Give the Hippo What He Wants (5 page)

 

*****

As Jalila, al-Aziz, and Farouk followed their guide through the Vox city, she again felt chills run down her spine...but this time, the chills were inspired by awe, not fear. Though Jalila had seen the wonders of many worlds as part of the
Ibn Battuta
's crew, she had never in her life seen anything as beautiful as this.

It was a see-through city made of pastel stained glass.

"This is beautiful." Her voice was a whisper...but the Voicebox caught it and translated for the brown-furred Vox at her side.

In return, the Vox, whose name was Nalo, whispered back at her. "
Mazeesh
."

Jalila smiled and nodded with understanding.
Mazeesh
meant "beautiful." She was making progress.

Returning her attention to the scenery around her, she let herself be overwhelmed by how
mazeesh
it all was. Towers scaled remarkable heights--some squared, some cylindrical, some spiraling into feathery clouds. Vast castles straddled block after city block, turrets shooting sky high. There were domes and cones and pyramids, spheres and cubes. All of it was connected from ground level to highest spire by a filigree of crisscrossing strands, a web of tubing laced around and over and through every structure.

And every tube, every wall, every surface was transparent and flowing with pastel color. Pale yellows and blues and reds and greens and violets swirled and rippled like the clouds on a gas giant planet, mixing and pulsing...never obscuring the perfect view of what lay behind them. Jalila could see right into every room and tube, could see fur-covered citizens in motion and at rest and staring right back out at her. Even more, because the floors and ceilings and walls and furnishings were all transparent, she could see through one building and into the next, could look all the way up through every level of every tower.

It was at once breathtaking and disconcerting to see such a city of people stacked to the heights and strung all around, all seemingly floating, supported only by whorls and bands and streams of color.

Jalila felt like she was floating, too, and not just because she was caught up in the spectacular surroundings. Thanks to the low gravity on Vox, she weighed only half what she did on New Mecca or onboard the
Ibn Battuta
. She felt airy and light on her feet, as if at any moment she could push off from the ground and rise up to glide and pirouette among the filigree and spires.

According to Farouk, the science specialist, it was the light gravity that made the city possible, enabling such fragile, lofty structures to stand. The chief building material was a light polymer with electrostatic properties that produced the colorful tints. Even stretched into impossibly thin sheets, its high tensile strength supported amazing weight...but on New Mecca, at twice the gravity, it would have shattered under a far smaller load.

As Jalila stepped lightly down crystalline walkways, her body lit with shifting pastel colors cast by sunbeams poured through rainbow walls, she was glad she wasn't on New Mecca. She was glad she'd come to Vox on this one last mission and had the chance to experience such wonders.

Alongside her, Nalo chattered away, but Jalila didn't pay much attention. Behind her, a growing mob of similarly vocal Vox generated a rising clamor, but she didn't listen.

For once, she was all eyes, not ears.

 

*****

When Nalo led the team into one of the soaring towers, Jalila gazed upward...and realized that her view was unobstructed by even the tinted, transparent walls and ceilings that honeycombed other buildings. She could see all the way from ground level to the distant pinnacle, seemingly a mile above. It was all one vast cathedral, walled in light and color, lined with a ring of slender, glassy pillars that corkscrewed into the heavenly heights.

As Jalila peered up into the otherworldly steeple, she half expected to see a host of angels drift downward, so she was startled when she noticed faraway figures descending from the upper reaches. At first, they were so distant that they were little more than specks, but even then, Jalila could see that they were acrobatically inclined. The five figures moved fast, zipping down the slender pillars, leaping from one pillar to another at high altitudes with perfect ease and grace.

As the figures drew closer, she realized they were Vox, and they were climbing down headfirst, like squirrels descending tree trunks. They scurried downward fearlessly, skinny bodies twisting around the corkscrew pillars, making heart-stopping dives from pole to pole with no more visible effort than kids playing on monkey bars.

Jalila's shipmates craned their necks to watch the spectacle. Major al-Aziz whistled softly in amazement. Stern Colonel Farouk said nothing, which was no surprise, but there wasn't a peep out of Nalo or the mob who had followed them into the tower, either. If even the chatterbox locals maintained a respectful silence here, Jalila supposed the team was indeed in the presence of some kind of leadership.

Leaping and zipping down the pillars, the five acrobatic Vox closed the distance from the pinnacle in a twinkling. As they approached, Jalila could make out differences in their coloration: two had black fur, one silver, one gold, and one red. Like all Vox, they wore no clothing, though their fur coats were daubed with colorful designs on the scalp, back, and belly--circles, spirals, triangles, and starbursts in white and green and pink and black, whatever color showed up best on their coats.

The five Vox dropped further, then stopped a few yards overhead. They twined themselves around the pillars and hung there, peering down at the visitors with gleaming opal eyes.

Jalila was so dazzled by the wonders she had been witnessing, it took a moment for her to remember she had a job to do. When al-Aziz cleared his throat, she snapped back to reality and activated the Voicebox.

"Jalila," said al-Aziz. "Ask our friend here," and he indicated the brown-furred guide, "if these are the leaders of the Vox."

Touching keys, Jalila found the words she was looking for, then turned to Nalo and repeated the question in his language. Whiskers twitching, the brown-furred otter-like being answered, speaking slowly and without clicks and smacks for her benefit.

Jalila watched the translation on her device, though she had picked up enough of the language to get the gist of what he had said. "Nalo says they are planetary ministers, and the red one is Regent Ieria. You should speak to her."

"Anything else I should know?" al-Aziz combed his fingers through his thick brown hair and looked up at the red-furred Vox wrapped around one of the pillars.

"Use her title when addressing her," said Jalila. "Don't talk with your hands. I'll take care of the rest."

al-Aziz nodded and stepped forward, turning his attention to the regent. Jalila posted herself alongside him, raising the Voicebox so its pickups could best catch the words of the Vox leader.

Clasping his hands behind him, al-Aziz spoke to the red-furred Vox. "Regent. I am Major al-Aziz of the starcraft
Ibn Battuta
."

Jalila read the translation from the Voicebox's display, taking care to speak loudly and clearly enough for the leaders to hear and understand. Though the Voicebox could have broadcast the audio itself, Jalila felt more comfortable doing the talking in this delicate situation. She was paranoid about making a mistake like on Pyrrhus VII and didn't want to rely too much on anyone or anything but herself.

al-Aziz nodded at Jalila. "This is my translator, Corporal Jalila Al-Fulani."

Jalila told Regent Ieria what al-Aziz had said, then smiled and bowed.

The red-furred Vox stared down at them, blinking her black pearl eyes...then fired off a storm of syllables, clicks, smacks, and gestures that baffled Jalila and the Voicebox alike.

Fortunately, Nalo came to the rescue. Appearing at Jalila's side, he let loose a sequence of chatter, noises, and hand signs of his own, directed at Ieria. It must have been an explanation of Jalila's conversational limitations, for when Ieria spoke again, it was without gestures or non-pulmonic sounds. The Voicebox resumed normal function, displaying its conversion of the leader's speech.

"
Welcome
," Jalila read from the screen to al-Aziz. "
What brings you to Vox?
"

al-Aziz considered his next words carefully. "A fleet of vessels is headed toward your world. Many ships, heavily armed."

Jalila translated, then delivered Ieria's response. "
Your ships?
"

"No," said al-Aziz. "We don't know who they are...but we know they are hostile. They disabled our own ship, the
Ibn Battuta
, and left it for dead."

Jalila translated. She was startled when the gold-furred Vox minister flung himself onto Ieria's pillar, interjecting his own streak of chatter. Apparently, the minister had caught on to the need for conversational simplicity, for his speech, though quick-fire, was free of extraneous sounds.

"The other Vox called you a liar," translated Jalila. "He says this is a distraction to hide your own dishonest intentions."

"Our only intention is to warn you," said al-Aziz. "We can provide you with the coordinates of the invasion fleet, and all the data we have on it." Casting his green eyes upward, he gazed into the dazzling heights of the tower. "Your world is filled with beauty. We will do everything in our power to help you preserve it."

Referring to the Voicebox, Jalila carefully pronounced the Vox version of what al-Aziz had said. "
Vox ilu aya sensay mazeesh. al-Azizlo anzish u'i yayla oonlo sah sueta amisansu.
"

For an instant, there was silence as the regent, ministers, and onlookers absorbed what she had said. Then, all at once, the assembled Vox erupted into chaos.

The outcry was deafening. All around Jalila, Vox were chattering, clicking, smacking, whistling, screaming. They gestured wildly, signing so fast and emphatically that their hands were blurs. Even Ieria and her fellow leaders howled and flailed, diving from pillar to pillar in a frenzy.

The uproar swelled and cascaded in the vast chamber, echo building upon echo with growing force. There must have been at least a hundred Vox in the tower, and every single one of them cried out at once.

Except one. Nalo stood quietly nearby, calmly meeting Jalila's terrified gaze.

For some reason, her eyes fell to the Voicebox in her hands. Somehow, amid the tumult, it must have miraculously tuned in one voice among many, or many voices saying the same thing. Or maybe it was a malfunction.

One word flashed on the display, again and again.

Death.

Death.

Death.

*****

 

What happens next? Find out in
Universal Language
, now available for the Kindle!

*****

About the Author

Robert T. Jeschonek is an award-winning writer whose fiction, comics, essays, articles, and podcasts have been published around the world. DC Comics, Simon & Schuster, and DAW have published his work. According to Hugo and Nebula Award winner Mike Resnick, Robert "is a towering talent." Robert was nominated for the British Fantasy Award for his story, "Fear of Rain." His young adult urban fantasy novel, My Favorite Band Does Not Exist, is now available from Clarion Books/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
and received a starred review from
Booklist
.
Visit him online at
www.robertjeschonek.com
. You can also find him on Facebook and follow him as @TheFictioneer on Twitter. For news on his latest online projects, visit the Pie Press website at
www.piepresspublishing.com
.

*****

 

E-books
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The Greatest Serial Killer in the Universe

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