“You okay?” Dillon said, his eyes wide with shock.
“Yes-yes! They didn’t hurt me, they just wanted – let’s just get out of here!”
They ran for the zeppelin bike, but the sheeple weren’t giving up. They came stumbling and shambling after them. She and Dillon hopped on together and he turned the compressor knob to max. The scream in her head continued as the mob of sheeple reached for her, touching her legs until the bike rose out of reach. The high-pitched wail in her head dropped back to a hum, then disappeared.
Silence…peace…finally!
Emma sagged against Dillon’s back. She sobbed once, but she wouldn’t cry. She wouldn’t. But she’d been so scared.
“What happened down there?” she said as she began to help him pedal.
He looked at her over his shoulder. “I… I don’t know. I’ve never seen or heard of anything like it. Those sheeple… they seemed attracted to you. No, they definitely were attracted to you. Why?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know!”
“Is it some perfume you’re wearing?”
“Perfume?” For some crazy reason the idea made her want to laugh. “I never wear perfume. And even if I did, I didn’t bring any with me.”
“Well, something attracted them.”
“You’re definitely right, but I can’t imagine what.”
She glanced back and saw a short farm worker race around to the rear of the barn and stare up at her. She pedaled harder.
“At least that crazy noise stopped.”
Dillon looked around again. “What noise?”
“That high-pitched screeching… almost like a scream.”
“I didn’t hear anything – anything at all.”
“You must have!”
“I swear, I didn’t” He shook his head. “Nope. Not a thing. And I think I’d remember a sound like that. But forget about noise. What about those sheeple. It’s almost as if… as if they know you.”
“Know me? I’ve been here – what? – a week?” God, it seemed like a year. “How could they know me?”
“I’m not saying I understand, only telling what it looked like.”
“Maybe they sensed I was from Humania.”
“Yeah,” Dillon said, nodding. “That has to be it.”
Emma didn’t know if he believed that, but she knew she didn’t. Something stranger than sensing she was from another world had been going on with those sheeple down there. That noise… it had come from them, but not from their voices. And only she could hear it. Why her and not Dillon?
Because it was inside her head. In her thoughts.
As if she needed more things she didn’t understand about this crazy world.
She hugged Dillon tighter. “This was a dumb idea,” she said against his back. “Let’s not talk about it anymore. Just get me back to the Jantzes. Fast.”
“We’re on our way.”
27
Henrel was walking ahead of the pack. His fellow farm workers always moved slowish after lunch, but not Henrel. Like most trolls, he didn’t like to laze after a meal – unless of course it was a hefty haunch of goat. Goat meat was always an exceptication. A belly full of goat demanded and deserved the proper respect of quiet and thorough digestifying. But he’d had only bread and boiled vegetables for lunch today.
Because of his lead position, he heard the scream first. Not a sheeple scream – oh, how sheeples could howl when they was hurt – this here sounded like a real-people scream. A lycan, mayhap.
But there wasn’t supposed to be no lycans up at the barn during lunch hour. Nothing but sheeples was supposed to be there then. And if there was somebody other than sheeples there now, they was up to no good, they was.
He started to run, shouting to the others behind them.
“Come on, ya lazy bastids, ya. Someone’s messin’ around up the barn!”
As he neared he heard another scream and realized it were coming from behind the barn. So he veered off that way. He raced around the corner and –
“What the–?”
A whole crowd of the free-range sheeples was gatherated there, pushing their way into the stand of trees behind the barn. What for? What was going on in them trees?
And then he saw movement near the treetops – something black rising from among the branches.
“Well, I’ll be…”
One of them floaty bikes was levitating into the air. And two kids was on it. They started pedaling and turned south. In a jiff they was out of sight behind the trees.
But hey, now…one of them kids, the girly kid, had red hair. Hadn’t Ergel put out word among his fellow trolls about being on the lookout for a couple of runaway human slaves? And how there was rewardation for finding and reappropriating then? Yes, he had. He surely had. And he’d said the humanses was one boy and one redheaded girly.
That had to be them.
Without a word to his fellow barn workers, Henrel ran back down the hill to get himself into one of the farm’s trucks and foller them on land.
That rewardation was going to be his and his alone.
Part 4
Here and gone
28
“Come up here before we turn it on,” Dr. Koertig said.
Telly looked up and saw him gesturing through the glass of the control booth.
“If I watch it close up, maybe I can see what’s going wrong.”
Koertig shook his troll head. “And you also might get killed if the breach generator blows. You’re the best assistant I’ve found so far. I don’t want to have to replace you with another run-of-the-mill Uberall dolt.”
Thanks for the personal concern, Telly thought. Not worried about me, just the trouble you’ll have to go through to replace me.
Oh, well. That was a pluriban for you.
“Okay. Be right there.”
He checked to make sure all the switches on the breach generator were in the ON position, then hurried up to the booth.
“You think it might blow again?” Telly said as he came up beside the pluriban.
This was the third variation they had tried on the power coil today. The first two had fried.
“I’m quite sure it will,” Koertig said. “The question is: When?”
“But we doubled the coolant.”
“I’m quite well aware of what we did.”
Koertig was more irritable than usual today and Telly wanted to kick himself for making such a stupid remark.
“Sorry, I just–”
“Stop babbling and hit the power switch.”
Telly stepped to the rear of the booth and closed the large knife switch on the wall.
“The power feed is set at eighty-two percent.”
“Leave it at that for now.”
Telly hurried back to the glass. Lights began to glow on the boxy contraption sitting on the floor below. The original breach generator had been built into the wall of the chamber. This new model was bigger and more powerful, and created a larger breach through the Veil between Nocturnia and Humania – but apparently not big enough, at least not by Falzon’s standards.
A small sphere of yellow-white light, about the size of a softball, formed against the chamber’s outer wall. It flattened to a disk against the inner surface. As Koertig turned a dial on his console, the circle compressed into an ellipse, half as high vertically as compared to horizontal.
“It’s working,” Koertig said. “We’ve got an ellipsoid breach! I’d like to make it flatter but that’s as much as I dare for now.”
Telly’s heart sank. He hadn’t thought it possible, and had been hoping it would fail. But Koertig was brilliant and never said never.
The elliptical breach steadily expanded to a foot along the horizontal axis, basketball, then to three feet across… four… five feet, and kept growing.
Telly checked the gauge. “Six feet… six and a half…”
Then the center of the ellipse began to clear. Soon it was simply a fire-rimmed opening through the wall, loo
king out on a nighttime scene. Telly knew the afternoon sun was shining outside on the Uberall compound. This was elsewhere… this was home.
Had to be careful not to call it that in front of a Nocturnian. Around here he was Teddy the fixer, a naïve country boy.
The diameter of the ellipse remained at six and a half feet.
“Notch it up to ninety percent,” Koertig said.
Telly did so. The opening enlarged maybe an inch.
“Go to one hundred.”
Telly turned the dial to max, then returned to the window. The breach seemed stuck at not quite seven feet across. And then the generator began to smoke.
“Cut the power! Cut it!”
Telly yanked back on the switch, breaking the circuit and cutting the power. The ellipse of fire irised down to a pinpoint, then disappeared, leaving the chamber wall solid and unmarred.
“I think we avoided a meltdown,” Koertig said. He banged his lycan fists against his troll head. “We’re solving the ellipse challenge, but why can’t we make a bigger breach? Where’s all the resistance coming from?”
“That’s the biggest yet,” Telly said, trying hard to sound encouraging.
He found it harder and harder to maintain an enthusiastic demeanor, because the truth was he was happy Dr. Koertig’s progress had stalled. Falzon wanted a breach big enough to drive an army through into Humania. The way things were going, it didn’t look like that was going to happen. Telly wanted to cheer every failure.
“Not big nearly enough for ‘You Know Who’.”
Telly tried to phrase his next question as delicately as possible.
“Do you think we should invade Humania?”
Koertig shrugged. “As I told you before, none of that is my concern. Nor is it my responsibility. I’ve been presented with a problem to solve and I intend to solve it. What use the solution is put to is not my business.”
Telly wanted to ask about taking responsibility for your creations but figured that would only trigger an explosion. He glanced at the clock. He’d already stayed longer than he’d intended.
“Falzon just returned and I’m supposed to run an errand for him,” he lied. He’d seen the rakshasa’s jetlike plane zoom overhead earlier.
He was going to be late already for his meeting with Emma and Ryan. He dreaded that. How was he ever going to tell them their mom and dad were dead? How do you say those words?
“Go ahead then,” Koertig said with a dismissive wave. “We’re done for the day here. I’m going to have to rethink all the circuitry, though I doubt that will make a difference.”
Telly headed for the rear of the lab complex to hang up his white coat. As he started back toward the front he heard Falzon’s distinctive sibilant voice.
“Doctor Koertig! I have private mattersss to dissscusss that I could not mention at our meeting the other day.”
Uh-oh, Telly thought. I shouldn’t be here.
But he couldn’t simply walk out there. No telling what that crazy rakshasa would do. Probably accuse him of spying.
He backed into the shadows and waited. He couldn’t see either of them, but their voices echoed down the hallway loud and clear.
“And what would they be?” Koertig said. “If you’re going to ask about the breach generator, you’re premature. I’ve had some success at increasing the size of the ‘window’ but nowhere near the diameter you require.”
“Why not?”
“As I told you, the Veil is stubbornly resistant – it abhors a breach.”
“Even though it isss thinning?”
“Yes. And you should be more concerned about that than a larger breach. Perhaps I should be bending my efforts to shoring up the Veil.”
“No-no-no! I want it thin!”
“Perhaps you’re not looking at the big picture. If the Veil keeps thinning, it will eventually shred. All existence on the two worlds it separates will end an instant after the Veil goes down.”
“I am not worried about it going down, doctor.”
“You should be. If the thinning is accelerating–”
“I can ssstop the thinning.”
Another pause. “Are you going to share this knowledge?”
“No. I will sssimply halt the thinning.”
“And, pray tell, when will that be?”
“When I am good and ready. Keep experimenting, doctor. When the Veil hasss thinned to the point where you can generate a breach big enough and long-lasssting enough for my army, you will inform me. Then and only then will I ssstop the thinning. After which I will invade Humania and claim it for the Uberall nation.”
“Is this something your rakshasa scientists came up with?”
“It isss my sssecret and mine alone, doctor.”
“As I recall, you had a meeting with Bluthkalt just before you killed him. Did he tell you how to do this?”
“Doctor Bluthkalt told me many thingsss, but not how to sssave the Veil. That I figured out on my own. Good day, doctor.”
Telly heard a door close.
“You can come out now, Teddy,” Dr. Koertig called.
Shamefaced, Telly returned to the breach room. “You knew I was there?”
“Since I didn’t see you leave, I assumed you were lurking.”
“Not on purpose. I–”
“You made a decision both wise and foolish. Wise, because Falzon does not like surprises. Foolish because now you are burdened with knowledge you have no right to have.”
He realized that Dr. Koertig had to be the most unpredictable creature he had ever met. Telly had emerged from the shadows expecting a tongue lashing, but instead the pluriban seemed almost amused.
“About the Veil? I won’t tell anyone. I don’t know anyone well enough to tell.”
“Let’s hope not.”
“But it’s kind of scary, isn’t it?”
Koertig’s bushy troll brows rose. “‘Kind of scary’? If you find the potential annihilation of two worlds and billions of sapient beings ‘kind of scary,’ what does it take to terrify you?”
“Sorry. It’s major terrifying.”
“That’s better. Falzon is ruthless, reckless, power mad, and maybe a little insane, but not to the point where he’d risk his own life. The problem we face is: When do we tell him to stop the thinning?”
Telly was struck by Koertig’s use of the word “we.”
“Does it matter? I mean, as long as he stops the thinning before the Veil begins to shred.”
“But when is that? We know so little about the Veil. What if there’s a point of no return – a point where it has become so attenuated that the thinning cannot be stopped?” The pluriban jabbed a finger at him. “Your solution?”
Koertig had just made an already terrifying scenario worse. Telly was sure he already had an answer and was testing him.
“Um-um…we have to improve the breach generator – and fast.”
The last thing Telly wanted to do. And yet…
Success meant the enslavement of humanity, failure meant the destruction of the Earth.
What kind of choice was that?
“Good analysis. The sooner we can open a wide enough breach, the sooner we can tell Falzon to do whatever it is he’s going to do to stop the thinning.”
It dawned on Telly that the reason Dr. Koertig hadn’t been angry at him was that he needed to bounce ideas off someone, and Telly was as good as anyone.
“Do you have any idea what it might be?”
Koertig shook his massive head. “No, and I don’t have time to investigate it. I just hope that whatever solution he thinks he has will work.”
Telly swallowed. He hadn’t thought of that.
“You mean…he could be wrong?”
“Of course he could be wrong! No one’s ever faced this problem before. And that rakshasa is no scientist!” He pointed to the exit. “Go run your errand and show up here early tomorrow. We have work to do – lots of work to do.”
Telly glanced at the clock. Oh crap. He was g
oing to be so late.
29
“Where is he?” Ryan said, pacing back and forth.
He couldn’t help glancing again and again at the sinking sun. Tonight was the full moon, the one night a month when the millions upon millions of lycans – pretty much everyone in this corner of the world – would turn into slavering beasts.
“Do you think something happened to him?” Emma said, wringing her hands.
They stood on a rise north of town, near a lone tree that might have been a massive oak back home. He didn’t know what they called it here.
“He was never good at appointments. You know that.”
“But he said it was important.”
Ryan turned to Dillon who was leaning against the tree. “You’re sure you got the time and place right?”
Dillon had driven them here in an Armagost Farm truck and parked it at the bottom of the rise.
“He said near the woods north of town. Where else could he mean?”
“And he didn’t say what he wanted to tell us?” Emma said.
Dillon gazed down at the town. “I asked and he said it was ‘personal.’”
Ryan had to laugh at a sudden thought. “Maybe he found some cute necro chick and wants to marry her.”
Emma laughed and said, “Ryan! Don’t even joke about that!”
Dillon didn’t smile. Instead he looked toward the setting sun and shook his head. “He’d better be here soon or we’ll have to leave if I’m gonna get you two back to the Jantzes and myself home before moonrise.”
As if on cue, a battered steamobile emerged from the trees and hissed to a stop next to Dillon’s truck. Telly jumped out and trotted up the hill.
“At last!” Emma said.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said, puffing as he reached to top of the rise. “I couldn’t get away.”
“What’s up?” Ryan said, suddenly uneasy.
He was picking up a mix of feelings radiating from Telly: sadness and hurt and loss. What could …?
“I’ll have to make this quick,” he said, rattling out the words. “Two days ago I was checking out Skelton Springs with Koertig’s machine – the breach viewer – to see the extent of the storm damage. I saw the front page of the Eternal and it showed the ruins of a house under a headline that said ‘No Survivors.’ So I–”
Family Secrets Page 14