For the Love of Gelo! (21 page)

One of them emerged from the scrum, holding the blaster. She flapped up on top of an empty coop, screeched once, and began firing wildly around the chamber. Someone hit her with a rock, and she went down.

I heard another deep rumble and saw the roof shift. “Please,” I cried, “the whole place is about to fall. . . .” No one could hear me.

A wild-eyed Aeaki was looming over me now. She'd picked up a heavy chunk of masonry, and she was ready to bash my brains in with it. Then, for some reason, she cocked her head at me and blinked.

I realized my skin had automatically camouflaged itself to the mottled gray of the concrete upon which I lay. The Aeaki looked up, surprised, just as a heavy blue paw swatted her out of the way.

Little Gus pulled me to my fel'grazes. Pizza stood beside him, hackles raised, snarling at the other prisoners.

The scene around us was pure chaos. Aeaki were fighting Aeaki. Dozens of them were piled on the floor, scrabbling after the blaster rifle. They would still be fighting each other when the station caved in, I realized.

“Stop it!” a voice cried. It was an Aeaki voice, loud and commanding. The other Aeaki turned to see the speaker, perhaps to challenge her authority. Those still locked in their coops quieted their wild screeching.

“Just stop!” the clear voice cried again. “Stop fighting among yourselves!” The chamber fell quiet. She had their attention now. I could finally see who was speaking. It was little Eyf. She was using a voice far bigger than herself.

“Why should we listen to you?” cried a tall Aeaki warrior with green and burgundy feathers. A cut above her eye was oozing blood. Apparently, she had won the blaster rifle, which she pointed at Eyf. “You're just a hatchling of the—the . . .”

“What clan is she?” cried someone else, ready to meet whatever answer with derision.

“What clan?” called others.

Eyf held out her wings for all to see. Plain white. “No clan,” she said.

A whisper ran through the crowd.

“I've answered a question. Now I'll ask one,” said Eyf. “Where are we?”

“In a Vorem prison,” someone cried.

“In a tomb!” shrieked another.

“In
your
tomb, you Yko traitor!” snapped a third.

“No,” said Eyf. “We are in Hykaro Roost. . . . So why are you fighting?”

The crowd grew uncomfortable now. None of the Aeaki wanted to answer her.

“The rule,” said Eyf, “practically the
only
rule we have left on Kyral, is that when we are here, we don't fight one another.”

“Now that the Vorem are back, all bets are off,” said someone. “It's the end of the world!”

More of the Aeaki cried out in rage and fear.

Eyf held out her wings for quiet. “Enough,” she said. “History is very, very, very long. Everybody attacked somebody. But at some point, instead of looking back all the time, we have to look forward. It's our only hope.”

“Hope?” shrieked the Aeaki warrior holding the blaster rifle. “The Vorem have burned all the hope. They left us with the ashes. There is no hope on Kyral.”

Eyf thought about this for a moment. “If we don't like what the Vorem ones are doing, there is only one thing we can do to try to stop them.”

“Oh?” demanded the one with the blaster rifle. “You know what we need to do? A child. You have it all figured out, do you? You can tell a warrior how to defeat the mighty Vorem?” A few others around the chamber laughed with derision.

“Yes,” said Eyf. “We have to work together.”

They were all quiet now.

“The Yko will never work with the Esu!” someone cried. But their voice sounded weak and unsure.

“How?” cried someone else.

“I'm not sure, exactly,” admitted Eyf. “But the Xotonians have figured out a way to work together. So have the humans. I think we can too. All I know is the first step.”

“What is it?” someone cried.

“Tell us!”

“Look around you,” said Eyf. “You see other Aeaki. Strangers—enemies, maybe. But you must imagine whomever you are looking at has the same color feathers as you do. Or that you have the same feathers as them. Or, if it makes it easier, imagine that both of your feathers are like mine, with no color at all.”

Some of them shook their heads in disbelief or anger. Others listened though. They glanced or stared right at one another. They cocked their heads, and their shiny little eyes glinted in the darkness.

“Imagine that we are all one clan,” said Eyf. “Aeaki.”

A few of them were nodding now. I couldn't believe it. They were heeding Eyf's words. After all the centuries of bloodshed, were they finally tired of killing each other?

“The legends say that Kyral was a very, very, very great place long ago,” said Eyf. “If we can forget the old grudges, forget who attacked whom and who robbed whose hunting traps, then maybe it could be great again.”

Just then, there was another rumble. A massive chunk dropped from the ceiling and crushed four coops flat. Thank Jalasu Jhuk all were empty. This set the prisoners panicking anew. Central Crossing swayed and wobbled.

“Now, does anyone know of a way out?” asked Eyf, her voice calm.

“That way!” I cried. I pointed to one of the walled-up arches. “It's a tunnel.”

Eyf looked at the arch, then she turned toward the Aeaki who held the Vorem blaster rifle. “You, with the energy blaster,” she said. “What is your name?”

“I am Tanihi of the Ati,” said the warrior proudly. Here was at least one Aeaki who wasn't ready to give up her clan yet.

Eyf looked back to the arch. “Well, Tanihi, my friend says we need to break through that wall to escape. Otherwise, all of us will die.”

Tanihi looked at the blaster she held. Then she looked at the two hundred Aeaki around her, their dusty feathers every color of the rainbow—some of them sworn enemies, no doubt.

She lowered the blaster rifle, and she fired. A blast knocked a chunk out of the center of the walled-up arch. I saw pure darkness behind it—a way out.

Carefully—stone by stone, so as not to destabilize the arch—we widened the hole until it was large enough for an Aeaki to fit through. Meanwhile, Little Gus and Becky worked to free the rest of the prisoners. With Pizza present, though, many of the Aeaki had to be coaxed out of their coops.

Recalling the subway map, I described the escape route to Ornim and Chayl. True Xotonians, they only needed to be told once. They took the lead, and one by one the Aeaki followed them through the hole and into darkness. Meanwhile, Central Crossing was falling to pieces around us. Eyf, the humans, and I waited until the last of the Aeaki were through. We were about to follow when I suddenly remembered.

“Wait,” I said, cursing myself. “There's still a Vorem guard locked in our cell. We can't just leave him there.”

“Really?” said Becky quietly. “He didn't seem like a great guy.”

“Yeah, dude,” said Little Gus. “Remember what happened
last time
you rescued a Vorem?”

“I know. I know,” I said with a sigh. “But I've thought about it a lot, and I can't really explain it, but . . . I
still
believe that saving Taius was the right thing to do. Even if he did turn out to be a lying—”

“Fine,” said Hollins, cutting me off. “But we better hurry.” A nearby wall shifted ominously.

Eyf and the humans followed me as we ran back to our coop. The Vorem was still inside, awake and pressed against the wire mesh. Hollins opened the gate, and the guard made a mad dash for the tunnel.

“Ugh. Didn't even say thank you!” said Becky.

“Vorem,” said Little Gus. “More like Vo-rude.”

“Just stop,” said Becky.

The Vorem disappeared through the hole in the archway just as an avalanche of rubble crashed down behind him, nearly crushing us. We were alive, but our way was completely blocked. Huge sections of the ceiling were landing all around us, spraying dirt and gravel into the air.

“There!” cried Hollins. A falling girder had punched a ragged hole in another one of the walled-up arches.

We ran for it and just managed to scramble through the opening as Central Crossing shuddered its last and collapsed.

T
he six of us walked through an ancient tunnel by the light of Nicki's flashlight. According to the map in my head, we were now on the purple line instead of the green line. This would mean an extra two turns before we could rejoin the original route with the others.

“Chorkle leading the rest of us around in the dark,” said Little Gus. “It sure brings back some memories, doesn't it, guys?”

The humans said that by the looks of the old machinery, these tunnels had formerly held some sort of train system. The air smelled of decay, and all around us, we heard the quiet scuttling sounds of vermin. Once, Pizza dashed off to chase whatever was scurrying in the darkness.

“Are you sure that beast is friendly?” asked Eyf once the thyss-cat was gone. “It has very, very, very pointy teeth.”

“Nah, Pizza's cool,” said Little Gus. “He's never eaten a friend. Just a couple of acquaintances.”

“Eleven is more than a couple,” said Becky with a grin.

Eyf chirped in fear until Nicki made them admit that it wasn't true. Eyf was almost calm when Pizza trotted back, licking his chops. He had apparently caught whatever he was chasing.

It was odd. After Eyf's speech, she had reverted to her same old bubbly, talkative self. I realized that she too was capable of so much more than we had imagined.

We followed the tunnel to another underground station, far smaller than Central Crossing.

“This way,” I said, leading us down an intersecting track.

“Hey, what's that?” asked Nicki. She was looking at a metal door, now mostly covered with rust.

“On my planet, we call it a door,” said Becky.

We'd passed dozens of others like it down here. The humans assumed they were for maintenance, back when the transit system was operational.

“No. Look,” said Nicki. And she cut off her flashlight, leaving us all in darkness.

You didn't need five Xotonian eyes to see what Nicki was talking about. There was a faint slice of light shining from beneath the door.

On the wall beside it, I noticed some graffiti scratched in chalk. It was so faded, it was almost impossible to see. But it looked like a crudely drawn eight-pointed star.

Hollins kicked at the door—which made a frightfully loud clang. He kicked again, and it swung open with a dry creak.

Inside was a short corridor leading to a second door. This one was made of steel and had no trace of rust on it. It looked thick, perhaps even sturdy enough to withstand a nuclear blast. On its surface was a subtle inlaid design—abstract but somehow similar to the Aeaki murals we had seen in Oru. Beside the door was a touchpad with each of the Xotonian letters on it. It bathed the small room in a soft blue glow.

“It looks like the Vorem ones never found this place when they plundered Kyral,” said Eyf with wonder.

“Azusu mentioned some sort of Aeaki resistance in Hykaro Roost when the Vorem invaded,” said Nicki. “Maybe this was one of their hideouts.”

I pulled on the door's big handle. Of course, it didn't open.

“Look,” said Hollins. On the floor in front of the door were four lines scrawled in the same chalk graffiti—all in Xotonian. “Of course, I can read it,” said Hollins, “but maybe, uh, you should translate it into human . . . you know, for Becky's sake.”

Becky snorted, but I did so anyway. In human-ese, it roughly translated to:

Found by the restless

Kept by the state

Made by its breakers

And valued too late.

“Huh,” said Hollins.

“They're song lyrics,” said Little Gus. “If we sing the song right, then the door will open. It's the ultimate karaoke challenge!”

The humans all stared at him. He shrugged.

“I think it's a riddle,” said Nicki. “And the solution is the password.”

“Then it's probably ‘Love,'” said Becky. “Fact: The answer to ninety-eight percent of all riddles is ‘Love.'”

“Love isn't kept by the state,” said Nicki quietly.

Still, it was worth a try. I punched the characters for the Xotonian word into the touchpad. The door didn't open.

“Well, the answer to the remaining two percent of riddles is ‘Time,'” offered Becky. “Give that a shot.”

I did. No luck. I also punched in “Sleep,” “Prisoners,” “Waves,” “Life,” “Pizza,” “Little Gus Is the Original King,” and about a dozen more suggestions from the humans. None of them unlocked the massive door.

“I hate to say it,” said Becky, “but we're kind of in a hurry here. . . .”

“No, please,” pleaded Eyf. “This is one small corner of the whole planet that was never broken. . . . I need to see what is behind that door. I need to know what we once were.”

The humans and I nodded to one another. If I was in her place, I would feel the same way.

“Okay, then, let's think about this out loud,” said Nicki, stroking her chin. “Whatever is locked away—if it's still there—is valuable. That's why this place is hidden down here. That's why the door is so thick. But assuming that the riddle is the answer to the pass code, they wanted someone to be able to open it.”

“Seems like a bad idea,” said Hollins. “What's to stop some Vorem from figuring the riddle out?”

“I guess the answer would need to be something no Vorem would think of,” I said.

We all stood in silence, bathed in the light of the touchpad, trying to think of an answer.

“I know what it is,” said Eyf. We all turned to look at her. Her eyes twinkled in the darkness.

“‘Peace,'” she said.

With the grinding of heavy tumblers, the door unlocked. It took both Hollins and Becky to pull it open.

Behind it was a bunker with reinforced metal walls. It was carpeted with several centimeters of dust.

“It was a command center,” said Nicki, shining her light around inside.

Indeed, it looked like whoever had occupied it last—hundreds of years ago, at least—was fighting a secret war. The walls were covered with maps of all scales: street maps of Hykaro Roost, topographical maps of Kyral, star maps of the cluster the planet occupied. Huge stacks of files—brittle and curling at the edges—filled the place. They had labels like “Tactical Vulnerability of Dominion on Kyral” and “Theory of Vorem Leadership Structure” and “League Assets on Danis IV.”

“I can't believe we made all this,” said Eyf. She was marveling at a simple piece of paper, something that the Aeaki of today were incapable of creating. “We were as advanced as the Vorem ones. Maybe even more!”

“What are these?” asked Little Gus. He was holding up a shiny purple metal bar. There were several stacks of them.

“Phanium to power starships,” said Eyf. “It's why the Vorem ones attacked.”

Scattered around the bunker were several computers and pieces of high-tech equipment, the purpose of which I could only guess. One such device was a screen with an articulated, spiraling cone projecting out of it.

Nicki gasped. “I can't believe it,” she said. She picked up a heavy book that was sitting beside the device and blew the dust off its cover. Then she showed it to us. In Xotonian, it read:
Operating Instructions for Tachyonic Ansible
.

“Huh. I prefer mystery novels, but okay,” said Becky.

“Guys, it's a tachyonic ansible,” said Nicki. We all stared back at her blankly.

“The Observers told me about them. I told you,” she said, a touch of exasperation in her voice. “They exploit the synchronicity of tachyons for instantaneous conveyance across astronomical distances. . . . Anybody?”

“Nerd,” said Little Gus.

“Fine, maybe. But bottom line,” said Nicki, “is that I think we can use this thing to call home.”

The other humans let out a simultaneous cry of joy, and much celebration ensued. Eyf learned what an Earth standard high five was. Finally, it seemed, we'd had a little bit of good luck. And it didn't stop there. In the back of the bunker, Hollins found a metal locker containing several energy blasters.

“They still work,” he said as he flicked the power switch on one and heard the high whine of electricity. He shoved a pistol in his belt. He offered a weapon to the rest of us as well.

Eyf refused. “I don't want to shoot anybody,” she said, shaking her little head. “Not even a Vorem one.”

I didn't either, really. But I took an energy blaster anyway. As Hollins distributed weapons to the other humans, I noticed that one of the maps on the wall was curling up at the edge. Instead of solid metal, I saw empty space behind it.

I peeled back the map to reveal a hole cut crudely into the wall of the bunker. Inside, there was a small lead box. Its lid bore a familiar inset: an eight-pointed star, just like the doors of the Vault and the hangar back on Gelo.

I slid the box—incredibly heavy—out of the wall and onto the floor with a dull clank. With great effort, Nicki and I managed to pull the lid off.

The object inside it was alien, yet instantly familiar. It was a technological device made of odd, iridescent metal. Instantly I knew: Whoever created the Q-sik had made this object too. Somehow, though, it looked like the opposite of the ancient superweapon to me. Or maybe the companion piece. I reached for it and—

Suddenly, Becky called out. “Hey, sis. I think I can beat your, uh, pachydermic runcible.” She was looking underneath a tarp that covered a big irregular shape in the corner.

“Tachyonic ansible,” corrected Nicki.

“Sure, whatever you say,” said Becky. “This is better.” She had all of our attention now. She waited, a huge grin on her face.

Finally, Hollins couldn't stand it any longer. “All right, enough showmanship, Becky. What's under there?”

“Instead of calling home,” said Becky, throwing the tarp aside with a flourish, “how about we just fly there?”

She revealed a second hyperdrive. This one showed none of the wear and tear of the one Ridian had extracted from the Midden. It looked to be in perfect working order, exactly to the specifications of the schematic we had studied every day for weeks.

“Wow,” said Nicki, going for it like I might a Feeney's Original. “We might be able to install it into one of the starfighters! Faster-than-light travel! It's been the dream of humanity for so long. And we have it. Right in front of us.”

She stroked the hyperdrive lovingly. I could almost see Pizza getting jealous.

“I mean, it could take years to figure out how to understand it. Maybe even decades. It's possible that we humans lack the ability to truly conceive of more than three or four dimensions, which might be necessary to utilize something like this. . . .” She trailed off when she noticed that we were all staring at her.

“Whatever,” she said. “This is awesome!”

The humans cheered and danced. Armed with her newfound knowledge, Eyf high-fived them all. Little Gus tried to kiss Becky on the cheek, but she ducked out of the way. Pizza rolled over on his back for a belly rub. I felt tears welling in my eyes.

I couldn't believe it. The humans finally had a chance, a real chance, at making it back to Earth. They would no longer be separated from their parents. I could finally put right my mistake and repay them for everything they had done for my fellow Xotonians and me.

“Why are you crying?” asked Nicki, noticing me.

“You're going home,” I said.

“Not yet,” said Hollins. “First we've got to save Kalac.”