The Space Between (23 page)

"So you don't know how many there are? Or
how big they are? Or how many of the black bats they each hold? Or
how many of the armored monsters?"

"No, to all of those. We can see the ships
with telescopes — hell you can see them with an ordinary old pair
of binoculars — but they move too much and too quick for us get an
accurate count, and without knowing exactly how far away they are,
we can't tell how big they are. We're pretty sure they're huge. A
few hundred meters long, some of them. How about that? And, as I
said, they're quick. There are maybe as many as two hundred of
them. We do know for sure that there's normally about forty of the
aliens on each bat."

"And how do they get out of orbit? Or back
into it, if they even do? The bats are such impossible
vehicles."

O'Donnell laughed. "Tell us about it. It
took a long time for us to work them out. They do it with a
combination of two things." He loosened his tie. "First,
antigravity. The aliens have devised a mechanical means of making
the bats lighter. That allows them to fly despite the burden of the
life support capsules. It also allows them to fly well into the
thermosphere. Up to about 300 kilometers. We aren't sure if it's
the temperature, the atmosphere, or gravity that stops them going
higher. Or maybe the bats just get tired. Anyway, when they reach
their limit the mother ships dip down closer to the planet and grab
the bats with long tentacles."

"Tentacles?"

"Yes. We think. We think the ships are
alive. Creatures that live in space."

"Is that likely?"

"Is any of this likely?"

"Perhaps not."

"And those laser weapon thingies?"

"How do you know about those?"

"I have my sources." Kim smiled. "They
haven't told you about how I hooked up with Meledrin and
Keeble?"

"No. And hold back payment to that source.
The weapons are more like a combination particle beam and
Taser."

"Uh huh."

"What they do is align a path of particles
in the air then fire a bolt of electricity along the path. I don't
understand much more about it than that, but we've had people
working on similar stuff for years. Now they're close to getting it
figured out."

"Well, don't talk too loud. Keeble might
overhear and go out the back to make one for himself."

"Yes, he's amazing, really. I think he's
already suggested a couple of things to the flyboys that will jump
them forward a couple of decades. He seems to see things once
someone's given him a push in the right direction."

The flight from London direct to Washington
DC took 10 hours. In that time every one of the CIA men, plus
several of the flight crew, were involved in discussions with
Keeble. Somewhere along the way, the subjects veered away from
aeronautics into magnetics, and construction, and computers, and a
dozen other things. Keeble had an insatiable appetite and seemed to
soak up everything, no matter what language it was in. Meledrin did
her best to translate, perhaps welcoming the opportunity to think
about something other than the distance she was from the ground,
but over and over again she was saying that there were no words to
say what needed to be said. A computer? Fiber optics? The words
were easy to say in most instances, but how do you describe what
they mean? A machine that adds. A rope that light travels
along.

Often, the questions Keeble asked had the
men scratching their heads, arguing with each other, or looking
slightly dazed. Sometimes all three at once. Most of the men were
merely dilettantes, and it would take a real expert to keep up.

* * *

Arriving in Washington DC, Kim stretched and
yawned. She'd finished her book earlier and drifted to sleep with
Keeble's excited voice in her head, asking question after
question.

He'd stopped for a few minutes when half a
dozen bats attacked their plane. But the three jets escorting them
made short work of the slow, ungainly creatures. It had all been
over in minutes. Before the remains had splashed into the Atlantic,
Keeble had been asking questions again.

When they started their descent, he'd found
a seat by a window and stared out like a little boy. He swung his
feet, wound the gears on his hand, and muttered under his
breath.

When the plane taxied slowly to a spot that
was almost a kilometer from the terminal, the dwarf was the first
out the door and down onto the tarmac. He ran to stand beneath an
engine as if he could discover how it worked from that alone. Kim
wasn't so thrilled. From the top of the stairs she could see
another plane waiting for them, not a limousine, or even a jeep.
She grunted in disgust.

"What's the matter?" O'Donnell asked,
straightening his tie as he waited for Kim to continue forward.

"I was hoping we were here."

"
I'm
here." The agent smiled and
nudged her forward.

"Yes, but I'm sure another escort for
Keeble, Meledrin, and I will be along in a moment. Or perhaps
they're already on the plane."

"They are. I'll walk you to the door though,
of course."

"Of course, gentleman that you are."

O'Donnell laughed. Kim liked him. He'd given
out more information than expected and chatted for much of the
trip.

The second plane was a Lear jet. The escort
was made up of Air Force personnel. They mostly wore uniforms,
though they did have the same serious expressions as the CIA.
Keeble grabbed the first available window seat, ignoring the new
men. Meledrin took the first seat on the aisle. Kim just dumped her
pack and took the first one she came to. She had no idea where they
were going, and hardly cared. The men on the plane, obviously just
an escort of convenience like the last lot, watched them as if they
were criminals. Kim wondered if perhaps they were, for more reasons
than matters of security. Or perhaps people who worked for the
United States government were trained to look that way. As she
buckled up her belt, she thought that IRS agents probably went
around with the same look.

They were airborne in ten minutes and
heading west.

"I don't suppose there's a shower on this
plane?" Kim asked as soon as the seat belt light went out.

The nearest man looked up from his book and
pointed towards the rear of the plane. Kim smiled.

16: Messages

Tuki sat with the skyglass on his lap,
staring beyond the polished surface as if concentration alone could
change the message he read within. He'd been looking for a long
time. There had been one meteor before, now there were five. They
hadn't moved for a while. Seeing the skyglass didn't seem to show
anything of the far side of the world, there may have been more
there too.

One was right above his location.

That location was on the edge of a clearing
halfway down a steep-backed hill. Tuki had topped the rise
midmorning and started back down. It wasn't until he entered the
clearing, with the uninterrupted view it offered, that he'd seen
the human city. If not for that, he would have been right down in
the base of the valley and beside the first of the buildings before
he realized. As it was, he was closer than he liked.

The city was huge. He had been amazed by the
earlier settlement, but the place before him was all but
unbelievable. He counted eight hundred and eighty six buildings.
One towered above the others, and Tuki wondered if the spire was to
assist with the study of the stars.

Humans were everywhere. In a large square on
the edge of the city, they dipped beneath cultured awnings and
tents like butterflies into flowers. They danced their dance,
unaware of the message the Mother Blower was trying to pass on.

The yellow dots in the skyglass hadn't
moved.

He wished he could go somewhere else. He
wanted to climb back into the mountains and return to the desert.
He could follow one of the other meteors shown by the 'glass but he
may just go all that way to find himself in the same situation. And
Poti had directed him here. He was supposed to go down into the
city and talk to the humans of this city first.

But the last humans Tuki had seen tried to
hurt him.

With a sigh, Tuki rose and started down the
hill. He did not know what the Mother Blower was going to say,
either, but maybe he had more chance of finding out than the
humans. He had always been told, and had always believed, that Poti
was infallible, but surely She had chosen the wrong person for this
mission.

"Keala should be here," Tuki said to the
skyglass. "Or any of the women."

If he didn't understand anything, how was he
to explain it to others? And why would they listen to him, a
go'gan? Even the men would laugh, surely. He couldn't help but
laugh himself, a go'gan passing on the message of the Mother
Blower. He fell silent when he tried to imagine how the women would
react to his preaching.

The Goddess
had
chosen him, though,
perhaps as a chance to make up for some past indiscretion, or to
test if he truly was worthy of marrying someone as special as
Keala.

So he would prove himself the best man in
Danyon Ford. He would prove to the women who had laughed at him
that the Goddess had spoken and he had listened. He slipped the
skyglass into the pouch at his belt and marched down the hill.
Examining the new meteor tattoo on the back of his hand, he
wondered if he should have drawn it on his face.

The first human he saw was sitting on the
back of a shaggy, four-legged beast. His feet were swinging just
above the ground. Possessions were slung in sacks across the
beast's back. Tuki did not even have the chance to offer a
greeting. The man got his feet onto solid ground and fled back the
way he had come, leaving the beast standing on the road looking
bemused and twitching its long ears.

Tuki knew how both beast and man felt, but
he forced his steps onwards. The beast watched him go.

Half a kilometer later, Tuki rounded a bend
and looked down a long stretch of road toward the city. He could
see lots of people there, milling about. He slowed his pace as the
trees thinned and offered him an ever-wider view. There were dozens
of wooden-railed yards filled with beasts larger even than the one
he had left standing on the road. They surged around, much like the
people, as if hearing that there was much to fear but not knowing
exactly what the danger was, or what to do about it.

As Tuki drew nearer, the people — if not the
animals — seemed to come to a decision. Some went one way, some
went the other, but it all seemed to be with a purpose. One man
stayed exactly where he was, a monolith in the shifting sands about
him. He was still standing and watching when Tuki came to a
stop.

"You are not wanted here," the man said, his
hand resting on the hilt of a long, curved knife. His accent was
strange to Tuki's ears, rugged and clipped, but understandable.

Tuki bowed deeply. He did not know the man's
title, could not begin to guess, but the footprints of years
traversed his features and the steel in his voice was tempered by
authority. "Go'shin," Tuki said after an agonizing moment, praying
he would not offend. "Why am I not wanted?"

"Why?" He gave a bark of
laughter. "Why are trolls ever
not
wanted
? Leave now, or suffer the
consequences." His voice was sure and steady, but he checked back
over his shoulder. The crowd was surging and muttering. Those at
the front were struggling to hold their ground against the press
behind.

"But, go'shin, I have been sent by the
Mother Blower to speak with your mo'min." Was he supposed to speak
with the mo'min? Tuki had been told no such thing.

"Well, troll, the
mo'min
doesn't want to
talk with you." Some of the tension leaked from the man's face when
he saw others, dressed similarly to himself, pushing their way
through the crowd, cursing and shouting and using force when people
in the mob did not move quickly enough for their liking.

Tuki moved nervously from foot to foot.
"Go'shin, perhaps if you were to ask."

"I'm Kuwisa, Keyman of the Payota City
Guard, and I have all the authority needed to send the likes of you
on your way." He drew his long knife and stepped forward.

There were now a dozen men standing between
the Keyman and the main crowd. They were all dressed in brown
breeches and striped, tasseled shirts. Long knives were gripped in
their hands. They all stepped forward as well.

"Go, troll. You can't win here, not even
you."

Someone from the mob shouted: "If you don't
think he can win, Keyman, what are you waiting for?"

This comment was greeted with peels of
laughter. Keyman Kuwisa didn't look around, but Tuki saw the look
of anger cross his face. Kuwisa stepped forward again. "Last
warning, troll. Go, and don't bother us again."

"I am not a troll."

But the Keyman was not listening. He raced
forward, knife raised. The other knife wielding men came behind.
Tuki turned and ran.

Panicking, he saw that he wasn't moving
toward the freedom of the hills. His hasty retreat had taken him
among the animal pens, between the high timber fences. The beasts
bawled at him and stampeded. They kicked up dust and fear.

Tuki dodged and turned.
Left and right. Right and left. Past this turning, through that
intersection. Sweat trickled down his face, wasting valuable water.
The skyglass thumped against his leg. He didn't know where he went.
He didn't look up. He didn't look behind for fear that his pursuers
would be right
there
. His heart raced, stampeding with the beasts.

Tuki didn't know how long he ran. It felt
like he'd been all night in the desert.