‘We look to be almost there.’ After a brief look, the Kuhlian climbed up and out effortlessly and Hayden was impressed that a 95 year old Kuhlian could do such a thing. Feebru lowered his wiry arm down to Hayden who after latching on, was pulled swiftly upward and out so that both of them were crouched on the roof.
‘I will check on the floor above us,’ Feebru explained as he quickly climbed toward the door half a level above them and almost to the top of the shaft before pulling himself up onto a small ledge at its base. He pushed outwardly on the join between the doors to no avail. They were shut tight. Returning down, they both stood on the capsule’s roof.
‘What about a level higher or lower?’ Hayden asked.
‘That was the last level available to us from this shaft, Highness. We can try those lower.’
Hayden noticed that the shaft was metallic and the capsule travelled on a wide track like a vertical monorail. He also noted that where the capsule met the track was a gap of around a half metre.
‘Do you think we can get through that?’
Feebru didn’t answer, the slim Kuhlian immediately started to lower himself down the side.
‘Take hold of the framework,’ he directed as he clung to the frame of the elevator shaft and Hayden climbed in over the top of him.
‘How high up do you think we are?’ Hayden asked, trying to see past his friend and to the ground.
‘It is most hard to tell in the dark, Highness.’
‘A power failure?’ Hayden asked as he squeezed past the bottom of the elevator and was greeted with a cool blast of air.
‘I do not think so?’ Feebru replied from the darkness just below. ‘There is some light coming through the doors above.’
*
The darkness ensured they moved very slowly downward. They had checked several doors during their descent to no avail and Hayden’s fingers ached as never before from clinging to the hard edge of the framework. He was about to ask Feebru again how many floors they had to go when they both heard a high pitched creak from the darkness above them.
‘We should move faster!’ Hayden suggested with some panic as he imagined the bulk of steel above them giving way and plummeting downward. Feebru did not disagree.
They remained as quiet as possible but for their exhaustive breathing during their marginally quicker descent, listening for the slightest change above them as they felt for the ladder-like framework below them. After several minutes had passed, they heard a loud metallic yawn above and both knew that there was no time to waste. ‘Jump!’ Hayden cried.
Thankfully it took only a few seconds for them to hit the hard bottom of the shaft and much to their combined relief, were both seemingly unhurt. Hayden, lying on his right side, saw the vaguely lit outline of a square in the wall beside him so he kicked at it hard with the heel of his left boot and a metal trapdoor flew outward and much welcomed light immediately flooded in. Feebru hastily pushed his young charge out through the small exit with little room or time to spare before struggling to pull his own long frame through feet first, watching in fear as the elevator screamed downward toward him, its clamp dragging and sparking violently on the rail before crushing itself on the shaft floor with deafening impact just after he’d been pulled clear by Hayden.
‘Well,’ Hayden puffed as the echoing din dissipated. ‘That was, close.’
Feebru smiled with intense relief then closed his eyes and thanked The Powers for sparing Hayden’s life and then he thanked Hayden for saving his. ‘We are near to the dock,’ he said in a confused tone as he rose to his feet, brushing dust and dirt from his clothing.
The Kuhlian was concerned that there was no one around when there should have been.
‘Where to now?’ Hayden asked, anxious to get moving.
‘We will acquire some airpads and then we must find the girl.’
‘You mentioned those before. What are they?’
‘Personal craft. They will allow us to traverse the rough forest terrain in a more efficient manner.’
‘Feebru?’ Hayden asked nervously, ‘You don’t think all of that was an attempt on my life?’
‘I cannot tell you for certain if that was the case.’
‘So it could’ve been?’
The Kuhlian’s ensuing silence had answered Hayden’s question.
Feebru quickly moved in a southerly direction away from the elevator shaft. They were in a sub-level and it was like most of the places Hayden had found himself, sparsely lit. Feebru led confidently through stacks of banged up well travelled green metallic crates with yellow marks on them.
‘What’s all this stuff?’ Hayden asked of them.
‘I am not sure, Highness?’
Hayden stopped. ‘Feebru.’
‘Yes, Highness?’ Feebru said having stopped also.
‘You don’t have to call me that, you know.’
‘Highness?’
‘That.’ Hayden had by now really had enough of that title and was most determined for Feebru to stop calling him by it. It just was not him. He focused his attention back to the piles of boxes they stood amongst. ‘If I’m not mistaken, these look like the type of crates that the military uses on Earth.’
Feebru stopped and touched one nearest to him, looked it over very carefully then shook his head slowly. ‘I do not think these are military ordnance Highness. Kuhl-Agev is strictly neutral in the war. As such it would be illegal for us to store any foreign type in any storage facility anywhere on this planet.’
‘War?’
Feebru looked at Hayden then edged away from him slightly, realising that he’d revealed something he shouldn’t.
‘Feebru. What war are you talking about?’
The Kuhlian edged further away still and looked very uncomfortable.
‘Nothing, Highness.’
‘You can’t just say that and expect me not ask!’
‘You have not been told Highness - by anyone?’
‘Kel mentioned something about Cronies or something fighting against you a long time ago but - Feebru, what war?’
There was an uncomfortable silence before the Kuhlian spoke. ‘She talked of the Rone.’
‘Yeah, that’s them. You beat them off a long time ago right?
‘The battle with the Rone was long ago, won by us and our allies but there is still war in other parts of the Galaxy.’
‘Where?’ Hayden asked, butterflies in his stomach. Feebru looked at the young prince and wondered whether or not he should be the one to teach him of such things. In a short time Hayden would be back on The Copernicus and in the relative safety of his own people. They could enlighten him and the onus would be on them.
‘Feebru?’ Hayden pressed, feeling more anxious by the second. After a few moments and a realisation that Hayden would not allow the question to pass, he looked him in the eyes.
‘Everywhere but here, Highness.’
It felt as if Hayden had walked headlong into a concrete wall.
It was a stunning revelation. A galactic war☐ It was one thing to have war on one planet but war that was everywhere.
Feebru again lowered his head solemnly.
‘Who is this war being fought against?’
Feebru didn’t look up until Hayden repeated the question.
‘With the Sepian race and others.’
‘It doesn’t surprise me that Sepians could be an enemy in a war but who are these others?’
The Kuhlian looked into Hayden’s eyes again and with certain anguish told Hayden that he couldn’t tell.
‘I’m messed up in a war and I take it Kuhl-Agev is the intergalactic version of Switzerland?’
‘Switzer-’
‘Well, I hope you can fight like them if the time comes?’
‘Fight? Yes, the Kuhlian army is great and has been for generations.’
Hayden solemnly remembered the flags of Tika then scanned the crates surrounding them and looked futilely around for Kel. ‘These others, you can’t tell me who or you wo
n’t tell me?’
‘I cannot Highness, as no one knows with whom or what the Sepians have tied their allegiance?’
‘The Sepian they call Kurul is behind this?’ Hayden asked further but Feebru pointed to a corner of the storeroom, changing the subject.
‘That is the way out master.’
The term disgusted his so-called master.
‘Feebru, if you call me that again -’ Hayden raised his fist in faux threat.
‘I will call you then just - Highness?’
‘I’d really like for you to call me Hayden.’
‘I cannot.’
There was no time for questions now. They needed to find Kel before they had to leave Kuhl-Agev but that was if she could be found or even wanted to be found. He remembered the look on her face when he’d last seen her and it wasn’t pleasant. Hayden asked Feebru to lead on. The lanky Kuhlian began to work his way between the stacked boxes and Hayden followed behind closely. Just ahead, Hayden could see where they were headed. It was a small corridor and it was bathed in an incredible green light.
The forest.
They made their way inside a large loading bay where the air was even fresher and considerably more fragrant. The bay was filled with the same types of boxes as in the warehouse and were all placed in neat rows. Hayden could tell that Feebru was perplexed by their existence. It was on the far side that Hayden could see the wide dock open out onto the impossibly giant brown trunks of the forest. He’d barely begun to take in the incredible view when a burly Kuhlian guard appeared at the edge of the dock and both he and Feebru ducked behind a stack of crates just before he looked in their direction.
‘What’s wrong?’ Hayden whispered.
‘I do not know.’ He scratched the side of his face nervously. ‘It feels wrong me being here without permission from the grand chancellor.’
‘Do you have to do everything with permission?’
‘I am but a servant, Highness. Your servant, and that is all I have trained to be.’
Hayden loathed the term servant and despised the fact that he supposedly had one. ‘You’re trained only to serve me?’
Feebru nodded and Hayden did not like or understand that at all.
‘So you’re 95 Kuhlian years old and all that time you’ve been waiting to serve me?’
‘Yes, Highness.’ The Kuhlian lifted his head carefully over the stack of crates they hid behind to see if the guard had moved on. He had, so they moved very carefully to the dock’s edge where there was something inside a large metal frame that Feebru was interested in. Looking outside the dock, Hayden had become mesmerised by the immensity of the view before him .. a massive green and brown tapestry courtesy of nature’s power. Nature that he now knew for certain was spread widely to countless planets. The forest was breathtaking and it drew him closer.
The patrolling guard had definitely moved out of the dock and seeing that it was clear, Hayden stood, checked about again, crept closer to several larger crates then edged around them until he arrived at the dock’s edge and his Kuhlian friend.
The forest floor was covered in vegetation engorged with the detritus of generations that had grown before. Huge tree ferns with massive green fronds hugged the trunks of the giants as sapphire coloured sparrow-sized birds twirled and darted through the air like electric acrobats chasing small clouds of insects, their long tapered tail feathers appearing like the remnants of light from a dashed torch in the night. Hayden could see several relatives of the Jerp he had eaten the previous evening alive and well and foraging for food along a large rotten tree branch and he felt a little guilty as he watched them as they were quite cute in a way. The forest of Kuhl-Agev was the first truly alien landscape he’d seen and he was completely in awe of it. The view was so wondrously beautiful he almost forgot why he was actually there but Feebru jolted him back to reality when he appeared before him with two elliptical copper coloured metallic platforms. The platforms had two chrome-like motorbike-like handlebars emerging gracefully from a slightly taller than waist height single brassy pole. Hayden new exactly what they were as they hovered almost silently but for gentle humming approximately 200mm above the wooden floor of the dock.
‘Airpads,’ Feebru said as he stood into two foot-shaped indentations on the platform. Hayden walked around and without hesitation, jumped onto his vehicle and was surprised when his feet sunk into what he thought was a solid black material but was in fact a gel that tightly embraced his boots.
‘Like the seats on the shuttle, right?’
‘Yes, Highness,’ Feebru acknowledged. ‘An elastic compound that is attracted to heat.’
At that moment, Hayden imagined Feebru was Mr. Rankin and he liked it. He liked Feebru a lot.
‘There are six pads kept in each frame. I counted only five.’
‘So Kel’s on one ,too?’
‘And she could be very far away by now so we must hurry as this forest is very dangerous at times.’
Unsettled, Hayden noticed that Feebru didn’t say that the forest could be dangerous but that it was dangerous.
‘How do we ride them?’ Hayden asked while he moved his feet in and out of the gel alternatively, noticing that if he applied greater force with their extraction they wouldn’t budge but would if he withdrew them more gently as if pulling on a seatbelt.
‘How would you like to?’ Feebru answered strangely while looking about for any more guards. He leaned forward and unexpectedly, to Hayden, took off rapidly, weaving through the last few stacks of crates only to disappear over the edge of the dock.
Hayden squinted his eyes and held his breath, listening for a crash or a scream or both, only to see Feebru thankfully reappear after several seconds quite in one piece a fair distance away among the giant roots of one of the massive trees. The Kuhlian then spun his airpad around and looked back in Hayden’s direction waving his long arms for him to follow.
How would I like to? Hayden thought as he rested against the handlebars and the airpad lurched forward. He pulled back rapidly and instantaneously the airpad bucked upward but stopped.
Got it! After aligning himself with the handlebars, he shifted his weight very slightly from left to right. The platform followed his commands precisely. The harder he shifted weight the steeper he banked. It was an amazing piece of equipment. When he felt ready, he gingerly pressed forward. Advancing at a snail’s pace, he pushed more firmly and in turn the vehicle sped up so fast that one of the stacks of crates that Feebru had expertly avoided loomed up before him. Hayden pulled back on the bars too forcefully and the pad flipped backward entirely, his head narrowly missing the hard floor. With no influence from himself, the airpad immediately righted itself and Hayden was left hovering and reminding himself not to pull back so hard.
Inspecting the handlebars, he noticed in the middle that a thin round disc contained a screen with four symbols arranged evenly around it that were unrecognisable to him but for a blue D with three lines coming from its left side. He pressed it and instantly an incredibly bright round patch of light illuminated a crate in front of him. He pressed again and it disappeared.
‘Hah!’ he cried. ‘The intergalactic symbol for headlights.’
The other symbols obviously meant something but Feebru had either forgotten or thought it not necessary to tell him about any of them. In the small round screen in the very centre, he’d noticed little bright symbols that changed as he moved slowly forward - the speedometer, he thought, wondering just how fast an airpad could go. Tentatively he pushed forward again, and then applied the brakes that extended from the hand grips like on a bike. He heard a powerful hiss and the platform stopped instantaneously as if it were a magnet thrown onto a refrigerator door. Looking at his machine in a bid to determine just how the brakes worked, he surmised the hissing must have been a powerful jet of air. How it worked, he didn’t know as there seemed no room for any workings in the rather thin disc-like fuselage and he made a mental note that it was something he’d ask about later. Hay
den looked out at where Feebru had been but lost him for a moment until he saw him hovering under some large ferns, his dark clothing camouflaging him very well. Had Hayden not known the Kuhlian was in that vicinity he certainly would have missed him entirely meaning, thankfully, that if the guard returned he most probably would, too. Pressing forward again, although more gently, Hayden maneuvered swiftly through the crates to the dock edge and looked down. It was higher than he’d imagined. About six metres. If Feebru had done it with no reservations, then so could he. The little craft should take the fall - he hoped. He gathered his nerve and reversed carefully, appreciating again just how effortlessly his new ride heeded his commands.
Just how I’d want it to move.
He pressed forward a third time, wanting to close his eyes to the drop a few metres in front of him, but didn’t.
Approaching the edge ever so carefully, he moved abruptly forward with one swift push and dropped over. In a split second he was safely below the dock and hovering just above the moist, mossy forest floor between the humungous roots of the gigantic host tree. He could see Feebru still waiting for him amidst the ferns. Waving that he was alright, Hayden started toward his friend.
He couldn’t get over the fact the control method of the airpad was stunningly simple and effective. The harder he pushed, the faster it moved forward or back. If he shifted his weight quickly then the craft would turn quickly. It was a marvelous invention. A floating Segway, he concluded, referring to the similar type of personal vehicle from Earth, except for the hovering bit anyway. Hayden looked back and marveled at the fantastically immense tree from which they’d come. Unbelievable.
Feebru watched as Hayden smoothly negotiated obstacles to quickly join him under the ferns.
‘Where should we start? ’ Hayden immediately asked on arrival.
Feebru pointed to the furry trunk of a huge tree fern quite a long way from them, its long fronds spreading like a giant green umbrella.
‘We travel through there.’
Hayden looked to what his friend was referring but it took him a while to see the path beyond it that disappeared into the botanist’s paradise. The three suns almost directly overhead, their rays filtered through the forest canopy many hundreds of feet above, dappled them in light which further broke up their silhouettes. Hayden would have enjoyed the beauty more had there not been an urgency to find Kel.
The Blake Equation- Discovery Page 22