Wheels (12 page)

Wells turned and faced the pale-blue chest at the end of his bed. Circanthos had its treasures, too. There was nothing on Earth to compare with cocombaca wood, pale-blue on the outside, deep violet near the center. Only one thing in the entire universe could slice through it, the underdown feather of a
gemdoola
bird. He had many such treasures stored away in the chest. Yet, even they were trinkets, mere camouflage. He lifted the lid. Should any Tsendi, or Circanthian for that matter, dare to look inside, they would find his treasures disappointingly common. Should another human somehow access the chest, these objects would provide curiosities for years to come.

Curiosities he would willingly share.

Wells took each item and placed it on his bed…all except one.
Broshbonits
, prized for their spikes by both the Tsendi and Circanthian cultures, were deceivingly cute but deadly. The spike he now held was about eight inches long, sharp as a needle and ten times as strong. He’d pulled it from the head of a Tsendi child who’d foolishly gotten too friendly with one of the horrible little creatures. Taking the spike, he wedged it into the bottom of the box. A firm shove revealed a secret compartment containing a package. Like a child opening a much anticipated gift, Wells sat on the edge of his bed, cradling the package with one hand, while running his finger around the edges, savoring the moment, before slowly peeling back its wrapping of sobolis skin.

Shortly after his arrival on Circanthos, Wells had begun encouraging the Tsendi to raise soboli. A sobolis hide, though no larger than a small dog, was as close to cow leather as anything on the planet. As opposed to their customary nakedness, Wells preferred the Tsendi wear clothing. Sobolis skin provided the perfect clothing material.

“Bloody savages,” he muttered, folding back the final flap of skin to reveal a small, triangular object; the first alien object he’d ever encountered. It had taken him years to discover how to make it come to life again.

Now he covered the triangle with his left hand, placing his thumb, middle finger and pinky on each corner. A sharp pain pierced him between his eyebrows, as if the object were trying to communicate something. Wells winced—he was used to this. The pain would pass.

Seconds later, the triangle began to glow. Radiating colors of gold, crystal, silver and all the colors of the rainbow, it pulsed but did not move. Light leapt from its three rounded corners, bouncing from wall to wall, sconce to sconce, off every available surface in a kaleidoscope of color. It was, once again, the most amazing, most dazzling sight H.G. Wells had ever seen.

The object, his prism as he now referred to it, had rested before him on a pale-blue pedestal, infusing the cave with light exactly as it was filling his private chamber now. Stunned from the unexpected journey, and mesmerized by the spectacular light show, Wells’ immediately realized that only a highly advanced civilization could have produced such a device.

The prism had been surprisingly cool, almost cold to the touch. Upon lifting it from the pedestal, its light had dimmed and then gone out. Disappointed, Wells had gazed upon it a few moments longer, and then placed it inside the pocket of his laboratory coat. He was about to leave the cave in search of civilization when he thought twice and decided to take along his machine. It was a decision he would never regret, for shortly after his departure, the entrance to the cave disappeared. The only way into the cave now was by water.

Wells had wandered through the strange, pale-blue forest for hours until two creatures spotted him. Dropping from the treetops, the albino, ape-like creatures with bulging eyes and protruding, dimpled chins, began chattering in a language he could, oddly enough, almost understand. The sentient, but clearly inferior creatures, were surely not the creators of the object in his pocket; thus, he decided not to share it with them.

Before the day was out (which he soon realized with two suns, was never entirely over) the rest of the Tsendi civilization, recognizing his superior intellect, declared H.G. Wells their Advitor. They’d been waiting for someone to guide them. Wells decided to stay. A lucky choice, as his machine (Which he came to refer to as “The Gate”, for it provided not only a gateway through time, but across space as well) no longer functioned.

Loonocks later, when Wells met his first Circanthian, Soliis, one of the illustrious
Circa Septim
, he chose to keep the existence of his prism a secret. Circanthians, after all, were the enemy.

Carefully now, he rewrapped the prism and returned it and the other objects to the chest. H.G. Wells felt a strange combination of fear and pride, as he acknowledged the arrival of the other humans. Humans who had apparently used the design of his time and space travel machine. With firm resolve, he strode across the room, unbolted, and then threw open the shutters.
Yes,
he thought,
it is a good day to be alive. I am the Advitor, the chosen one, and I will not let anyone, human or otherwise, take that away from me.

Wells gazed out over his domain. Abacis had the prisoners at work clearing the forest’s edge.
Good work, my boy; you still serve me well.

Turning from the window, his gaze fell on the image reflected by a fragment of glass hanging on the wall, a piece of mirror taken long ago from his Gate. Indeed, it was a good day to be close to two-hundred-years-old, and yet, look and feel no older than fifty.
A very good day to be King!

Chapter 15

FBI TRANSCRIPT 21204

Agent Wink Krumm and H.G. Wells
Thursday, April 30th

KRUMM
: …against your will?

WELLS
: Yes. Kidnapped! I had a perfectly lovely existence; my sobolis skin industry thriving, the Circanthians almost extinct—

KRUMM
: Extinct?

WELLS
: Survival of the fittest, Krumm. The Tsendi were trapped in the most uncivilized of conditions. They sensed from the start, my arrival was no accident. They entreated me to take command, to guide them—to save them!

KRUMM
: From what?

WELLS
: Think of it this way, had you been alive during the Jurassic period, you would have hedged your bet on the dinosaurs. Ah, but then you wouldn’t have known that something was going to come along which would cause those seemingly indestructible giants to become extinct. My presence was a bit like that. The Circanthians appeared destined to rule Circanthos, until I came along. I was their ice age—cold, jarring, and sweeping across Circanthos.

KRUMM
: Intimidating.

WELLS
: It all comes down to territory. Look at Earth, at least three, possibly four times the size of Circanthos, yet only one sentient species. Circanthos has two.

KRUMM
:
So
…the Tsendi and Circanthians were at war and the Tsendi were winning.

WELLS:  Strategically speaking, by the time I’d finished with them—we’d won.

KRUMM
: You’d won?

WELLS
: The Tsendi, dear man—my Tsendi!

***

SUNLIGHT & REVELATIONS

Monday, March 16th
Circanthos – Vibrona coast by the Lapis Sea

M
cKenzie, her wheelchair thrust into overdrive, lurched out of the portal as Hayes, who’d somewhere along the way ended up behind her, slammed into the back of her chair. Something blue and undulating loomed in front of them. Hayes’ flailing arm reached out, connected with the back of McKenzie’s chair, and stopped them both in their tracks. Bound together by a common dependence on her wheelchair, McKenzie and Hayes remained motionless, save for the blinking of their eyes.

Slowly, warmth eased in through McKenzie’s fingers, elbows, and the top of her head, warming her body and lightening her soul while her eyes began to adjust. The large blue mass was an ocean. The Lapis Sea, Pietas had called it. Ripples of light danced across the water and over the shore, reflecting pink, quartz-like pebbles, and granules of sand. The effect was dazzling. Locent sun—or san—filled the sky, appearing two, maybe three times the size of Earth’s sun. Fortunately, it was not as hot.

“Eyes” screamed McKenzie. “Big, bloodshot eyes like, like—like peeled plums!

“Where?” said Pietas. “In the portal?”

“Yes! I mean, no. Right before we left, I looked back because it—OH!”

“Something’s wrong,” said Hayes. “Look at her face!”

“Because it what dear?”

“It smelled like garbage.”

“Tsendi!” Pietas wrinkled her nose. “I knew they were following us.”

“Tsendi,” whispered McKenzie, taking a breath. “I’m sorry, Hayes.”

“No, no. I shouldn’t have left your side.”

“It’s not that…” McKenzie tried to recall the moment she’d looked into those eyes. Could she have stopped it? “The ah…Tsendi took your backpack.”

“Backpack?”

“You hung it on my chair. Remember? For the race.”

“Cripes!” Hayes slapped his forehead. “You let it take my backpack!” He reached up and began grabbing and crunching clumps of his hair as if needing to remind himself it was still there.

“I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry.”

“That rotten, Tsendi thief stole my journal,” he muttered. “Ah nuts! And, my brand new colored pencils.”

“I’ll buy you new ones. Promise.” McKenzie felt horrible. Hayes seemed more upset about losing his backpack than about being stuck on another planet.

“Yeah. Whatever…” he said, sounding dejected and looking a bit crazy now that his thick, wavy, black hair was sticking up in all directions. It’s only a backpack. Only brand new colored pencils and…” Hayes sighed. “My life!”

McKenzie resisted the urge to laugh. And then, immediately felt guilty. Hayes kept a journal. Nothing wrong with that. She smiled. “Nope. Nothing wrong at all.”

“What are you talking about?” said Hayes.

“Sorry I…” McKenzie burst out laughing; therefore, it was a moment before she realized it wasn’t only laughter shaking her chair. It was something else. Her wheelchair tilted backwards, then forwards, and it would have tipped right over if Hayes hadn’t grabbed it.

“
TREMOS
!” cried Pietas.

“Dig in!” said Hayes.

“Quickly,” called Pietas, “weave a wall!”

Despite Hayes holding on to it, McKenzie’s wheelchair inched closer to the sea. Suddenly, the sand in front of her began shifting, rearranging itself, and forming into a wall just tall enough to prevent her chair from rolling further.

“Good job,” yelled Hayes.

“I didn’t do it.”

Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the shaking stopped, and the wall rearranged itself back into piles of sand and pebbles.

McKenzie reached back, knocked Hayes’ hand off her chair and whirled around. “What was that?” she demanded, ignoring the sight of Hayes hopping around on one foot and muttering something about his toes. Pietas’ eyes were closed. You could barely tell she was breathing. She was the complete opposite of what they’d just experienced; her face, her entire body calm. “It’s not right, not the time.” McKenzie heard her whisper.

“Not what time?” asked Hayes.

“For the tremos,” murmured Pietas. “They come right before or after the loon. Not now.”

McKenzie’s hands were still gripping her wheel rims, her knuckles white. “You mean an earthquake.”

“Quake—yes, an apt description.” Pietas leaned over and placed her hand upon the ground. “Concentric, help us, there is only so much one old
cirv
can do. Circanthos is not happy.” She sat back and looked at McKenzie. “I have heard H.G. Wells use the term quake. How does your planet manage? You must have many particle-weavers.”

McKenzie relaxed her grip. Apparently, they were safe for the moment. “I don’t know. I mean, our scientists try to predict when and where they’re going to happen, but usually they just happen. Buildings fall, sometimes people die. We don’t have—”

“Look at the water,” said Hayes. “It’s sooooo blue!”

They’d just survived an earthquake and Hayes was admiring the color of the water. “Are you nuts?” But in that instant, it struck McKenzie; the water was blue. Incredibly blue. Not the translucent, watered down, foamy blue of Earth’s oceans speckled by glimpses of seaweed, sand, and dead fish—but deep blue. Lapis blue. “Pietas, you said this is called the Lapis Sea. Is it called that in your language too?”

“In Circanthian it’s called the Lapis
Aecor
.”

“But, still lapis,” said McKenzie. “Freaky.”

“Freaky?” Pietas had moved alongside her.

“That two planets, in two different solar systems, have a similar language. My grandmother has a necklace made from lapis stone passed down to her from her mother, and probably her mother’s mother before that. It’s very old…” McKenzie’s hand drifted up to her neck as if she could touch the necklace that lay tucked away in her grandmother’s bureau. “And beautiful. The exact color of your Lapis Sea.”

“Maybe it’s not the same language,” said Hayes, walking up behind her. “Maybe we’re just able to understand them like they do in sci-fi movies.”

“What is this sci-fi,” asked Pietas?

McKenzie shook her head. “Ignore him.”

Pietas smiled. “I believe, that might be difficult. However, in answer to your question I, too, noticed the similarities while first learning the Earth language.”

A loud “thup, thup, thup” interrupted their conversation. McKenzie turned around in time to see Hayes toss a pebble into, or rather,
onto
the sea where it bounced a few times before sinking slowly into the water. “That’s what I call thick,” he said.

“You are a curious one.” Pietas’ tone made McKenzie smile. “However,” she continued, “now is not the time. There is much I need to tell you before we reach the Gathering.”

Hayes put the rest of the pebbles in his pocket and plopped down beside McKenzie.

“There is so much you don’t know,” Pietas murmured, becoming so still and silent, it was clear she was thinking of something.