The Farpool (32 page)

“Shhh…I think they can hear us.”

The Metah was speaking. “I see no
choice but to involve the Ponkti. They know how to work with
tchin’ting
fiber in
quantity.”

Tamarek was appalled. “Honorable Metah,
we can work with
tchin’ting
as well as any Ponkti…already, I’ve fabricated many beats
worth…come to the em’kel…I’ll show you.”

But Iltereedah had made up her mind, snapping
her tail flukes abruptly. “No, we must have all the kels
together…Omt’or, Ponk’et, Ork’et, the Eepkos, the Skort. It’s too
big a project for one kel. The Umans won’t be able to ignore us if
we’re together.”

Tulcheah, who was Ponkti by birth, concurred,
amplifying the Metah’s words. “No one kel can monopolize the
Farpool.”

“May I remind the Most Affectionate
Metah,” said Longsee, “that the wavemaker, the Uman machine that is
wrecking our world, creates the Farpool. If we aren’t careful,
damage to the wavemaker will shut down the Farpool…we’ll lose
access to other places, other times. And our
eekoti
friends—“ He didn’t have to go further.
All eyes were on Chase and Angie.

The Metah pulsed Chase, then Angie. “I pulse
turmoil…concern…if I read the echoes right. You worry about the
Farpool?”

Chase had to be prodded by Kloosee to
reply.
When the Metah addresses you…
answer
.

“Yes, that’s right, Your Majesty. The Farpool
is our way home. We want to help here.” He took Angie’s scaly arm
in his. “But someday, we both want to go home.”

Iltereedah’s face was a mixture of
feelings. Chase wasn’t sure how to figure it. In the dim lighting,
she had a pig’s snout. From other angles, she had a kind of bemused
smile, a look that said
I know all about
you.
He didn’t yet know how to pulse the insides of
his Seomish friends. He’d tried before, but all he got back was a
blast of echoes, a disjointed pattern that made no sense. And how
kosher was it to pulse the Metah anyway? Wasn’t that rude? The
Seomish didn’t seem to have any secrets. They could see right
inside you…they knew what you were feeling, what you had just
eaten, whether you were anxious or calm. Kloosee had talked
about
Shookel
. Inner calm,
inner tranquility. Chase figured maybe that was just good manners.
Keep your insides steady and calm so you don’t annoy the hell of
everybody around you.

The Seomish all placed a lot of
emphasis on
shookel
.

“This we understand,” said the Metah.
“
Eekoti
are not of our world.
It’s not fair of us to involve you in our affairs. I don’t want
our
eekoti
guests to be pawns
in a struggle between the kels.”

“Honorable Metah, “Longsee said,
“perhaps the
eekoti
can help
us with the shield project. They can talk with the Umans. They are
Uman, in a sense. The other kels will listen to them.”

“Perhaps,” sniffed the Metah. “I will
compose a formal message—Tulcheah here will help me—to the Metah of
Ponk’et. Lektereenah kim. I know her. She’s brash, yes, but she’ll
listen to reason…especially if it comes from the
eekoti
. Longsee, oversee an
expedition. Gather your engineers, your craftsmen and spinners and
weavers. Be ready. If Lektereenah’s agreeable, we’ll send this
expedition to Ponk’et and know we have the best people working on
the shield.”

“At once, Honorable Metah.”

Chase wanted to ask just what it was the
Omtorish expected him and Angie to do. He glanced at Angie. Were
they pawns? Worse, were they like circus freaks, exhibits in some
aquarium turned inside out? He felt a growing sense of
helplessness. Like they were being sucked into one of the
whirlpools…like going through the Farpool, with no way of knowing
where they would end up.

He resolved to have a word with Kloosee and
Pakma when the gathering was done.

The Metah slipped away from her coral bed and
headed toward the edge of the platform, out into the heavily silted
waters beyond. She was immediately flanked by Tulcheah and other
staff, and well-guarded with armed prodsmen.

“We will build a shield with the Ponkti
and the other kels and protect ourselves from the sound that way.
If the shield doesn’t work, then the
eekoti
must go before the Umans with an
ultimatum: stop the wavemaker or die.”

Roaming just a quarter beat behind the Metah,
Tulcheah kim thought to herself:

Ponk’et must take control of this project. We
have the right. Omt’or can’t have the Farpool to itself forever. If
Omt’or can bring eekoti to Seome, Ponk’et can use the Farpool to
bring even greater treasures. Omt’or won’t rule the waves much
longer.

Then she swallowed that thought
abruptly, sensing one of the prodsmen closing on her. He had pulsed
something menacing, something that shouldn’t ever exist in the
presence of the Metah. Tulcheah forced her insides to show
shookel
…
nothing here but calm and serenity, my good soldier. Nothing
but peace and tranquility here. Long live Iltereedah
luk’t….

The prodsman eventually veered off and
resumed his guard position on their starboard flank. He kept a wary
eye on the chief of diplomats.

And the Metah’s official entourage was
off again on
vish’tu
, another
formal roam to inspect the city and its beleaguered
residents.

Chase joined Kloosee and Pakma with Longsee
as they headed back to the Kelktoo. He knew Angie was glaring at
him with both eyes.

He didn’t look over at her. He was
determined he wasn’t going to show anything less than total
courage
. I can do this. We can do
this.
It was like when he made his first dive with his
Dad to the hundred foot depth, right off Round Reef, a few miles
from Scotland Beach. His ears ached and he was freezing and his
stomach was churning. But he kept giving thumbs’up signs to his
Dad, determined to make the Old Man proud of him.

This was a chance to make something of
himself. Angie wanted that too. She was always saying things
like
you can’t sell T-shirts forever,
Chase. Get a real job. Make a life. I don’t want to live my life
with a beach bum.

No, the Seomish didn’t think of him as
a beach bum. They were counting on him, counting on them, to help
with the Umans, with their machines and their conflict. Maybe, when
it was all over, Kloosee and Pakma would erect a statue, give them
medals of honor or something. Wouldn’t that be cool? A statue on
Seome:
For Courage and Commitment Beyond
the Call of Duty. For Selfless Devotion to Service.

He’d take a picture of it and plaster it all
over his bedroom walls back home, so Dad would have to see it every
time he burst in unannounced, yelling at him about something at the
shop.

If they ever got back home.

Angie’s Journal: Echopod 2

“Well, so here I am, dictating this journal
again. I don’t know what’s gotten into Chase. Honestly, sometimes…I
just don’t understand that guy. Gwen, I love him. I’m sure of that.
But every time I think I’ve figured him out, he surprises me. And
not always in a good way either.

“Chase doesn’t want to
really go back, through the Farpool. Oh, he says he does. I think
he says that for me, just to keep me pacified. Me, I’m homesick. I
want to eat waffles in the morning, not this sour fish thing they
call
gisu
. I want to look in
the mirror at night and see my brown curls that won’t stay in
place, not see some scaly lizard creepy thing that looks like a
reject from a bad horror movie. I want my own bed. I want to run
laps with you, girl…remember how we used to do that after school?
Hook up with the cross-country team, stick our butts out when we
passed by the football team practicing?

“God, I miss all that. Just put me down that
Farpool and I’ll take my chances. I try to talk with Chase about
this, but he’s not listening…he just nods and smiles, you know…like
guys do. The zombie look…I really want to slap him when he does
that.

“Gwen, now things are really getting serious
around here. The families—they call them kels—don’t like each
other. I guess it’s politics…I don’t know. One kel thinks Kloosee
and Pakma’s kel are monopolizing the Farpool…the best I can make
out. Chase and me, we’re like pawns. We’re like some great prize.
Can you believe that?

“Now, there’s a big project to put up some
kind of shield. Kloosee says nobody knows what that’ll do to the
Farpool…it might stop the thing altogether. That would suck. How
would we get home then?

“Oh, Gwen…I don’t want to stay here. I don’t
want to be marooned here. When I ask Pakma about changing back,
undoing the modifications to my body, going back through that
procedure—she doesn’t give me a straight answer. She says it’s
complicated. And it’s more than just the procedure that makes it
complicated. Now, I think Chase and me are like exhibits in a
zoo…they’re arguing over us, what to do with us, how to use us.
That makes me nervous.

“Anyway, I’m just trying to put my thoughts
down…sorry if I sound a little down. I guess I am, sort of. I want
to record everything, sights, sounds, scents. Pakma said she would
help me, but they’re all so busy. There’s another trip coming. Some
place called Ponk’et. They don’t get along too well with Omt’or,
from what I gather. And the Metah—that’s like their Queen—has a
female on her staff who’s from this other kel…at least partly.
Nobody trusts her, but she’s got the ear of the Queen.

“Gwen, there’s so much I can’t show you or
even describe. The Seomish can read each other’s insides, the
bubbles, the echoes. It’s like they can read your mind. Nothing is
secret around here. But I haven’t learned how to do that yet. I’m
not even sure I want to…can you imagine that? Me and Chase reading
each other’s minds and stomachs. Yuck…he loves Mexican too. That’s
more than I want to know.

“Gwen, Pakma’s come for me, so I have to sign
off. I’ll keep the journal going on this little trip…I guess we’ll
be seeing things we’ve never seen before….just like Nat Geo.

“Swell. I can hardly wait.

“Anyway…until later, girl. Angie out.”

End Recording

Chapter 12

Seome

Omsh’pont, kel: Om’t and Ponk’t, kel:
Ponk’et

Time: 766.4, Epoch of Tekpotu

With the shield project underway, Longsee
worked with Kloosee and Pakma to have Chase and Angie join the
expedition as apprentices, becoming part of a formal team of
engineers, craftsmen and weavers who would journey to the city of
Ponk’t, on the far side of the world. There, the Omtorish and the
Ponkti would hopefully cooperate on completing the shield and then
ferrying it north to Kinlok Island and the Time Twister.

Not everyone was in favor of this
arrangement.

So it was that a formal message went out from
Omsh’pont, from Iltereedah, Metah of Omt’or to Lektereenah, Metah
of Ponk’et. The message proposed a joint effort, to design and
build a shield to dampen or eliminate the destructive effects of
the wavemaker. The message proposed a joint expedition to Kinlok to
put the shield in place.

Our two nations have much
to gain from this endeavor
, Iltereedah had
said.
Unity in the face of this grave
threat is the only way we can succeed. It is imperative we put
aside our differences and present a strong, common face to the
Umans.

Tulcheah kim, the Metah’s chief
diplomat, helped the Metah write the message. When the thing was
done, it was Tulcheah who saw to it that the message was conveyed
through the
ootkeeor
,
properly formatted for the repeaters who would sing the song of the
proposal across the seas of Seome, across the Omt’orkel and the
Sk’ortel, across the Serpentines to the Ponk’el Sea.

The Metah Iltereedah didn’t know that
Tulcheah had composed her own private message to accompany the
formal one. The annex Tulcheah had composed was coded for the ears
of a single Ponkti citizen, one Loptoheen tu, Master of
Tuk
and military advisor to
Lektereenah. Magnificent, courageous, undefeated in
tuk
, Loptoheen would understand what
was happening…and he would make sure Ponk’et could take over
dealings with the Umans when the shield failed…as inevitably, it
would.

Tulcheah planned to be at his side, roaming
with the great master himself, when that happened.

The Metah of Ponk’et made her reply soon
enough and it was affirmative. Ponk’et would concede to join the
Omtorish effort, though not without some stipulations. Outfitting
and equipping the expedition proceeded and twelve kip’ts were made
available for the journey. Chase and Angie would ride in one of the
lead kip’ts with Kloosee and Longsee, had who gathered up his
courage and stamina for what he knew would be arduous trip. Longsee
seldom left the confines of Omsh’pont, but his knowledge of the
shield design was needed and he was directed to join the crew by no
less than the Metah herself.

“I’d sooner lower myself into the volcanoes
of the Sk’ort than show up in Ponk’t,” he grumbled, but there was
nothing he could do in the face of a direct order.

Kloosee would pilot the lead kip’t. Only he
and one other craftsman had ever been in the vicinity of the
central city of the Ponkti. Ponk’t was well hidden and even Kloosee
wasn’t sure exactly of its location.