Storm at the Edge of Time (17 page)

“Well, let's start by going out that open door.”

Still holding hands, they crossed a wide space where a gangly blue mechanic was working on a large dumb-bell-shaped device. He didn't even look up. They slipped out the door; as soon as they reached the corridor, both turned left.

Yes, that felt right. The staff was this way somewhere.

“Up,” a voice whispered behind her. “It's up from here.”

There was an elevator, but they didn't know how to make it work. Not far beyond was a ladder. Jamie started up, saw feet coming down, and had to scramble back, nearly crushing her invisible companion.

Cautiously they started up again. The next floor was a slightly rounded corridor like the last. Arni had them go up more ladders, and more. He was right, she could feel it. They were getting closer.

Turning right, they hurried along another corridor until it intersected a second. For a moment they stopped; then Jamie felt Arni tug her to the left. Quickly she turned after him and ran smack into a Kreeth who had just stepped from a room.

Pain and surprise. Jamie lost concentration. The Kreeth gasped and stared. Jamie backed away, desperately thinking about corridors. Textured yellow walls. Two halves of a long tube cupping nothing but air between them. Empty air. Nothing else. Nothing there.

The Kreeth frowned and squinted. He took a step forward and patted the air in front of him. His spiky hair swayed as he shook his head, took a fewsteps farther, then abruptly turned and looked back. Still frowning, he walked away.

“Whew,” Arni's voice said from nowhere. “This is wearing me out. But we're close, I think.” A groping hand brushed against Jamie's and grabbed it again. She followed its tug down the corridor, being extra careful at each turn, until they reached a door. A closed, locked door.

“How do we get this open?” Jamie asked.

“You opened that door in the cathedral pretty well,” came the reply.

“Yeah, but I had a staff then. And I kind of overdid it too.”

Jamie put her hands against the door and felt Arni do the same. She felt like a safecracker, an incompetent
one who didn't know how locks worked. Was this magnetic, electrical, or a combination lock? It would be better if there were no lock at all. Nothing to hold it. Nothing to keep the door from sliding open, sliding smoothly open as they pushed against it. Firmly pushing it sideways. Firmly sliding …

It opened. Jamie was sure that invisible Arni had the same astonished expression she felt on her own face. Quickly they stepped inside and slid the door closed behind them.

In yellowish half light, they could see a room about the size of a large garage. And it was full of stuff: crates and canisters, bales of things, tubes and boxes of all sizes. But at least they were the only people there.

Jamie leaned against a wall and let herself fade back into visibility. She felt as if she'd been holding her breath for a long time. Beside her, Arni appeared as well.

He sighed. “I'd never have guessed that not being somewhere could be so much work.”

“The staff,” Jamie said weakly. “You said it was near the top? It's in some sort of close-fitting container with fiber padding.”

“This way, I think,” Arni said, walking down an aisle between piled-up crates and canisters.

Jamie knew the box the moment she saw it. For a dizzy second she saw it from both inside and out. It was too high up for Arni to reach, but by stepping on a short, fat crate, she was able to wrap her fingers over the edge and tug the box off. Catching it, she was surprised at how light it was.

Arni fumbled at a clasp on the side. “Let's take the
staff and leave the box—then they won't see something's missing.”

Jamie, too, fumbled at the clasp, then decided not to bother. Holding it, she imagined that it was the kind of clasp she knew: Lift here and it opened. It did open, though with a breaking sound that suggested her method wasn't quite what its manufacturers intended.

Inside, the long white staff glowed like captured moonlight through its nest of packing.

Jamie reached down and pulled it out. She smiled at Arni, then froze. Down the aisle of containers, she could see the door sliding open. Someone stepped into the room and looked right at them.

Someone tall, thin, and hairless, the exact color of celery.

I knew there was power abroad other than my own,” the voice trilled. “Ah, the two young Humans from the archaeological lab. On some sort of academic crusade, are we? Striving to keep Human archaeological treasures at home?”

“Yeah, that's right,” Jamie said, knowing the lie was pointless even as she uttered it. “It belongs in a museum, not some analytical laboratory.”

She couldn't tell about Valgrindol expressions, but the one she was seeing was surely a sneer. The creature stepped forward.

“You are right about it not really needing analysis.
We
know what its unidentified power is, don't we?” Swiftly the Valgrindol walked toward them down the aisle.

With a yelp, Arni hurled the long box at it and ducked around a corner. Stepping back, Jamie fell over
the crate she'd used to climb on. Still sneering, the Valgrindol reached down.

Awkwardly clutching the staff, Jamie swiped it at the descending hand, crackling light through the air. Hissing, the creature drew back, then, spreading its hands, shot a tangle of light toward her. Jamie scrambled to her feet, only to have the light drop around her like a net. Desperately she hacked at the strands with the tip of the staff. They split and sizzled, freeing her to stumble back and around the corner. Arni grabbed her arm and pulled her down another aisle toward the storeroom door.

A sharp cracking sound made them look up. A tower of crates was shifting, falling toward them. Horrified, Jamie flung up her arm. The staff arched a shield of light raggedly above them. One crate hit the light and split open, sending a shower of round stones bouncing frantically over the floor.

Jamie and Arni scuttled forward, the shield collapsing behind them under an avalanche of crates and boxes.

Ahead of them, the Valgrindol had nearly reached the door. It pointed at another tower of crates and set it teetering. Jamie spun around and also pointed at it. The crates swayed back the other way. Then she felt another onslaught, and the crates tipped toward her again.

Out of the corner of her eye, Jamie could see Arni beside her. He reached down, scooped some of the round stones from the floor, and flung them at the Valgrindol. The handful he'd grabbed somehow swept the rest behind them, and a wave of stones rose from the floor and pelted their opponent. The creature's concentration
was torn and the crates immediately fell toward it.

Jamie and Arni ducked out of the room, leaving the sounds of crashing and alien cursing behind them.

They charged down the corridor, with people turning and staring at them. “Go invisible!” Jamie shouted, struggling to make her mind do that as she ran. Empty air rushing along. Nothing in the corridor but air. It seemed to be working. One Human looked puzzled as something half seen rushed by, and the next group saw nothing at all.

Jamie stopped, confused, at one intersection, until Arni's voice led her down the righthand way. Suddenly the corridor lit up. A ball of sizzling light hurtled toward them. The Valgrindol inspector must have gotten out from under the boxes, Jamie thought as she stared terrified at the speeding light. Then, gripping the staff like a baseball bat, she swung.

The collision of energy flooded the corridor with sound and light. Using the smoking staff, Jamie pulled herself up from the floor. Dazed and visible, she could see all the scorch marks on her jumpsuit. She could feel them on her head and face.

Invisible hands hurried her down the corridor to a ladder. Awkwardly gripping the staff, she stumbled down. One flight, two, three. At the end she was sliding down the handrails rather than climbing.

Her head finally cleared from the light and noise. They must be on the right floor, because Arni was shoving her along the level now instead of down. She concentrated on being invisible again. People in the
corridor listened in confusion to the sound of running feet.

“Stop them!” a high voice called from behind. “Two invisible thieves. There, on the left—block that corridor!” Clearly the trick didn't work on everyone.

A confused guard stepped into the middle of the passageway and held his arms out on both sides. Arni and Jamie ducked under and ran on. Feeling them pass, the guard swatted the air, but too late.

Suddenly on their right the wide door to the hangar appeared. An alerted guard stood nearby, weapon drawn, but they slipped around her and were through. Feet pounding invisibly over the metal deck, they dashed toward their little ship.

From nowhere a rope of cold flame snaked across Jamie's path, catching her around her knees and sending her sprawling facedown. The staff flew out of her hand, clattering and spinning across the deck.

Jamie lay stunned. Visibility crept back, and something heavy seemed to press her down. Beside her on the deck, Arni was lying flat as a lizard. A pinkish glow seemed to sit on them both. She couldn't even move her head. Skinny legs walked by, in the direction the staff had gone. A long pause; then the legs returned. They bent, and Jamie could see the celery-green face.

“I could turn you over as thieves to the security guards on this ship, but obviously you're too dangerous. So you'll simply have to disintegrate, spontaneously combust. I'll tell them you must have been on a suicide mission.”

Jamie could see only the tip of the staff. If only she could touch it, feel it. But she could not. She'd never
feel wood or anything from Earth again. She thought of the staff, of its smooth twisting grain and of the proudly lifelike horse carved on its top. Urkar had carved it, someone who clearly loved life, who loved his own harsh world and even his hapless descendants. But they had failed him and his world.

The light around them turned from pink to red to fiery orange. Mentally, Jamie tried to fight the heat, but still it grew, like the blast from an oven. Air was being sucked from her lungs.

Through the desert haze, she saw the Valgrindol moving away. Longingly she gazed at the staff, at the carved horse. Her last glimpse of home—of the staff's windy, cold, free home.

Her hair was beginning to singe and crackle. Over that sound she heard a sharp distant shout. Then a call, a wild animal call—like a horse's. Around her, the burning mist thinned, and the great weight lessened. She could move again. Half sitting, she stared. A great white horse was rearing up on the deck, bringing its hooves down again and again on a pale green form. Wind—cold, salty wind—swept through the hangar. For a moment, the metal deck seemed clothed with grass and purple heather. Sea foam broke on rocks, and birds screamed overhead.

Jamie and Arni struggled to their knees and then their feet. The image faded; a white wooden staff lay beside the fallen Valgrindol. The alien twitched feebly while yellow blood seeped over the deck. Around the hangar, people were yelling in confusion. Jamie stumbled toward the staff and grabbed it. She looked at their
ship and saw Tyaak and the Kreeth mechanic standing in the doorway.

“What happened?” the mechanic called.

“Don't know,” Arni yelled back. “But this fellow needs help.” The Kreeth ran toward the injured Valgrindol as Jamie and Arni passed him, running for the ship. In moments, they were inside with the door closed.

Tyaak was squatting on the floor closing a panel in the wall. “There. Just had to snap in my hidden replacement.” He stood up, then hurried to his seat and started working controls.

He flicked a brief glance toward them. “I was working with the mechanic, trying to keep him from seeing and solving the problem, when suddenly I felt a yearning, a longing for the island, for the windy cold place I loved—or that someone loved. The picture was so strong, I knew I had to call it back, to make it real.”

“You did,” Jamie said, “and it was beautiful.”

Arni could only nod and add, “Thank you.”

As their ship shuddered into life, Jamie asked, “Are they just going to open the door and let us go?”

“No. I think we will have to blast our way out of here.”

“This little ship has weapons like that?”

“It does now.” Grinning, Tyaak reached for the staff and, clutching it with one hand, began working a new set of controls with the other.

Jamie looked out her view screen. Humans, Kreeth, and others were pointing toward their ship. Suddenly they all began running away from it toward the hangar's inside door. She shifted the view in her screen. Something at the nose of their ship was glowing red.

A beam of light shot forward and beat against the outside door of the hangar. The metal paneling turned red, shifting to a blinding white. The door buckled and blew away, spinning out into star-filled space. In seconds, their ship shot after it.

“Will they chase after us?” Arni asked, focusing his screen on the large ship they were rapidly leaving behind.

“No. With all their important cargo and passengers, they will not throw off their schedule by chasing some minor thieves. But they are sure to report us to Earth Security, which will probably send a patrol ship out looking for us.”

“That's not good,” Jamie commented.

“No, it is not. They will be faster than we are. And better armed, conventionally at least. And I am not very sure how to work this staff yet, not for anything quick and accurate. I could end up hurting a lot of people I do not want to—including us.”

Watching the stars out the view screen, Jamie was silent for a moment, then said: “Tyaak, even if we avoid patrols, won't you get in a lot of trouble? I mean, this is your time. It's not like my causing a ruckus in Viking times. That was centuries before my parents or passport officials were even born. But won't someone have recorded your ship's serial number or something?”