Wormhole Pirates on Orbis (25 page)

Then, like a delayed reaction, I lifted up my right foot and placed it in front of me. Each step toward the girls required a conscious effort on my part, as if I were knee-deep in radiation gel.

I stopped. I looked up at the ring again.
Still spinning.

The more steps I took, the more freely my feet moved.

No!

I felt as if I were walking away from the moment of Charlie’s death, as if I were leaving Charlie. I didn’t want that.

That’s how it works.

First one step, then two, then a dozen, then a cycle passes, and then a phase.
Eventually a whole rotation will separate me from this moment,
I realized. Would I forget Charlie completely by then? Does Charlie have to deal with this now that he’s dead, or is he just
dead,
no longer aware of
us
?

Is that true?

Suddenly I felt far more worried about people around me dying than dying myself.

“JT?” Max called out. “You all right?”

I looked up at her. I realized I had been staring at my feet.

“Yeah,” I mumbled back.

“Come sit with us,” Grace offered.

I moved toward them and sat next to Max as she took my hand. It was still wet with her tears. Ketheria was standing now, but Theodore remained alone, sitting under the medical building. Most of the other kids whispered in small groups or explored this side of the ring, but no one ventured very far from the building.

“Why did Cala do it?” I whispered to Max.

Max shook her head. “I bet he’s asking the same thing,” she said, nodding toward Theodore. “I think he really needs you right now. I think he needs his friend.”

“I can’t. If Theodore hadn’t —”

Max stopped me. “He doesn’t need someone pointing fingers at him, JT. Look at him. He knows that what he did was very wrong, but nothing can bring Charlie back, not ever.”

“Don’t say that,” I croaked.

“Go talk to him,” Max whispered, and pushed me with her elbow.

I stared at Theodore for a moment before getting up. I made a wide berth of the Keepers and Nagools and slipped under the building from the right. Theodore glanced up at me when I got closer.

“Hey,” he mumbled.

I didn’t say anything. I just sat down next to him.

“I’m sorry, JT. I’m so sorry.”

I still couldn’t say anything. I looked up at Max and Grace. They looked away when I caught them watching.

“Are you going to be mad at me forever?” he asked.

I wanted to jump on Theodore and smash him. I wanted to scream at him,
How could you?
I wanted to kick him and punch him, but I didn’t. I just looked at him. His eyes were swimming in their sockets, and I knew he didn’t want Charlie dead any more than I did. I swallowed hard and felt tears run down my cheeks. I shook my head but didn’t speak. Instead I swallowed again.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. Then he reached forward and hugged me. When he put his arms around me, something burst inside me and I cried like a little one. I felt Theodore sobbing, and I hugged him back. After a moment I became aware that others were watching us, and I pulled away. I cleared my throat, wiping the tears out of my eyes.

“I’m not mad at you,” I croaked.

“I deserve it, though,” he whispered.

After a moment I asked, “Is there anything else you can remember?”

“About what Cala did?”

“Yeah. Did he steal anything? Did he say anything else?”

“No. He headed straight for the chute.”

I shook my head, wondering why. What did Charlie do to deserve this?

“What are we going to do?” Theodore asked.

“I don’t know,” I said, and saw Theylor walking toward the other kids.

He has to assign us to a new Guarantor,
I thought. What was that going to be like? It certainly wouldn’t be someone as nice as Charlie. In fact, our new Guarantor wouldn’t even care that Charlie had died, and he or she certainly wouldn’t give us the freedom Charlie had given us. It hit me that I might never find out what happened to my friend. I stood up.

“Where are you going?” Theodore asked.

“I need to ask someone a favor,” I replied.

“Yeah, good luck.”

I stepped out from under the building and over to the left side. I let Theylor come to me. I didn’t want any of the other Keepers or Nagools to overhear our conversation. When he was in front of me, both heads looked at me while his right one said, “The parasite was too much for Charlie. The plant is foreign to Earth. The same plant often infects Citizens, but they don’t die. I worry that Nugget might be too small, but Charlie had no defense. I would not be too hard on Theodore. It may have been an accident, for all we know.”

“But we’ll never find out, will we?” I said.

“Why do you say that?” he asked.

“You have to reassign us now, don’t you? That’s why everyone is here, right?”

Theylor glanced back at the other Keepers. “We came to help in your time of grieving,” he said.

“But you have to reassign us.”

“Yes.”

“When?” I asked.

“You will return with us until we examine all of Charlie’s requests and follow proper Citizen procedures, but I assume, since Charlie was not a Citizen very long, that you and the others will be put up for auction.”

“Auction!”

The others looked over at us, and Theylor frowned. “Please, I know this upsets you, but there are procedures that must be followed.”

“Theylor, I’ve done a lot for you and for the Rings of Orbis, have I not?”

“Yes, this is true.”

“Then I would like to ask you a favor, in exchange for what I have done.”

“I do not think —”

“Wait, hear me out first. I want you to hold off on the auction. Let us go back to our home, and give me time to find Cala. At least let me give him to you so he can be punished. No one is going to care after we’ve been reassigned. Charlie’s Citizen status was shady already. I don’t think very many people will mind that he’s dead. That’s why I have to do this. If you take us now, that will never happen.”

“JT, I cannot —”

“Please, Theylor. I beg you. Please, for me and Ketheria. Let me do this.”

Theylor glanced back at the others again.

“There’s not a Citizen around right now. We could take the chute back and be gone.”

“How long do you require?” Theylor whispered.

“I don’t know.”

“I will give you two phases,” he said.

“Thank you.”

Theylor huddled with the other Keepers for some time before they finally left — without us. We were grouped together on the far side of the courtyard as we watched them leave.

“I thought for sure they were here to take us away,” Max said.

“They were,” I replied, and nudged Max toward the chute.

“What happened?”

“I asked for a favor.”

Max smiled. “How long have we got?” she asked.

“Two phases.”

Theodore and I were the last to leave the courtyard. I stepped through the light chute to find the estate as black as space.

“Don’t move,” Max whispered when I bumped into her.

“Where are the lights?”

“Shhh!”

Something moved past the hallway.

“Vairocina?” I hissed, but she didn’t answer. “Vairocina?” She wasn’t there.

We listened to the silence. And then: “We’re in here!” someone called to us.

“Who is that?” Theodore whispered.

“I’m scared,” Grace said.

“Don’t be,” I told her. “It’s just the person I want to talk to.”

“Who?”

“Ceesar,” I said.

“Wait, maybe we should go back, go somewhere else,” Grace said.

“The chute won’t work,” Ketheria said calmly.

I told Theodore to try it.

“She’s right,” he said.

“We’re trapped,” Max said.

“Then let’s see what our guest wants,” I said.

I wasn’t afraid of Ceesar. In fact I felt rage toward him. I knew he had something to do with what happened to Charlie and Nugget, and I wanted to know why. If I stayed close to Ceesar, I could reach Vairocina and have her track my location and notify Theylor. This was exactly what I wanted.

Some kids refused to move. The rest, including Max, Theodore, and my sister, followed me as I crept along the walls, past the chow synth, and toward a reddish light glowing from the rec room. Ceesar was waiting inside, sprawled on a lounger. Cala stood to his left, cradling a glowing crystal lamp and holding it over Ceesar. The red light bathed Ceesar in an evil luster but left the corners of the room dark. Something stirred in the shadows.

“You’re out rather late, aren’t you?” Ceesar said.

“Thanks to him,” Max protested, pointing at Cala.

“None of this would have happened if it weren’t for
him,
” Ceesar said, mocking her and pointing at me.

“Me?”

Ceesar glanced at a metal sculpture on the table in front of him. Then he caressed the lounger with his gnarled hands before speaking. “You’ve got a nice setup here, especially for a knudnik. I can’t imagine how your other Guarantors treated you.”

“Horribly,” Theodore spat.

Ceesar sat up, waved Cala off, and declared, “I’m bored already.” Cala raised the lights and exposed Ceesar’s cohorts, who were crouched against the walls or tucked in the corners. We were surrounded.

“There’s eleven of them,” Theodore whispered.

Ketheria stared at Ceesar, her head slightly tilted with an intense look of concentration contorting her face.

“Why do you care about our setup?” I asked Ceesar. “Besides, it doesn’t seem like it’s going to last long now, thanks to him.” I pointed at Cala.

“Oh, don’t give him all the credit,” Ceesar said, and hoisted himself up with his muscular arms.

He grinned, shaking his head slightly and turning toward Ketheria. As he did so, Ceesar exposed a pob overwrought with attachments that wrapped around the entire back of his scarred head. He circled the room and stopped in front of my sister, bending slightly and peering at her through some sort of O-dat wired to his face. The device tore at the skin around his left eye.

“Won’t work, little girl,” he hissed at her. From where I was standing, I could see his eyeball, blank and opaque in its lidless socket.

“Leave her alone,” I growled.

Ceesar flicked his long, dirty fingernail against the crystal on her head. Ketheria blinked, but she did not break her concentration on him.

“You can’t read my mind because I won’t let you,” he bellowed, and straightened up. “You can’t contact anyone because your sweet little house is bubbled. And as for the security-bots out there,” Ceesar said with a laugh, “they don’t even know I’m here.”

“Why did you kill Charlie?” I asked him.

“Kill?” Ceesar glanced at Cala and then smacked him with his big mitt. Cala doubled over. “Sorry about that: my intention was only to get him out of way.”

“Out of the way of what?” Max asked.

Ceesar waved his finger at her and said, “Too soon. Not so fast. Let me enjoy this. This is my monologue. I’ve practiced it for a very long time.”

“Are you a wormhole pirate?” Theodore asked him.

“What do you think?” he scoffed.

“I think you are,” I said. “But I don’t know how you got on the ring undetected.”

“That was the easy part. Even a child could have done it. You provided the perfect diversion.”

“Me?”

“Tell him we put on a good show!”
Ceesar bellowed, imitating what the alien had said to me on the ring shuttle. “The attack on your shuttle was a brilliant distraction. They waited for the security forces while I quietly slipped onto Orbis 3.”

“You sacrificed all of your crew,” I said.

“It will be worth it,” he replied.

“Who are you?” Ketheria demanded.

“I’m Captain Ceesar, of course.”

“The greatest wormhole pirate ever to slip a dimension,” the voices in the shadows said in unison.

Ceesar smiled, sucking in the mantra. He plopped onto the lounger again and said, “There’s a story I’ve heard in my travels. It changes, of course: different versions in different galaxies, different players in each version, but there is always one common element. One person. One being. One
weakness.
” Ceesar sat up abruptly and said, “Stop me if you’ve heard this already.” He laughed and nestled back into the lounger. We remained still and said nothing. In my mind I was searching for some device to link to the central computer, but every exit from the house’s mainframe was blocked, as if nothing existed beyond the local network. “The tale,” Ceesar continued, “involves the salvation of the universe. A creature preordained to follow in the footsteps of the Ancients. His arrival has been delayed so long that it has even been forgotten by some civilizations. The story has been reduced to myths and exaggerations, spoken now only to scare little children into behaving. But” — he held up his finger for emphasis — “not here. Not here on the Rings of Orbis! In fact, this is the focal point of our tale. For some here on the rings, particularly those two-headed freaks that everyone loves so much, have been waiting patiently, quietly biding the word of the Ancients and preparing for the arrival of . . .” Ceesar turned to Cala, snapping his fingers, and said, “What’s the word they use?”

“Scion,” he answered.

“Yes, Scion. That’s it.”

Theodore yawned, and Ceesar leaped from the lounger and jammed his face against Theodore’s. “Don’t worry — it gets even better,” he spat. “You see, the Scion will travel the universe, growing more and more powerful and enlightening the masses with his brand of consciousness.” He paused. “Quaint, isn’t it?” he grumbled. “But how can a creature travel the universe and survive? Even if he were able to bend space and time at will, he’d have to eat.” He turned to us for an answer. “Anyone?”

“Money?” Max said.

“Yes! Come on, Dumbwire. Don’t let your girlfriend get all the answers.”

“She’s not my girl —”
Dumbwire?
Why did he call me
Dumbwire
? No one called me that anymore. Dalton did once, but he was only imitating . . . It had to be a coincidence, I told myself. It would be impossible. Switzer is dead.

Ceesar stood there smiling. He stretched his arms out and said, “How long is it gonna take, freak?”