Side Trip

by Renee Duke

  Obruk was an absolute ruler, and did not have to allow Cholar’s entry into the Association even if all his council desired it. Upon his demise late last year, the throne passed to his nephew, and chosen successor, High Prince Taziol. The High Prince didn’t want Cholar in the Association either, but was open to establishing better relations. Allowing his royal treasures to be exhibited on an AUP-member world was, AUP believed, an encouraging sign, as was his willingness to open the exhibit personally.

  Cholar’s Hereditary Keepers of the Royal Treasures were coming to help guard the treasures, but the exhibit itself was the responsibility of AUP and the Exhibition Hall’s own staff. That made Mr. XanChiv a very busy man. We rarely saw him as we went about our inventory work, which we finished around noon the day before the treasures were due to arrive. Aware that our occupancy of a small back room on the museum’s uppermost floor was contingent on our being employed there, our supervisor told us we could stay on to sell souvenirs once the Cholarian exhibit opened.

  Pleased, we decided to while away the afternoon in some underground caverns beneath Heltig. We went out by way of a long, narrow, gallery that was still open to the public but not much frequented.

  We had not gone very far along it when Kirsty, walking a little ahead of me as usual, stopped and turned around.

  “What was that you said?” she asked.

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  “I heard you. You said. ‘Psst’ or something.”

  “I would never say ‘Psst’. ‘Psst’ isn’t even a word.”

  “Well, word or not, someone said it.”

  I sighed, certain it was only Kirsty’s ever-active imagination at work. But as I drew level with her, I, too, heard a distinct ‘Psst’.

  “I heard something that time,” I admitted. “It could be some sort of light or heating system malfunction.”

  We started forward, stopping again when a young female voice called out urgently in Galacto.

  “Wait,” it said.

  Kirsty and I looked at one another uncertainly.

  “Who said that?” I whispered, also in Galacto.

  “I did,” the voice replied.

  “I’m afraid that doesn’t help much. Who, or what, are you?”

  “I am a Vorlan.”

  That piece of information didn’t help much either. Vorla was only a conditional AUP-member planet. Little was known about its inhabitants; mostly because they were such infuriatingly vague individuals that, by the time they got around to saying something, people were no longer interested. This one was no exception.

  “We…uh…we weren’t aware Vorlans were invisible,” I said.

  “We are not.”

  “Well, you’re not visible to us.” When this brought no response, I asked her if she was in another room talking to us through the wall.

  “No.”

  “Then where are you?”

  “In an inter-dimensional corridor.”

  Kirsty and I looked at one another again and waited for the Vorlan to elaborate.

  She didn’t.

  “And…?” I coaxed.

  “I am stuck.”

  “Stuck?”

  “Yes. I want to be on the same plane you are on, but I cannot get to it.”

  “Why not?” Kirsty demanded. “Why can you not come back from wherever it is you are the same way you got there?”

  It took awhile, but we eventually grasped that there are several dimensions to every world, and Vorlans travel through them all the time. This Vorlan had gone into one early in the morning and run afoul of a device some security people were using to run checks on their systems. The device apparently produced vibrations that interfered with her attempts to return to the planet’s initial, or dominant, plane. She was actually stuck in a corridor between dimensions, and had not even been able to move along it to ask for help in a busier section of the building. Aside from a Bithian family that had fled upon hearing a voice out of nowhere, we were the only people to have come through the gallery all of that day.

  “How can we help?” I asked. “Do you want us to ask Security to down tools long enough for you to transfer to this plane?”

  “No.” The Vorlan sounded miserable. “I am too confused for that now.”

  “What do you want us to do then?”

  “Find my father.”

  “Can he get you back to this plane?”

  “Yes.”

  “Och, good,” said Kirsty, brightening. “And where might he be?”

  I half expected the Vorlan to say he was in another dimension too, but further questioning revealed that he was an archeologist supervising a dig somewhere on the outskirts of Heltig. The Vorlan wanted us to go out to the dig site and bring him to her.

  “All right,” I said. “What’s his name?”

  No response.

  I tried again. “His name. You know—what people call him. My name’s Meda. It’s really Andromeda, but everyone calls me Meda.”

  “And I’m Kirsty,” Kirsty added. “So, what name should we be asking for if we’re to locate your father?”

  “Professor Ginthalogizarimus Vor-Zoag.”

  “Merciful heavens,” said Kirsty.

  “What’s your name?” I asked, thinking it might be less of a mouthful.

  “Jipthidovrillavorimvaisse.”

  If we had known exactly where she was, we would have stared at her in horror.

  “Aye, well, I think we’ll just be calling you ‘Jip’ or something,” said Kirsty.

  “All right,” the Vorlan said agreeably. She was, we were to find, a very agreeable person. Most Vorlans are. The AUP Directorate has never been able to understand its recruiters’ inability to talk Vorla into anything but conditional membership.

  We knew asking Jip for directions to the Vorlan excavations would probably take all afternoon, so we procured them from a museum worker. A travel tube took us to the outskirts of the city. From there we went out into the dry scrubland surrounding Heltig and scanned it for signs of archeological activity. After trudging along a series of steep embankments for about half an hour, we finally spotted the portable buildings and digging equipment we’d been looking for.

  Descending slowly along a lower embankment, we came upon a small pit where two Vorlans, a man and a woman, were on their hands and knees carefully brushing dirt around. We called down to them, but received no reply.

  Undaunted, we increased the volume of our greeting. This time the man looked up and emitted a disgruntled, “Umm?”

  “Are you Professor Vor-Zoag?” I asked.

  “Who?”

  “Professor Vor-Zoag.”

  “No.” The man went back to his work.

  “Do you know where he is?” I asked. There was no answer. Refusing to be put off, I repeated the question at intervals. Eventually the man looked up again. With an air of persecution, he mumbled something about storage tents. We wandered around the camp asking everyone we met the way to these storage tents but, as I’ve said, Vorlans are a somewhat vague people. And these Vorlans were archeologists, intent on their dig. It was impossible to hold their attention long enough to learn the location of either the storage tents or Professor Vor-Zoag.

  We were about to give up when we happened upon a slightly built man with a substantial amount of the sparkly, dark silver hair Vorlans of all ages are noted for. He was sitting at a camp table outside some tents putting an identification code on a fat, grubby, pot.

  I decided to give it one last shot.

  “Professor Vor-Zoag?” I inquired.

  The Vorlan slowly turned his eyes toward us. “Yes?”

  “Are you Professor Vor-Zoag?”

  The Vorlan nodded. When he put the pot aside and reached for another artifact, I realized he was under the impression that he had told us all we wanted to know. “We’ve come about your daughter,” I said, hurrying forward before he could become engrossed in his work again.

  The Vorlan looked blank. “Daughter?”

 
“Aye, your daughter,” said Kirsty. “Jipthid-something-or-other. She’s caught between dimensions in a gallery at the Imperial Exhibition Hall. She says she canna free herself withoot your help.”

  “Oh.” Professor Vor-Zoag sat there for a moment, trying to recall the kid. Then he stood up and said he’d go with us. We climbed into a land skimmer and set off for the Imperial Exhibition Hall. Except for a few scarcely audible phrases in Vorlan, pertaining, I would imagine, to the work he was neglecting, Professor Vor-Zoag did not say anything the entire trip. Upon arrival, he parked the skimmer in the nearest stall and followed us into the gallery.

  “She’s in here somewheres,” Kirsty told him, waving her arms about expansively.

  Professor Vor-Zoag spoke his daughter’s name (all of it). Upon receiving her reply, he closed his eyes, let his arms drop to his sides, and stood absolutely still. Then, without warning, he suddenly moved forward and disappeared! We later learned that once Vorlans have tuned into the co-ordinates of the dimension they want to enter, and made the mental and physical adjustments necessary to exist there, they can slip into that dimension as easily as those of us restricted to one plane walk into another room. It is only in the connecting corridor between dimensions that they are subject to the influences from all dimensions. Vibrations such as those that had brought about Jip’s difficulties are an infrequent form of interference, and usually only affect the young and inexperienced.

  A Vorlan’s withdrawal from the plane you’re on can be a little alarming the first time you see it. Kirsty and I were still recovering from the experience when Professor Vor-Zoag popped up beside us with a girl about our own age. Her pinned-up hair wasn’t as thick as her father’s, but had more sparkles. A small, whimsical mouth and a pair of puzzled purple eyes gave her face a somewhat dazed, but nonetheless attractive appearance.

  “I take it you’re Jip?” I said.

  The girl smiled, and bowed in acknowledgement. “Thank you for your help. Daddy might not have thought to look for me here.”

  Personally, I doubted whether Daddy would have thought to look for her at all. If, after a week or so, he happened to remember he had a daughter, and realized he had not seen her around lately, he would probably just have assumed she was at home, or in school, or some other conventional place. As it was, he gave us a brief nod and returned to his land skimmer by way of a dimension that enabled him to cover the distance faster than walking on the initial plane. He had not used the skimmer just to accommodate us, though. Vorlans can only sustain themselves in high-speed dimensions for short periods of time.

  Grateful for our help, Jip invited us to her house for supper. We asked her about herself as the travel tube glided along. Though it was slow going, we managed to learn that her parents were archeologists in charge of digs being financed by a university. Her father’s team had been on Heltiga almost a month working on a native Heltigan religious site. The site was similar to one her mother’s team was excavating on another planet, and the possibility of finding connections between the two was apparently causing great excitement in archeological circles.

  Jip’s younger brother was with their mother’s team. Her decision to accompany her father had been influenced by the Cholarian treasure exhibit. She had gone into the gallery earlier because it was the closest point to the central display rooms to which the public had access. She thought she might be able to watch some of the final preparations for the exhibit from there. Upon finding she couldn’t, she entered a dimensional corridor and tried to get up to a balcony above the central display rooms. Had she not encountered difficulties, this would have allowed her to look down on that section of the museum without actually entering it. It was, after all, off limits, and according to something called the Vorlan Code of Honour, she could not use her abilities to sneak into restricted areas.

  Jip had visited most of the other places of interest in the capital city and now only had the treasures to look forward to. Once she’d seen them, she expected to find Heltiga quite boring. Her father rarely socialized, and when he did, it was with the other archeologists, none of whom had teenagers. Heltiga’s curriculum was so different from Vorla’s, she couldn’t even go to school there. She had to study at home, on her own.

  When we told her what we were doing, she thought it was wonderful.

  “My parents would never let me travel around alone like that.”

  “Ours aren’t exactly letting us,” I admitted as we got out of the travel tube. “They don’t even know about it. They think we’re still with Mrs. Bromley.”

  Kirsty’s face suddenly took on a look I had learned to be wary of. “Aye,” she said, “and with a bit of luck, we could have your father thinking the same.”

  “What?’ said Jip, giving the same response I usually did to Kirsty’s schemes.

  “Well, he’s no way of knowing we’ve gave the auld besom the slip. We could imply we’re still with oor edu-tour group, and ask him to let you join it.”

  Jip looked interested. “Do you think he would?”

  I shrugged. “He’s a busy man. He must find it a nuisance having you underfoot all the time. He might welcome the chance to ship you off on a guided tour.”

  “It would not be right to mislead him.”

  “You’ve little choice,” Kirsty told her. “You said yourself he’d never let you go off withoot some sort of chaperone. And you would like to come with us, wouldn’t you?”

  “Yes. It just seems unfair. And what if he checks into what you say?”

  From what I’d seen of him, this seemed unlikely, but all I said was, “It’s worth a try. And it would help us out, too. If people come after us, they’ll be looking for two girls, not three.”

  Jip nodded thoughtfully. After that, it didn’t take long to convince her travelling with us could work to everyone’s advantage, even her father’s. By the time we got to the Vor-Zoags’ rented dwelling, she was all for the idea.

  The Vor-Zoags’ housekeeper was a kindly woman who evinced no displeasure at having two unexpected mouths to feed. She gave us a lovely supper before retiring to her own room to let us talk. Getting Jip to contribute to the conversation got less and less laborious as we went along, and we found her an intelligent and congenial companion.

  When Professor Vor-Zoag came in two hours later, he seemed unable to place us.

  “They brought you to help me today, Daddy,” Jip prompted. “Their names are Meda and Kirsty.”

  “Oh…yes.” He seated himself at the small table to which Jip steered him. While he ate supper (with an obvious lack of interest in this necessary function) we told him about Mrs. Bromley’s edu-tour group. Without divulging that it was now at least two planets away, we suggested he enroll Jip.

  Professor Vor-Zoag nodded his head and said, “Oh?” and, “Umm”, occasionally, but in the end, all he asked about was tuition fees and spending money. Kirsty said edu-tour companies never accepted fees until students had settled into the group and told him he’d be billed later on.

  For spending money, I suggested the same sum Kirsty and I had started out with.

  “When does this group go to another planet?” he asked, pushing aside his plate.

  “In a few days. We’ll view the Cholarian treasures and then go on to Jorthoa.”

  The professor looked at his daughter. “Would you like to go travelling with these new friends of yours, little one?” he asked, smiling indulgently.

  “Oh, yes, Daddy. Very much.”

  “Arrange it with this Mrs. Bromley then.” He gave her another smile and turned his attention to some charts he’d brought in with him.

  Chapter Four

  The Cholarian treasures arrived on schedule aboard the luxury cruiser Derridus. AUP had offered the High Prince of Cholar the use of its most comfortable interstellar VIP ship to make a tour of some AUP-member worlds. His three-day visit to Heltiga was almost the last stop on that tour.

  The treasures were transferred to the central display rooms without incident a
nd Prince Taziol opened the treasure exhibit with all due pomp and ceremony. Within an hour, Kirsty and I were run off our feet selling info-cards on the exhibit. Kirsty talked the marketing manager into hiring Jip to sell info-cards on the museum itself, and these were in high demand as well. So was the merchandise of other young vendors, who were peddling everything from flashing I Saw The Royal Treasures Of Cholar buttons to minutely detailed replicas of some of the treasures. The only time any of us got to wander around the exhibit was during work breaks.

  We made the most of every opportunity. The most valuable pieces in the exhibit were undoubtedly Queen Pundya’s crown and a magnificent solid oritin chariot. But the most interesting, and most important, treasure was the sacred Ring of Beom.

  According to one of our info-cards, Beom lived about nine centuries ago. At that time, Cholar was still made up of regions ruled by sovereigns who were constantly trying to annihilate each other and gain control of the whole planet, a state of affairs that once prevailed on many worlds. Beom was the oldest son of one of these sovereigns. Legend has it he was riding through the woods one day and happened upon an old woman being attacked by a pack of taiskels—small furry animals still native to Cholar today. Being possessed of long claws, sharp teeth, and vicious temperaments, the pack was definitely something to be reckoned with, but Beom didn’t hesitate. He leapt off his Cholarian equivalent of a horse and dispatched the little brutes with his sword, sustaining a large number of bites and scratches in the process.