by Jane Palmer
CHAPTER 13
‘What do you mean? You can’t get through?’ demanded Dax.
‘She keeps making barriers,’ Reniola protested. ‘I thought she would have wanted us to save her, but it wouldn’t surprise me if she had made the control malfunction in the first place.’
‘What would she want to do that for?’
‘Well, there must be some things even we don’t know.’
‘Moosevan is going to be saved whether she likes it or not,’ Dax said firmly. ‘Once we get through to the control equipment she’ll have no choice in the matter. Everything will be ruined if she isn’t.’
‘Doesn’t seem as though she’s going to speak to us either.’
‘Of all the planet dwellers the Mott could have chosen, they had to pick this one. We can’t wait around any more. Kulp is due to trigger the net soon.’
‘You are sure we can trust him?’ asked Reniola.
‘Now his latent conscience cells have been activated there’ll be no problem, even though he’s still learning to use them. In the Olmuke they had been artificially suppressed so if any of them did happen to have a good side to their nature they would never have known about it. Where is the accretion control anyway?’
‘A long way down. Couldn’t you think of more suitable bodies to get into than these?’
‘No. We need fingers and legs and a large enough brain to hold the information. Stop grousing, can’t you?’
‘I don’t like bodies,’ Reniola persisted, leading Dax to where she thought she had blasted an entrance into Moosevan’s crust. ‘They’re uncomfortable, need too much maintenance and can hurt if they don’t get it.’
‘You wanted that one,’ Dax reminded her.
‘Only because it looked more comfortable. Someone might have told us what to expect.’
‘Who would have known anything about the life here if the Torrans hadn’t broken the Jaulta Code? Who’d have thought anyone would have evolved enough to try?’
‘It’s going to be one heck of a job evacuating this galaxy when the time comes. We’ve got to find somewhere to put them, and all within a million years or so.’
‘Let’s finish this job first. We can worry about taking the Mott’s little toys from them after that.’ Dax stopped before the sheer wall of solid rock Reniola’s path led them to. ‘Now where’s the entrance?’
Reniola looked up at the barrier with a mixture of amazement and pique. ‘Moosevan has filled it in.’
‘That did occur to me.’ Dax drew a matchbox-sized instrument from behind one of her large furry ears. ‘If that’s her attitude she certainly won’t enjoy this very much.’
Reniola twitched her nose and flinched as a shaft of concentrated light hit the rock face. At first only slithers of its surface spun away to be filled in just as rapidly. Dax increased and localised the beam on one spot then began to bore a way through too rapidly for Moosevan to compensate.
Enough rock was boiled away for their luminous Torran eyes to look down into the abyss of a fault that had not been there on Reniola’s first journey. Being solid may have come in handy in some ways, but if either of them fell to the bottom of that, it would take too long to clamber back up.
‘Get ready to jump,’ Dax told Reniola, and sprang across the void before she had time to hear the inevitable complaint.
Reniola was far from keen, so Dax shouted, ‘You’ll have to do it! I can’t fix the control without you.’
Reniola pondered why, after so many years of existence, she hadn’t taken provision against such an eventuality as having to jump across an abyss in somebody else’s skin. Finding no adequate answer, she took a deep breath and launched her plump body after Dax – and missed. As her grip slithered away from the hold she had on the crumbling rock, she at last realised there was a use for that long furry tail she thought such a nuisance. Dax seized the swishing appendage and swung her up and out of the abyss to safety.
‘I thought Moosevan never entertained ideas of murder?’ Reniola retrieved her stretched tail from Dax’s grip.
‘She probably knows we can’t be killed. She’s pitting her strength against our wits.’
‘This is a very elaborate way to try and commit suicide, though. There must be more to it than that?’
‘Why not ask her?’
‘It’s easier blasting holes through rock than trying to get her to say something to us. I suppose as temporary mortals we should feel aggrieved by this uncooperative attitude?’
‘The only thing I feel at the moment is impending doom for this mission if we can’t get her to pass through the gate to her new body.’
Reniola scratched her muzzle. ‘Perhaps she doesn’t like the neighbourhood?’
‘The planet hasn’t even been assembled yet. That’s what you‘re down here to rectify.’
‘Once I’ve fixed that she can move it to wherever she wants, then do whatever she likes with it: add as many extras as she wants, like a multi-banked cloud system she could blow about a bit, or self-draining oceans - she doesn’t have that much water on this one - or even make an ice palace for that little creature she’s taken a fancy to.’
‘If she isn’t going to consult with us on the matter, it’s all irrelevant,’ Dax reminded her. ‘You might as well throw in half a dozen satellites she can juggle with for all the difference it’ll make.’ She hesitated. ‘What little creature she’s taken a fancy to?’
‘The one Kulp and his friends were going to operate on,’ Reniola told her impatiently.
‘Of course. She was quite upset when Kulp was going to throttle it.’
‘Nothing much could have come of it, though. The age difference would have been a bit on the uncomfortable side.’
‘Really... These planet dwellers live more from their recollections than direct experience, so she could keep him alive as a memory after he was dead.’
‘I suppose so. I only hope she remembers to put him back where he came from in time.’
‘Oh, she probably will,’ replied Dax. ‘It’s us she wants to be shot of - Look out!’
From somewhere in the high ceiling of the cavern a cascade of jagged stalactites rained down so rapidly on them they combed their fur.
Reniola took cover. ‘I can do without a fur trim.’
‘Don’t be daft. They can’t harm us.’
‘Then why make me jump like that?’ Reniola crawled from the cleft she had squeezed herself into.
‘Must be something to do with these mortal reflexes. I seem to have as much trouble with them as you do with your tail.’
‘Let’s turn into a couple of armour-plated shale crawlers. I they‘ve got nerves of pure diamond.’
‘They also have intellects lower than that of solid rock and we would probably spend the rest of that incarnation wondering what we were doing in here. Now stop moaning and come on.’
They reached the layers of rock Reniola was sure she had already blasted through. Dax vaporised their way through them until they detected the accretion control signal, only to discover a new addition to the planet’s defences.
Dax was bewildered. ‘Where are we?’
‘This was never here before,’ Reniola protested. ‘She surely couldn’t have done this in so short a time.’
‘She’s extremely determined if she did.’ Dax scratched her nose in uncharacteristic inelegance.
As far as they could see, a domed wall stretched away; it was made of the hardest crystals ever to grow. Dax couldn’t measure their depth. They were still growing as she watched: layer upon layer to encase the control equipment from their reach.
‘How long have we got now?’ asked Reniola, not doubting Dax’s ability to break through the barrier, but doubting that they had the time.
‘Not long.’ Dax reset her cutting beam. ‘Are you sure the control’s behind that?’
‘Positive.’
Without another word, Dax aimed the beam at the nearest cluster of crystals sparkling defiance at her. At first they seemed to grow again as fast as s
he vaporised them. Then without warning she switched her position and aimed her cutter at another spot. Not able to compensate in time, Moosevan gave her the chance to break through. Soon the disintegrating surface flowed past their feet in streams like hot syrup. The streams became rivulets. Their flow suddenly ceased as the beam penetrated the accretion control chamber which lit up as it recognised the entities that had installed it.
The massive chamber was more or less the same as it had been left many millions of years previously, and the machine to operate the linking of the planetoids still sat in its transparent cocoon like an idol on a plinth. It winked and twinkled with the rotating lights that had been alight since its construction.
Dax, not given to intuitive twinges, missed the obvious presence that Reniola immediately spotted.
There was someone standing in the shadow of the equipment. They weren’t close enough to be illuminated, and too far behind it to be seen clearly.
As soon as she realised someone was there, Dax stopped trying to break through the casing of the equipment.
Not knowing what to expect, and even a little put out by the fact that it had taken two intelligences like them so long to get so far, she called out, ‘Who’s there?’
The intruder didn’t understand what she had said, though was able to guess the gist of it, and walked into the light of the equipment. Dax and Reniola immediately realised that there was something else they should have taken into account.
Reniola asked the human in its own language, ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Delivering a message,’ said the woman carrying a pink handbag.
Dax recovered from her surprise. ‘Why like this?’
‘Moosevan is stubborn,’ Diana explained. ‘She insisted on doing things her way. It obviously didn’t work, so I’m here to make you understand it.’
Reniola was mystified as to why the human couldn’t have used less dramatic a means of delivering it. ‘Understand what?’
‘You must not activate the signal that will accrete the new planet. A major part of its mass is inside a world that has many life forms of its own.’
Dax sighed. ‘That’s all we need.’ Her knees buckled and deposited her narrow backside on the most convenient rock. ‘That’s why she didn’t want to go.’
‘It figures,’ agreed Reniola. ‘I’ll just run a test through the gate and check.’
‘It’s got to be the truth. If there wasn’t a planet there, where would she be getting her boyfriends and messengers from?’
‘I didn’t think of that.’ Reniola felt an embarrassed blush beneath her fur. ‘I wonder why it never occurred to us?’
‘Perhaps there’s no difference between knowing everything and seeing nothing. We’ll have to be more careful in future.’
‘So now what?’ asked Reniola. ‘Goodbye Moosevan?’
‘No,’ protested Dax. ‘There has to be a way out of this.’
‘Well, don’t take the one that blasts a hole in my planet,’ Diana warned, waving her handbag at them. ‘I would like to go back there when this party’s over.’
‘We’ll think of something’ Dax tried to reassure her, racking her Torran brain. ‘Only it will have to be quick.’
Reniola seemed to be spending an uncomfortable amount of time rummaging about in the ancient equipment, pulling out bits and pieces of this and that, and putting them back in a different order.
Intrigued and suspicious as to what she was up to, Diana demanded, ‘What’s your friend doing?’
‘She’s just checking things out. Moosevan’s been interfering with the equipment.’
‘As long as she doesn’t mend it,’ Diana threatened, though not quite sure what she was going to do about it if they decided not to listen to her.
‘Not much time now. Hadn’t you better be getting back?’
‘There’s little point in me getting back to where I came from if my planet is going to be blasted into small pieces across the solar system as soon as I arrive.’
‘It won’t be,’ protested Dax.
A deep shuddering pervaded the chamber.
‘What’s that?’ demanded Diana.
‘It’s started. Think of something!’ she called to Reniola.
‘Hope Kulp takes his time over it,’ Reniola said over her shoulder.
‘Kulp may be reformed,’ Dax reminded her, ‘That doesn’t mean it’s affected his efficiency.’ She turned to Diana. ‘How did you get here?’
‘I’m not telling you, and I’m not moving.’
‘Moosevan could only have brought you through the gate. What’s happening to the gate, Reniola?’ Dax demanded.
The shuddering increased. Rocks were dislodged and flung about.
‘All in good time, all in good time,’ Reniola said soothingly, as though oblivious of the beacons triggering their distorting web.
‘We don’t have time,’ Dax protested.
Reniola continued to calmly poke and probe about the equipment, totally immersed in what she was doing.
Aware that Diana didn’t have the same degree of indestructibility as them, Dax hustled her to the shelter of the plinth so she only underwent the minor risk of being struck by the bits and pieces Reniola was rearranging inside it. The shuddering grew, and larger rocks crashed to the floor of the chamber.
‘Assuming we ever think of anything that is liable to suit all of us, and the gate is still operating,’ Dax asked Diana, ‘where would you like us to drop you off?’
‘Assuming my planet isn’t blown to smithereens, I would prefer it to be somewhere on that.’
‘No, no, no. I meant, whereabouts on your planet?’
‘You mean I have a choice?’ Diana was amazed. Briefly she considered a trip to the French Riviera, then remembered she would never get back in time to make Julia’s tea when she returned from her cousin’s.
‘Oh yes,’ Dax assured her as she just managed to catch a small rock before it hit Diana. She handed it to her as a souvenir. ‘Moosevan could only have managed to take people from one particular point selected by the control equipment, but was able to put them down anywhere on her surface. Assuming the planet isn’t turned inside out before the equipment is mended, Reniola will make the system open-ended. It should have been wide enough to get Moosevan herself through.’
Diana was about to nod her head in counterfeit understanding, when Reniola sang out through the falling pieces of the chamber’s ceiling. ‘All ready now. Where does our friend want to go?’
‘What do you mean? All ready?’
‘While you two were jabbering on, I not only thought of a solution. I have adjusted the equipment to make it work.’ Reniola shrugged. ‘Don’t know if it will, of course, but whether it does or doesn’t, it’ll be easier than walking.’
Dax’s crimson eyes looked into Diana’s wide hazel ones. They both knew they had to accept Reniola’s solution. They could worry about what it was later.