Space Rocks! (4 page)

T
he meeting broke up, and the assembled Xotonians drifted back toward their separate lives. They were still filled with the excitement of a Grand Conclave in which great matters were decided, but now they faced the prospect of going home and making dinner.

I walked across the plaza toward our dwelling, vaguely worrying whether I'd hid the human holographic device well enough, vaguely worrying about the asteroid-quake. Up close, the statue of Jalasu Jhuk looked no less inscrutable.

“Chork-a-zoid!”

“Linod-tron!” I called back on instinct. There came my friend Linod, bounding through the crowd toward me. Linod was small and awkward, with spindly thol'grazes and nervous, bulging eyes.

We had a lot in common. Both of us were shy. Both of us tended toward daydreaming and obsessing. Both of us hated playing oog-ball. Linod was like an even weirder version of myself, and I therefore felt strongly protective of it.

“Chorkle, you've got to check out this slime mold!” Linod held out a thol'graz dripping with bright purple ooze. “What do you think? And be honest.”

“Wow, that's uh . . .” I said. “Wait. Why did you bring a slime mold to the Grand Conclave?” I asked.

“Dunno. Figured I'd teach it about the democratic process. What'd you do today?”

“Me? Oh, nothing. Just went on a special reconnaissance mission. Saw some humans. That's all. No big deal.”

“Seriously?” cried Linod. “You have to tell me: Did they have any cool molds or yeasts from their own mysterious planet?”

“What? No,” I said. “They had personal rockets!”

“Yeah, right,” said Zenyk. The voice came from behind me, but I recognized it instantly. Linod now looked terrified, trying in vain to conceal the purple ooze behind its back.

I turned to face Zenyk: big, dumb, and, of course, Sheln's offspring. Four lackeys stood behind it: Chrow, Skubb, Slal, and Polth.

The crowd had mostly thinned now. We stood alone in a deserted corner of the plaza.

“Say, Chorkle, isn't Hudka your grand-originator?” asked Zenyk, already knowing the answer to the question.

“Why, yes, Zenyk, so Hudka is. I had no idea you were interested in genealogy,” I said. “I'm very excited to learn about all your hobbies!”

“You say the hoo-mins have ‘personal rockets'? I guess Hudka passed the lying gene down to you, huh?” Zenyk turned to its minions. They laughed on command.

“Wow. And you seem to have inherited Sheln's crowd-pleasing sense of humor, yourself,” I said.

“Don't you talk about my originator!” it said, cracking the fribs on all four of its thick thol'grazes. Zenyk was just looking for any excuse.

“Look, you're a bully, and I'm smaller than you,” I said. “So why don't you just flatten me and get it over with? It'd be a real time-saver.” Linod gaped at me as if to say,
What in the name of Morool are you thinking
?

But the direct approach seemed to throw Zenyk off its game. “Don't you tell me what to do!” it said at last. Admittedly, throwing Zenyk off its game wasn't the hardest thing to do.

“Fine. Don't flatten me,” I said, shrugging. “In that case, I've really got to go. It's been fun, though. We should do this more often.”

“Wait. Give me that slime mold,” said Zenyk. Linod sank. Partly, I was sure, because it wanted to add the mold to its highly disorganized collection of “fascinating fungi.” And partly because it had briefly seemed like we might escape this situation without a pummeling. Linod held out the mold weakly.

“Now why would you want a slime mold?” I asked. “Are you hoping it can tutor you in math?”

Zenyk pulled back to flatten me. Instinctively, I folded in on myself to limit the damage. But the blow never landed.

“That's enough!” said Kalac. Zenyk and I turned. Zenyk put its thol'graz down.

My originator stood glaring at me. Not glaring at the dim-witted brute about to pound its own offspring, but at me!

“We have plenty of trouble with the humans,” said Kalac. “But now Xotonian is fighting Xotonian? Unacceptable. You should all know better.”

“Sorry, Respected One,” said Zenyk, slipping into what it considered a fawning, elder-pleasing tone of voice. “We were just roughhousing. Like good friends do.”

Yeah. Zenyk roughhousing my face.

“Don't worry. It's fine,” I said. I was torn. Part of me was happy to be rescued from a Zenyk beating. The bigger part of me felt ashamed that my originator had intervened.

“Go home, Zenyk. You too, Linod,” said Kalac. It didn't mention the others by name. They were just extensions of Zenyk. “All of your originators will hear about this.”

I was sure that Sheln would be very angry with Zenyk. Angry that Zenyk hadn't even gotten to hit me once.

“Bye, Chorkle,” said Linod as it darted off. It was probably terrified of being caught again—this time alone—by Zenyk and friends.

“Bye, Chorkle, old buddy,” said Zenyk, cuffing me a little too hard on the back and slowly sauntering off toward its own dwelling. Chrow, Skubb, Slal, and Polth followed a few paces behind, affecting the same exact saunter.

I was alone in the plaza with Kalac. In some ways, I found that more frightening than any bully.

“Honestly, Chorkle,” said Kalac. “You disappoint me. A Grand Conclave is no place for fighting. And especially with the progeny of my main opponent on the Council. What your grand-originator did was bad enough. I don't need you compounding my troubles as well.”

“I didn't start it,” I said. But I knew it was hopeless. There are certain situations—no matter how clear to the younglings involved—that elders simply cannot understand.

“If Zenyk is threatening you, pop it once right in the gul'orp,” said Kalac as we walked through the streets of Core-of-Rock toward our dwelling. “Xotonians like Zenyk are cowards. The moment they encounter any resistance, they give up.”

“So . . . am I supposed to fight it or not?” I asked, a little annoyed. I doubted if my originator had ever even been in the same situation. As far as I knew, Kalac had always been strong and popular. Not likely to have been troubled by the Zenyks of its own youth.

“There's a time for fighting and a time for peace. You're supposed to use common sense,” said Kalac. “You convinced me you had some when I agreed to let you inspect Jehe Canyon. So did you learn anything useful?”

“The humans have rockets!” I said.

“Yes, Chorkle, that's how they got here,” said Kalac, sighing.

“No, I mean small rockets. That they ride around on for fun. They were flying all over the place, and one of them kept crashing, and then two of them raced each other and—”

“Chorkle,” said Kalac, its voice suddenly grave, “did you see actual humans on the surface?”

“I . . . yes.”

“And you watched them? For an extended period of time? Did they see you?”

“No, they didn't! I stayed hidden.”

“Are you absolutely sure? Tell the truth.”

“Yes, I'm sure,” I said. “They didn't see me.”

Kalac shook its head. “Chorkle, you promised that you would come home immediately at the first sign of any humans! You aren't a scout. You're just a youngling. If they had seen you, it would have ruined everything, destroyed all our plans. This situation is serious, you know. The time for daydreaming is over.” It was a different version of the same speech Kalac always gave me.

“Sorry,” I said quietly.

“It's my fault,” said Kalac. “I shouldn't have let you go. You just aren't ready for such responsibility.” We walked a while in silence.

“There were four of them,” I said at last. “I think maybe they were younglings. Like me.”

It was several seconds before Kalac responded, “I wasn't aware that the humans had brought any offspring with them.”

We had reached the entrance to our dwelling. From the smell wafting out the window, Hudka had already started dinner: mushroom and usk-lizard tail stew.

“When we set off the asteroid-quake,” I ventured, “will they get hurt?”

Kalac didn't answer.

“Wash up,” it said. “It's time to eat.”

T
he days after the Conclave passed slowly for me. I couldn't stop thinking about the four juvenile humans. I spent much of my time (when I wasn't enduring instruction, at least) in the caverns near the exit to the surface. There I sat, listening in on the Nyrt-Snooper, for hours at a time. I had started borrowing the tiny device without permission. So far no one had noticed.

Teams of Xotonians still continued to monitor all the human ship-to-satellite transmissions—despite still not understanding human language—from the Observatory inside Dynusk's Column. But after we had collectively decided on the asteroid-quake as the solution to the human problem, our scouts no longer took the Nyrt-Snoopers out to eavesdrop on their interpersonal radio communications. Maybe listening to them chatter away to one another Xotonian-ized the enemy too much?

I, on the other hand, couldn't get enough. I always tuned in to the channels where I'd heard the young humans communicate before. Mostly I heard static. Sometimes I listened in on what seemed to be adult human miners using the same frequencies. Once or twice a voice sounded familiar. Was that Crackle-Voice speaking to Lenses? Did I just hear Red-Fur laughing? I could never quite be sure.

As I listened, I would occasionally try to repeat the strange human words I heard. “Gud-moor-ning.” “How-ya-doo-un.” “O-vur-an-dowt.” My gul'orp seemed to be the wrong shape to pronounce them.

Twice, I even sneaked out to Jehe Canyon again. There was never a sign of the young humans, though. It was once again just a boring patch of the boring surface of a boring asteroid.

I spent even more time playing games on the human holographic projector device. When I was absolutely certain I was alone, I would pull it out from under my sleeping-veth and immerse myself in a glowing 3-D world that, as far as I could tell, was in every way superior to reality.

I defended Eo from alien saucers. I raced motorized vehicles before thousands of cheering spectators. I completed fiendish puzzles based upon the correct orientation of colored blocks. All these shimmering holographic challenges were a subtle mixture of vexation and pleasure. They were incredibly addictive.

From the games, more human words began to lodge themselves in my brain: “Kon-tin-ew.” “Eck-struh-life.” “Uh-cheeve-men-tun-loct.”

One day, I was playing a game in which a squat human in red must flatten evil walking mushrooms. Evil walking mushrooms can be quite a problem in the Unclaimed Tunnels, so I identified very strongly with the theme.

“Guano!” I yelled after losing a life.

“You need a running start to make it over that lava pit,” said Hudka, nearly scaring me to death. My grand-originator had apparently been watching me for quite a while. I hadn't noticed. These hologram games had a strange way of dulling the senses.

“What? I mean—I don't know where I stole this thing from!” I scrambled to conceal the device. But it was obviously too late for that.

“That's a human computer thingy you've got there, kid,” said Hudka, shaking its head ominously. “I should really tell Kalac that you have it. And I will—if you don't let me play too.”

And so my grand-originator was initiated into the secret cult of the human hologram game. Hudka was pretty good for one so old! Many of the games had two-player modes, and we spent hours competing for the high score in all of them.

Our rivalry was especially fierce in the alien invasion game. Hudka loved blasting those flying saucers right out of the sky. But it could never quite edge me out for the top spot.

During this period, a strange thing began to happen. Between listening to so much human conversation on the Nyrt-Snooper and playing so many human games, my human vocabulary began to grow. Thanks to total cultural immersion and a naturally keen Xotonian memory, I was accidentally beginning to understand their language.

“Xenostryfe III,” I said suddenly one day as Hudka and I played the alien-blaster game.

“Did you just sneeze?” asked Hudka.

“No, I—I think that's the name of this hologram game,” I said. “You know, the human name.” Somehow the letters of the alien alphabet that always displayed at the start of the game suddenly made sense to me. I'd seen them often enough that I'd been able to connect them to specific sounds.

“Xenostryfe III? What in the name of Morool is that supposed to mean?” asked Hudka.

“I'll . . . I'll have to get back to you on that,” I said as my life meter dipped to zero under the onslaught of flying saucers. The hologram faded monochrome gray. Game over.

“Learned to read human but forgot how to play,” snickered Hudka. “Seriously, get your priorities straight, Chorkle.”

But from that moment on, I made a conscious effort to retain and understand all the human words I heard or read. And slowly, little by little, they started to make sense.

• • •

Before I knew it, the asteroid-quake mission was only a few days away.

All five members of the Council convened at the Vault, a pyramid-shaped building near Ryzz Plaza constructed entirely from lead.

The Vault was the sort of thing that you saw every day of your life but never really took a good look at. It stood in sharp contrast to the typical Xotonian structures, which are dome-shaped and built from stone blocks. The Vault had no windows and a single door made of solid iridium, with an eight-pointed star inset. This was where Great Jalasu Jhuk had put the Q-sik for safekeeping.

Though the general public was forbidden from attending the opening, I secretly watched from behind the column of a nearby building. I'd changed my skin to the shade of the surrounding architecture. Sometimes Xotonian camouflage works even on Xotonians.

Kalac approached the door, beside which was a numeric keypad. Consulting a yellowing scrap of paper—apparently a relic passed down to each Chief of the Council since ancient times—it pressed a series of digits into the pad. I was close enough that I could see Kalac's brips punch the buttons: 9-1-5-6-7-2-3-4.

There was a pause. Then the door began to slide downward with a scraping rumble.

If Jalasu Jhuk didn't want Xotonians to use the Q-sik, I wondered, why leave instructions for opening the Vault?

But pondering the will of the ancients is a sucker's game. That was an old expression that Hudka probably made up.

The door was open now. A pale, eerie glow shone from inside. From my vantage point, I couldn't quite see the Vault's interior. The Council huddled nervously on the threshold. At last, Kalac stepped through the door.

A few long moments later, my originator came out carrying the source of the light: the Q-sik itself.

It was like nothing I'd ever seen before. The Q-sik appeared to be a glowing tetrahedron that spun slowly inside several concentric rings of tarnished, iridescent metal. On its base were several complex controls and inputs, which allowed for its use. On top, the Q-sik came to a sharp point from which, I guessed, it would fire its energy beam, a blast powerful enough to destroy several kilometers of solid rock, powerful enough to rip a hole in the universe, if the legends were to be believed. I was surprised to see how small the device was.

From where I stood, I could also see the iridium statue of Jalasu Jhuk in Ryzz Plaza, now reflecting glints of the Q-sik's light. This little thing was what our Great Progenitor was so worried about?

The other Council members shrank back from the Q-sik. Only Kalac looked resolute as it strode past them, holding it aloft. In its other thol'graz, it carried a crumbling manual.

For better or worse, the ancient weapon would now decide the fate of the Xotonian people.