Hunt for the Pyxis

by Zoë Ferraris

  “Herbie!” she cried. “Come see this!”

  He came topside. He was carrying the Almagest.

  “The sign said we’re coming to Alpha Delphini. That’s a star,” Emma said excitedly. “Can you tell where we are from the map?”

  He quickly unfolded it and laid it on the bench, studying it with a flashlight. After a few minutes he said, “Okay, I think I figured this out. There’s a constellation on here I’ve never heard of before, but I think it’s where we just came from. It’s called…Monkey. And that’s because it’s shaped like a monkey. Almost like it’s”—he tilted his head—“squatting or something.”

  “We live on Monkey?”

  “Well, no, we would be from a star on the Monkey constellation,” he said. “It’s the only constellation with a line attached to Alpha Delphini that’s long enough to have more than one hundred nicks. I guess those are like miles. There’s a legend here on the map showing distance in nicks…. ” He scratched his head. “But if we’re only a hundred nicks from Alpha Delphini, we’ve come really far from Monkey.”

  “Is that really where we’re from?”

  “It makes sense,” Herbie said. “We did evolve from monkeys. Apparently we just came from a star called Solacious.”

  “Our sun is called Sol,” Emma said.

  “Well, it says ‘Solacious’ here and it’s right at the monkey’s butt.”

  “We’re from the monkey’s butt?” she squawked.

  He nodded grimly.

  “Okay,” she said. “Go to the chapter on Monkey. Or Alpha Delphini. Tell me if you can make any sense of it. I mean, what if there are hazards we should know about?”

  He began reading. After a few minutes, he said, “It says this is a pretty empty sea. Otherwise, there’s nothing useful.” He shut the book and looked up at her. “Is the Pyxis’s light still on?”

  “Yes,” she said. “We have to assume that the Arcturus is still behind us. And by the way”—she motioned to the mast behind her—“the mainsail has a tear.”

  He got up to inspect the damage.

  “It must have happened when we went through the jelly bridge,” she said.

  “We can’t go much farther with that,” he said. “It’s going to rip in half.”

  “I know,” she said. “I think we should go to Alpha Delphini. It looks like it’s the only star that’s connected to ours, and we’re halfway there already…. ”

  This clearly upset him. Frowning, he stood up and marched to the railing. “But we can’t. We should just find somewhere to hide and let them pass us by.”

  “But there’s nowhere to hide. And the Pyxis is still glowing. They’ll find us if we stop.”

  “I think it’ll stop glowing eventually.”

  “Right, but when?” she asked.

  “Let’s just find somewhere to hide,” he said.

  “There isn’t anywhere.”

  Shaking his head, he slumped onto the bench and heaved a sigh. “We are in so much trouble.”

  Herbie spent some time studying the torn mainsail. Emma looked back at it sympathetically, which was when she noticed the gouges in the mast and the cabin roof.

  “Herbie,” she said. “Those are bullet holes from when they were shooting at us.”

  He took a closer look.

  “You’re lucky you didn’t get hit by a bullet,” she said. “It must have been a ricochet.”

  “The bullets are still inside the holes,” he said, standing up with a baffled expression. “And they’re glowing.”

  “Don’t touch them,” she said. “In case they turn you into an iguana again.”

  He seemed a little more willing to accept this idea now.

  “Seriously,” she said. “I thought you were going to be poisonous.”

  “It’s not funny,” he said. “It was scary. It felt like cold water went through my whole body, and then my arms and legs were all different…. ”

  “Greener?” she asked.

  He shuddered. “Was I green?”

  “It was hard to tell.”

  “I was probably some kind of small Komodo dragon.”

  She snorted. “You were totally an iguana!”

  “I never want that to happen again.”

  “It’s good another one hit you and you turned back into yourself because I didn’t bring a cage.”

  “Funny.” He opened the bench seat by the wheel. Inside were Dad’s tools. Herbie took out a pair of tweezers and an old bait jar. “I’m going to get these bullets out of the mast,” he said.

  “Be careful,” she said solemnly. “But…do you want to pick an animal name in case it happens again?”

  He shot her a look. It alarmed her a bit that she couldn’t lighten his mood. He must have been really affected by turning into a lizard.

  Once he’d pried the bullet free, he dropped it in the jar and showed it to Emma. It was shaped like a bullet (albeit smashed by the impact with the mast). It appeared to be made of metal, but Herbie was right—it was glowing a dark, murky green. As they watched, a tiny bit of water seeped out of it, pooling in the bottom of the jar.

  After collecting seven more bullets, Herbie sealed the jar and brought it below. Emma peeked once through the cabin windows and saw him rooting through the galley.

  A few minutes later, he came topside with two ham sandwiches, some chips, and a Coke. Dad had left the food from their failed weekend trip on the boat. Emma accepted a sandwich gratefully.

  Herbie sat on the bench. “I can’t even begin to explain this,” he said. “I mean, I can’t wrap my head around it. A bullet turned me into a dragon. The Pyxis glowed when you touched it. And we are in outer space?”

  “Yeah.” Emma was eating a little too voraciously. Herbie watched her.

  “I have the feeling your parents would know all the answers to this.”

  She didn’t reply.

  “I’m sorry they didn’t tell you,” he said.

  “It’s fine,” she said through a mouthful of food. “They’re going to be fine. I’m going to get them back.”

  Herbie looked at her warily. “Yeah.”

  “I know they didn’t tell me anything,” she said, swallowing. “But I’m sure they had their reasons. And they were wrong reasons. But it doesn’t matter. I’m getting them back. That’s what’s important.”

  He wisely remained quiet.

  “What?” she asked. “You think I’m going crazy.”

  “You are a little woo-woo.”

  “I’m okay,” she said. “It’s just…if we really are in space, and I think of all the things they didn’t tell me, I have a really hard time believing that these are the same people who grounded me for three weeks for lying about that bar of chocolate that went missing from the kitchen.”

  Herbie smiled. “Yeah. The same people who failed to mention that Draco is real.”

  Emma gave a grim laugh. “And that those meteorites weren’t really meteorites!”

  Herbie sat up. “Wasn’t I saying that for years?”

  “Yes!” She took another huge bite of sandwich. “And that whole your-dad-is-an-alien thing—you were totally right!”

  “You know, we could have both been turned into animals tonight,” he said. “We have no idea what this place is like.”

  “We didn’t even know it was real,” she said.

  They looked at each other, and Herbie said gravely, “I was SO not prepared for an iguana.”

  They finished the rest of their sandwiches, gazing worriedly about. After a while, Herbie said, “I think we should wait until the Pyxis’s light turns off and then go back to Earth.”

  “What? No.” Emma was shocked. “I know my parents are out here somewhere. You heard the kidnappers. They were from Draco. Of course they would take my parents out here. It’s where they’re from.”

  Herbie shook his head. “We have NO idea where your parents are. They could still be on Earth.”

  “They’re probably not,” she said. “Don’t you remember? The
lady kidnapper—”

  “Laine,” Herbie said.

  “Laine said they were heading to Draco,” she finished. Herbie seemed skeptical. “She wanted to activate the Pyxis, but the guy—”

  “Caz.”

  “Right. Caz didn’t want to activate it on Earth. And Laine said no one would catch them because they’d be halfway to Draco.”

  Herbie sighed. “Yeah, you’re right. But that doesn’t mean they actually made it to space. We don’t know where they are.”

  He was right, and there was no disputing it.

  “Okay,” Emma said, “but obviously we can’t keep running forever. If we really are in space, and that sign was right, then there’s going to be another star up ahead. Maybe it has a planet. That would give us a place to hide until the Pyxis’s light goes off.”

  Herbie shook his head. “Say this planet really exists. We have no idea what it’s like. I mean, is there AIR?”

  “Check it out,” Emma said, pointing. To starboard, a giant star was emerging on the horizon. It was glowing bright blue. A few seconds later, a companion star emerged some distance to the left. It was smaller and less bright.

  “That must be Alpha Delphini,” she said.

  “It is a binary star system,” he agreed.

  Thanks to studying nighttime navigation with Emma’s dad, they both knew a bit about the constellations. They knew that Delphinus resided in a region of the sky known as the Sea. It was a tiny constellation that kept company with its bigger brothers Pisces, the fish; Capricorn, the sea goat; and even Cetus, the monstrous whale. Their celestial navigation books made it sound almost charming, and of all the sea creatures, the little dolphin did seem the friendliest.

  The stars were growing larger. It seemed they were approaching the system quite rapidly. A shadowy form appeared on the horizon. Backlit by Delphinus’s muted blue lights, it looked at first like a flotilla of ships. They quickly brought the Markab to a nervous crawl.

  As they sailed closer, they saw that their “flotilla” was just a collection of rotted ships moored to buoys. There were maybe twenty of them, all knocking against one another in their small, forgotten graveyard.

  Emma drew the Markab right up to the edge. They saw a caravel that had once been shiny and blue like a dolphin but that now looked more like a walrus with rigging. Two of its three masts were missing. It was dripping with seaweed and pocked with barnacles. The hull was so neglected that it ought to have sunk from the rot long ago. The ship’s name had faded and then been sloppily painted over with a new one: the Mereswine.

  “Do you think they got stuck here?” Herbie asked.

  “No,” Emma said, trying to sound calm. “They probably just got dumped.”

  Curious and a bit anxious, they navigated slowly around the dead boats, seeing no signs of life. On the graveyard’s opposite side, they spotted two buoys in the water some hundred yards to starboard.

  “Let’s check out those buoys,” Emma said. She steered the boat in that direction. They were halfway there when the sea was shaken by another explosion. Now they recognized the sound. On each of the buoys, green lights were sparkling.

  “It’s that jelly bridge thing again,” Herbie said.

  “We’d better hide,” Emma said. She switched on the engine and they made a quick turn just as the green lights began to illuminate the ocean floor between the buoys. The bridge was opening.

  They managed to get the Markab hidden just in time. A large man-of-war came plunging through the bridge, followed by two schooners. All the vessels were much higher than the Markab, so Emma and Herbie climbed into the cabin, hiding while the ships passed nearby.

  They could make out the bowsprits—all three were shaped like crows. The name Nero Kraz was painted on the escutcheon of the nearest ship. It was a stout craft, lying heavy in the water, its hull painted pitch. Above that were two sets of black sails, their edges fringed like feathers.

  Flocks of crows were flying everywhere. They were large black birds with bright-red eyes. A dozen or more of them were circling the masts. Others were perched on the rigging, but most were situated on the deck, clumped like hungry beetles around the masts. Their shrieks filled the air with ghostly cries.

  “Do you think they’ll see us?” Herbie whispered.

  Emma didn’t reply; her heart was thumping so furiously in her throat. If the sailors on those ships had a way to detect the Pyxis’s signal, it would take no time at all for them to realize exactly where it was. She peeked down her collar.

  “Is it out?” Herbie whispered.

  “Yes,” she said, slumping in relief.

  It only took a few minutes for the ships to pass.

  “They’re heading for Earth,” Herbie said.

  “I hope the navy nukes their asses.”

  “We could follow them,” he said. “They’ll probably open a bridge back to Earth.”

  “Are you crazy? What if they catch us?”

  “Oh, come on,” Herbie said. “You just don’t want to go back. Don’t you at least want to see what the Coast Guard does when three huge galleons appear out of nowhere?”

  “I’ve got to find my parents,” she replied. “And they’re in space. This bridge is the only way to get to Draco.”

  He sighed. “Okay. But wait—we might need to eat those meteorites again to go through this bridge. I mean, we should do it just to be safe.”

  “Yeah, you’re right.”

  “But we’ve only got two left,” he pointed out. “Which means if we go through this bridge, we’ll be stuck on Alpha Delphini.”

  “No. I’m sure we can find a way to get more meteorites while we’re there.” At this, Herbie scoffed.

  Once the ships were out of sight, she leapt up and grabbed the last two meteorites.

  “We can’t stay here forever,” she said. “And we’ve got to get through the bridge before it closes.”

  “My mom is going to kill me.”

  They hurried topside. Emma switched on the engine and steered them away from the graveyard.

  Once they were clear of the other boats, they each ate their stone and watched as the coat materialized over their bodies. Satisfied that the strange substance was working, Emma killed the engine, Herbie set the sails, and the wind pushed them quietly into the current that led to the bridge.

  Going through the jelly bridge was less difficult this time. Once again Emma felt herself falling into blackness. A moment of silence went by, and she couldn’t feel anything. She thought she’d let go of the Markab’s wheel and that she was falling down the same deep, dark well, but with a jolt she was back on the water, Herbie standing safely beside her. For all they knew, it might have been a trick of the mind, this passing from outer space to a planet.

  They were not in space anymore. They were on a planet bursting with orange-golden sunlight. A buoy announced that they were entering Porta Amphitrite, and a brilliant blue sea shimmered all around them. In the distance were land and a large harbor crowded with ships. A small village lined the coastline, its dockside houses tall, colorful, and ornamented with richly carved facades.

  They gaped at the ships that were passing by—great squat catamarans and slender, brightly rigged ketches. A massive wooden caravel was sailing out of the harbor. It was painted blue, its crisp white sails neatly rolled up. On the ship’s bowsprit, the figure of a woman was painted to resemble Virgo in her white peasant dress and bare feet. She was holding an ear of wheat. As the ship drew closer, they saw merchants on board.

  Herbie shook his head. “We are out of meteorites, we have a hole in the hull because we’re taking in more water than we should, and now we’re entering Mos Eisley.”

  Emma gave a shriek of delight as one of the ships in the harbor before them rose up into the air. “Look!” Two great masts on its sides were spread open like wings, pumping steadily as the small ship gained altitude.

  “How are they—what the—is that even possible?” Herbie gaped.

  A huge grin spread ac
ross Emma’s face. “Herbie, we are on ANOTHER PLANET!” She punched his arm gleefully. “Can you believe this?” He was still gawking at the flying ship, so she grabbed his shoulders, shook them, and said, “Duuuuuuuude! Herbie! We’re in outer space!”

  “Yeah,” he said, letting himself smile. “That is pretty cool. Look at that one!”

  Emma turned just in time to see the tail end of a ship slipping under the water. It seemed to be covered in iridescent scales.

  “So many ships…,” Herbie said.

  “Every constellation must have its own,” she said excitedly. “Look!” She pointed to a large ketch made of sleek black wood. Its bow was pointed like a pair of joined pincers, and its mainmast curled upward like an insect tail.

  “Scorpio,” Herbie said.

  “No, Cancer,” she said.

  “But then it should have more masts, only that wouldn’t be practical…”

  They continued chattering as Emma navigated through the traffic that was swelling around them. It seemed not to matter where they docked the ship, so Emma chose a small pier at the farthest end of the harbor and pulled the Markab into an empty slot.

  They tied the yacht to the pier. Making sure the cabin was locked, they grabbed their things, climbed onto the pier, and looked around.

  Emma’s first impression was that a zoo had docked there. Two sloops that appeared to be from Aries were unloading herds of goats and flocks of sheep, and the animals’ bleating competed with the frustrated cawing of toucans in cages. From another set of cages, dogs—from Canis Major?—were letting out an energetic yelping of their own, confronted with a skulk of foxes. (“Vulpecula,” Herbie whispered. “There’s only one fox constellation.”) All the foxes were tied to leashes and being led down the pier by a thin, nervous-looking merchant in spectacles. The occasional shadow fluttering in the water below appeared to be a school of dolphins.

  Emma and Herbie picked their way through the creature crowd, stopping only once to avoid two burly men who were chasing a runaway hare. (“Lepus!” Herbie said.) From all sides came the calls of eager buyers—“Ho, sir! You there! Is that your ship?” and “Sell me the little craft and I’ll make you the king of Indus!”