“You’ve shot a Fifth Commander, you stupid Gleezhian slaves.” Coreg raised his head enough to spit at the nearest one. “You’ll pay.” He stuttered the last word as he felt the effects of whatever tranquilizer or poison now coursed through his veins. He twirled his thumb ring weakly, but dropped his hands before activating the communication device.
His eyes closed. The leader ordered the eight younger Gleezhians to leave while he reached for Coreg’s left hand. He removed the thumb ring, examined it, and passed it to one of his subordinates.
“Move him to a confinement room. We may need him later.”
Two of the bigger Gleezhians came out from behind their equipment, lifted Coreg and took him out of the room, passing the returning Gleezhian who had carried Alex away.
“You sequestered the Klaqin half-breeds together?” the leader asked.
“Yes, sir. It should be only a matter of time until they mate.” He gave a Gleezhian chortle at his ‘time’ joke before adding, “The product of a time-bender and a time-pacer will give our scientists an infinite advantage.”
The leader nodded and the other two Gleezhians in the room expressed their approval with hand gestures and by squirting saliva through their teeth. None of them had misconstrued Coreg’s insult. No Gleezhian, slave or free, would ever work toward a treaty with a Klaqin like that reckless Fifth Commander.
“Bring Esko to me. We have much to plan. And here, protect this ring.”
♫ ♫ ♫
BETWEEN ME PUNCHING and Selina tearing at the material and pushing it through to the other side, we widened a space large enough to step through. It was dark on the other side, but brightened as soon as my foot hit the ground.
“Come on through. It looks like a room. There’s stuff hanging from the ceiling.” I didn’t mention that there was no door out.
Selina wiggled through and gasped. “The five-sided room. I’ve been here.” She pointed at the glowing disk on the wall. “If this is the same room then the chute we slid down should be right over there.” She pointed to one of the walls that didn’t have the light disk. “And there’s a hidden doorway into the caverns right about there. And there’s the apple I dropped.” She started to reach for it then pulled back. “Eww. Something’s been gnawing at it.”
“This is good,” I said. “It means we can get out. Come on, let’s patch this hole.”
It took us a little longer to use the bio-materials in our clothing to knit the wall back together. We found it best to use our elbows so our hands didn’t get trapped inside. When we finished I stepped back, not to admire our handiwork, but to check for any spots we may have missed.
“Good to go,” I said. “Now, where’s the chute?”
“Marcum’s father used his thumb ring to close it off. Try yours.”
Okay, this was going to be the biggest puzzle of our lives to solve. I slipped the ring off and tried every combination, but nothing happened. Except the light went out.
♫ ♫ ♫
AS INSTRUCTED BY First Commander Cotay, Marcum landed the Fighter Five at the same base they’d left earlier. Cotay commanded Hagab to escort Payat to a holding room, while he led Marcum and the Gleezhian negotiator, a former escaped slave named Stetl-glet, to the data room.
“Fifth Commander Marcum, I am promoting you to Fourth Commander, effective immediately.” Cotay held up his left hand and Marcum moved forward to press the back of his hand into the palm of Cotay’s, allowing their thumb rings to latch back to front. Cotay spoke a few words of caution and duty, a shortened version of the typical advancement procedure, before clicking his ring apart from Marcum’s and advising him to get a gray uniform as soon as possible. “You’re now cleared to receive the following oral intelligence.”
Marcum listened expecting to hear a synopsis of what he’d learned shortly after his arrival when he had snooped through the entire banishment station from top to bottom including this data room. But Cotay spent less than a single Klaqin time unit on that summary before revealing a significant truth, one Marcum had not dug up: “Stetl-glet gave up his royal position on Gleezhe to be among the first volunteers in the citizen exchange. He offered himself as a gesture of peace. You know the history of the treaties, correct?”
“I do, sir.”
“Stetl-glet has revealed that procreation on Gleezhe has all but halted. They’ve been stealing our females, as you may well know.” He paused, glanced at Stetl-glet, who stood silently pulling on his lower lip, and continued. “They also steal time-pacers. There are but a handful left on our planet.”
“Like Fifth Commander Coreg,” Marcum said, inwardly smiling that he now outranked him.
“That’s right. And now we’ve lost the Earth girl who could bend time. The power to slow time is greater than the power to speed it up, but either way, it’s not the power itself that is important, but how it’s used. We must get her back, and Coreg too, of course.”
Marcum nodded. Since he discovered his own time-stopping ability he’d been wrestling with his conscience as to how to best employ it.
♫ ♫ ♫
MY FIRST INCLINATION was to stay still and listen, but Selina moved toward me and that was all the motion it took for the disk to resume its glowing. I slipped the ring on and started to sing the first line of a well-known kids’ song about light, but stopped when I saw the look on Selina’s lettuce green face. I was used to her seizures which were often followed by blackouts, hiccups, mad tirades—the tirades had pretty much stopped when we got to high school—and occasional tearful whimpering, but I’d never seen her break into sobs like this.
“Don’t cry. It’s all right.” I put my arm around her and kept my other hand waving at the disk so it wouldn’t go dark again.
“You’ll never figure out how to open the chute.” She wiped at her face. “And we’ll have to take that underground passage and end up back where I was …” She turned into me and I risked the light going out by putting my other arm around her. She lifted her face to me and I knew it wasn’t the right time to advance our relationship status—who pauses to make out with a blubbering girlfriend in the middle of a crisis on another planet?—but I couldn’t help myself.
I kissed her nose. “We’ll be fine.” I kissed her cheek and moved a half inch closer to her lips. “Selina, relax, I’ve got your back. Have I ever let you down?” She gave a little shake of her head and it was enough to brush our lips together. I let mine linger on hers. Selina. Heaven. There was no time-pacing or -bending down here, but I could have sworn time stopped. Maybe I had Marcum’s power.
When I opened my eyes it was pitch black. I closed them and kissed her again. I didn’t want to stop.
CHAPTER 16
♫ … karma, karma, karma, karma, chameleon … ♫
SELINA BROKE OFF the last kiss. If it had been up to me …
The light fluttered on and we stared at one another. Her skin pinked up.
“Okay,” I said, “maybe we can force the chute open. Where exactly do you think it is?”
“Well,” she scanned the room, “hey, the apple’s gone!”
I’m not one for ghost stories and shivers, but that sort of creeped me out. I grabbed her hand. “Come on, let’s stay together and check every inch. There’s got to be some way out.”
We started under the light disk and while I used my right hand and she used her left, we gave the Klaqin cave a decent pat down. Selina mumbled a few things about lizards and vampires and hating the dark with a passion while I sang lyrics from a very old musical, hoping to keep her from totally freaking out. In truth, I was calming myself; the very pinched space of this small room was starting to get to me. We circled the room, searching. She insisted there was a door on the opposite wall that had opened like a mouth for Pauro and Krimar. We couldn’t find a trace of it so we went back to stare at the spot where she’d slid out from a chute. A slight indentation gave away a possibility of its existence.
“I have an idea.” I knew she wouldn’t like this so I
hummed two bars of her favorite song and then she joined me with the words of the next two bars. When she stopped, ready to listen, I said, “We put our hands where the opening should be and stay still until the light goes out. I think the opening, for lack of a better word, relaxes in the dark.”
“Alex, you’re a genius. Whatever took the apple, slipped in and out while we were, uh, um … it was probably too small or too slow to trigger the light.”
“Exactly. Okay, let’s stand where the chute should be. If that doesn’t work we’ll try punching holes again.”
“But we don’t want to go back into that area and meet up with those you-know-whats.”
“We might not have a choice. But let’s try this first.”
We positioned ourselves, Selina in front of me, with our hands lightly on the surface of the wall. I imagined that the chute might open the way Marcum’s spaceship did, like a mouth going from closed lips to wide yawn. We didn’t speak. We didn’t move. The light went out and the blackness was complete. My chest was pressed against Selina’s back, my face near her ear, my breath moving her hair.
I felt it in my fingertips first: a slight tremble, a warming of the surface. Bio-rocks? Whatever the chute was made of it spread itself open. Our hands shifted along with it. I knew Selina well enough that I could practically read her thoughts. She waited for the breadth of the opening to widen sufficiently before plunging herself up and into the cavity. Her movement triggered the light, but her body hung half in the chute and prevented it from closing. A cat the size of a mouse crept slowly over her head and onto my shoulder. I know why Selina didn’t scream. She probably didn’t feel the animal. It landed on me light as a mosquito. I swatted it away and pushed Selina upwards. She didn’t slide back, which was good. Her shoes made rubbery sucking sounds as she made her way up.
“Alex? Come on. This isn’t hard and I can see a light up here.”
I glanced at the cat. It snarled at me then made a shrill whine with a falling cadence. No translation necessary. It didn’t like the light. And I didn’t like the tiny space above.
I forced myself up into the chute and crawled after Selina, totally keeping my claustrophobia at bay by concentrating on her. She warbled something about déjà vu.
♫ ♫ ♫
MARCUM LISTENED TO Cotay’s plan feeling more than a little guilt. He’d left Selina with his parents because he believed that was the safest place for her. He had not been out of Cotay’s sight—his perceived sight—and was therefore above suspicion.
With a cluck of his tongue Marcum signaled his obedient acceptance of this new mission: a search of Coreg’s family’s home and an investigation into any involvement by Lexal and Rander, relatives of Alex. Cotay gave him two Klaqin days while he and Stetl-glet worked on a new treaty, one neither intended to honor if they regained the time-bender.
Marcum left the data room quickly, boarded the Fighter Five and flew directly to the base, parked the ship in the Galaxer’s spot and jogged to the Fifth Commanders’ housing unit, where he expected to find Rander.
“I’m so sorry about your brother,” Marcum said by way of greeting when he found Rander alone in one of the strength training rooms.
“Marcum!” Rander rolled out from underneath a heavy contraption he’d been rocking with his legs. “I thought you were dead … like my brother. I didn’t believe Coreg that you had willingly gone back to the time-bender’s planet.” He stood and wiped his brow with his sleeve.
“I did—he told the truth for once—and I’ll tell you about it some time, but right now I need your help. You can avenge your brother Enrimmon’s death, and Dace’s too.” Marcum gave his ring a subtle twist and it made a short squeak. He pulled his face into a quick grin. “You can’t tell by looking at me, but I’m a Fourth now. Ehk. Gray uniform on order.”
“So I hear.” Rander fingered his own ring and shook his head. “How?”
“I’m working in a secret capacity for First Commander Cotay. I want you to help me.”
Rander’s green face grew darker, but he didn’t hesitate. “I will.” He stood straighter and held his hand out, palm toward himself, so Marcum could quickly click his thumb ring against his. That was the precise moment Marcum stopped time. He retrieved from Rander’s ring the code for entrance to his home; he traveled the short distance there, did a search as commanded by Cotay, and returned to stand palm out before stepping back into Rander’s reality and resuming time.
“So what’s the plan?” Rander dropped his arm, not at all aware of what had transpired.
“We’ll need the girls. All of them.” Marcum outlined the basics as he stepped over a pile of thorn-like fibers and led Rander out of the housing unit. He paused his instructions in order to return greetings from former friends and competitors. It reminded him of similar callouts he’d received from the high school students on Earth. He had blended in so well then that he was certain he could fool Klaqins and Gleezhians as easily now. He’d already fooled a trusting Rander.
They hurried across the expanse to the largest girls’ dwelling. A guard leaned against the side, not bothering to give who he thought were two Fifths the courtesy of a straight posture. Guards were comprised of former commander candidates who couldn’t or wouldn’t fight in space battles. Their injuries were rarely physical; most had mental wounds. This guard’s problem showed in his attitude, even after Marcum proved he was now a Fourth Commander.
“I don’t care what rank you hold,” he drew his weapon, “or whose son you are,” he nodded at Rander, “I’ve been ordered to protect the last of our females and neither of you may enter.” He stroked the arc-gun.
Suddenly the gun was in Marcum’s hand and the guard lay unconscious across the entrance.
Rander gasped. “What trick was that? I didn’t see you move. Something you learned on Earth?”
“In a way, yes.” Marcum tucked the gun into a pouch he pulled open on his pant leg. And, since his outside-of-time search of Rander’s home revealed no sign of treason in Rander’s family, he continued with a truthful explanation of his ability. “You know how Coreg can time-pace, well, I can stop time. We’ll gather all the females and then step outside of time with them, where we will train them in flying, fighting, evasion, and every other tactic we’ve learned.”
“Girls? I thought we were coming here to move them to safety or else use them as ransom. And this time thing? You’re going to have to convince me.” Rander stuttered on a few words, clearly confused.
“I will. My plan goes a bit beyond Cotay’s. But in the end he won’t mind because we’ll get our planet back. Or at least we’ll get a planet.”
♫ ♫ ♫
I WAS AS stunned as Selina to exit the chute into a room where something had exploded. She turned to me and explained that this was where Marcum’s mother had left her to rest. And to eat too, I guess, since I saw a tray of food like what I’d been offered at the funeral feast. My stomach should have growled, but with bits of debris covering the fruit it wasn’t the least bit appetizing. And the smell in the air was as sour as a moldy basement.
A gigantic hole in the ceiling let in a tremendous amount of light. The sky was its perpetual blue, no clouds of course, but there were a few streaks of white, like the contrails jets leave. The walls drooped and sagged like they’d breathed their last.
“Clean up on aisle five,” Selina said.
“No kidding. I’m so glad they got you out of here in time or you would’ve been a pancake.”
She stopped and gazed up, then whispered, “I think his parents did this. I’m not sure. The explosion came as soon as Pauro twisted his ring, after we were safely down the chute.” She led me through to the front of the house which was intact. “Oh, Alex, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe somebody beamed in on my thumb ring. You better take yours off. Leave it here.”
“You may be right.” I twisted it off and examined it again. It hadn’t helped open any doors underground, and maybe it was broadcasting my whereabouts, but if Marcum an
d Coreg wore theirs … hmm, I couldn’t decide. It seemed like a good idea to keep it on so Marcum could find us. On the other hand, if Selina’s ring had nearly got her killed …
I tossed it behind me, looked back, and watched it roll into the demolished room. I couldn’t help but think I was doing the wrong thing.
Selina let out a clipped scream and I forgot all about the ring.
“I’m sorry. They startled me.” Two yellow-green Klaqins framed the doorway. “Your Klaqin vocabulary is better than mine. Talk to them. They’re Marcum’s mother and father.”
♫ ♫ ♫
COREG CAME OUT of his stupor but stayed limp. He took a chance as soon as the two Gleezhians who were carrying him stopped to open a cell door. When the first one dropped his feet Coreg kicked and started pacing. It was how he’d won most bridge battles in training and though these two adversaries were larger and stronger than his training mates he had the advantage of surprise and his incredible skill. Though he had never used a choke hold on an enemy the way Marcum had disabled him—and on his own ship in front of Alex and Selina no less—he assumed it would work on Gleezhians. Why else would they be taught such a skill?
The choke holds worked. Their bodies crumpled to the stone floor. He dragged them into the cell, searched their uniforms, found what he needed and stopped pacing. But time didn’t change. The speed at which he’d fought and won was not due to pacing. He realized that his power to manipulate time was impeded by being underground. He’d succeeded on adrenaline alone or maybe an after effect of what he’d been shot with.
Locking them inside was easy. Being stealthy on a rock surface was also easy, but using any of his well-learned infiltration tactics would be difficult without a disguise. With skin that had returned to palest green on his arms and light yellow on his hairless face, not to mention an obvious lack of an extra digit on each hand, he’d be spotted instantly among the Gleezhian slaves. He’d have no hope of escape.
The Time Pacer: An Alien Teen Fantasy Adventure (The Time Bender Book 2) Page 15