The Unreachable Stars: Book #11 of The Human Chronicles Saga (13 page)

“What exhaust vents?”

“Like that.” Panur pointed to a round hole in the ceiling of the tunnel covered with a grate.

The pair stopped below the opening. “Where does it lead?”

“To the surface. The vents are used to relieve the air pressure that builds up as the pods pass through the system. Without them, the tunnels would build up such air resistance that nothing would be able to move.”

“Sound like a plan.” Adam jumped up, reaching the twenty-foot high metal grate with ease. The cover was latched but not locked. Adam flipped a catch and the screen fell down, swinging to the side on rusty hinges. He then dropped back to the floor.

“I’ll toss you up…unless you can still fly.”

“Unfortunately that moment has passed. I’m no longer superconducting.”

Adam lifted the alien, and then hands and arms placed on the mutant’s butt, he shot-put him toward the ceiling. The tiny alien missed the hanging grate the first time and fell back into Adam’s waiting arms. On the next try, he managed to grip the bars of the grate and hang there.

Adam was beside him a moment later, and helped pull Panur up into the vent tunnel.

“Why didn’t you just grow several feet?”

“That would have been a good idea, but I didn’t think of it. Perhaps I am still suffering from the effects of the intoxicant.”

Adam smiled. “So I have a hungover, five-thousand-year-old mutant alien. That’s something you don’t run across every day.”

“Very funny, Adam, but I’m serious. This is an awful feeling.”

“Welcome to my world.”

There was a ladder built into the side of the vent shaft and Panur took the lead. Yet when Adam began to follow, he looked up at the naked alien above him and nearly gagged.

“Dammit Panur, wrap this around you.”

Adam was wearing a long-sleeve shirt and t-shirt. He removed the shirt and passed it up to Panur. Wrapping the sleeves around his waist and tying them off helped—to a degree. And although Adam had done more than his share of alien ass kicking in the past, having a worm’s eye view of one was an image he would have nightmares about for years to come.

It was a relief when the pair reached the next level, at least from Adam’s point of view. They stepped out of the shaft and onto a service platform where two other tunnels joined the main one. The airflow here was considerably stronger as the subway trains on this level were still in operation, forcing air to escape through the vents.

“Do we continue up?” Adam asked. “The airflow here is wicked. Another level or two and it will blow us right out the top.”

“I did not have the opportunity to study the complete ventilation system, just the schematic at the station.”

Adam stuck his hand back in the vent and felt the wind. “Maybe one more level, then it’ll become too dangerous.”

They entered the vent shaft again, this time with Adam taking the lead. By the time they reached Level Six, it was all they could do to keep from being sucked up by the rushing current of air.

“We’re going to have to take our chances from here.” He took his shirt off the alien and had him slip it over his tiny body in a more conventional fashion. It reached down far enough to form a long dress on the mutant, the sleeves rolled up to expose his hands. The look worked, but their faces were still fully exposed.

Panur overcame this issue by changing his face to look like that of Castorian child, complete with segregated eyes. Adam then ripped away the long sleeves from the shirt Panur was wearing and placed the cloth over his head. Next he removed his belt and secured it around his forehead. Most of his face was covered, which would have to do. They were running out of time. He had no idea how long it would take the enforcers to track down his ship.

There was a service exit on the platform and the pair dropped down onto another train track. This time Panur was careful not to step on the third rail—although Adam could tell he had a secret desire to do so. They hurried along the line until they reached a station, and managed to climb onto the landing just moments before a series of pods rushed by.

There were a few creatures on this platform at this time of the morning, the early birds on their way to their respective jobs. They gawked at the odd-looking pair of aliens, but no one seemed overly concerned. Adam and Panur took the next pod that came by.

Twenty minutes later, they had made enough transfers to work their way up to Level One. Here’s where it would get dicey. Access to the outside was restricted, since long exposure to the increased stellar radiation could prove deadly. Movement to and from the spaceport was okay, but if a person were to get lost in the wilds of Castor, they would be dead in less than twenty-four hours.

There seemed to be an inordinate number of Castorian Enforcers in the spaceport annex, their odd eyes swiveling to and fro, obviously on the lookout for Adam and Panur. But they would be looking for a Human and a pale-skinned alien of unknown origin, not a Human with a Castorian child. Still, a Human on Castor was not that common, so any sighting would be questioned.

“We need a diversion, something to let me slip past the guards without being seen,” Adam said.

“Let me do it!” Panur offered with enthusiasm. “I am disguised as a child. Even Castorians must cherish their offspring. I will pretend to be lost and without escort. Then at some point I will convert into another being and slip away.”

“Be careful,” Adam said.

“Or what…I might get killed?”

“They might just sit on you until reinforcements are called. Okay, you’re on.”

Panur entered through the double annex doors and began running, screaming at the top of his lungs and waving his arms about wildly. “I am lost! I am lost! Where are my parents?”

All heads turned towards the disturbance, including the four guards near the entrance. When they moved off toward the screaming child, Adam slipped in and turned to his right, walking quickly past rows of service counters, only a few of which were manned by groggy attendants, now shaken awake by the rantings of the lost child.

Past the counters were a series of service doors. Adam tried two before he found one unlocked. He stepped through and found himself in a hallway that extended in both directions parallel to the room outside. Using his knowledge of the spaceport layout, he rushed down the deserted corridor to his left before coming to a wider bay that appeared to be a break room of some sort. Two Castorian workers were seated at tables, dressed in the orange outfits of port workers. They looked up when Adam entered.

“You are not allowed here,” one of them said. “Where is your access badge?”

Adam stepped closer to them. “Badge? I don’t need no stinking badge!” And that’s when he struck the speaker with a soft elbow to the side of his head, and the other with a left cross. He did his best to restrain himself, not wishing to kill the workers. Both fell prone to the floor, and a quick check of their pulses assured Adam that they were alive.

He rushed out of the room and was soon in another with heavy exterior doors marked with warning signs. He went to the nearest one, and finding it locked, stepped back and placed a powerful kick to the latch. The metal broke away and the door swung outward.

He scanned the outside area. He was at the edge of the spaceport. In the distance was a forest of spaceships of all makes and models. He could see the
Pegasus II
about a mile away.

He looked along the edge of the annex building. It was a large metal barrier built into a huge overhang along the side of mountain, with doors and observation windows lining its length. There were three main entrances/exits, with one about fifty yards to his left.

He had to find Panur before heading for the
Pegasus II
.

Just as he came to a series of quad doors made of thick, tinted glass, an alien rushed out. Adam stopped in his tracks and assumed a defensive posture…until he recognized his own shirt covering the upper torso of the tall creature—but not the bottom. That’s when Adam realized it was Panur.

“What are you supposed to be?”

“A Crionean.”

“Never heard of them.”

“Very few have.” Panur quickly reverted to his normal appearance and the pair ran off toward the
Pegasus II
.

Adam skidded up to the hull thirty seconds later, having covered the mile distance in world-record time, thanks to the low gravity of Castor. To his surprise, Panur was right behind him. He punched in the security code and the hatch cycled open.

In the pilothouse, Adam activated the engines. “I hope your new dimensional-whatchamacallit doesn’t need any warm-up time.”

“Active upon demand,” Panur replied.

“Then I demand it now.” He punched the liftoff button.

“Wait!”

Panur’s warning came a moment too late; the pair were slammed back in their seats by the incredible acceleration of the spacecraft. Adam felt like he was being mashed in an industrial press, the air in his rapidly collapsing lungs forced out and his vision glossing over from bursting blood vessels.

To his relief, the pressure then fell away. He leaned forward and gasped for breath. Through blood-fogged eyes, he saw a long, thin arm retract from his control panel, and he followed it back to Panur as it returned to normal length.

“The dampers are not tied into the launch controls,” the alien explained, having recovered from the effects much quicker than Adam. “I see I will have to remedy that once we are safely on our way.”

“You do that,” Adam strained to say. “It would have been nice to have them coupled to begin with.”

“This is our first liftoff since Earth. I activated the dampers before we left that time as part of the pre-launch sequence.”

“I didn’t know there was a pre-launch sequence.”

“You do now.”

Adam’s eyesight was clearing somewhat, yet he was afraid to look in a mirror. From past experience with rapid, uncompensated acceleration, he knew his eyes would be a mass of red by now. They would heal rapidly—as did most eye injuries—but until then he’d walk around with vampire eyes.

The
Pegasus II
was now on a steadily increasing acceleration curve, speeding out of the Castorian star system at over fifty times light speed. Adam checked their flight path. They were heading in the wrong direction, back toward the Void.

“Where are we going?” Panur asked, sensing Adam’s thoughts.

“I need to contact Arieel…and Riyad. He’s on his way to Castor. Now we need another rendezvous spot.”

“Riyad Tarazi? I didn’t know you had made contact with him.”

“Right after I spoke with Admiral Tobias. He’s on his way to help us.”

“He also has a brain-interface device.”

“Exactly. You say you need four. With mine and Riyad’s we’re halfway there.”

“And the others will come from the Formilians.”

“As I said before, they only make them as needed, and from past experience it takes a while to build one.”

“Then they will have to come from existing inventory.”

Adam glanced at the alien. “You know what you’re asking? Arieel has had her device since she was five. It’s part of her existence, her entire being. It’s also her religion. And now her daughter has one as well. It’s not going to be easy to convince them to give them up.”

“The alternative is that Formil, and thousands of other worlds, will be consumed by the Sol-Kor. I believe in light of the seriousness of the need, both mother and daughter will agree to relinquish their devices. And after the crisis has passed, the Formilians can build new ones.”