Cloud Riders (30 page)

"Duck a solar system? A whole solar system?” Paul said incredulously.

"You like tell him good, mate,” Will added. “Blimey, wish I could help, don't you know."

Paul looked beyond the inner circle of friends and enemies, and gulped. Riding on the army of clouds were all the kidnapped girls, including Holly. The kidnapped time-telling girls, ranging in age from eleven to eighteen, smiled at Paul and waved. His heart skip several beats. Calamity Horrid had lived up to her side of the bargain. By now, the girls were all freed and no doubt replaced by their ape-nabbed alarm clocks. “Sis, how long have you and Fawn been here?"

"Me what?” Isno interjected, a slight hiss to his voice. “Liver chopped?"

"Just arrived, Paulie."

"Where'd the storm take you, Fawn?” Paul asked, a lump in his throat. She did look fine in her pink ballet tights. “Did someone save you?"

"Vicki-Sue and I have decided you did,” Fawn said softly. “Maybe in your subconscious. When I finally found the castle, there was Vicki-Sue and Holly, all the cloud rides and all the girls."

"Holly!” Will said and waved. She waved back.

The cup spoke in a voice quite different than the one it used moments before, and Paul instantly recognized it as Maken Fairchild's. “Be present at every outer thought and allow the inner to guide you."

The crowd of clouds flew in a group, very fast, passing other clouds without riders. The only wind existed in the movement of the cloud crowd, creating the atmospheric phenomenon of clouds pushed by the very wind they established by their movement.

Paul wanted to ask what Reshape meant by being present at every thought. Didn't that happen automatically? He held his question, knowing he had to be nice to Reshape the cup, being as only he had the necessary magic that might help him in his solar system saving quest. None of the others could help, he figured. Not even Bruiser could hit a solar system with any effect. “Reshape, please be sure to stay with us, okay?"

"I appreciate your interest,” Reshape said. He flipped over once, retaining the golden fluid inside his cup shape.

Vicki's horse cloud slowly caught up to Velvet. Fawn came alongside on Paul's opposite side. The tiny dot ahead of them, Paul reasoned, had to be the mouth of the wormhole where Vile Extinction crept toward Earth solar system.

Paul wondered if destiny could be changed. His body vibrated, fright ruled.
Action cures fear
floated across his mind like a nagging endless-loop, his dread overcome by fate and destiny tumbling and bouncing against the walls of his mind. His stomach quivered. What did his dad say? ‘Heroes are the brave moving through and beyond their fears.'

"Fast go,” Isno observed. “Very.” His cat hair fluttered in the wind wash of the other clouds, and he looked uncomfortable. “Fast too."

Paul patted his pocket holding the pebble and found reassurance at its presence. He called over to Will. “You still got the tuning fork?"

"You can like bet your life on it, mate, don't you know."

"I think that's exactly what I'm betting,” Paul answered. Odd, his voice carried easily through the wind wash. “This is one strange trip."

"Yeah."

Why couldn't he imagine Vile Extinction gone? He concentrated on such a disappearance for several minutes, until he remembered his mind-search earlier. Sometimes other actualities were at play within his parallel-imagined-life, perhaps stronger imagined realities than his own. He grimaced. Maken Fairchild could have warned him. Perhaps his imagined-parallel-life existed as a part of Maken Fairchild's. A game of give and take away, flying on clouds as long as it pleased the old man.

"Reshape, a question about my destiny.” Paul waited for an acknowledgment from the cup, didn't receive one, so continued without invitation. “Do I have to accept my destiny?” Paul shrugged. “If this is all your plan, couldn't you take care of Vile Extinction and let all of us go home?"

The cup somersaulted upside down and the liquid escaped in a long string of fluid. The empty cup righted itself, then dived below the falling drink, caught it, returned to its original position and spoke. “Does that answer your question?"

Paul turned and looked at Vicki, then at Will. “Did it?"

"Paulie, I don't know."

"I'm buying into like it's whatever you decide it is, don't you know. You can ask that cup and take what it says as truth or dare, kind of. I'm convinced being with you is why I'm here after finding Holly, mate. I'll back you up however you want, don't you know. I'm thinking it's
my
destiny. And if it's helping you save the solar system, then I'd have no destiny if you don't pull it off. It's a destiny that makes sense, isn't it."

Paul had about enough. His voice rose to a pitch near panic. “How can I fight a solar system?” he asked Reshape the cup. “You've involved my sister! You've involved Fawn and Isno. You've involved a great oversized gorilla and a crazy size-changing woman! You've involved a guy who has been up here for five years searching for his adopted sister. How come I found Vicki so fast, if Will had to take five years?"

"Hey!” Claude Nab growled at Paul. “You leave me and Vicki out of this!"

"You better be extra nice to me, little boy!” Calamity Horrid screeched at him still holding onto Velvet's tail. “I will be more help than you can imagine. I who can grow to a size large enough to scare Vile Extinction back into her own universe. I who created the great Collector In-Arms, who I taught to grow almost as giant as myself. I who can build a dancing hut and a castle more wonderful than all these clouds put together could do. I who—"

"You who is scared of yellow bat-birds,” Paul said, feeling justified for his unkindness because of their history. “You who couldn't open the Solar System Saving storage locker to retrieve our weapons."

"Just because you're the one who saves our solar system, Paulie, doesn't mean you won't need Calamity Horrid and Claude Nab to save you later,” Vicki pointed out. “Why not let them help?"

"It is Paul who has the correct destiny for this task,” Reshape the cup said.

Paul addressed the group. “So are you all on the same page as the master planner coffee cup?” He grimaced. “I have to do it, and I don't know if any of you can help."

"Sir Paul Highness. We have almost arrived."

The great blackness of the wormhole loomed in front of them. Faint swirling lights gave hint as to what lay inside. The opening stretched larger and larger like a mountain yawning wide to swallow climbers. Silence gripped everyone. The mouth absorbed the light from the space around Paul and his gang of friends and enemies. The closer they flew the darker the sky became.

"I don't know about this, Sir Paul Highness,"
Velvet thought-said, sounding as though she had just awakened to the threat.
"Sir Paul Highness?"

"Me stop me,” Isno said, breaking his silence. “Way there go no!"

All the clouds around him seemed to put on their airbrakes and slowed down. The closer they came to the worm cave, the less their speed, staying far enough away not to allow it to devour them. Only Velvet sped forward. Reluctantly.

"And so our plan now reaches its goal,” Reshape the cup said, its liquid rippling like a storm at sea. “All of you stop! Retreat! Paul and Will,
charge!
"

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Outside the wormhole entrance the air closed around them like a living entity, dark and foreboding.

"Charge ahead as the big coffee cup said, Sir Paul Highness? I am under your command,"
Velvet hesitantly thought-transferred her words in what Paul thought more of duty rather than truth.

His cloud ride's question was reasonable. He and Will were under orders to charge while everyone else retreated.

"Mate, it's like dark outside this hole, don't you know,” Will said. “I'm thinking you might have an idea, sort of, about what I'm supposed to do with the tuning fork?"

Paul didn't answer. He wanted to, but found not knowing threw up an impenetrable communication roadblock. He stared at Reshape the cup. “May I remind you,” Paul said, “you stopped Calamity Horrid, Claude Nab and Bruiser Manly... and even Isno. You've stopped everyone who might be able to help us. Was that wise?"

"May I remind you,” the cup replied in an amused voice, “you and your friend Willis each have a weapon."

"Did Sir Paul Highness forget about his weapon?

"I have my half of the weapon, Velvet. It's in my trouser pocket,” Paul assured. “Will has the other half in his trouser pocket. And we have an idea how to use it, but not why. We don't know what it does. It seems too small to even be noticed by what's in there."

"Two tiny weapons are all you got?"
Velvet said in a voice leaving no doubt as to her disbelief.
"We are coming closer, Sir Paul. I don't like this, not at all."

"We can get more information from Reshape. He's Maken Fairchild back on Earth, you know, although I don't think he changes shape down there. This might be my imagined-parallel-life, but it's also his and maybe you can guess who's really in charge here. So when the cup tells us to charge, it has to be part of some kind of game plan."

"Blimey, if you don't have all this figured right, don't you know, we're kind of blimey banged, for sure,” Will said.

Two realizations rushed to Paul's mind. The tuning fork hadn't made a sound when he whacked it on the side of the metal cabinet; so that part of this weapon must be a clunker. Also, Velvet had forgotten his title. No Sir Paul Highness? He liked it. “Our destiny is to destroy the invader inside, Velvet. It's the only way to save Vicki, Fawn, Isno and everyone. And you,” he added as an afterthought, even though his cloud rides didn't seem to be all that permanent.

"OUR destiny? Excuse me, I must go,"
Velvet said in panic. She arched her back and bucked Paul into the dark sky, made a sharp u-turn and sped away from Sir Paul Highness as if propelled by a hurricane wind.

Blanch twisted and threw Will in the same direction.

Frightened protests came from Vicki, Fawn and Holly, silence from the others in the group, as Velvet and Blanch flew past them in their getaway from the gigantic wormhole.

"Look out! Wormhole!"
Velvet warned the group in a voice only Paul and the other clouds could hear.
"It wants to swallow us!"

"Catch us if we fall, Velvet,” Paul called after his unicorn.

"Good luck. Sir Paul Highness. Sorry,"
she apologized, her voice coming from far off.
"I'll wait for you out here."

"Paulie!” Vicki cried. “Can I help?"

"Can we help?” Fawn called in even-though-I-know-I-can't helplessness.

"Stay here I,” Isno assured.

Paul's flight ark reached its crest and he started to drop downward faster than he could build the confidence necessary to quell his fear. “Okay, Velvet. Good time to return and catch me."

"It is too late to summon your cloud,” said Reshape the cup.

Paul spun and looked behind him. Relief attempted to slow his heartbeat. The cup had kept pace, so at least he and Will didn't occupy the darkness alone. He looked around him. His penetration partner apparently hadn't been thrown in the same trajectory as him. “Will? Don't play games, where are you?” Paul called.

"Watch the lower lip!” the coffee cup warned. “It quivers."

Paul plummeted below the wormhole lower lip and grabbed a handhold of the underbelly. His hands clutched the living clay-like substance. He pulled himself toward the dark cavern above.

"Will!” Paul called. He listened. The quietness spoke loudly of his and Earth solar system's predicament. Half a weapon in his pocket plus being the elected saver of the solar system added up to someone having made a poor choice. Could anybody be less qualified?

Then Paul remembered the rainbow cup. He turned and watched it follow him at a distance, somersaulting and thrashing its liquid into foamy swirls. He hoped Reshape might soon get around to telling him how the fork and pebble could have anything to do with saving the solar system. The tuning fork didn't work and thinking of the small white pebble as a weapon seemed ridiculous.

Face and body wet with sweat, his breath fast and hard to catch, Paul climbed. His mind on automatic, it had its own kind of fun, creating questions and inventing answers. When is a weapon not a weapon? When Reshape has anything to do with it. When is destiny not destiny? When Paul Winsome screws up and the solar system is Vile Extinguished.

The more he climbed the farther away the entrance seemed. At first slowly, then in an agonizing rush, pain gripped his legs and arms. The hole's soft surface allowed him to make hand and foot holds. It quaked and quivered, a constant earthquake trying to dislodge each foothold; each handhold.

"Ready for a boost?” Reshape the cup asked. The design on the cup's side changed, becoming a green dragon.

Paul tried to answer. A combination of anger, frustration, and tiredness kept the sound from reaching his lips. His hands slipped from their hold and he fell backward into space. “Heeeelp!” he gasped, arms outstretched as his feet twisted out of their footholds. “Velvet!"

One dragon wing protruded forward from the cup's curvature to act like the palm of a hand to cradle Paul's torso, lifting him in seconds to the wormhole's lower lip opening.

Paul's fingers dug into the wormhole lip until he realized handholds were no longer necessary. He lay on his belly, lifted his head and stared into the interior. Cautiously, he crawled further into the hole and refused to think about the danger. “So, what's next?” he asked Reshape the cup.

"Fly.” The dragon wing scooped him from the surface of the wormhole and threw him toward Vile Extinction. “Have a good flight."

Paul's stomach tightened as he became airborne and flew into the darkness like an astronaut without his spaceship—a soaring superhero, his power a pebble. Ahead the Vile Extinction disk spun in the darkness, barely visible because of her edge being turned toward him.

The dragon disappeared and the cup returned to its original rainbow color and shrunk to the size of a regular cup.