Test of Magnitude (The Torian Reclamation) (15 page)

The child abruptly stood and ran off upon losing the third game. Brandon looked up. Mip7 was now standing over him, apparently having witnessed the end of the game.

“It isn’t easy to beat them at that,” Mip7 said. “Do you play this on Earth?”

“I played something like it when I was a kid,” Brandon said, “but not since.”

The child then returned, but was dragging an adult Sheen by the hand and pointing at Brandon. Brandon became alarmed. Maybe he should have minded his own business and stayed by the arc thing.

The adult Sheen came over, sat down, and introduced himself.

“My name is Nunon4. I am the child’s father. You are one of the Earthlings?”

“Yes. My name is Brandon. No number. I hope I was not being inappropriate, playing with your son? I found the game to be interesting.”

“Not at all. Shall we play?”

“Um…” Brandon looked up at Mip7, who nodded. “Okay, I guess.”

Nunon4’s shine was distracting to Brandon’s eyes and he lost the first game, but only by a count of two rocks.

“Very good,” Nunon4 said. “Again, please.” The child looked surprised. Arkan9 and Derek were now standing with Mip7, watching. They played three more games. Brandon won them all, the last by six rocks. Then they stood up. The child Sheen’s mouth was gaping as he looked up at his father, expectant of some kind of explanation.

“Tulros,” Nunon4 said, and bowed. “It was a pleasure playing with you.”

“Tul …ros,” Brandon said, and returned the bow. The Sheen looked very pleased and ushered his son away before him.

“You are both full of pleasant surprises tonight,” Arkan9 said. “Nunon4 is a certified master in theoretical strategy. No one has beaten him at any game since he was a child.”

“So, you’re like a genius or something?” Derek asked Brandon.

“No,” Brandon said. “I was a B-student, before I dropped out of college to become a salesman—which I’m not that good at, either.”

“It is probably your species,” Arkan9 said. “You have a great propensity for learning and adaptation.”

“Or maybe that holy arc thing just balanced you out, brother,” Derek said. “Don’t you feel totally pure now, man?”

Brandon didn’t reply.

“It certainly helps,” Arkan9 said, “but you have much replenishing to do. We all do. We will need to use the halcyon arc every day until its light upon us fully fades. It is most effective in early mornings and evenings. Now I have a meeting to attend, so please excuse me.”

Arkan9 left them. Brandon saw that Nunon4 and two other Sheen were standing and waiting for him a short ways off. When Arkan9 reached them, they exchanged greetings before disappearing into one of the larger wooden shacks.

Mip7 led Brandon and Derek to an unoccupied fire pit back near their huts. There was some wood stacked next to it. Mip7 kneeled and gathered a bunch of small stones that were in the pit into a mound and then arranged some wood over the rock pile. Brandon recognized the stones.

“Those are the same rocks we were using as game pieces.”

“Yes,” Mip7 said. “Cortzye stones. Curious things. They become black on the side closest to the fire, and draw all the color away from the cooler side. They are an excellent natural heat conductor. Watch.”

Mip7 picked up a small metallic object that was lying in the dirt and pointed it toward the fire pit. He pressed down on it and a thin beam of bright light emitted forth and struck the cortzye stone pile. He held it there for maybe twenty seconds until the stones were all glowing. Flames then jumped up and began licking the pieces of firewood. It now smelled like the hoverbus, briefly.

“Whoa man, a freaking laser gun! Wow!” Derek said.

“
That
was just lying in the dirt there?” Brandon exclaimed. “How careless and dangerous!”

Mip7 studied the laser he was holding, and then looked back up at Brandon.

“For Earthlings, perhaps it could be. We have leather skin, remember.” He dropped the laser back in the dirt and stood up. “Accidents do happen, so be careful. I remember getting zapped a couple times by one of those as a kid. For us, all we get is a skin discoloration for a few days, although they do sting a little. One doesn’t continue to hold it in place when they realize they have a misdirected beam, of course.”

Derek walked over and picked it up, which made Brandon a little nervous. After briefly examining it, though, he dropped it and sat on the ground next to the fire.

Mip7 pulled a nearby bench over, and Brandon sat with him on it.

“We should get you in the simulation hall,” Mip7 said to Brandon.

“What’s that?”

“Electronic games and flight simulators. You can fly spaceships, shoot monsters, and the like. You had to physically haul me out of there during the week I spent here as a kid.”

“Oh, a video arcade. They have one here? I spent a lot of time in those as a boy myself. That might be fun. As long as Arkan9 doesn’t have us doing yoga or something instead.”

“I get the feeling Arkan9 will be busy the next few days. Some of the other Sheen here seem to be very interested in him, and are demanding his attention.”

“Do you know why?”

“No. I don’t think it’s about us, though.”

Chapter Seven

Mip7 was right about Arkan9. They didn’t see him much in the following days. In the mornings and evenings, they would sit by the halcyon arc with him, to Derek’s great delight, but Arkan9 wasn’t all that talkative. During the daytime, they rarely saw him at all.

Mip7 took Brandon to the simulation hall, located in the first floor of the central building, the day after their first night at Uden. It took a little while to get used to the controls, but Brandon found great entertainment there. It was very much like a futuristic arcade. The kids back home would go nuts for it, especially since it didn’t require any money to play. 

Derek checked out the simulation hall that first morning as well, but it failed to hold his attention. He mumbled something about “warmonger training” before leaving Brandon and Mip7 to their games. No one else at the Sheen colony appeared to have much interest in the arcade either, as Brandon found he was usually alone there. Mip7 would play with him for a while, but then wander off to the bar or somewhere. Brandon realized he should probably be spending more time outside himself, but he was helplessly captivated by some of the games—especially the military flight simulators. Before he realized it, a week had gone by and he had seen very little of the colony. The halcyon arc always brightened significantly whenever he approached it, causing Brandon to have about the same amount of love for it as he did for his bathroom scale on Earth.

How Derek was spending his days Brandon wasn’t exactly sure, but he did notice him talking to groups of shorter, dimmer Sheen in the early evenings at the clearings where meals were served. Mip7 explained to Brandon that those were young adult Sheen, the equivalent of teenagers. It figured that Derek would take to such a crowd. Perhaps he had more in common with them than he had with his fellow Earthling in this camp.

Brandon finally forced himself to spend a day away from the arcade and just hang out with Derek.

“Shouldn’t you be off to boot camp, man?” Derek asked shortly after breakfast.

“Taking a break from it today. I got most of the games wired now—the good ones, anyway. Sorry I haven’t been hanging out with you much. I get a little obsessive-compulsive about games, sometimes.”

“That’s why the Erob energy field surges when you come over to it. You need more balance, brother.”

“You sound like a Sheen now.”

“Well, why not? I like them. My kind of aliens.”

“Have you been learning much about them?”

“Some. Not wasting my days playing futuristic pinball, anyway. There’s a library in the central building—did you know that?”

“No,” Brandon said. “What good is a library to us? We have implants in our ear nerves, not our eyes. Unless they have some kind of special translation eyeglasses in there.”

“Funny you should mention that, brother…”

“You have
got
to be joking.” The possibility of being able to read books excited Brandon, however.

Derek laughed. “No, just kidding man. But there are some language training TV shows there, and they have good sound. I learned a few things.”

“Oh yeah? Give me an example.”

Derek pointed to an open hut that was cut away in the front and looked like a concession stand.

“The sign on that stand there says something about fishing pole rentals. It was the first thing I learned to recognize, after some lizard-kids took me fishing. You should come fishing with me today. I think you’ll dig it. The fishing poles are outta sight.”

The sign on the hut had unrecognizable symbols on it. To Brandon, the written Torian language looked like a cross between Greek and Chinese—but he cheerfully agreed to go. The fishing hut was attended by a Sheen child who gave Derek two small, triangular black boxes. They looked like the fire starter, but were bigger and anatomically designed for the grip of a hand, with buttons on the top side.

“Please tell me those aren’t lasers,” Brandon said.

“Ha-ha, no. Well, not like the fire starting lasers, anyway. You’ll see. These things are crazy.”

Derek led Brandon out to the animal stalls in the front of the colony and had the attendant retrieve their two yuquil, the same small ones they rode in on. They also borrowed a small bag that draped over one of the yuquil’s backs to hold the fishing devices and two skins full of drinking water. Derek then led them up into some nearby hills, in a different direction than the one they had come in by. They came to a beautiful small lake and rode along the shore until they reached a spot Derek liked. There they dismounted and tied the animals up to some trees that had lots of low hanging branches for them to graze on. Brandon and Derek sat down on the shore.

“See the bugs flying?” Derek asked.

Brandon squinted, and then he saw them zigzagging over the water. One flew over and landed on a plant near Brandon. It looked like a moth with a grasshopper head.

“Use the green button to zap one out of the air, if you can. It just stuns them. Watch.”

A green laser beam shot out of Derek’s box across the lake. He began moving it about, chasing one of the bugs with it. Finally, he connected. There was a buzzing sound, reminiscent of an electric bug zapper back home. The insect fell to the water, where it floated, twitching a little.

“That’s how you bait your hook. Try it, man.”

Brandon activated the green laser and felled a bug faster than Derek had.

“Wow, you are good at those war games, aren’t you? Now we wait. If your bug recovers and flies away before a fish gets it, zap another one and repeat. But stay ready! When a fish comes up and grabs the bug, you only have a few seconds. They are slow fish, and will stay up top longer than they should. Use the red button to zap the fish. And keep holding it. The button is sensitive, so you have to finagle it as the fish tries to pull away.”

At that moment, a fish surfaced and ate Derek’s bug. The fin was on the surface and slightly out of the water. It was a good-sized fish. Derek shot a red laser beam at it, but overshot behind it. By the time he corrected, the fish was gone.

“Dang it,” Derek said. “I missed.”

Brandon was thrilled. Just when he thought he was taking a break from playing games, the hippie shows him a new one—and a super cool one, at that. Derek shot down another bug. Brandon’s bug started flying away, but he shot it back down again.

“Man, I wouldn’t want to be one of your bugs,” Derek said. “They’re doomed. Be a little more sporting and shoot down a new one, brother.”

A fished grabbed Brandon’s bug. Brandon accidentally shot the green laser again first, but quickly caught himself and then shot a direct hit on the fish with the red laser before it submerged again. He immediately felt the box try to pull itself out of his hand. The fish thrashed on top of the water.

“Give him line, man, give him line!”

“Huh?”

“Ease up on the pressure on the button!”

It was too late. The fish broke the hold of the beam and got away.

“What is this thing?” Brandon asked.

“The read laser is a …tractor beam,” Derek said. “But you have to give the fish play. When you feel it pulling hard like that, ease up on the pressure. They can go back down and stay connected, but once the connection is broken they have to be on top for you to get a new hold on them.”

Brandon smiled widely. Derek was right, this was outta sight. Shooting down bait with a laser and then pulling in a fish with a tractor beam. Brandon shot down another bug and waited. He landed the next fish. It was just like fishing back home. When the fish ran, he eased up on the “drag” by releasing pressure on the button without letting go. When the pull force eased, he increased pressure back on the button to “reel him in.” Eventually the fished tired enough to pull it all the way in to shore.

They fished all morning and into the early afternoon before the bite slowed. Derek landed three fish, and Brandon five. They released the three smallest and kept five. Derek strung them on a cord he had brought along, and hung them over his yuquil’s back for the ride home. Upon their return, they gave the kid at the fishing pole rental place one of the fish, and then Derek gave the rest of them to a couple Sheen he seemed to know—their contribution to the evening meal. Brandon was so jazzed about the fishing he insisted on buying Derek a beer.