The Space Between (48 page)

Tuki did look up then. The whole
conversation was really about him. He listened as he worked.

Kim was nodding. "I've been
thinking about that, and I think I know the answer. There's a book
on Earth called
The Hitchhiker's Guide to
the Galaxy
. It's a comedy book, but still.
In it, the author describes a form of torture. People are taken
into a room and shown a map of the entire universe, the whole
thing, with a little sign saying 'you are here' pointing to where
they are in the universe. And it doesn't just show them, it makes
them
understand
."

"So?"

"Well, most individuals in the book go crazy
when they see that, because they realize just how totally
insignificant they really are."

"That's just stupid."

"Not really. You don't know how big the
universe is, Keeble. I'll tell you."

"Are you sure I won't go crazy?" Keeble said
with a smile.

"No, because you won't
really
understand
.
You won't be able to picture this. Okay, light travels at about
300,000 kilometers per second, I think. More or less. Do you
understand that much? Light isn't an instantaneous thing – it has
to travel."

"Like sound?"

"Exactly. Only much, much, quicker."

"300,000 kilometers per second?"

"Yep. Now, a light-year isn't a measure of
time, but a measure of distance. It's the distance light will
travel in a standard year of Earth time. Still with me?"

"Yes."

Tuki didn't think he sounded sure.

"You know how long a second is?"

"Yes."

"Right, well an Earth year is..." Kim
squinted and cocked her head to one side. "Shit. Sixty seconds in a
minute, 3600 seconds in an hour, twenty four hours in a day..."

Tuki worked it out easily. "86,400 seconds
in a day," he said.

And Kim turned to look at him. Tuki looked
back down at the skyglass and blushed.

"Okay." Kim was nodding her head slowly and
still looking at Tuki when he stole a glance a few seconds later.
"86,400 seconds in a day. And 365 days in a year, Tuki?"

"31,536,000 seconds in a year."

"So, this light travelling at 300,000
kilometers per second will travel how many kilometers in a year,
Tuki?"

He juggled the numbers in his head. He
started to sweat. "Do you want exactly?"

"No, close will do."

"Well, I do not know how to say the number.
In the decimal system that humans seem to use, it is a bit more
than nine with twelve zeros after it."

"Nine trillion? Do you know the decimal
system, Keeble?"

"Yes."

"So you understand a nine with twelve zeros
after it?"

"Of course."

"Big number isn't it?"

"Yes."

"That many kilometers in a light year.
Right?"

"Yes, but I don't see the point. Who uses
numbers that big?"

"That's the thing, bud'. From the star the
Earth orbits to the next closest star is about four light years. Or
five light years. Four or five light years."

"Four of those light years in distance?"
Keeble gaped.

Tuki looked back to his work so as not to
stare at the dwarf. He noticed that the dots that showed the alien
ships were starting to move. The picture Tuki was looking at was
still only in the skyglass.

Kim continued. "That's
right. Now, I'm sure you're sitting there thinking, 'Wow, what a
big number that is'. And intellectually, I'm sure you realize that
completely. But to realize and to truly
understand
are two different things.
I don't understand. I think that if I did, I may well just curl up
and whimper for the rest of my life. Especially since I now think I
can fly between those stars, and it's not just an interesting
notion any more. But I think Tuki really has to
understand.

"And, I think, because he has to carry all
those huge ideas of numbers and space around in his head, the gods
had to add that extra layer to his brain. Airman Dongoske said he
had an extra bit in there." Kim got a thoughtful look. "Or maybe
that's the bit that let's him control the skyglass."

"Umm... mo'min..." Tuki said.

"So? Why make his body bigger?"

Kim sighed. "Because they had to make his
head bigger. He'd look really stupid with a huge head and normal
sized body."

"Oh."

Tuki didn't want to interrupt, but thought
he really should tell Kim about what was happening. "Mo'min." He
finally remembered the combination of buttons he had to press and
worked up the nerve to try them. He stabbed at the moai-sized
buttons with shaking fingers, and the scene shown in the skyglass
flickered into existence in the top of the dome. He knew he could
press another button to label the different aspects of the scene,
but seeing nobody would know what the labels meant, he didn't
bother. "I think the alien ships are coming towards us."

"What? Alien ships? What alien ships?"

Tuki divided his glance between the display
above and the window of amazing glass. "There are fifty-three alien
ships coming towards us."

"Christ. Turn the radio on. Get Cuto talking
to them."

Keeble made his way up to Meledrin's
console. He counted controls, flicked switches, and pushed
buttons.

"The radio is on," he said, "but there's
nothing to hear."

"Have you tried all frequencies?"

"We rerouted one of the controls."

Cuto said something.

"Cuto asks if you have the radio on shower
or beam?" Meledrin translated.

Tuki had no idea what either of those things
were, but apparently Keeble did.

The dwarf swore under his breath. "It's on
beam and aimed at nobody," he said, hitting some buttons with
needless force. Whatever he did fixed the problem, for the harsh
alien language burst into the air like a flock of startled
crows.

"Does Cuto need to come up here to speak
with the hurgon," Meledrin asked.

"Probably not," Kim replied, with Meledrin
translating, "but for now it will probably be easier."

Cuto went up to stand near Meledrin's chair
and scanned the controls. It was Keeble who pressed the buttons
though and pointed to a flexible stick that poked up above
everything else. The alien started to speak.

Meledrin cocked her head to one side to
listen. "I believe Cuto is speaking codes at the moment, offering
greetings from an ally, verifying identity. Grandson Cuto — though
'grandson' is not right. It is merely the closest approximation I
can make. It seems particularly complicated and convoluted, but I
believe it is something like a rank. Grandson Cuto of the T'loop
Family, Lo'anen Branch, As'elda Sub-branch — he has mentioned these
previously — on board the human hakan construct." She tilted her
head the other way. "Then a long string of numbers."

While Meledrin spoke, Tuki tried to watch
her hand signals, but the image in the dome held his attention. The
hurgon ships continued to get closer. They were a few thousand
kilometers away, but that did not seem to be very far at all. Tuki
divided the image into segments, counted seconds in his mind, and
worked out that the aliens would only take a few minutes to arrive
if they continued at their current speed. They did not appear to be
listening to Cuto at all for the babble on the radio continued
unchanged. According to Meledrin, Cuto was repeating his greeting
and trying to talk to a 'Mother'. Any mother.

Remembering something he had tried earlier,
Tuki pressed some buttons and an image of space appeared on the
wall behind Kim's chair. Another button, and the focus shifted.
From there he used a little lever and was quite proud when an image
of the closest alien ship came into focus.

"It is as Cuto said," Tuki said softly. "The
ship is alive." It was seven hundred meters long, green and lumpy,
smudged and pulsing with life. It had four eyes on stalks and three
tentacles reaching out kilometers behind it.

"What?" Kim asked. She was so busy
concentrating on Cuto and the translation that she hadn't even
noticed the image behind her.

Tuki pointed.

"Jesus." She sat silently for a minute. "It
isn't at all like what I expected.

Tuki had not known what to expect at all
when Cuto described the kil'ini. It was a strange and magnificent
creature, but it and its fellows might kill them if Cuto was not
successful very soon.

An alarm shrieked out of the strange
ball-chair near Tuki, making him jump. His heart started to pound.
He examined the chair for a moment, wondering what it meant, before
looking back at his own controls. A red light was flashing. Words
were scrolling across one of the screens. He couldn't read them,
but he didn't think he needed to. There was a new dot on the image
made by the skyglass. It was colored orange and was racing towards
them from the closest kil'ini.

"Mo'min. I think they have fired a weapon at
us." He didn't say it very loud. Even had he been certain, he
didn't know if he could have spoken any louder.

"Pardon?"

Tuki cleared his throat. "I think they have
fired a weapon at us." His fingers were trembling on the edge of
the console.

Cuto stopped talking for a moment as
Meledrin translated.

Keeble was working at his console, lips
moving silently as he read. He stabbed at some buttons, and the
alarm cut off as suddenly as it had started. The silence was
eerie.

Eventually Cuto started talking again. There
was an unmistakable note of urgency now.

Kim stared at the image. Her mouth was open,
eyes wide. "Should we run?" she asked.

Tuki turned to look as well. His heart was
still racing. His mouth was dry. Did Kim say there wasn't much
water?

"Cuto says that hurgon weapons carried by
the kil'ini are stronger than those carried by the kidol, but is
unaware how successful they will be against this construct. Seeing
it is the only one known to be flying, nobody can know."

"Right." Kim turned her attention to her
controls. "Here goes then." She spun the ball and pushed the thrust
lever.

The pressure of acceleration disappeared
after a moment.

The dot was gaining on them.

"We will have to go faster, mo'min."

"What? That's all we've got." She pushed at
the lever again, as if hoping she was somehow mistaken.

Tuki examined the moving
images above him. He tried to calculate.
Fifteen seconds,
he thought.
We will be caught in fifteen seconds.
Should he tell Kim? He wasn't sure that he was
right, so he remained silent and counted down in his head. The
computer would probably tell him how long they had, but he couldn't
even read as well as Keeble yet. Nobody had shown him
how.

Three,
two
...

The ship was rocked by an explosion, then
another, and it was set to spinning wildly. Tuki grabbed at the
console in front of him, expecting to fall on his head. The ship
tumbled through space, stars flashing past the window. Another
explosion knocked them the other way. Though the ship somehow made
it feel that they weren't spinning at all, Tuki felt he was going
to be sick. He closed his eyes and held on.

"Hull breach in sector 178, level seven,"
Keeble shouted over the thunder of another hit. "That's something
to do with fuel. I think." He seemed to be keeping calm through a
sheer act of will, as if concentrating on his screens and controls,
doing the tasks he had been assigned, would make the reality go
away.

Tuki swallowed and forced his eyes open. Kim
would know what to do. She had gotten them so far already.

He watched the kil'ini in the image in the
dome. They were still catching up, spreading out as if to trap the
ship in a net. He thought of telling Kim, but it didn't seem
relevant. And he didn't know if he could make his voice work
anyway.

"Shields are at 100%," Keeble added.

"Shields? What shields? How do we turn them
on?"

"I don't know."

"No use then, Keeble." Kim was gripping her
console, staring at the steering ball. It seemed to be spinning
wildly, when really it was perfectly still and the ship was
spinning. "Talk to them Cuto. What the hell are you doing?"

34: The Enemy

Meledrin glanced at Kim. "I will not
translate that literally," she said. In fact she didn't say
anything at all to Cuto. Though the alien seemed calm on the
surface, it was obviously trying desperately to get through to
their attackers. To suggest otherwise might be seen as an insult.
Kim had no sense about how to deal with people.

"
Cuto and the hakans have not attacked,
" the alien was saying. "
The hakans
will not attack. Cuto has information that could bring immense
profit.
"

And finally, whether it was something that
was said or how it was said, the chatter on the radio stopped and,
after ten more seconds, the explosions stopped as well. A lone
voice issued from the radio.

"
This is Mother Konu of the F'nago Family with
Re'angadano'a,
" Meledrin translated.
"
Is Cuto a prisoner?
I believe that the failure to mention a family branch is
significant. Re'angadano'a is the kil'ini." The elf cocked her head
to listen again as Cuto replied. "
Cuto is
not a prisoner. The hakans aboard this construct rescued Cuto from
a prison on Target World Three3.
"

"
Why? Why should Mother Konu believe that Cuto is not under
duress?
"

"
Have these hakans fired upon Re'angadano'a or any other
kil'ini? Have the hakans made any threatening move at
all?
"