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

by Gillian Andrews

  Six shook his head. “No problem, Bennel. You don’t owe us anything. Glad you managed to pull yourself up.”

  Both Bennel and Tallen found his glib dismissal of the event rather insulting, but they held their tongues, contenting themselves with a conspiratorial glance of understanding.

  “Now,” said Six. “We need to pick ourselves up, and get down to the bottom of this thing, before we stiffen up altogether and have to stay here forever.”

  Chapter 9

  WHEN THEY FINALLY stepped down to the bottom of the abyss, they were almost ready to drop. All of them had cuts and bruises, together with rope burns along their fingers and palms. Diva’s hands were badly blistered, and she had been forced to fashion a makeshift bandage around both of them.

  Six made her stop as soon as their feet touched bottom. Gently, he covered her hands with a salve, before rebinding them with care. He saw that her bottom lip trembled a little as he was massaging the salve in, but she gave no sign of pain, apart from that. He felt inordinately proud of this girl who never allowed herself to show her fear.

  When he had finished, he smiled at her, and then he stood back and allowed himself to examine their surroundings.

  There was a many-tiered waterfall, cascading down from as far up as they could see, and continuing for as far down as they could make out. Tier after tier stretched out interminably and the noise of the water in full spate was deafening. The flood of water had carved a canyon out of the rock and now disappeared into a pit in the planet’s surface, tumbling down out of sight into the bottomless depths. Each tier was perhaps the height of four men, and Six thought he could count twenty or thirty of the stages leading down from above, passing where they were standing and disappearing down into the abyss below. The water smashed over and over the edges of the waterfalls, in a jumble of white spray which hung above the flow, making a mystical picture.

  They found themselves to be standing in a small gully in the rock, and someone – or something – had sculpted a huge statue of stone there. It stared down at them immutably. There was a sensation of huge antiquity about the sculpture; it looked as if it had been there since time immemorial. Apart from the figure, there were trees still alive in this sheltered spot; they had somehow managed to maintain a foothold on life, helped by the warm water and steam in the atmosphere, perhaps. The trees were not large, but they were old. Their trunks were scarred and they bent towards the tumbling water as if bowing to its life-bringing forces.

  They all walked over to the colossal carving. It represented a figure, a shape which none of them recognized. It was of an immense face, whose eyes appeared all-knowing and set into many creases of skin. These creases around the eyes were concentric and made the creature appear of extraordinary intelligence. The eyes took up at least half of the oval face; beneath them was a small and delicate flat nose and a mouth with a definite deep ridge running down to the lips under the nose. The face was set back into the gigantic block of stone, as if the creature had lived partially buried inside the rock. There was nothing more than a head, but over the whole sculpture, a wall of water had been carved, making the details of the intricate face hard to make out, softening them. There were words hewn into the rock below the compelling face, but they had become obscured over the centuries since it had been carved.

  Diva moved forward, and began to trace the letters with her right finger. Six pulled away some of the lichen which had grown up the rock, and helped to dust away the rest of the letters, clearing the debris accumulated over the centuries with a stick he had broken from a nearby tree. The rock itself had crumbled too, so they had to be careful not to destroy whatever was written there. Slowly, almost reluctantly, several words came to light. Unfortunately they were illegible for the visitors. They were cuneiform, seeming to consist in geometric patterns, rather than words, and looked like nothing any of them had ever seen before. The last word, which was longer than the others, was represented also by a diagram. There was a central sphere, with many other spheres circling it.

  “That is the Ammonite Galaxy,” said Diva. “They are telling us that their name is related to the galaxy.” Then her face cleared. “These must be the original people who lived in this galaxy!”

  Six nodded. He wasn’t convinced that the ancients had actually called themselves after the galaxy, but it was as likely a hypothesis as any other. “Then this must be an example of one of them!” he said. “They look very learned, don’t they? All those crinkles around the eyes. Pity that they must have died off centuries ago.”

  “We don’t know that for sure,” said Diva, looking around her with interest. “Why do you think the sculpture has a sheet of water in front of the face?”

  “Hang it all, Diva, how am I supposed to know?”

  “I think it is supposed to tell us something. But what?” She stared around again, her eyes taking in every detail of the small opening in the abyss. “We obviously can’t follow the water – that looks as if it plunges right down into the centre of the planet. So ...”

  Still talking to herself, she moved away from the rest of the group, and began to wander around the area, leaving the trees, and strolling towards the sheet of water which was crashing down the tier of the cliff nearest to them. Six watched her idly as she edged closer to the rushing water. Then he gave a shout as she nearly fell into the rapids. He jumped up.

  “It’s all right, Six. Sorry, I won’t do that again. But it seems to me that there is a sort of path here, and it leads up to the rock face ...” her voice faded, and then came back to them strongly again, so that they could only hear the last part of the sentence, “... behind here!”

  And with that Diva disappeared from view. There was a small moment of doubt as Six stared back at Bennel and Tallen, and then they all ran towards the waterfall. Sure enough, there seemed to be a small path hewn out of the rock in the direction of the falling curtain of liquid, and as they approached, they realized that in fact it led behind the curtain, and into the rock face itself.

  Six drew his kris, and nodded at the two Coriolans, who pulled out their own weapons. Then they ducked behind the torrent of water, behind the waterfall.

  AT FIRST, SIX could see nothing as they stumbled along a wet path, with the thunderous noise of the tumbling water deafening them. A fine spray was soaking through them as well, and although it was not cold, it felt unpleasant over their clothes. They realized why when one or two small particulates struck their clothes, and immediately cut through them. Six held one of them up to the light. The waterfall carried occasional small lumps of glassy obsidian in suspension, remnants of the volcanic activity above.

  “Diva?” Six squinted through the gloom. “Diva!”

  There was no sign of her. With a huge sigh, and with weapons at the ready, the three men crept along the path, slipping and sliding every so often on the wet rock.

  Tallen made some comment, and Six asked him to repeat. It was hard to hear anything over the tumultuous noise which the water made.

  “I said, ‘Trust a meritocrat to disappear without a thought for anybody else!’ and I don’t mind repeating it.” The young man’s jaw thrust out, and his shoulders went back.

  Six was so much in agreement with the Namuri that he almost nodded, before remembering that he was married to the meritocrat referred to. “Diva knows what she is doing,” he said shortly, with an unconvincing gesture.

  Both Tallen and Bennel stared at him, and Six waved his kris in front of his face. “Whatever. Can we just get on?”

  Both Coriolans nodded, but they exchanged a glance. Privately they thought that Six ought to keep Diva more in order.

  Unaware of the silent exchange of opinions behind him, Six strode on along the sodden path. Small patches of steam were coming from odd lumps of ash which had landed on the track, and he avoided these. He didn’t want some chunk of lava to burn through his shoes; that would be the last straw, and make returning up that terrible stairway even worse.

  “DIVA!” There
was a small air of irritation in his voice now. “WHERE ARE YOU?”

  At last a muffled voice sounded from in front of him. He moved towards it as quickly as he could, finding that the path now led him back into the rock and away from the pounding water. There was a grotto opening up, hidden from prying eyes, and sealed by the tumbling water. As he moved into it, his jaw dropped.

  The grotto was so big that he could hardly see to the far side, although it was illuminated by the sparkling instellite walls, which here seemed particularly speckled with large pieces of crystal. Not only did they reflect light, but they also seemed to produce it; the walls of the grotto shone as if they were basking in sunlight. The sheen of gold made the rock somehow warm and comfortable.

  Diva was standing in front of him, looking up and to one side. As he came in she held up what looked like a lump of porous rock.

  “Look, Six! Pumice! It is very sought after on Coriolis. For exfoliation, you know.”

  “I certainly don’t!” Six appeared to think this was a motive for self-congratulation. “You know, you should stop thinking about baths so much, and concentrate on important things!”

  “Typical of a Kwaidian. Your lot thinks standing under an icy-cold waterfall that can turn you to stone is fun!”

  “Hang it, I never said it was fun, did I? It’s just the only—”

  “Six! You finally came to find us!” The voice came from beyond the Coriolan girl. “We were afraid you wouldn’t.”

  Six narrowed his eyes against the gloom, and was eventually able to make out the hovering figures of the trimorphs, some eight feet off the ground. Both of them looked decidedly the worse for wear.

  “So there you are! About time you decided to put in an appearance!” he snapped. “We nearly had to kill ourselves getting down here. I hope you have a good reason why you are sitting comfortably in a nice warm cave instead of finding your own way back to Pictoria!”

  The trimorphs twisted in the air, and waves of displeasure traveled through them. “I like that!” one of them said crossly. “It is hardly our fault if some aliens pull us against our will half-way across the galaxy! We have been hanging around in this hole in the ground forever, waiting for somebody to come and rescue us! We didn’t exactly ask to be brought over to this sorry excuse for a planet, you know. And you took your time, didn’t you? In any case, you like adventures! You ought to be thanking us for the chance to travel to the edge of the black hole.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Well, you are the first of your species to see anything like this, aren’t you?”

  “And ...?”

  “Well, I would have thought you would be delighted for the chance.”

  Six stared. “That,” he said finally, “is because you only have a tiny brain, and it sounds to me as if the little you have has got itself into a knot. Now, this whole planet is about to go into tidal melt-down. How about we go home?”

  Diva shifted uncomfortably, and Six’s eyes tracked over to her. “What?”

  She gave a sigh, and pointed up, up above them. Six stared suspiciously around his head, and gave a start. He raised his kris, and turned slowly around in a full circle.

  “What in Sacras are those?” All around them, there were minute strands of light, which were perched overhead, and glistened in the reflected golden light of the unusual instellite.

  One of the trimorph twins shimmered. “These are the lost animas. At least, that is what we call them. We think they must be part of the same species as the lost animas of Xiantha.”

  Six circled warily round again. He saw that Bennel and Tallen had followed him to the centre of the grotto, and motioned to them to do nothing. They, too, were examining the thin threads of light which were suspended effortlessly above them.

  “But the Ammonites had faces, if the statue at the opening is anything to go by,” he pointed out.

  The twin scintillated, reminding Six of Arcan. “Yes, we know. These might be a different species, or, if they are the same, then the Ammonites somehow found a way to adapt to lighter bodies.”

  This was becoming complicated. Six found himself wishing momentarily that the orthogel entity were there, ready to transport them all effortlessly back to Kwaide. He wasn’t looking forward to the idea of trying to get back to the shuttles on a planet which was on the point of melt-down.

  “Err ... HELLO!” he said, raising his voice.

  Diva gave him a look of exasperation. “You and your speeches! Can’t you do better than that?”

  “I said hello, didn’t I?”

  “Well they didn’t seem to take it awfully well, did they? Look – they are all just hanging there.”

  “You know I hate speeches!”

  “Tskk!”

  “If you are so good, then why don’t you do it yourself?”

  Diva stepped one pace forwards. “That is what I was in the process of doing before you came steaming in here shouting at the top of your voice.”

  “Oh, fine, then. Next time you disappear I will leave you to your own devices.”

  “I would appreciate that. Now, pipe down, will you?”

  Chuntering rather, Six subsided. Diva regarded him with a beady eye for a moment, looked over at the other two with unspoken instructions to be silent, and then turned her attention back to the small threads of light.

  “We are happy to meet you,” she said in a ringing, aristocratic tone, inclining her head very slightly as a mark of respect. “We are visitors from far away. We mean you no harm.”

  The threads seemed to blink in and out of existence for a second, and then they moved closer and closer together, until each thread touched the others. Still, they kept moving, and Six could see them weaving together, one inside the others, and then more and more joined in. Right in front of their eyes, the golden threads formed themselves into one large aura, until a complex pattern had been formed. At first, it seemed rather like the diamond aura which the canths had produced in the mindmerge, back on Pictoria, but then it continued growing, forming diamond after diamond in the air, and then each diamond took its place in a central star made of hundreds of diamond shapes built together to create a stellate form. It hung in front of them, blinding them slightly with the light it gave off.

  Six moved closer to Diva, and gave her a dig with his elbow. “That is like the aura that canths made when they overcame the Dessites, remember?” He gave a silent whistle. “Only much, much more complex.”

  “Shh! I know that, no-name!”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Will you shut up?”

  Six was affronted. “I was only pointing something out.”

  “Yes. I know that, too. Now, will you be quiet and let me get on with it?”

  Six nodded. “Certainly my lady. Sorry to speak, your royal numbness. Allow me to remove myself from your exalted presence, your worshipfulness.” He walked backwards, tugging at an imaginary forelock as he did so.

  Diva flashed a fulminating look at him, which he ignored.

  “Excuse me for existing, ma’am. I will instantly cease to annoy you.”

  Diva was unable to take any more. She spun around. “Just because we are married doesn’t give you the right to talk to me like that!” she shouted.

  “Now see who’s raising their voice.” Six shook his head sadly. “What will the lost animas think? You are ruining their precious first contact.”

  Her eyes narrowed into tiny slits. “Hang the lost animas!” she snapped. “I am sick and tired of you making fun of me.”

  “Me? Me? Why, Diva, whatever can you mean? As if a lowly Kwaidian could possibly make fun of a Coriolan meritocrat!”

  There was a tiny movement from Tallen, who appeared to be enjoying the show. Both Diva and Six swiveled to glare at him in unison, and he spread his hands in apology.

  Diva gave a deep sigh. “I am trying to make first contact, here, Kwaidian!”

  Six shrugged. “I already made first contact, didn’t I? I said hello.”

  She l
ooked horrified. “That isn’t first contact!”

  Six was glaring now. “I suppose we have to have a ceremony, do we? Have to speechify and posture?”

  There was a ghastly silence. “Is that what you think I’m doing? Speechifying and posturing?” Diva’s voice was like crystals of ice, which seemed to shatter on the listening ears.

  Six pulled a face. “All this meritocratic superiority.”

  Diva began to shake. “At least we are not MORONS!”

  “Oh, very educated!”

  “You are unspeakable, Six. Leave me alone!”

  “My pleasure. Enjoy your superior quality first contact, will you?” With that, Six turned away and stalked stiffly out of the grotto, leaving his wife white-faced and stationary in the middle of the large cavern, her face a picture.

  Bennel and Tallen looked at each other, and then Bennel nodded towards the exit to the grotto. Tallen slipped silently away, following Six, and Bennel himself moved closer to Diva.

  Diva was standing with her eyes closed, trying to control her emotions. It was a new experience for her. She was mortified to have got into an argument in front of other people, especially when she had been trying to establish first contact with a new species. She felt so ashamed of herself, and of Six, that her heart seemed to sink into her stomach. She licked her lips, and looked around her with unfocused eyes.

  Bennel took pity on her. “You were saying, Valhai Diva...?”

  She blinked. “I was? Err ... yes, of course I was. I ... I was assuring the Ammonites that we would do them no harm.” Slowly, her voice calmed down a little and she was able to continue speaking. All the same, she was aware of a trickle of shame running cold down the back of her spine, and a sensation of loss which made her stumble over her words. What had she done? What had just happened?

  Bennel stopped in front of her. “We can wait, Valhai Diva. Perhaps you should go after First Six?”

  “Go after him? Why in Sacras should I go after him? If anybody should apologize, it is Six.”