to go back?” Her tone was absolutely disbelieving.

  Six moved his head from side to side. “Your father does go on and on for such a long time at those ceremonies of yours.”

  “You are impossible!”

  “Thank you, Diva. I do my best,” Six said modestly.

  “Bah!”

  “Well, really, your mulchiness, don’t you think you are overreacting a bit?”

  Cimma almost ducked at the expression in Diva’s eyes.

  “No I don’t,” The Coriolan girl retorted. “How would you feel if ...” She fell suddenly silent.

  “Ah, there it is, isn’t it? Neither Grace, nor Bennel, nor Cimma has a homeland anymore. Ledin and I never even knew our parents, did we? So – in my humble opinion – you are letting this get the better of you. Calm down, accept it, and let’s move on. It isn’t as if you wanted to live on the planet, for Sacras’ sake! And they may decide to implement the new reforms, after all. Tartalus can’t be very popular amongst the meritocrats. I mean, just look at him!”

  To Cimma’s great surprise, Six’s comments seemed to influence Diva, who exhaled slowly and tried to steady her breathing, before admitting, “You are right, we would just have to find another way to change things.”

  Six nodded. “I mean, your father sent you away to your death when you were fourteen, if you remember?”


  “He did, though to be fair he didn’t know what would happen to the donor apprentices.”

  “But he did order us to be thrown to the Tattula cats, didn’t he?”

  “True.”

  “So what on Almagest are you moaning about? We should have foreseen it, is all. Move on.”

  Diva glared again, and then suddenly began to laugh. “You are the limit, Six. Won’t you ever tell me I am right about anything?”

  “Huh! You have to earn that.”

  The atmosphere lightened suddenly, and they all began to giggle. Diva’s fury had evaporated into a sort of strange euphoria. She got up to hug Grace.

  “He’s right, I should have remembered what Coriolis is like,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

  Grace hugged her back. “I would have been beside myself too.”

  “I suppose I am free now. I don’t belong anywhere.”

  “You can always be a citizen of New Kwaide,” Six told her. “They take anybody.”

  This turned out to have been an unfortunate thing to say, for Diva took the comment as a personal affront, and threw herself at him in retaliation. It took the Kwaidian some time to subdue her, partly because he was laughing too hard to put much effort into it. Finally they subsided onto the console bench amicably, panting slightly.

  “So,” said Six. “Where are we going? Where to?”

  ARCAN SUBJECTED THE bimorph to an incredulous stare. “Disappeared?” he echoed. “What do you mean, disappeared?”

  The bimorph shifted rather uncomfortably. He had not been looking forward to arriving on Valhai. Although he felt – quite keenly – that none of it had been any of his fault, he was loath to explain to the orthogel entity exactly what had happened. “How am I supposed to know? One minute they were there, and the next they were gone.” He gave a rather half-hearted shimmer.

  “Gone? Gone where?”

  It was the bimorph’s turn to give Arcan a considering look. “I don’t know. That is what I am trying to tell you. If I did know, I wouldn’t have had to come over here all by myself to ask you about it, would I?”

  Arcan darkened. He didn’t like the way this conversation was going. “Tell me again,” he said.

  The visitor sighed. For all Arcan’s enormous size, he felt that the orthogel entity could sometimes be very obtuse.

  We ...” the visitor almost hung his head in shame, “... we wanted to surprise you all.” He coloured up defensively. “We discovered a few weeks ago that the ortholiquid wasn’t limited to Pictoria. There are lakes of ortholiquid all over the Ammonite Galaxy, on hundreds and hundreds of planets. The ortholiquid itself doesn’t seem to know that these are separate planets; it travels between them quite freely.” The small bimorph darkened. “We thought we would surprise you. We were exploring all the new planets we could travel to. We were making a map to bring you: a map of new worlds. We wanted to do something extraordinary for you all. We didn’t tell you, because we thought it would make a nice surprise.”

  A slow rumble came from where Arcan was listening. It appeared he wasn’t in agreement with such secrecy.

  The visitor hurried on, “On this occasion we found ourselves on one of the planets quite a long way away from Pictoria. Everything was just as usual; we had arrived on the planet’s surface quite safely, and we were just about to get started on a preliminary examination of the terrain when the twins suddenly stopped dead, and began to spin wildly on their own axes.”

  Arcan made as if to speak, but the bimorph sparkled angrily. “Let me finish, please!”

  The orthogel entity clearly didn’t appreciate being spoken to so peremptorily, but subsided and continued to listen to the story.

  “—I asked them what was the matter, and they said that they could hear something, that something was tugging at them, trying to pull them away from the planet. They said that, although it was very frightening, it felt somehow familiar.” The visitor flashed again. “Of course, I told them to take no notice, but they said that whatever it was had been waiting for a very long time to find them, and that it was really important. I was just in the middle of saying that it would be better if they took me with them, when they both disappeared.” The visitor gave a desultory spin. “And that,” he finished sadly, “was that. I can tell you nothing further.”

  “They didn’t make use of the ortholiquid then? They traveled quantically?”

  “They did. And I got no sense of where they were going, or how far away it was. I waited ... and waited ... and waited, expecting them to come back for me, or at least to tell me where they were, but that was days ago, and I have heard nothing more. So I thought I had better come over to see you. I thought you might be able to feel where they are.”

  Arcan clouded. “No. I have no sense of them at all. Are you sure you got no hint of direction when they disappeared?”

  The small bimorph bristled. “Quite sure. Are you suggesting I could somehow have avoided this?”

  The orthogel entity relented. “No, I suppose not. But I can’t quite see what you expect me to do about it.” He thought for some long moments. “There is one thing we could try, though.”

  The visitor spun hopefully. “What?”

  “The canths. They seem to be able to sense things that none of the rest of us can. It is just possible that they might be able to feel where the trimorphs have been taken.”

  A shiver of colour passed across the bimorph. “Yes,” he breathed, “of course. Can we go straight away? I have the strangest feeling that something is very wrong with the trimorphs. I am sure they would have come back for me if they could have.” He looked at Arcan anxiously. “Don’t you think?”

  Arcan examined him again, as if trying to understand a book written in a foreign language. “Probably. You seem to travel together, as a general rule.”

  “We do. We always stay together. They wouldn’t have just left me. They have always stayed close by me, ever since the Dessite attack. They know that I have limited defenses against the Dessites; the trimorphs have protected me ever since the attack. I just know that they would never have left me on a strange planet of their own accord.”

  “No, I think that you are right. But it seems strange that they had no time to tell you where they were going.”

  “I don’t think they knew themselves. They just said that something seemed to ‘pick up on them’ shortly after they arrived on the planet. They said it was tugging at them, trying to make them go there, pulling at them. One of the twins was trying to tell me more, when they both disappeared.” He coloured and looked defensively at Arcan. “I couldn’t have stopped them. One moment they were there, and the next they had disappeared.”

  “Very well. Then I think that the best thing we can do is to visit the canths. They are the only hope we have of finding out where they have gone.” Both Arcan and the visitor shimmered slightly in the slate-grey light of the dark side of Valhai. Then they both vanished.

  THEY DECOHERED ON the canth farm on Xiantha, giving the man who had watched the alien quite a nasty surprise. He still worked as the ticket collector on the Xianthe, but was on a visit to the canth keeper, having been invited to spend a couple of weeks on the farm as thanks for his part in saving the visitor, two years before. He had been immensely gratified by the invitation, and after a stroll around the area where the corrals met in a centre circle, had been overcome by the soporific desire to curtail all movement in order to let his digestion deal with the rather nice lunch he had been treated to by the canth keeper. He had been gently nodding off under the shade of one of the Eletheian trees in a nearby corral.

  The appearance, rather precipitate, of Arcan and the visitor brought him scurrying to his feet.

  “Sirs! Your honours!” The portly man mopped at his face with a large handkerchief. “You bring me much colour! I was ... I was ... err ... examining this remarkable tree. The Eletheian trees are quite beautiful, you know.” He reddened as he saw that the two quantum entities were regarding him steadily. “However, yo
u will not wish to talk to me, I know. Should I run to fetch the man who speaks to canths?”

  The visitor moved closer to the ticket collector. “I remember you. You are the Xianthan who covered my ship. You saved my life. I am indebted to you.”

  The ticket collector looked so happy that it almost seemed as if he might burst. “Thank you, Alien sphere from far away. Can I be of any help now?”

  Arcan and the visitor glanced at each other. “Perhaps you should tell the man who speaks to canths that we are here,” agreed the orthogel entity. “He might like to know that we have arrived.”

  The man who had watched the alien nodded several times, and then launched himself towards the distant house. Arcan could hear the land tremble slightly as the ticket collector desperately tried to get his short legs to move more quickly. As he ran, he was shouting to get the canth keeper’s attention. “Aliens to speak to you, Canth keeper! Aliens to see you. ALIENS!” His face had gone bright red with the exertion and he looked as if he might not even reach the house before his heart categorically refused to pump so much blood around his stout little body.

  The visitor watched him go. “Perhaps we should have called the canth keeper ourselves,” he said. “That small being looks as if he is about to suffer heart stop.”

  But the diminishing figure finally reached the house, and they could see that the shouts had been effective, for it was joined by the more familiar silhouette of the man who spoke to canths. They both hurried back over, but the ticket collector fell behind, and on one occasion was forced to stop altogether, bending over heavily to catch his breath.

  The canth keeper seemed pleased to see them. “Arcan, Visitor, you are both very welcome.” He inclined his long body in their direction. “To what do we owe this honour?”

  Arcan explained that the trimorphs had disappeared, and the canth keeper’s face changed. “In that case, we had better see what the canths have to say about it.”

  They were about to open the gate to the nearest corral when Arcan paused. “Wait! Six is calling. They have finished their business on Coriolis, and want me to transport them over to Kwaide. I will bring them here instead. They should know about this.”