The Space Between (36 page)

He did, and he put it to use binding the
woman's hands and feet. Kim apologized before gagging her as
well.

Out in the hall she checked both ways then
picked a direction at random. More offices. A mess hall with a
tired looking soldier.

Kim faltered, swallowed. "Ahh, was Brian
here?"

The soldier shook his head and Kim got out
of there as quickly as she could.

"Who is Brian?" Meledrin asked.

"Don't worry about it."

Sleeping quarters next, with the sounds of
snoring. Then a blank wall.

Back the other way, well past the end of the
hangar, Kim checked another door, opening it up and poking her head
through. More soldiers. And she knew immediately that she wasn't
talking her way out of this one. The guards here, closer to the
important stuff, were more experienced and more alert. They were on
their feet in an instant, weapons drawn.

"
Put down your weapon,
" one of them
shouted as his three companions spread out.

It took Kim a moment to sort through the
English words and work out what he was actually saying. She got the
point anyway.

"
Put it down now.
"

Keeble was ready to fight but Kim held him
back. The guards looked serious. One of them had an edgy look that
made Kim's heart pound even faster. Her finger was well away from
the trigger and the safety was on. But they weren't to know that,
so she slowly, carefully, did as she was asked.

She cleared her throat. "I don't think
General Hilliard is going to be very happy with us."

"Was he ever happy?" the dwarf asked
vaguely.

"Good point," Kim replied. "It was fun while
it lasted though."

She shifted her focus past the guards to
examine the rest of the room. It was big — twenty meters to a side,
at least — and was full of a lot of busy looking people. There were
a dozen or more scientists of one kind or another working at
computers and consoles plus a couple of dozen soldiers who, until a
moment ago, had been checking their equipment. Now all those
serious looking men and women were starting to relax after
realizing the excitement by the door was under control.

"Brian may be amongst these people,"
Meledrin said softly, "but I am not sure she will be able to assist
us, whoever she is."

Kim took a moment to start
thinking in English again so she could talk to the Americans.
"
I should probably let you know there's
some lady tied up in the stairwell.
"

"
Jack, go and check it out. All of you, shut up and get into
the corner.
" They shifted so Jack could
slip out.

"
So what happens now?
" Kim asked the
Americans while trying to keep an eye on Keeble.

Apparently that wasn't immediately
obvious.

Keeble was muttering to himself. "There's
another gate through there," he said.

"You mean the gate to the other world?" Kim
said, shocked out of her nervousness. "How do you know it's there?"
There were five other doors in the room, and Keeble was looking at
the largest of them, on the wall opposite the hangar. It didn't
look very special, apart from its size.

"I can hear it. I can feel it." He muttered
and wound the gears on his hand. "It isn't right there, there are
five or six walls between us and it, but it's close."

"
You two shut up.
"

"
We'll put them in a cell until the General gets here. Somehow
I don't think this was part of his plan.
"

The leader shanghaied another couple of
soldiers into his detail and led the way across the room, past a
lot of curious people, to a small, metal door with a glowing green
hand scanner. Beyond was a short passage, then another
guardroom.

From there, they went through another door
and Kim muttered, "Great, we broke into jail."

But, one of the three small cells held the
alien prisoner.

Kim stopped in her tracks. Keeble ran into
her back. A moment later the guard was swearing. He pushed roughly,
and Kim stumbled into an empty cell. She couldn't take her eyes off
the alien. It was an ugly bipedal thing that was actually closer to
Keeble's height than Meledrin's though the size of the armor they
wore has suggested otherwise. It had rough, tough looking leathery
blue-tinged skin, a flat nose, and two large brown eyes. Wearing
only a pair of trousers, it stood silently in the corner of its
cell, staring at the floor. "Bad science fiction," she muttered. "A
humanoid alien." She'd called it ugly, but maybe it was considered
gorgeous by others of its kind.

Kim jumped when the door clanged shut. There
was a hint of finality about the sound. The soldiers left them
alone.

"What do we do now?" Keeble asked. He was
looking at the alien as if it were nothing more than a puzzle to be
solved. Maybe it was, for now.

Kim looked around. There wasn't much to see.
One long, uncomfortable looking bench, three barred walls, and the
alien. No pinball machine. No spa bath.

Meledrin was sitting on the bench, as if
preparing for a long wait. Tuki crouched on the floor by the pack,
skyglass in hand. Kim tested the bars near the door. She tested the
bars to the adjoining cell. They were as solid as they looked.

She stood by the bars, looking at the alien.
"Now we wait for General Hilliard."

"But I want to go in the spaceship." Keeble
looked over his shoulder. "Or see the other gate." But the gate was
obviously a poor second choice.

"Well, unless you can get us out of here in
the next few minutes it isn't going to happen."

The dwarf pursed his lips and turned to look
at the stone wall. "I might be able to."

Kim turned to look at him. "You were saying
something about that before." Her mind kept twitching back to the
alien, making it hard to concentrate. She wanted to talk to it. She
wanted to grab it and shake it and ask it what the hell was going
on.

"I failed the Rock Singing Test. I shouldn't
Sing at all."

"What is this singing?"

He wound the gears on his hand. "I shouldn't
Sing at all."

Kim went and crouched down before him.
"Keeble, if you want to go in that spaceship we have to do it now.
If General Hilliard comes down here we won't get another chance.
We'll all be put in a more secure cell than this one, with guards
there to watch us all the time."

"But if I get it wrong, someone could get
hurt, or die."

"Meledrin can talk to the alien." Could she?
Kim didn't stop to think about it. No time. She licked her lips.
"We may be the only people who can stop this war anytime soon, but
the American's won't let us. Not because they don't want to stop
the war, but because they don't understand." Kim couldn't blame
them for that. She wasn't sure she understood. "We need to get out
of here, Keeble."

He looked at her, but Kim wasn't sure he
really saw.

"I shouldn't Sing at all." He wound the
gears on his hand in and out, in and out, until Kim grabbed his
twitching fingers.

"I trust you, Keeble."

Meledrin shook her head. "It is pointless.
Even if we could get out of here we still must get into the space
ship."

She was right of course, but Kim didn't
care. The ship was their one chance to stop the war anytime soon.
And if they couldn't get into it, if there was no chance, she could
at least see it. She could touch it before Hilliard turned up with
his handcuffs and his questions. That would be pretty cool if
nothing else. Kim held up her hand to silence the elf, but she kept
going anyway.

"The Americans have been trying to breach
the hull for more than fifty years, and you think we might be able
to do it in a matter of moments?"

Kim kept her eyes locked on the dwarf's
face.

25: Song of Being

Keeble looked at Kim. He saw hope and fear
in her eyes, but he didn't see any doubt. Meledrin didn't believe
he could do anything, but Kim did. She believed he could do
something to help, simply because he said he could. So he nodded
once and started to construct the Song in the air. He hummed the
foundations carefully, making sure everything was right, before
building it up with a wordless, dancing cadence, and sealing the
joints with a series of clicks. When it was all there, he kept it
going perfectly, all of the sounds combining like the stones of the
mountains, or the water of a stream. He could feel the power
washing through him.

After he had been Singing the completed Song
for a few seconds, Keeble started to change it again, condensing
it, whittling away the edges, honing it until it was focused
tightly at one small section of wall.

He stepped forward. He reached out towards
the focus of his Song. And paused.

Keeble looked at his metal
hand. He could feel the power of his Song, but still he doubted. He
glanced towards the others. They probably couldn't feel anything,
but they watched him and trusted that he would do
something
. Kim and Tuki
trusted.

Keeble returned to the rhythm of his Song,
making sure all the elements were still in place, making sure he
was still focusing on the stone in front of him. He reached
forward, and his mechanical hand passed into the wall. Then his
arm, up to the elbow. He could feel the stone there, mist on his
skin, and the Song was like a mountain in his mind.

But he remembered how he'd lost his hand.
He'd been in the Testing Chamber, Singing. He'd felt his Song, like
he did now, but still he had faltered and the Song had died. It had
died with his hand still in the wall.

Keeble tried to calm
himself with another deep breath. He had lost his hand
inside the wall
. That
proved he could Sing, didn't it? His hand was in the stone now, and
still the Song continued.

"Holy shit."

He turned to see Kim staring.

"Holy shit."

"I've passed through one gate," he said,
shaping the Song around his words, "and I can still hear that other
one. They've helped make my Song stronger."

Kim snapped her mouth shut and blinked.
"Right. Ummm. So we can just walk through, can we?"

He changed the rhythm slightly then
nodded.

"I cannot just walk through stone," Meledrin
said. Keeble had almost forgotten she was there. "It is not
possible."

And Tuki, too. He was standing on the far
side of the room, clutching his crystal ball like it might somehow
save him. This was not quite the escape he had expected.

Keeble turned back to Meledrin. "It is
possible," he said, and he stepped through the wall to prove it.
Even as he did it, his heart raced, but the Song remained strong.
He was in a small office with two desks and bookshelves that
covered most of one wall.

A few seconds later, Kim pushed him aside as
she stepped through, dragging Tuki by the arm. Meledrin came
through a moment later but didn't look pleased.

"We need to get the alien," Kim said.

"Are you sure?"

"Positive."

So Keeble shifted the focus of his Song to
the left and entered the alien's cell. He didn't even consider how
the creature might react to his reappearance. The Song made
extraneous thoughts difficult.

The alien held up its hands to cover its
eyes and cowered away.

"Hello," Keeble said around his Song.

The only response was more cowering. Keeble,
though reluctant to ask a dwife for help, was about to call out to
Kim when he noticed she was already standing by his side. She
didn't waste any time with talk. Crossing the room she grabbed the
alien by the arm and tried to pull it towards the hole in the wall.
But, apparently, if the alien didn't want to go somewhere it was
going to take more than one dwife to make it.

Kim swore. "Mel, get in here and tell it
what we're trying to do."

"It is not that easy," Meledrin replied from
the other room.

"Yeah, I know. Without a context it's
difficult to even start." Kim looked around the cell as if for
inspiration. She grabbed the alien again and tried to pull its hand
away from its face. "Keeble, help me."

"I need to concentrate."

"Right. Tuki."

The moai, looking very nervous, poked his
head through the wall, as if being half in was safer than going all
the way through. "Yes, mo'shi?"

"Move this guy's hands away from his face
for me."

Tuki didn't look comfortable with that idea
either, but stepped forward to do as asked. He towered over the
creature but struggled, teeth gritted, to make it move at all. For
ten seconds it looked as if it had turned to stone. Finally, Kim
smiled at the alien and beckoned it after her.

"[Hey, what the hell is going on?]" There
was an American standing outside the cell. He didn't look
happy.

Keeble looked from the guard, to the alien,
to the hole in the wall, which couldn't really be seen anyway. He
knew he should be worried but merely stayed where he was and sang
his Song.

Fumbling with his keys, the dwarf outside
called for help. At that moment, the alien seemed to decide who its
friends were. Showing as much emotion as an elf, it followed Kim
and Tuki through the gap into the next room. The American, keys
forgotten, was staring with his mouth open. Keeble smiled around
his Song, waved, and went through as well.

Back in the office, Kim already had the door
open and was looking out into the hall. "We've got to find the door
to the hangar," she said. "We've got a couple of minutes at
most."

"Why can't we just go through the wall?"
Keeble asked. "The ship is in the next room."