Ammonite Planets (Omnibus): Ammonite Galaxy #1-3 (75 page)

He refused to shut the hatch until the wind was so strong that it took the combined strength of both of them to manage to pull it shut.
 

“Six! Please! She can’t possibly come now! There is no way at all that she could be out in this! She will be sitting it out in one of those chambers. You know she always falls on her feet. Stop worrying about her!”

He glowered. “
I
am not worried about her. As if! I just hate that she should have let you get into this state. She is totally thoughtless! I could wring her aristocratic neck. In fact, I very well might!”

“So you shall. But tomorrow, Six, as soon as it is light. There is nothing more we can do today.”

Six was like a Cesan frogling on hot sand. “And it’s not as if we can even contact Arcan,” he moaned. “Because we will never be able to get through on the interscreen with this howling gale outside.”

The visitor’s machine, which had been sitting in a corner, whirred, startling them. “I am in touch with the Independence,” it said. “What do you wish to know?”

“Oh. Can you get through with all this wind?”

The globe looked at him pityingly. “Of course,” it crackled. “Our technology is excellent.”

“Yes, but I didn’t know if the wind … Oh, never mind. I suppose your technology is so superior that it isn’t affected by mere things like winds, right?”

“Naturally. The Dessites have a clear understanding of such things. I don’t suppose a category 3b like yourself would know much about physics?”

“Of course I do. I got a good grade.”

“Well I wouldn’t have thought it.”

Six growled, and the video camera moved prudently as far away as it could. “I was only trying to help,” it said plaintively.

“Thank you, Visitor,” said Grace. “Is Arcan all right? Will he have the strength to transport us home?” She caught the involuntary movement of Six out of the corner of her eye. “When Diva comes back, that is.”

“He believes so. He is working on it, but thinks that in a few more days he will have been able to boost his remaining cells.”

“And has he any idea of what happened? I mean, did he feel anything, or did the bracelets just disappear? Surely he can tell where they are?”

The machine relayed the question, and the answers that came back were all in the negative. It appeared Arcan had no way of tracing the missing orthogel bracelets. They had simply disappeared, and he could find no trace of them whatsoever.

“It might be different if I were there on the planet with you,” he told them. “That way I might be able to detect some sort of vibrations, but as it is, up here in orbit, there is nothing I can do. And it would be unwise for me to travel down to the planet’s surface.”
 

“It would be crazy. You have to stay up there.”

“Yes. I know.” They broke off the conversation, and Six lapsed into an incessant game of moving one stone over another in the palm of his hand. Each time they clicked as they touched each other, until Grace wondered if she would actually lose her own sanity before morning came.

“Err … Six?”

“What?”

“Could you stop making that clicking noise, please?”

“Sure. Sorry.” There was about ten minutes silence until, without knowing it, the stones started their clacking again. After the first four times Grace held her peace. She wasn’t going to get any sleep in any case – the shuttle was shuddering from tip to tail fin. She tried to think of pleasant things, but found it hard to find any in the middle of a very long night. Then she found her thoughts moving off to Kwaide. Cimma was on Kwaide, of course. She wondered how her mother was getting along, letting her thoughts travel through the base camp, imagining what the people there would be doing now. And the orbital station? What would they be doing up there? She found that this picture calmed her down, and enabled her to survive the night without resorting to violence, something she really felt she should be congratulated on.

SHORTLY AFTER THE wind dropped the next morning there was a loud knocking on the door, and Diva breezed in.

“Hello, sleepyheads—” She stopped abruptly. “Ack! The air is really stale in here, we need to leave the hatch open for a while before we take off. Sorry I didn’t get back yesterday, only I got a bit lost, and had to rest up in one of the buttes, beside one of the upper lakes. I suppose you guessed what had happened?”

“Of course,” said Six, feigning a return to the present from a deep sleep. “I knew you would be all right. Grace was a bit worried, though.”

“Oh, Grace, I’m sorry! I hope you managed to get some sleep?”

“A little.”

“And I have been sleeping like a log on that wonderful hot stone by the lake, using the avifauna as mattresses. They finally lost their fear of me.” She gave a stretch and a yawn, showing her even teeth. At that moment Six suffered an irrepressible urge to knock them clean down her throat. He twitched. Grace shot him a look of warning.

“Well, at least Six has had a good night, too,” went on Diva sunnily. “Good. You know I wish we could take a couple of the avifauna home with us!”

“You are not adopting any booby birds!”

“Why not? And they are avifauna, not booby birds!”

“Because you can’t, and that’s that.” He threw the stones he had been playing with all night out of the hatch, moodily. “But don’t listen to me, take it up with Arcan, why don’t you?”

“What’s got into you?”

“Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

Diva shrugged her shoulders. “Boy, you sure got out of bed the wrong way,” she said.

“Just take us up to the space trader,” said Six, “—since you’re the one who has slept so well.”

Diva obeyed, and they were soon standing in front of Arcan, who seemed just the same as always, despite the loss of part of his orthogel.

Arcan greeted them with relief.

“I am sorry,” he said. “Something happened to me on that planet—”

“We’re calling it Pictoria,” Diva informed him.

Arcan nodded. “—Pictoria then. Something happened to me on Pictoria that completely annulled my capacity to act quantically. It was as if there were some magnets pulling down on me, stopping me from decohering anywhere at all, and then the connexion was completely severed. It was a struggle for me to understand the information the visitor was relaying to me, and that was only from his ship up here on the Independence.” Colours coalesced up and down the orthogel shape and he gave a shiver, shimmering in the half-light of the control deck. “It was a not a pleasant experience.”

“Tell me about it,” nodded Six. Diva glared at him, and he spread his hands. “What? First I was nearly smothered by a booby bird and then we almost rotted in a cavern!”

“I wish you would stop complaining about every little thing!”

“I like that! Even Arcan admits to it being a pretty awful place. So is the ortholiquid an ancestor of yours, Arcan?”

The orthogel entity gave a rather plaintive shiver of light. “I am afraid it is, Six,” he said, “but it seems that I was the one to evolve, and it has stayed stationary in time. There is no question that the basic make-up is the same, it is just that the liquid in there is not organic – or at least it doesn’t seem to be, from what you have told me.”

“No, we know.”

“It is a pity. I was hoping to find something like myself. Something that can live as long as it seems I will. Otherwise the universe will seem a very lonely place.”

“Are you ready, then?” asked Diva. “Or do you need more time to recuperate for the journey back?”

Arcan shimmered again. “I am almost ready to leave now,” he said. “Though I would like to come back here again.” His voice echoed in their heads. “But I think we should wait until we have had time to think about what happened here. I think next time I come, we should all be better prepared. I nearly got you all killed. That isn’t acceptable. I let my eagerness get in the way of my sense. That mustn’t happen again.”

“Do you think you can get us home, Arcan?” asked Grace.

“I think so, yes, though it is a sad thing for me to have to leave part of myself behind. I would just like to stay for a little longer, in case the missing orthogel is trying to contact me.”

“Take your time, Arcan,” said Six sarcastically. “I hope you stocked up this ship with some food, though! Some of us need to eat from time to time.”

“I’m afraid I forgot that, too. There are only the nutripacks. Don’t worry, Six. You will be back in orbit around Valhai long before you get hungry.”

“Shows how much you know. I’m always hungry. Oh well – at your convenience!” And the Kwaidian lay down on the sofa and covered himself with a blanket. The others thought they could hear some occasional muttering from under the blanket, before it became still and Six slept. He was out for so long that they were back in orbit above Valhai before he woke up again.

ONCE ON VALHAI Grace took a bodywrap and ventured out bare planet. It was a ritual she tried to do every time she visited her birth place. She never felt she belonged to this strange planet until she actually ventured outside.

She stepped down onto the grey sand of the planet, and walked slowly away from the lights of Sell, breathing steadily into her mask pack. It was soothing to be here on her own. She turned her face up, up to the immense black sky hanging overhead. It was alive with stars, all of which jostled each other for her attention. She took a deep and happy breath, and gazed about her, star-struck.
 

The planet Cian was still hanging overhead, a brilliant violet lune of colour across the blackness. Almagest could only be discerned from the orange circular glow which marked the boundary between perpetual night and perpetual day, but Sacras was still fairly close, and today was shining down from behind Cian, bathing the landscape in a slightly warmer tone than usual. The rest of the stars were still there, just where she had left them. She was surprised; it must be the same time of year as when she had last been bare planet, for they really did seem to have stayed static in the sky since her last visit.
 

She felt the enormous happiness well up inside her. This view never failed to make her feel exultant. Her veins seemed to fizz into life, complaining that she only brought them here once or twice a year, telling her to come here more often, where only she and Arcan would share the sky. She closed her eyes for a second, willing herself to remember this exact moment, to take it with her wherever she went. She tried to fix what she had seen in her memory, knowing that she would want to paint it later. Not that her paintings did any justice at all to the scene in front of her; they were sorry, flat imitations at best. They ought to serve to jog her memory of this utterly perfect instant, but in fact they usually made her feel inadequate, cross with herself at her failure to transmit onto the canvas the emotions she felt while out here. She wished she could have been a better painter; this view deserved so much more than she could give it.

When Grace came out of her trance, she was amazed to find that she had lost nearly half-an-hour. She changed her first mask pack, and then directed her feet in the direction of the ortholake. She felt a compulsion to go to see Arcan as he really was. They were getting used to seeing him as one small shape, almost as if he were a being comparable to them, but that was so far from being the case that she needed to touch down from time to time. The reality of Arcan was so immense that she had to come out here and talk to him in his own setting.
 

She was almost at the lake when she thought she heard a slight sound behind her, and twisted her head with some difficulty to locate the source. The visitor’s video camera had caught up with her, and was examining the starry sky through its lens.

“How did you know I was here?” asked Grace.

The machine whirred. “You always come out bare planet at the first chance you get,” it said. “As soon as I saw you had disappeared I knew you would be visiting the orthogel entity. Not exactly a secret.”

“No? I had thought nobody else noticed.”

“They haven’t. They are all sleeping.” The tone of the metallic sphere sounded slightly contemptuous; the visitor himself did not require hours and hours of rest like these faulty 3b species.

“Good. I wanted to be alone.”
 

“Yes. Just the two of us.” The sphere gave a pleased buzz.

Grace was by far too warm-hearted to tell the machine that her wish to be alone had specifically included it too, so they continued on their way over the slate-coloured planet, until the black shiny surface of the ortholake came into view.

Grace slid down the sands on the shore with difficulty, because the particulates here were very fine, and piled into drifts. She had to take the slope sideways so as not to fall, and even so she moved clumsily through the sand, far too fast for comfort.

The lake was waiting for her, and treated her – as always – to a display of coloured fountains. She watched, transfixed, until the show subsided, and the surface of the lake became black and smooth as usual. Then she clapped her hands, and reached down to place her fingers upon the smooth surface. It was also a custom they had developed over the years, a ritual which went back to the beginning of the relationship between the Sellite girl and the quantum creature.

“Hello!” she signed with great enjoyment. “How are you, Arcan?”
 

The lake pushed back against her fingers, “I am well, thank you Grace, and you?”

Grace smiled out at the world, wanting to share her contentment. “I love coming out here,” she signed.
 

“Yes. It is nice to have a real, physical visitor for me, too,” Arcan told her. “What do you want to do?”

“Just sit here on the shore, and watch the stars,” she said.

“That is not particularly exciting.”

“No.” She shrugged. “It just feels right.”

“Then we will sit together and watch the stars.”

The orb whirred. “I will join you,” it said. “Although I am not sure that I understand what the point of it all is.”

Grace laughed. “There is no point,” she told it.

“Oh,” the visitor said. “I’ll have to think about that!”

“Good. Think quietly.”

AGAIN GRACE LOST all track of time – so much so that she was forced back into a reality check by her mask pack blocking. It needed changing. And it was while she was busy changing it that the visitor chirruped. Grace was too occupied to turn round at first.

“What?” she said, over her shoulder.

“Did you see that?”

“Did I see what?” she asked, finally managing to get the new mask pack working, and gulping back some much-needed deep breaths of air. She looked about her, but saw nothing out of the ordinary.

“Arcan? Did you see something?”

“I thought there was a glimmer of something, certainly, but it flickered out of existence so fast that I did not have time to see exactly what it was.”

“Look! There!” The visitor tried to point, but as the only way it had to do this was by turning its lens upon the object it fell rather short of perfect. But this time Grace was ready, and she too caught sight of a vague round blob which suddenly appeared, seeming to hover above the lake before disappearing again.

“Yes!” she said, getting to her feet hastily. “Yes, I saw that. It looked for a moment as if it was … but it can’t be!”

“Grace,” asked Arcan. “Did that look to you like one of the amorphs from Pictoria?”

“Yes!” she breathed. “But surely, that would be impossible? How in Lumina could they follow us back here? What does it mean?”

They all scoured the sky to see if the phenomenon was repeated, but to no avail. The object seemed to have done all that it could. It had appeared for a couple of seconds, and been unable to hold its position. Still, it was an amazing thing to happen.

“Did you see an amorph too, Visitor?” Grace asked.

“I did. It was only visible for a second or two, but was quite unmistakable. The only possible conclusion is that the amorphs are quantum entities. That is most interesting. I know you told me about the amorphs on Pictoria decohering, but to see one actually reaching here …!”

Arcan scintillated. “They seem to be able to travel as far as I myself can, although they are not able to hold the transfer in place,” he said slowly. “And I felt …” He hesitated. “I felt … I don’t know. Perhaps some sort of affinity? They might be distant cousins of mine!” Sparks of excitement shot across the whole lake, in a rainbow of colour. “Grace, we may have found them! Not the ortholiquid – the amorphs!” Arcan made a fountain of light play over the whole lake, which covered it with silvery ripples. “I will have to go back!”

“Not until we find out what happened to you last time!” Grace told him. “Not until you can go back safely!” She looked around again. “In any case, it is great news that your ‘cousins’ are trying to get in touch with you!”

“Yes. You are right. It gives me hope, though. Perhaps I shall find some family, after all!”

Grace grinned. “If they turn out to be like some of my family, you might just wish you hadn’t!”

“I don’t wish to offend you, but I don’t think you can compare a 3b family to a 2b!” said the visitor, quite shocked.

Grace pulled a face. “Six wouldn’t agree with you!” she teased.

The video camera gave a crackle. “I sometimes think the Kwaidians should be rated 3c!” it sniffed.

Grace turned to it. “I bet you wouldn’t dare say that to his face!”

The visitor limited itself to a crackle of static.

ATHERON LOOKED AROUND him in satisfaction. He had been clearing out the small laboratory he had used the previous year, underneath the Valhai Voting Dome. It would not be wise to leave any evidence lying around, and it was six months since he had translated the production process of the orange compound to Xiantha. He picked up the two remaining canisters, and slipped them into a carrysack.

“I have an idea that these might come in useful,” he told Xenon, who had been assisting him.

“I don’t see why you didn’t start production here on Valhai,” grumbled his accomplice.

“No—” Atheron’s tone was that of a teacher with a particularly dense pupil, “—I know you don’t.”

Xenon bristled. “Well, it meant sending some of our men away for six months!”

“Yes, but it also meant that the orthogel entity has no idea that we have perfected a compound that can tunnel through the quantum barrier.”

“He would never have found out if you had produced it here – not if we had been careful.”

“He might.” Atheron stroked his chin. “And I never leave things to chance.”

Xenon still seemed rather unhappy. “Well, I still don’t see why I should have to go all the way over to Xiantha.”

Atheron raised his eyebrows. “My dear Xenon, I couldn’t possibly leave such important things to anybody else! I really need somebody I can trust to oversee the transport of the finished canisters to a shuttle, and then back here to Valhai. Who else could I send?”

Xenon was slightly mollified. “If you put it like that ...” he said.

Atheron smiled, and placed an arm around his cohort’s shoulder. “Of course I do! You know there is nobody else I could depend on to do this.”

“I wanted to be here on Valhai – especially since my dear sister is here at the moment.”

“Don’t you worry about your sister. She will ... err ... she will be taken care of to your entire satisfaction.”

“I want to be there.”

“Do not worry, my friend. How fierce you are today!” Atheron seemed to visualize something which pleased him in the distance. “I think I have a plan where your sister will play a major role. Indeed, she will bait my trap admirably. We all know how very valuable she has become to the alien entity, don’t we? He is bound to come running to her side if she is threatened by the least little thing.”

Xenon dropped his arm. “Very well. But remember, you promised me I should be head of all Sell!”

Atheron smiled again, this time broadly. “My dear Xenon! How could I possibly forget that promise? I assure you, when the time comes you will not complain about my plans for you!” The grey beard was pleased with his choice of words there. They were, after all, strictly true. He had every intention of silencing Xenon permanently when the plan had been executed. He found him a tiresome appendage, one who thought only of his own importance. Xenon repeatedly failed to realize that the one person who could set Sell, and Valhai on the correct path was Atheron himself! Make Xenon the head of all Sell? The man was clearly delusional! Atheron nodded to himself. When the time came, arrangements would have to be made. He smoothed the hairs of his beard down. Yes. He thought he could see a way to that, too. Really, things were working out remarkably well.

He realized that Xenon was still staring at him, and waved an impatient hand. “Well? What are you waiting for? Somebody will have to travel to Xiantha and organize things from that end. Nothing can be put into motion until you return from Xiantha with the ... product. And, Xenon ...?”

“What?”

“Don’t tell your family where you are going, will you? We don’t want to make things too easy for the orthogel entity, do we?”

Xenon nodded sullenly. “I’ll have to take the shuttle down myself, and it will have to be at night. Even though you chose such an isolated region in the southern lowlands.” He gave a grunt. “Such a backward little planet at the best of times.”