Ammonite Planets (Omnibus): Ammonite Galaxy #1-3 (91 page)

The only person who had not succumbed to despair was the canth keeper. The Xianthan shrugged his ample shoulders, and looked at Ledin and at Cimma. “We do not yet know what has occurred to the young lady,” he said. “Sometimes things occur with no colour, such as this …” he indicated the hanging bodies of the two Sellites, “… and sometimes things occur with much colour. We do not yet know if such a thing has occurred to Grace. We must wait, and not jump to erroneous conclusions.”

“Speeches aren’t going to bring her back to life,” jeered Six, feeling a hopeless rage spread right through his body, and totally unable to contain it.

“Wait!” repeated the canth keeper, and then lapsed again into silence.

The stop at the Lightning Corner platform, with the macabre sight in front of them was eternal, and all were more than relieved when, at last, the cage began its run down to the cloud base, down towards the base of the Xianthe.

AT THE BASE, the ticket collector had hurried over to the mingling canths, and was horrified to find the body of a girl splayed out in their midst. He did his best to ignore what appeared to be an alien spaceship which had arrived out of nowhere, and ran back to his office as fast as his fat little legs could take him. He was one of the few non-panchrome Xianthans in charge of a tridiscreen – deemed a necessary artifact for him to have in case of breakdowns. Hurriedly, he pushed the predis button, and contacted the Donor Headquarters, the nearest place with hospital facilities and a panchrome to take decisions. The long wait until he was put through to somebody with authority was agonizing for him.

“It is the man who sells tickets here, nonachrome, at your service, sir. One of the foreigners … I think … I think she is dead! Please come quickly!” he gasped to the functionary who answered his call.

“We will send a magsled immediately,” the cool voice answered, “with a medical team. Please cover the person with the emergency wrap pack, and stay with her.”

“But the Xianthe! I have groups in four of the cages! At least—” he frowned, remembering the girl’s face, “—At least, there ought to be, but this girl looks very like the one who went up in a cage with two Sellites. That cage should be coming into base camp very soon now. Yes! Here it is!” There was a long pause on the tridiscreen as the ticket collector went to look into the cage. Then his footsteps could be heard again, thudding hurriedly into the office.

“—There is nobody there! They have all disappeared! This is looking very bad! Please send two teams immediately. I don’t know what to do. Should I stop the Xianthe?”

The functionary at the Donor Headquarters thought for a moment. “There are other visitors up there, you say?”

“Yes. A school group from the south just got into the last three cages. They will be at the first three platforms now!”

“Then leave the ride running. We can’t have schoolchildren stuck up there for any length of time. Let nobody else on the ride, though. We must close the whole Xianthe!”

“Yes sir! Of course sir! Please send people quickly! May you be showered with colour! Thank you sir! Cutting the connexion!” With relief, the ticket collector switched off the screen and turned back to the girl lying on the ground, stopping only to snatch the emergency wrap pack. He rushed over to her and covered her up to her chin, tucking the wrap underneath her but with great care not to move any bones. He tutted between his teeth. Nothing ever happened here. The Xianthes were completely safe. Everybody knew that!

The visitor monitored all the actions of the ticket collector through the video camera, blended still so as not to be seen. Somebody was at least doing something to help Grace, he saw. And she was still alive. The little sphere had given him a long look at her limp body, and he had been able to see that she was breathing fairly naturally. She was white, though, and he wasn’t certain that the last fall had not broken any of those fragile bones which this species boasted. The other thing he didn’t like was the blue colour of some of her extremities. Several of her fingers were damaged, and her nose had also suffered some sort of severe attack by the cold. But she was alive! The visitor found that he was able to feel, after all. He felt pleasure.

SIX’S CAGE TOOK an eternity to finally come into the base station, and the orthogel in the box still showed no sign of reanimation. It was a very tense group that poured out of the cage.

The ticket collector looked up at all the noise, amazed to see this group of visitors appear from what should have been an empty cage. He had been squatting beside the girl, but he got to his feet with some difficulty and made his way over to them.

“Now I don’t know how you got into that cage,” he pronounced, “and I don’t think as how I want to know. At least, not very much. But you are all going to have to stay here under my jurisdiction until the emergency teams arrive from Eletheia, and the injured girl is taken care of. Nobody is to move until your implication in these events has been ascertained. There will have to be an investigation. I hope I make myself clear?”

Unfortunately he never knew if he had or not, because he was pushed rudely to one side as the occupants of the cage flooded out en masse to look at the injured girl. He thought he saw tears on the faces of more than one of the visitors.

The ticket collector heard a scraping sound, and his attention was drawn back to the cage. There his eyes were met by the inexplicable sight of one of the most important men on Xiantha dragging a heavy wooden case out of the cage.

“Well, come on, man!” this apparition said testily. “Help me to get this out, or it will go all over the Xianthe again!”

“But …”

“We only have ten minutes, you know!”

“But …!”

“Oh very well, I will just have to do it myself!” And the ticket collector was treated to the sight of the man who kept canths tugging and pushing at the heavy box. Recollecting his station in life belatedly, the ticket collector hurried forward and laid his not inconsiderable back against the box, which at last cleared the doors of the cage.

“Well done! That has been of great help!” The man who kept canths smiled down at him and then moved without hurry to the site of the girl. The man who sold tickets looked from him to the box, and then scurried after him. It was
his
job to watch the girl until the emergency team arrived, after all.

THEY CLUSTERED AROUND Grace and gazed down at her. Cimma knelt beside her daughter to take her pulse, and then nodded back euphorically at the others, with an enormous smile.
 

“She’s alive!”

Ledin sank down beside Grace, and stroked her hair back from her face. He looked worried when he saw the damage to her nose, but even more so when he tried to take her hand.

“She has frostbite very badly,” he told the others. “I think she may lose some of these fingers.” Then, despite the injuries she had suffered, he found himself smiling up around at the group. She was alive!

Diva pushed Six to one side. “Get out of my way, nomus!” She stared down at her friend. “Wake up, Grace!” she told her. “Wake up, won’t you!”

“Yeah! Like she is going to wake up just because you say so!” muttered Six, feigning disgust, but unable to hide the happiness which had overtaken him when he saw that Grace was still alive. He looked around. “What I would like to know is how—” He stopped as he realized what the object lying to one side of Grace was. “—Ah! Now I understand. Are you all right, Visitor?” He turned his head from one side to another, trying to pick out the sphere, but still jumped when it replied to him, from about half a metre to his left.

“I am fine, thank you Six!” it said.

Six gave a nod. “Bit of a hero, mate,” he said. “Well done!”

“I thank you. It was necessary to help because of my promise to the orthogel entity. When I received the mental signals from the canths I felt I had to act.”

“You mean all that mental telepathy bit worked?” Six shook his head. “Well I would never have thought it!” Then something occurred to him. “Wait a minute, though! If you got a mental message from the canths – who got a mental message from some of us, then that means we can use quantum non-locality too!”

The machine gave a chatter of static. “It does, certainly.”

“—Which means that we are NOT 3b, but 2a, just like you!”

A grating sound was heard from within the little globe. There was a considered pause, and then, “It may be necessary to revise our estimations as to your status, I agree. But to say you belong to group 2a is to exaggerate the occurrence.”

Six punched the air. “You aren’t going to be able to wriggle out of it, Visitor. You said that species which could communicate telepathically are classed as 2a, we can communicate telepathically, ergo we are 2a! Put that in your pipe and smoke it!”

“I do not understand your reference to pipes and smoke, I am afraid. And, since I will most likely have my contract rescinded immediately, this may be a moot question.”

“What? Why? Just for helping Grace?”

“Once the Dessites realize that I have ruined the mission for the sake of saving an entity classed as 3b, they will conclude my contract.” There was silence as the visitor ruminated on this, and then he went on, “In any case, this craft is not equipped with sufficient thrust to achieve lift-off. I cannot move from here, I am trapped. And the nutrients will only provide me with a short time frame before they become contaminated. I was not meant to live within an atmosphere.”

Six grabbed hold of the video camera, causing it to squawk, and turned its lens to face him directly. “I will not let them autodestruct you, Visitor. We will find a way out of this, I promise!” He let the sphere go again, and it bobbed slightly in the air.

“If the orthogel entity were here,” it mused, “things could be different. But I can’t get through to Arcan on Valhai. They have somehow incapacitated him there as well as here, although I am hopeful that they could only have knocked him out, because he had the antidote we prepared there. I don’t see how we can stop them.”

“Neither do I,” agreed Six grimly. “But I WILL stop them somehow. You saved Grace’s life – I still don’t know how – and there is simply no way we are going to give up on you. So let’s start thinking just what we can do to get you out of that module, or how we can interfere with Dessia’s signals so that they can’t activate the autodestruct!”

“Thank you Six. I would greatly appreciate your help. Now I am close to the end of my existence, I find I have … become accustomed to it.”

“I am sorry I ever criticized you. You should get a medal for what you did here today!”

“A medal!” whirred the machine. “That would be nice. A medal!”

“With no speeches, mind. None of that ceremonious stuff!”

“That would not be necessary,” agreed the machine. “A medal! Does that mean I would be a friend?”

Six felt a bit guilty. He hadn’t been exactly kind to this small alien being, who had nevertheless risked its entire existence to save one of his friends. “You are definitely a friend,” he said. “With or without a medal, you have earned that title.”

“Then if you don’t mind, you can keep the medal. I would much rather just be a friend.”

Six looked the machine straight in the lens. “You got it,” he promised.

The machine gave a satisfied click.

“Who are you talking to?” Six looked quickly around, to find the portly man who sold tickets at his elbow. Hurriedly, he led him away through the group.
 

“I … err … I was talking to my friend, Ledin. He is over there, see?”

The ticket collector was confused. “I don’t know,” he stroked his chin slowly. “It seems to me that there are some funny things going on here. As I said, there will have to be a full investigation.”

“Yes, yes, I know. Look! Aren’t those magsleds arriving now from the south? I expect you will have to go to meet them, give them a briefing on everything that has happened. Well, I mustn’t keep you, I can see duty calls!”

Six watched as the man bumbled off officiously, smiling to himself, and then jumped as Ledin touched his arm.

“What happened, Six? I imagine you were talking to the visitor?”

Six filled him in on everything that had passed. “We really will have to find some way to save him. He deserves it!”

Ledin nodded. “Yes. But right now we should be thinking about Grace and Arcan. Do you think we should ask the medical team to take the orthogel back to the facility too?”

“Definitely. The rest of us can follow on canths. And
they
deserve our thanks too. As it turns out Grace would be dead if it weren’t for them!”