The Stars Down Under (32 page)

Jodenny watched him retrieve it from his vest and followed him out of the room. “You don't seem surprised to see me.”

“No, ma'am. Commander Nam told us you were here.”

“Tell me everything that's happened to your team since you left Fortune.”

“Ma'am.” Collins shifted from one foot to the other. “Don't you think the commander better tell you?”

“I want to hear it from you, Ensign.”

Collins hesitated, then gestured for them to sit on the dirt-covered ground. Jodenny was pleased that she could keep Myell in sight. Collins told her about the marsupial lions, discovering the dead scientists under the snow, and being separated from Nam, Myell, and Gayle.

“The commander radioed in they were being attacked,” Collins said. “Then there was nothing. We tried to find them, but there were only campfire remains, tracks into the woods, and a dead Bunyip.”

“Bunyip?”

“Chief Myell calls them Roon. They look like lizards.”

She remembered the vision the Great Egret had shown her. The alien on the
Yangtze
. A lasso of steel tightened around her lungs, squeezing out all her air.

Collins said, “Commander, are you all right? You look like you're going to faint.”

Not faint. Scream. She scrambled to her feet. “Where's Commander Nam? I need to talk to him
now
.”

Collins radioed Nam, who said he was in the room with the view of the comets, which was next to the room where the food was, and that they had discovered some kind of power source.

“I think I can get us back there,” Collins said. “Place tends to go all screwy when you're not looking.”

Jodenny was loathe to wake Myell, who was deep asleep and looked exhausted. She kissed his forehead, then followed Collins through the maze and forests and even over a clear-running stream until they reached a fabulous vista of twin comets. Nam, Saadi, and two others, Commander Gold and Lieutenant Vao, had removed a panel from the dirt-covered floor. Glass conduits glowed green and yellow in the space below.

“Chief Myell kept saying he could feel some kind of current,” Nam said. “This might be it.”

“There's something more important you should know,” Jodenny said, and told them about the spaceships around Earth.

“No one has seen the aliens on those ships,” she said. “They're not showing themselves. But what are the chances it's yet another species?”

Nam's expression hardened and his lips thinned and he asked her a dozen questions, as if she were lying, or inventing the whole thing.

“You don't believe me?” she asked.

Nam gazed down at the glowing conduits, the bright rivers of light. “I believe you.”

Commander Gold, sitting on the ground with his arms folded, said, “You should have let me shoot them.”

Saadi said, “I say we kill them now.”

Jodenny gave Nam a puzzled look.

“We have two of them prisoner,” Nam said. “Under guard and not going anywhere. We can't communicate with them. Don't know what they want.”

“They want Earth,” Vao said. “Can we stop them? This space station, or whatever it is? The alien? Can't he do anything?”

“Maybe if someone takes the helm,” Collins murmured.

Nam's chin lifted. Gold glanced up.

“What do you mean?” Jodenny asked.

“The alien is dying,” Nam said. “Garanwa. He wants someone to take over.”

Saadi said, “Your husband.”

“No,” Jodenny said.

“He said he doesn't want the job,” Nam said, as if that meant anything at all. Didn't they know Myell? Hadn't they learned a thing about him?

“I need to go talk to him,” she said.

But when she went looking, he was already gone.

*   *   *

Myell woke alone. At first he thought Jodenny had been a dream, a sweet brief fantasy before everything went permanently dark. But the physical evidence of their lovemaking was no illusion, and as he cleaned up in the shower room he could smell her skin, and the shampoo she'd used in her hair. He leaned against the tile wall, letting hot water stream over his shoulders. He needed to send her home to safety. Needed to send them all.

Swirls and lines faded into the tile walls, glowing images in blue and green, a beautiful tapestry tracing and retracing itself into existence. He touched them through the falling water and felt a faint tingling.
There,
he realized. Fortune. And over there, glistening wet, his home world of Baiame. All the Seven Sisters, their Eggs. More Eggs, here, and
here,
and the whole map unfolded, spread open under his eyes, the Thousand Worlds of the Nogomain, and he was their steward, their helmsman—

Myell slammed his hand against the tile and disrupted the images. Pain spiraled up his wrist and into his arm.

“I'm not,” he said. “I refuse.”

But when he closed his eyes he saw a hundred thousand Roon marching across a blistered countryside, their helmets blood red in the setting sun.

Once he was dressed again he sat on the divan where he and Jodenny had lain together and studied the galaxy beneath his toes. A whole universe out there, and he was just a very tiny part of it, his own needs and desires dwarfed. He could see Earth, if he tried. Earth, with ships of green surrounding it. So much fear there, so much uncertainty.

He squeezed both temples with his fingers, trying to drive the images away. Garanwa had done this to him. In his sleep, in the dark, in his dreams.

But that didn't change the fact that the Roon were interlopers. That only one man could stop them, could steer them away.

Barefoot, damp, with swirls and whirls pulsing in his vision, he followed the gecko songline through sweet-scented rooms of flowers and trees to the chamber where the skin cloak hung.

“Chief?” Lavasseur was keeping watch, and like many sentries seemed bored at the task. “Is everything okay?”

Myell kept his gaze on the cloak. A thousand worlds. Multiple Eggs on each of them. A network larger than any of them had ever imagined. His to control. Jodenny would not be happy. Where was she? He thought she had come, that they had been together, that he'd listened to her heartbeat and tasted her mouth, but now she was gone, leaving him empty. His head began to hurt.

Lavasseur clicked on his radio. “Commander Nam? I think you'd better come.”

“I can send you home,” Myell murmured. “Back to Fortune. Do you want that?”

“Hell yes,” Lavasseur said, as if Myell had just offered him buckets of gold. “Right now?”

“Right now,” Myell said.

A crocodile ring appeared on the ground behind Myell. He didn't have to turn around to see it. He commanded it. Commanded all of them through space and time …

He was inside Garanwa, inside the once-a-boy, running naked across the hard dirt of the outback in gasping terror, fleeing those who would kill him. His tribe. His kin. He fled, stomach churning, lungs laboring
—

“Chief?” That was Nam, peering at him, slapping his cheeks. “What's going on?”

—
and they were chasing him with sticks and spears for his failure, for his cowardice, but the sky opened up and the Rainbow Serpent flicked its tongue
—

“See if you can find Commander Scott,” Nam said to someone.

Myell focused on him. “I can send you back. To Fortune. You can warn them about the Roon.”

Nam jerked his head toward the crocodile ring. “Through that?”

“Sounds like a good deal to me, sir,” Lavasseur said.

Commander Gold, standing behind Nam, asked, “How can you, Chief? Do you know how the controls work?”

“They're not controls.” Myell's head was beginning to ache in earnest now. He was surprised that his brain wasn't leaking out his ears. “Where's Jodenny? I need—”

He went to his knees, unable to stand on weakened legs. The sound of his heartbeat thudded in his ears like a drum.
Sick,
he thought.
Dying. Not him. Garanwa. The not-boy
 …

“Easy now.” Collins crouched next to him with his gib. “Deep breaths, Chief.”

“What's wrong with him?” Nam asked.

“Pulse is high, blood pressure is skyrocketing—I need my medkit, sir.”

“Commander!” That was Gayle, arriving with Garanwa in her arms. The not-boy was gasping for breath, clearly in distress. Gayle's face was blotchy red from exertion. “We need help here.”

“What did you do to him?” Nam asked.

“Nothing! He was in the passageway outside, couldn't walk—”

Gold took the not-boy from her arms and laid him out on the ground near Myell. Nam radioed for Ensign Collins to bring the medkits, and for everyone else to fall back to the skin-cloak room.

“And keep your eyes out for Commander Scott,” he said. “She doesn't have a radio.”

“Sir, should we leave or bring the aliens?” That was Breme's voice, crackling loudly.

Nam said, “Bring them. Be quick about it.”

Garanwa's head lolled to the side. Through darkening vision Myell saw the not-boy's eyes wide open, drawing him into …

the Serpent's embrace, the whisper, “You will be the helmsman,” the Eggs planted inside him …

“Chief, I need you to lie down,” Collins was saying, but Myell shook his hand off.

“We don't have much time,” Myell said. “Get into the ring now if you want to go home.”

Saadi moved toward the crocodile ring. “For once I'm not going to argue.”

“Wait,” Nam ordered. “Why now, Chief? Why the hurry? We have to find out more about this station, the network—”

“There won't be a station.” Myell tasted hot salty liquid against his lip, and wiped at blood trickling from his nose. “When he dies, this place dies.”

Nam asked, “How do you know?” and that was just it, Myell couldn't explain, but he
knew
.

“Go, please,” Myell said. “I'll follow.”

Nam met his gaze for a long moment, judging his truthfulness, before turning to Gold.

“You take them,” Nam said.

Gold's eyes widened. “Not without you.”

Garanwa gave out a loud gasp. Collins, bending over him, said, “I don't think the alien's going to last much longer, sir.”

“They need you,” Nam said to Gold.

Gold shook his head.

The station rumbled from somewhere deep within, a growl of distant but sustained thunder. Some of the beehive towers started to crumble. The ground and walls suddenly lifted up and lurched sideways, a violent upheaval that sent Vao and Saadi stumbling to the ground.

“What the hell—” Nam asked.

“The whole place will come apart!” Saadi said.

The shudder subsided, but Myell knew the respite would be brief. The tremor would return. The whole place would collapse to ruin and ash, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

“You have to hurry,” he told Nam.

“Tom, please,” Nam said to Gold, and took his face between his hands, and kissed him hard.

When they broke apart, Gold said, “You better be right behind me.”

Nam unexpectedly grinned. “Count on it.”

More of Gold's team arrived. Nam ushered them into the ring alongside Saadi and Lavasseur. Myell gathered the wild power in his head and sent them back to Fortune. Emerald-green light flashed, dazzling his eyes. He didn't know how he was doing it, only that he could, that he could send anyone to anywhere—

Nam clicked on his radio. “Breme, Holt, Highcastle, where are you?”

Holt replied, “I think I'm close! But the rooms keep rearranging themselves.”

“We can't find you!” Breme said. “We're in the room with the stream in it—”

Gayle said, “I'll go find them,” and dashed out before anyone could stop her.

The pain in his head was making it hard to stay conscious. Myell rocked back and forth, his vision gone hazy, his breathing harsh in his own ears. “Easy, easy,” Collins was saying, but there was nothing easy about this, not with the world ending in red agony. But still he managed to bring the crocodile ring back. It shimmered and hummed against the ground even as the rumbling returned, and more beehive towers of rock crumbled to dust.

Collins, his attention split between Myell and Garanwa, said, “I'll stay here, Commander.”

“There's nothing you can do for either of them,” Nam said. “Go back home, Ensign.”

The chamber lurched and shook, great sections of the ceiling buckling under the stress. Too soon, too soon; Myell couldn't take the helm. But he didn't have a choice. In his head he could see Breme and Highcastle, lurching along a passageway, frantic for rescue. He sent them a ring and the ring took them home. He saw Holt, lost in a room of vines and trees. Another ring, another green flash. He tried to find Jodenny but of her there was only a blur of white, of feathers like a bird—

Garanwa gave out a last shuddering gasp and went still.

Energy bolted out of the corpse, an explosion of hot frantic power, and lightning tore Myell's world to shreds.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-THREE

“I hate this place.” Jodenny hoped that the Great Egret was listening. “Hate it! Do you hear me?”

No answer. Jodenny had left the room with the starry floor and found the room with food in it, but she didn't want fruit or bread or strange-looking vegetables. She picked the archway to the far right and followed it into a dark chamber with a blazing comet overhead. No sign of anyone, not Myell or Nam or anyone from the teams.

“What do you want from me?” she asked, fists clenched. Surely someone in charge here was screwing with her, making her deliberately lost and confused and frustrated.

No answer came from the dirt or walls or even the comet, which sailed across the universe in a streak of silent fire.

She pushed herself on through another archway, then another. When the station began to rumble and buckle beneath her, she feared not for her own safety but for Myell's. Whatever forces ruled this place wanted him alive. Needed him alive. Wanted to steal him from her. She said, “Leave him alone, you bastards,” just as the ground tilted crazily and roared and she lost her balance. She landed hard on one arm, feeling something in it snap.