Frek and the Elixir (34 page)

Frek breathed a sigh of relief. The fierce gatekeeper had been rendered harmless as a grub worm. And now the rampaging thicket of Aaron's Rod covered him over. Checking Gawrgor's blaster, Frek saw that it had a firing button just like on the gun he'd made.

“I've about got this thing doped out,” sang Gibby, circling around on the hoverdisk. He brought the little craft to a stuttering halt and hung crookedly a half meter above the floor, his head resting on the platform like a fried egg. “Git on it,” said Gibby with a grin. Filtered through the shaft of Aaron's Rod plants came the sound of Cawmb and Hawb roaring to each other. Making plans.

Renata helped Carb load Yessica aboard. Though Frek didn't much feel like saving her, it wasn't his place to say no. Frek and Wow hopped on as well. Feeling around with his strong, clever fingers, Gibby found a way to make the hoverdisk sound the three notes of a French horn. The great disk of the exit door irised open and they flew out.

Though the suns were down, Jumm was hanging huge and full in the sky, flooding the landscape with pale orange light.

Standing on the ground right outside the rickrack tree was Woo. Wow barked and squeaked while Gibby set the hoverdisk down. Woo sprang aboard, bringing their party to four people, one Grulloo, and two dogs. Frek's expanded mind shield was keeping the brane espers away from all of them.

“Woo lead you to Taz,” creaked Woo from the back of her throat. “Escape.” But then, rather than pointing the way for Gibby, she spent a minute licking and sniffing Wow—more time than Frek liked, for he could still hear Hawb and Cawmb's voices in the rickrack tree's highest tip.

Finally Woo raised her paw and aimed her nose toward the spaceport. Gibby diddled the hoverdisk control rod and they swept forward. But now something came swooping toward them from above. Hawb and Cawmb, borne upon great iridescent brown wings, membranes that seemed grown right from their own bodies. The two elder Unipuskers weren't alone; streaming behind them were legions of their children, gliding down like stinking bats, eerie in the luminous light of Jumm.

Carb fired off a few shots with their blaster. One of Carb's bolts must have singed Cawmb, for the Unipusker unleashed a cry of fury like nothing they'd heard before. Hawb streaked toward them like a vengeful dragon. Aiming carefully, Frek fired a green bolt from Gawrgor's blaster. The Unipusker flipped over in midair, then corkscrewed past them with his one remaining wing flapping like a rag. Cawmb plummeted after his partner, catching up with him to slow his fall.

The little Unipuskers came massing toward the hoverdisk, their wings glinting in the light of the gas giant in the sky, their open head-shells crying threats. A vast, slow cracking sound came from the producers' rickrack tree, and a split shot up the full length of the trunk's side. Aaron's Rod tendrils burst out like stuffing from a cushion. Slowly the enormous home began to crumple, its clashing branches sending out solemn deep tones. The Aaron's Rod reared from the ruins like a triumphant predator; it flung flying vines through the air as if reaching toward orange-glowing Jumm.

Gibby put the hoverdisk into fast forward, guided by rapid twitches and yelps from Woo. They left the horde of winged Unipuskers behind.

The spaceport was larger than Frek had realized. Even at top speed, it was a matter of nearly five minutes till they'd crossed to its other side.

And there, all by itself at the far edge of the great ship-studded field, sat a kenner building with peaked roof, curved walls, and a glowing pink sign that seemed to change its shape as you looked at it. It was as if the sign could sample your mind and cast itself into lettering that you could recognize. For Frek, the sign settled down into cursive English reading: “The Taz Spaceport Bar.”

Uneasy about being followed, Gibby lost no time in parking the hovercraft by the front door. And then the seven of them went inside: mother and daughter, father and son, the Grulloo, and the two dogs.

Though it was getting on toward dawn, the Taz was lively. It was a fair-sized rectangular room with the front door in one long wall, and a bar along the other long wall. Tables lay beyond arches at either end. Aliens stood at the bar and sat at the tables, chatting with each other in a dozen ways, some of them speaking aloud, some using fleeting kenner glyphs, a few even talking via faint bursts of smell. Dancers bopped to the stuttery piping rhythms of a live band on a little platform beside the entrance. Fragrant plumes of incense filled the air, the smoke looking almost solid in the colored lights.

Gaping at the alien band, Frek picked out six musicians and a vocalist. A pale-blue stomach-creature played a bagpipe horn that was also his nose, backed by cymbal crashes and drum beats from an angelic moth's fluttery wings. A crocodile alien walked her heavy, forked tongue along her gleaming teeth with an effect like a vibraphone. The guitars were a pair of midnight blue cockroaches twanging their feelers and sawing at their wing covers. A gleaming-eyed crystal with shiny spring legs crouched to one side, showering out musical billows of static.

The vocalist was a kind of sea cucumber—a two-meter cylinder with a warty red surface divided by five blue stripes. Bright yellow tube feet stretched from her lower regions to the ground, anchoring her in place as she weaved and writhed to her corybantic song, the music pouring from her intricately branching crest, a feathery tongue of yellow flesh. The feathery organ's pulsating twitches produced haunting high notes layered upon a contralto croon.

“Sweet whistle,” said Wow once again. He and Woo ran to sit as close as possible to the singing sea cucumber. Presumably she was one of the Radiolarians. As if to confirm Frek's surmise, the alien swept her intricate crest toward him in greeting.

The singer wasn't the only one who'd noticed Frek's party; indeed there had been a little ripple of excitement when they came in. A pair of yellow crabs studied them with bright blue eyes, a red-and-white-striped brittle starfish rose up onto two of his wiggly legs and waved to them, and a hovering yellow smiley-face sphere emitted an old-time speech-balloon saying, “Hi!”

Gawrnier the kenny crafter and Evawrt the pilot had noticed them as well. The two Unipuskers were seated together at a low table beneath an archway at the right end of the room, smoking a fuming water pipe of shredded rickrack blossoms. Catching Frek's eye, Evawrt raised his hand in greeting and gave a friendly nod, the rickrack smoke trickling from his great shell mouth. Frek waved back, especially glad to see Gawrnier.

“I bet Evawrt will take us home!” exulted Renata at Frek's side. “You've freed us, Frek! I'm impressed.”

“It looks good for now,” said Frek, glancing around to see what his father was up to. “But remember, I have things to do before I can go home. I have to find the elixir—and get the branecasters off our backs.”

“I'll skip that part,” said Renata. “I want Evawrt to take my mother and me back right now—and to Earth, not Sick Hindu. I'm ready to get my career as a toonsmith on track.”

Frek forgot his worries and enjoyed the glow of her sunny face. He reached out and touched one of her beribboned pigtails. “I hope you don't get too grown-up for me,” he said, wanting to say even more.

Something jostled his legs. It was Gibby scampering across the dance floor toward the bar. The only creatures Gibby's size were a pair of half-meter-high rat aliens dressed in waistcoats, standing on tip-toe and clasping paws as they stepped through a minuet.

The bar was manned by two yellow cone-headed creatures with humanoid arms and three eyes apiece: one red, one green, one blue. Behind them against the wall, pots simmered with pungent vig organ stews. A flat piece of vig meat was sizzling on a grill, and a liquid with ice cubes and rickrack berries boiled endlessly within a glass vacuum bell. Above the cooking area were three shelves. Upon the bottom shelf, vegetables and meaty flowers grew in varicolored hydroponic tanks. The middle shelf was crammed with bottles of every shape holding colored liquids and swirling gas. Some of the bottles contained small moving creatures within their fluids, others were crafted of force fields to contain more exotic goods like energy knots and microscopic space flaws. Along the topmost shelf marched a steady parade of virtual shapes. The bright forms appeared at the right and disappeared on the left, like figures in a shooting gallery, never repeating themselves.

Coiled hoses dangled from the ceiling with oddly shaped breathing masks at their ends. And at the left end of the bar bobbled a small cowloon, its damp udder in plain view. Gibby was already standing upon the bar before the cowloon, draining his first cup of moolk.

At the other end of the bar, snaky metallic branches projected toward four lounge chairs ranged against the wall. Each branch bore a pair of faintly glowing white disks at its tip. Frek had the feeling that applying the disks to one's head would be a far more intense experience than esping brane on a flickerball. A single chair was occupied, by an alien who looked for all the world like a long, creased yam, complete with clusters of green leaves growing from his eye sprouts. They didn't have any flickerballs inside the Taz Spaceport Bar.

Frek's heart sank when he noticed Carb and Yessica near the brain-feed chairs, but then he realized that all Carb was doing was settling Yessica down to sleep—without putting the disks on her temples. Quickly the troublesome self-centered woman dropped off. And then Carb was looking around the room—looking for his son. Their eyes met; Carb beckoned to him.

“I'm gonna talk to my father now,” Frek told Renata. “There's some things we need to work out.”

“I'm going to ask Evawrt and Gawrnier about a ride home,” said Renata. “And then I want to make some drawings of the musicians. Good luck.”

Carb led Frek to a quiet space beneath the arches at the left end of the room. Some of the spherical yellow smiley-faced aliens followed them in there, wanting to discuss a production deal, but Carb was able to shoo them away. The fact that both Carb and Frek had blasters didn't hurt.

A glass of water sat on an empty table. Frek and his father stood there looking at each other. Frek noticed that Carb had gotten his ring back from Yessica; he was wearing it on his left hand. Not that it mattered now. Frek was mad at Carb—both for leaving Lora, and, even more, for teaming up with Yessica against him. He felt like he and Carb were done.

“Like I told you, I'm through with that woman,” began Carb, answering the anger in Frek's eyes. “I don't know why I let her lead me on this long. I'm—” He sighed and ran his hands over his face. “I've been a jerk. I practically forgot I'm your father. It's like Yessica hypnotized me.”

“You helped her trap me by the zoo,” said Frek.

“I wasn't helping her at all. I was fighting with her. But I shouldn't have given her the ring in the first place. I shouldn't have left you guys. I shouldn't have lied about needing help. So many shouldn't-haves. You don't even know how bad I've been. But that's all over now, I swear.”

“I don't trust you anymore,” said Frek.

“Give me a chance, will you?” said Carb, a little sharply. “You're the only son I've got. My father wasn't so great either. But I got over it. Some day you'll be a father, too. It's not that easy.” Carb glanced down at Frek's bare hand. “What happened to your ring anyway?”

“Fed it to a vig,” muttered Frek.

To Frek's surprise Carb chuckled. “Glatt. The rings came from another kind of pig in the first place. The Magic Pig. He gave them to me the night I had my big dream. When I woke up I was holding them in my hand. The Magic Pig said one was for you and one was for me.”

“And you gave yours to Yessica,” repeated Frek with a frown.

“Those perfumes she wears—I think they've been addling me,” said Carb. “You know my brain's got that peeker damage, too. But no more excuses. It's over. We'll send Yessica and Renata back to Sick Hindu.”

“
You
don't plan to stay with me, do you?” challenged Frek.

“Yes,” said Carb softly. “I do. I won't make any trouble. I want to be part of something important. I want to help you out.” Carb was talking faster and faster. “I'll help you get that elixir. I'm a good man in a fight, you know that. We'll bust those branecasters and when we get home we'll kill off the Govs.”

“Bumby and I already killed the Stun City Gov,” said Frek, drawn in by his father's enthusiasm. “And you were right. He really was a worm.”

“Frek and Carb all the way,” said Dad a little too heartily.

“Until some woman changes your mind and you sell me out,” said Frek, flashing back to the bad stuff.

“Never again. Listen.” Dad took a deep breath. “Maybe you don't need me—but I need you.”

Frek was quiet for a minute, letting his father's words sink in. What a thing for him to say. It had never occurred to Frek that his father needed him. “Thanks,” he said finally.

Carb laughed and stepped forward and hugged Frek against him. Part of Frek wanted to twist away, but he didn't. The hug felt good, like drinking water when you're thirsty.

After a while they stepped back and looked at each other again.

“You want your ring back?” said Carb. “I've been figuring out some stuff about the rings. Watch this.”

Carb stared at his ring in that certain way. As all the times before, a ball of red and yellow spikes formed above the ring's cup. But this time, instead of showing a scene, the ball showed a ring like itself, little at first, and then its own right size. A ring with tape on it. It was Frek's lost ring, floating in the cool flicker of the spiky light.

“Take it,” said Carb. “If you want to.”

Frek wondered about that for a minute. Had the ring brought him anything but bad luck? Well, yes, he'd seen Renata for the first time in the ring. Renata was good luck for sure.