The Galactic Mage Page 15

  He returned his vision and the tomato plant back to their rightful place on Kurr. He still didn’t know what to do about the “air that was not air” and the “drowning without water” thing, but he had decided to get the other problem off his mind. For the being-nice-to-Pernie part, he had time for that day-to-day. But Lena was another matter. So, for starters, he was going back to Leekant to apologize to her for having been so mean.

  Taot was still nearby, so, struggling for the discipline to avoid breaking teleporting laws, Altin flew back to town again. He landed on the familiar knoll and hustled back through the busy streets. When he reentered the office, Lena once more greeted him with a smile; however, this one was not so eager as it had been the day before. She was a resilient girl, but the sting of his cruelty had not yet gone entirely away. “Hello, Altin,” she said, studying him as if noticing something new. “Is everything okay?”

  “Yes, everything’s fine,” he said, haltingly at first. “Listen. About yesterday. With the mouse thing. Sticking the guts up in your face was pretty rude. I wanted to, you know, apologize for that. It was a mean thing to do, and I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

  Her smile warmed, spirits rising as dough becomes bread in an oven’s warmth. “Oh, Altin, that’s okay,” she said, tilting her head slightly to the side. “I know you didn’t mean to be mean. And I was… rather clumsy in my way too, so, I’m sorry also.”

  He smiled back at her, relieved that this had gone so well. “Good,” he said. “Then there’s no hard feelings. That’s great.” He hadn’t planned on the apology going quite so smoothly, which left him feeling awkward now. “Well. Good. So, then I guess I’ll be on my way.”

  “Wait,” she called as he turned to go. “Altin. The Summer Festival is only a few weeks away. You should ask me to go to it with you. I promise I won’t say ‘no.’”

  Altin blushed. He hated dances. And he’d known she was going to make more of his apology than he’d wanted her to. “It’s two months away, not a few weeks.” He had to quell an urge to tell her to stop hounding him, but it was too soon after apologizing to hurt her feelings again. “I really don’t want to think about it just now.”

  “But you know you’re going to go,” she persisted. “You always do.”

  “I don’t ‘know’ that, and I’ve never brought anyone, have I? I don’t even like to dance.”

  “You have too.”

  “I have what?”

  “Brought someone. You came with Madeline Pender a few years back.”

  “Oh for the Pearls of String, how do you remember these things? I was fifteen.”

  “And I was sixteen. Girls pay attention.”

  “I guess.”

  “So, will you?”

  “Will I what?”

  “Ask me to the dance.”

  “I already told you, it’s too far away. I don’t want to think about it.”

  “You’re avoiding the issue.”

  “That’s because I don’t want to be mean.”

  “Why would you have to be mean?”

  Altin was starting to get angry again. This woman just wouldn’t take the hint. He really was trying to be polite.

  Lena leaned forward, today’s dress even more revealing than yesterday’s, and nearly spilled her soft décolletage out onto the desk. “Pretty please,” she begged. “Why won’t you just ask? Am I that horrible to be seen with that you can’t even ask me to a dance?”

  Altin averted his eyes, for decency’s sake as much as to avoid the question, taking sanctuary in the activities of the fish.

  “Just this once, Altin. Why won’t you ask?” She was starting to sound annoyed, frustration beginning to mix with some self-created jealousy that had now begun to rise. “Is there someone else? Is it still Madeline Pender?” She paused, as if realizing she had found the thing she’d obviously missed before. She frowned. “No, it can’t be. She’s got an overbite and freckles on her nose. So who then? Tell me it’s not Keiranne Mettlestalk. Please, tell me not her?”

  Altin was no longer listening. He was staring at the fishbowl. At the fish swimming there, swimming happily around in their little glass-encapsulated world. Safe in the water, breathing peacefully. Breathing air that was not air. With an almost thunderous clarity, Altin realized that the fish were not drowning, not like a man would, because fish live in water. Men live in air. Air that was air, the layer above the sea, the layer that Altin had seen glowing around Prosperion, what he’d absently thought of as Prosperion’s energy shield. Suddenly Altin knew what he’d been missing all this time, and the epiphany hit him so hard that he rushed from the room without so much as a backwards glance.

  “Wait,” Lena called after him, but it was already too late. The door slammed against the wall as Altin yanked it open and bolted out of sight. She stared after him, but stopped on the wood planks of the walkway outside, shaking her head for quite some time. It had to be Keiranne Mettlestalk, she thought. Now she was convinced. But Lena had ways of dealing with women like smarmy Keiranne Mettlestalk, Keiranne with her wiggly hips, doe-brown eyes and ever-pouty lips. There was no way Altin would be taking that woman to the dance. Not a stone’s chance for a swim.

  Chapter 15

  Orli sat with the nurses and Doctor Singh, once more staring at the monitor and watching the orbs hovering out in space. The appearance of the second one had rattled most of the medical staff too, and Orli felt better for having some company to share the anxiety with, particularly when there was nothing proactive she could do.

  They watched for a long time, nobody having much to say, when finally the two half-merged orbs split themselves back apart. A computer readout fed from the bridge scan indicated that the larger orb had lost forty tons of mass. Doctor Singh nodded as he saw the numbers at the bottom of the screen. “The new one healed the old one,” he said. “Just as I feared it would when it showed up and they joined like that. They are alive. And working together.”

  His comment reminded Orli of her theory about the bees. “You know,” she said as they continued staring intently at the image on the screen, “I was thinking that the orb losing its projectile like it did was something like a bee. You know, if it loses its stinger, it won’t survive.”

  Doctor Singh crinkled up his dark brown brow as he thought about that, bushy black eyebrows knit together almost touching above his nose. Pursing his lips a bit, he began to nod. “You know what, Ensign, I think you may have something there.”

  Orli beamed. Of course she had something. She wasn’t just some stupid girl. It was nice to be recognized for once.

  “I think our little hypotheses are worth a call up to the bridge,” he said after just a moment more. “Maybe it’s something the captain can work with, if they haven’t already figured it out.”

  He tapped a button on the communications console to his left, and soon after Orli could hear Lieutenant Hartford’s voice coming through. “Bridge,” was all she said.

  “Lieutenant Hartford, it’s Doctor Singh. Listen, tell the captain we’ve come up with a hypothesis down here regarding the orbs. Have him call down when he has a chance; it might be of some use in fending them off.”

  The next voice they heard was that of the captain himself. “What is it, Singh? Make it quick.”

  “Captain, about the orbs. I have a hunch that they may actually be alive, not space craft, just for what it’s worth. And about the missiles that they shoot, I trust you noticed the transfer of mass from the larger orb to the smaller one?”

  “I did. Get to the point, Singh. We can chat over tea some other time.”

  “Right. Well Ensign Pewter here has hypothesized that losing those projectiles might be similar to a bee losing its stinger. We just thought you might be interested to have that….”

  “Pewter?” the captain cut Doctor Singh off abruptly with disgust. “Listen, Singh, we appreciate the help. We’ve already determined the orb was impacted by the loss of mass. But we’re good up here without pointless n
ature analogies to make it nice. We’re busy enough as it is. Bridge out.”

  At least it’s not just me, thought Orli as she listened to the exchange. Doctor Singh glanced over at her and shrugged it off. “I thought it was a good idea,” he said. “I still do.”

  “It doesn’t really make much of a difference,” pointed out a stout young nurse scratching behind his ear nervously as he prepared to take captain Asad’s side, “having an analogy like that, I mean. The captain’s right. Bee, baboon, or just some damn E.T. Just blow that shit up, right?”

  “It looks like we’re going to get our chance to try,” said Doctor Singh, squinting as his attention was caught and drawn down to motion on the monitor again. “Here they come.”

  All eyes leapt from the young man back to the screen, growing wide with horror as they watched both orbs streaking in at once. As the two charging Hostiles sped inward towards the ship and in unison released their mineral shafts, the mesmerized infirmary staff grimaced as the ship’s two lasers forked towards each one independently and knocked them both aside. They could also see the small dot of a nuclear missile streaking on its way, and a few moments’ waiting rewarded them with a bright explosion as the smaller orb’s projectile was once again blown into a million scattering bits.

  Everyone let out a victorious howl, and Orli reminded herself to give Roberto the hugest hug the next time she saw him. She often teased that he was little more than a barbarian for his consuming love of guns and his constant practicing on the small arms range, but she suddenly found herself unendingly grateful for his sadistic choice of hobbies. He truly was the gunfighter he always claimed to be.

  The orbs swung round and appeared to be heading in for another pass. Orli had hoped that having lost its shaft, the smaller one might actually go away, but apparently that was a groundless hope. This time the orbs were further apart, and both swung round to come from behind the ship and at distinctly different angles of approach. Orli knew instinctively that this meant Roberto was going to have to split the screen. If taking the shot meant spotting that tiny sandy place on both orbs at the same instant on two screens, there was little chance he could make both shots. This was likely something beyond even his quick-draw skills.

  In came the orbs and once more released their massive mineral shafts. The shaft ejected from the larger of the two was as thick as a railroad car and nearly three times as long. The large orb waited a bit longer to release it than it had before, and Orli watched as Roberto’s shot played against the surface of the orb, missing its granite missile by at least a dozen yards. The area of the orb immediately shifted from the dull brown color to the shiny reflective black, and moments later came a thunderous crash as the monstrous projectile smashed against the ship. The lights dimmed and two light fixtures fell from their mountings in the ceiling in a rain of sparks. They swung violently on their wiring as several people shouted in fear and disbelief.

  The lights came right back up, however, and a cursory sweep through the ship’s various exterior cameras revealed that the ship was still intact, albeit now missing one of its larger communication dishes. A trail of glowing metal debris and bright sparks floated into space from where the dish had been, the sparks blinking out like yellow eyes blinded as the cold of space cooled them to sightlessness and death. The image brought a shudder down Orli’s spine. That was close.

  “Look,” said the stout male nurse pointing at the screen. A pair of nuclear missiles were rocketing after the giant shaft that had just decimated the dish, chasing it and rapidly closing in.

  “Go, go,” shouted everyone in sick bay screaming at the screen. “Go. Get it!”

  Suddenly the larger orb came into the camera’s view, and they watched petrified as it streaked across the starry backdrop at incredible speed, apparently intent on capturing the large projectile before the ship’s missiles could do it harm. Reclamation was going to be by a narrow margin if the orb managed it at all.

  The orb whipped past the missiles and caught up to the giant shaft. It gave the streaking projectile a gentle nudge, knocking it off course just as the missiles came upon the spot. The mineral shaft was diverted, but the ship’s missiles were only temporarily put off. They swung round and continued their dogged pursuit.

  The orb had to swing itself around as well, but unhampered as it seemed to be by the laws of physics—at least as Orli thought she knew those laws to be—it was fast enough to catch back up. This time it streaked past both the missiles and its own enormous mineral spear and took up a position directly in the projectile’s path. Orli could see the coloring and texture at the orb’s center begin to change again, shifting to the sandiness associated with the granite beams. Apparently it was willing to risk the hit from the two nukes rather than lose such a humongous portion of its mass. She wondered if the Earth missiles might get inside as well. If they did, it would be by the narrowest margin.

  The orb’s projectile raced closer and closer and finally made impact with the softening surface of the orb. They all watched in awe as the shaft seemed to sink into the center of the orb. The ship’s missiles landed just a moment behind it, and they exploded with a hundred megatons of force.

  The orb attempted to shift its surface as the missiles were about to go off, and Orli could see that its texture switched to something that was powdery looking and almost gray. When the flash died down, they could see that the missiles had struck and blown off what was now a large cloud of the dense powdery dust; but for the most part, the orb seemed to have absorbed the blow, caving in on itself, collapsing inward like a deflated basketball on the near side while the far side of the orb shifted to an elastic substance that stretched out before it and helped to absorb the shock. The orb’s surface stretched out into space, taking the energy with it, attenuating it slowly until at last the power was entirely dispersed; it reminded Orli of someone thrusting their hand into a rubber glove, several hands all at once. Everyone stared at the monitor, horrified, and after a few breathless moments, the mangled orb began to retract its newly formed pseudopodia until it was once again a perfect sphere. Or at least, nearly perfect. There was a huge scar on its nearer surface now, which Orli attributed to the loss of all the dust, a gray cloud created by the explosions and even now dissipating into space. At least they’d hurt it some. Maybe it would go away. Maybe both of them would.

  Apparently not, however, for just then the ship was rattled to its last rivet as another jarring impact struck upon its shields. Orli wasn’t an engineer, but she was fairly certain they couldn’t hold up to much more of that. She’d momentarily forgotten about the smaller Hostile of the two.

  Doctor Singh, first to gather his wits, snapped the monitor back to the bridge feed, and they all watched as lasers played harmlessly off the smaller orb’s shifting obsidian skin. They looked on as another nuke shot out in pursuit of the projectile that had just beaten on their ship. The smaller orb was not as fast as the other had been, but still it made an attempt to reclaim its only remaining mineral shaft, trying to outrun the missiles just as the larger orb had done.

  It caught up and passed both nuclear and mineral missiles, getting well out in front and then dropping directly in their paths. Orli squinted into the screen as the orb positioned itself to absorb the stony battering ram. She watched it soften up, creating the sandy center, but she also noticed that it shifted its outer portions to the grayish powder that the first orb had used to absorb the nuclear missiles’ blows. This one was prepared, as if the other one had told it what to do.

  The orb’s projectile vanished inside its surface, and Orli grimaced in anticipation as their own missile streaked in not too far behind. The smaller orb was able to transform more of its surface into the powdery gray, and when the missile finally exploded, she saw that there was less of a cloud than there had been with the larger one and more of the stretching glove effect. When the dust finally cleared, the smaller orb seemed to have taken only the slightest of dents. But at least there was a dent.

 
; The larger orb was coming round for yet another pass, and once again they braced themselves for the blow. This time the giant orb let out two shafts, both at once, and Roberto’s laser trick was only up to diverting one. Again the ship was struck, and this time when the lights went off they did not come back. The entire ship went dark, even the dim red emergency lights had failed. Orli was more scared than she had been in her entire life. Nothing had ever been so black.

  One of the nurses began to scream, and Orli could hear Doctor Singh’s white coat rustle as he moved through the darkness and found the woman, comforting her with words of calm resolve. She could see a pinpoint of light as he flicked his penlight on. “Hold it together, people,” he announced just as Orli was about to scream herself. It was so dark. Doctor Singh’s penlight was almost an insult in darkness such as this. “Backup power will be right up. Keep your heads.”

  He was right. A moment later the backup power kicked in and all the lights came on. The monitor resumed its images of the stars outside, and the communications console burst noisily back to life—voices screaming as injury reports streamed in.

  “Prepare for wounded,” Doctor Singh ordered. “We have incoming.”

  Chapter 16

  Altin arrived back in his tower and knew immediately what he had to do. The fish in the bowl had revealed to him what he had needed to understand: the universe was made in layers. It was so obvious now. There were nine layers of hell beneath the sea. There was one layer of sea for the creatures that breathed water, one layer of air for the creatures that breathed air, and, obviously, there were at least two layers of the heavens: the layer that held the sun, the moon and the planets, and the layer from which the light shown through the backdrop of the night. It was so completely clear to him now that he could hardly believe he hadn’t seen it all before. He was even more annoyed that none of the great scholars in any of the books had pointed it out. Obviously, it wasn’t like they didn’t understand the difference between breathing in water and in air, but somehow nothing that he had read, none of those authors, had put the layers together like he just had. It was almost too simple to be believed, but then, that’s how the big discoveries usually were.