The Farpool (31 page)

Angie had an idea. “Maybe you could work with
the Seomish…re-design your Twister. Re-locate it somewhere else.
Aren’t there other worlds around this sun?”

Golich gave an exhausted sigh, like he was
explaining this for the millionth time. “Strategy says the Twister
stays here on Storm. It’s preposterous. You want reasons, I’ll give
you reasons. How about strategic location in the Halo? Storm’s
right there. How about the stability and cooling properties of the
oceans here? Perfect for the Twister. How about concealment
possibilities…when we rebuilt the Twister, we made it look more
like some of the islands around here.”

“Except the Coethi already know we’re back
here on Storm,” Acth:On’e complained. “They’re not that stupid…they
keep losing crashers and time ships in this sector…they’ll put two
and two together. “

Dringoth waved them all quiet. “It’s all
academic anyway. The Twister’s all that stands between Uman bases
in this sector and Coethi overrunning everything. Military
necessity dictates the Twister remain operational and located where
it is. I don’t like it any more than you do. Believe me, nothing
would please me more than to abandon this sewer of a planet and get
out of here. We did that once. But Timejump sent us back…pretty
much for the reasons Mr. Golich just outlined. I’m sorry…we can’t
do what you want.”

Nothing Chase or Angie could say would change
Dringoth’s mind. For Chase, this was almost as bad as being stuck
in a cave with Stokey Shivers. He wanted to learn more about the
Twister but the Umans were cautious about details. Even then, an
idea was forming in the back of his mind. Sabotage. He figured
Kloosee and Pakma’s people had tried that. But it was like a dog
trying to figure out how to get a box of treats down from the top
shelf of the pantry. In other words, don’t count on it.

Dejected, Chase told Angie they should return
to the kip’ts. “We should talk with our friends,” he said.

Dringoth stood up. “We’re not staying here a
second longer than we have to. The signaler said these fish-people
wanted to meet me. Now, we’ve met. I’m taking my staff back to the
compound.”

Golich opened the door and the winds rocked
Chase as he stepped out into the gale. Sleet stung his face and
Angie hunched over, using him as a shield. They waddled down the
slope of the ridge to the beach, picked their way among the rocks
and salt pools and dove headfirst into the water. It was cold,
thick was ice, but at least it was calmer.

Kloosee sounded their approach and swam over,
lightly bumping into Chase’s shoulder. He led Angie back to Pakma’s
kip’t and then accompanied Chase to theirs.

With the cockpit down and sealed, Chase
explained what had happened.

“We failed completely, Kloos. They wouldn’t
even listen. I wanted to show them something of what the Twister’s
doing, but they weren’t even interested. They’re just soldiers.
They’ve got a mission and they’ve got orders and that’s that.”
Chase sucked on an overripe gisu Kloosee had given him, swirling
the tart juice in his mouth. It tasted bitter and he put it down.
“I guess we failed. What do we do now?”

Kloosee thought. “For now, eat and rest. I’ll
get us away from Kinlok, put us on the other side of the island, so
we can get away from the Sound. That pounding makes my head
hurt.”

“Then what? Do you have any ideas?”

Kloosee was grim. “Not at the moment. We’ll
have to return to Omsh’pont. Meet with Longsee, maybe others. They
may have ideas.”

“We can’t just give up,” Chase said. He
wasn’t even aware of the fact he had said
we
. But Kloosee smiled faintly at the word.
Chase Meyer,
eekoti
, was
becoming more and more Seomish every day.

He wasn’t sure whether that was a good thing
or not.

Kloosee started up the jets, communicated
briefly with Pakma on a proposed course away from Kinlok, and
turned them toward deeper seas, heading south away from the
wavemaker, away from the Farpool. Away from their best chance to
stop the wavemaker from destroying everything.

It was going to be a long ride back. Everyone
was depressed and gloomy, even fatalistic about what the future
would now bring.

Chapter 11

Seome

Omsh’pont, kel: Om’t

Time: 766.3, Epoch of Tekpotu

Back in the great city of Omsh’pont, the
travelers wound their way through a blizzard of sediment and silt
loosened by the waves and the Sound, and entered the warrens of the
Kelktoo. There, after some rest and a short roam to get the kinks
out, an audience was organized with the Metah and her staff.
Longsee handled the details.

Elders from throughout Omt’or were invited to
the Metah’s chambers. It was quickly established that destroying
the wavemaker, sabotaging the Time Twister, was suicidal. Seome
risked destruction from the enemy of the Umans, the Coethi, if that
were done. Other ideas would have to be considered.

The Metah’s chambers were at the apex of the
central pyramid in the center of the city, between the seamounts.
Longsee lok was there, so was Tamarek lu from one of the builders’
em’kels. Tulcheah kim was there too, an advisor to the Metah. She
stationed herself as near to Kloosee as she could, slyly studying
him from a distance. Kloosee pretended not to notice. Pakma did
notice.

It fell to Longsee to explain the
failure of the
eekoti
mission
to Kinlok.

“The Umans are recalcitrant,” Longsee
admitted. ‘They’re more concerned about their own enemy. They
refuse to shut down the wavemaker.”

The Metah, Iltereedah luk’t, sniffed at
the news. She drifted serenely over her bed of glowing coral,
pulsing all around, looking for deceit, anxiety, fear, calm,
anything to gather a sense of what her people were saying and
feeling.
Shookel
was nowhere
to be found. No one could say there was any balance in the inner
lives of the kelke these days.

“I thought as much. You have other ideas?
I’ve already ordered evacuation plans to be developed. With
this—“she indicated the steady rain of dirt falling outside the
platform, the rubble tracks on the seamounts, the drone and beat of
the Sound, “Omsh’pont will be unlivable in a short time.”

“Most Serene Metah,” Longsee waggled his
armfins, indicating Tamarek should come forward and join him. “We
have some ideas for your consideration.”

“Don’t hold your tongue, Longsee…now is not
the time.”

“Yes, Affectionate Metah…there are two
possibilities. Tamarek and others from many em’kels have been
working on a new material…it’s a dense weave of
tchin’ting
fiber—Tamarek, bring it up, let
everyone see it--.”

Tamarek lu pulled out a swatch of the
material and it was passed around from one elder to another. There
were many comments, some curses, some amazed faces.

“We propose to build a shield out of
this material,” Longsee explained. “Tamarek indicates it can be
fabricated in great quantity, but we’ll need help from other
kels—especially the Ponkti. They know
tchin’ting
better than anyone.”

Iltereedah clucked.
“
That
could prove difficult.
I’m sure Tulcheah will agree with me on that. Go on.”

“Yes, Metah…a great shield could be built of
this fabric and the shield lifted into place around the wavemaker.
We’ve done studies and tests at Kelktoo. The tests show we can
reduce the sound and the vibration, all the acoustic damage,
really, by many magnitudes. However, a means of lifting and
securing the shield will have to be devised. Tamarek here has some
ideas.”

The Metah let that idea circulate among
the elders for awhile. She studied the gathering. Pulsing such a
large crowd, you could easily get a sense of what they were
feeling. She gathered a lot of echoes: some worried, some afraid,
some were defiant, ready to go to war, some confused. There seemed
to be no consensus. Then she saw Kloosee and
Pakma—
and there was Tulcheah kim working
her way toward Kloosee, the slut—
and their
eekoti
friends. They had strange
names: Chase and Angie. Tailless People were all
strange.

“Longsee, let’s ask your
eekoti
friends what they think.
Maybe they have ideas.”

Longsee tried not to take that as a
comment on his own idea, but motioned Kloosee to bring the
eekoti
forward. Chase and Angie were
conveyed to a place before the Metah.

She pulsed both of them, even leaving
her place above the coral bed and circling them like the predator
she had once been. They pulsed strange. It was always hard to get a
reading on Tailless people. Their insides bubbled like a steam
vent, but you couldn’t get a sense of what it all meant…all that
churning and burning, were they really
that
disturbed inside? Finally, Iltereedah went
back to her coral bed and gave up.

“You
eekoti
have been to Kinlok. You’ve talked with
the Umans…you’re related to them, after all. Can we work with them?
Why can’t they see what they’re doing to us? If the Sound doesn’t
stop, we’ll have no choice. Either we go to war or we
die.”

Chase listened carefully to the echopod
translation, glancing at Kloosee and Longsee from time to time,
wondering if he understood, if he should respond, and what did one
say to the Metah anyway?

Kloosee encouraged him with some
gestures.

“Your Majesty…I’m…
we’re
…just visitors here. We know little of your
ways. I did talk with the Umans. That’s already been said. They’re
not interested in talking. They’re fighting a war. Unless
we…you…can help them with that, they won’t listen.”

“Affectionate Metah,” Longsee found it
politic to intervene, “we could offer to work with the Umans.’

“Work with the Umans…how? More
negotiations…that hasn’t worked yet.”

“Perhaps if we take a different approach, a
more united approach…Tulcheah kim deals with other kels, she can
speak to this as well.”

Tulcheah kim was head of diplomats for
the Metah. “Only the Orketish and the Ponkti have any interest in
dealing with the Umans. The Eepkos, the Sk’ort…
kah
, let them be. Let them disintegrate.”
Tulcheah wasn’t shy about her opinions.

The Metah was interested in hearing
more from Chase. “What do you
eekoti
think of this? Can we work with the Umans
at any level? Is there anything we can offer?”

Chase had no idea how he was supposed to
answer that. Back home, he’d never voted. His Mom chided him on
that, but talking politics was like going to the dentist. You
avoided it as long as you could and only went when something hurt.
Still, here they were, being asked their opinion, on matters of
state and war and diplomacy. It was nuts. He and Angie hadn’t been
on Seome more than a few weeks at most; and, by the way, he still
didn’t understand the time keeping system here.

“Your Majesty—“
how
did
you address the
Metah
?—“maybe we…you... can work with the Umans in
some way. Offer to help move the Twister. Maybe there’s another
island they could use…or even another planet in this system—“ he
stopped, seeing the puzzled looks on the elders. Longsee knew
something of other worlds, as did Kloosee and Pakma, but the
others…Chase learned there was little point in pursuing that line
of thought. But the Metah had asked—

Longsee pointed out something that
needed to be considered. “Metah, our
eekoti
friends have a unique perspective...we
think they’re actually related to the Umans in some way, strange as
that may be. But if we damage or destroy the wavemaker...assuming
we could even do that…or cause it to be shut down, then the Farpool
itself will cease to exist.”

“This is true,” Tulcheah agreed. “And other
kels have not yet had a chance to explore it, test it…already the
Ponkti are jealous—“

“Kah
, “spat
one elder, “the Ponkti are jealous of their own
shadows.”

“Nonetheless,” Tulcheah went on, “we
should be careful in doing anything that shuts down the Farpool,
before we’ve
all
had a chance
to see what it’s capable of. Other kels think Omt’or is keeping all
the secrets for itself.”

Oh, this is just
great,
Chase thought to himself.
Now, we’re right in the middle of Seomish politics. I’d
rather have a tooth pulled.
With help from Kloosee,
Chase was able to drift quietly back into the crowd, while the
elders debated and argued and swore at each other. It wasn’t hard
for Chase to see that tempers were rising.

His echopod chirped. Though it was hard to
distinguish in the general commotion of the discussion, Chase
thought he had heard Angie’s plaintive voice in the background.

“Chase…
Chase
…can you hear me? Is that true? Are they
really going to shutoff the Farpool?”

Chase whispered back. “Angie…Angie, is that
you? Can they hear us?”

“I don’t know…there’s such a racket. They’re
all arguing over something. Chase, what about the Farpool…if
they—“

“I know, I know. I don’t think they’ll shut
it down…that’s our way home.”

“Chase, we did all we could. I want to go
home…can we just get out of here now--?”