Torian Reclamation 3: Test of Fortitude (19 page)

“This is as clear as I can make it, both the audio and video.”

“Why do you suspect this message may be of military importance?” Perry asked.

The scientist motioned back to the charm. “Keep watching.”

The images changed. Different planets showed here and there, and then they would grow smaller as the view zoomed out and what looked like gridlines would show across the surrounding stars. In some areas there appeared to be bright spots, but it could have been from the snowy interference with the video.

“Looks like galactic maps,” Perry said.

Brandon nodded and squinted. The view then changed to that of alien beings of some sort. Dark figures with arms and legs, what might have been big yellow eyes, and possibly a growth coming out of their heads which curled backwards like bighorn sheep horns.

The scene flickered and the images kept changing. Planets, more maps, and space scenes. It became harder and harder to grasp a clear image of anything. Then it stopped.

“What do you think?” Brandon asked Perry.

Perry turned to the scientist. “Play it again, please.” His tone was suddenly somber.

“Did you recognize something?” Brandon asked.

“Maybe. Can we freeze it?”

“Yes,” the scientist said. “Say when.”

Perry turned back to Brandon. “What exactly did the Chenel say when he gave this to you?”

Brandon thought for a long moment.

“He wanted me to give a message to the Sheen profit. To tell him his Chenel brothers have not forgotten the old ways, and are waiting for the reclamation…”

Brandon couldn’t finish. His mind wandered off. He had earlier assumed the Chenel was referring to Belle-ub, but now realized he meant Arkan9, the real prophet. The reclamation. Arkan9 used to speak of a “Torian reclamation” after the galactic infection was vanquished. The Chenel must have been referring to the same thing. Was this a prophecy of the near future? If the Chenel were acknowledging the presence of an evil infection which needs to be defeated, then they must be on the right side.

So why a secret message? Why did they need to smuggle it past the Azaarian authorities, if Azaar was not in league with the enemy? The message must have something to do with combatting the infection. And it must be of military importance.

“Freeze now!” Perry said.

Brandon looked back to the hologram. It was paused near the end. The scene seemed to be a view of a planet from its nearby space.

“There,” Perry said. “In the space around the planet. Do you see them?”

Brandon studied the fuzzy scene. It was badly distorted and hurt his eyes. But there were some blips in the space Perry was pointing to.

“Dark objects,” Brandon said.

“Yes.” Perry nodded. “Spaceships?”

Brandon strained his eyes until they couldn’t take it and then turned away. But the image was stuck in his head. Numerous small dark objects in the space above a planet.

“Possibly,” Brandon said.

“What other kind of secret message do you suppose the Chenel would risk smuggling to us?” Perry asked.

The more Brandon thought about it, the more he agreed. The dark enemy was part of the infection—perhaps even the source of it. The Chenel message must be some kind of a warning. Most likely, it was information about them.

“I think you’re right,” Brandon said. “It’s time for us to go.”

“Where to? Home or Dirg?”

“Yes.” Brandon smiled. “Both.”

“You sure you want to go back there?” Shaldan asked.

“Actually, I don’t.” Alan glanced at Jumper as he answered. “But Jumper and I now regret our impulsive decision, and want our souvenirs back, if possible.”

Jumper nodded. “We’ve agreed we’re not going to play them. Assuming they’re even still there. And we aren’t sticking around to listen to the drum sounds any more. Enough of that already. If the flute things are where we left them, we’re just going to pick them up and go. Rock climbing today. Bird watching—right, Shaldan?”

“I’m ready to go now.” Shaldan looked up at the morning light peeking through the rock openings above. “I left my tupinx in my room, because I’m determined not to waste—I mean spend—another day like yesterday.”

“So are we,” Jumper said. “Don’t worry.”

“Those things are dangerously addictive,” Alan added after confirming the resolution. “We might be smarter if we left them. I can’t remember ever being robbed of time like that. A whole day gone. No wonder we cursed the flutes and abandoned them last night when fatigue finally forced us to stop. I don’t even remember Threeclack leaving. Man. The only experience I’ve had that remotely compares is when we used to play polwar in the basement on Amulen. Sometimes a whole day would get away from us then, too.”

“I want mine back,” Jumper said. “There’s something therapeutic about it. I can play it in the store when business is slow, or when Kayla’s mad at me. But they’ll probably be gone.”

The tupinx weren’t gone. In fact, there were more of them. Lots more. Alan almost couldn’t believe his eyes when they arrived at the civic arena.

“Looks like you weren’t the only ones who swore off the tupinx last night,” Shaldan said.

“What in Erob is going on?” Jumper asked. “Where is everyone? Why did they all leave their instruments here? I thought these things were valuable?”

Alan had no words. He could only take in the inexplicable scene and attempt to make sense of it in his brain. The arena was practically empty. In one spot a half-dozen natives still sat playing, but that was in contrast to the hundreds who were here yesterday. And the sound. Only now did he notice how much quieter it was today. The beats of the small drum circle were proportionally less enchanting. Abandoned tupinx lay everywhere, all over the steps on nearly every level.

As Alan watched, one of the remaining natives abruptly stopped playing. He stood and seemed to shudder before frowning at the instrument in his hand. He then looked around the arena with a confused expression, acting almost as though he were seeing it for the first time. Finally, he tossed the tupinx aside and climbed down the steps.

Alan decided to approach him.

“Where are you going?”

The native gave Alan a curious look before answering.

“Back to work.” He then sauntered away.

When Alan turned around, Jumper was holding two tupinx.

“These are ours. They were right where we left them.” Jumper proceeded to stuff them in his backpack. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Do you remember the shortcut?” Alan asked.

“I do,” Shaldan said. “Down this street.”

The three of them walked and ended up veering through a tunnel that took them back through the abandoned polwar game room. An eerie feeling descended upon Alan there, one he found hard to shake.

When they came to the zoo, Threeclack was standing on the street looking across the mote into the laviel pen. Four other male Sulienites were with him. When he saw Alan, Jumper, and Shaldan, he waved them over. Threeclack was holding a pair of boots, and seemed to be in a particularly good mood. A wide smile was plastered on his face.

“We might see you out there,” Threeclack said as he handed Jumper the special shoes. “A caravan of traders from the east has been spotted approaching the city. First one in more than a year. We’re going out to greet them.”

“Well don’t take any more tupinx flutes in trade,” Alan said. “There are hundreds of them lying about the civic arena today, apparently abandoned. And nobody left playing them. The place looks hauntingly like your polwar game room now.”

“Yes.” Threeclack’s smile somehow widened even further. “You are visiting on an eventful day. Our people have concluded that playing the tupinx is ultimately an unbeneficial pursuit. Today is the stopping day. The activity has now run its course, just as polwar did.”

“Run its course?” Shaldan asked. “Is the stopping day something that was proclaimed by your leaders, or promoted by media sources?”

“No. It’s a natural occurrence. It ends the same way it starts: first with a few, and then many who follow. This is the way of our people. Trends are explosive with us, but also fickle—which makes balancing supply and demand tricky. It is notable that this one had a much shorter life than polwar. If you’re interested in the tupinx as a trade item, we can now offer you a limited supply. Limited only because production will now cease.”

Shaldan nodded. “I’ll discuss it with Trodenjo when he returns, thanks.”

Jumper seemed uninterested in the entire affair. He was fiddling with the boots.

“How do these work?” he asked.

Threeclack pointed to the metal nodules on the outsides of the soles, two on each side placed at the arch and heels.

“Standard hover technology. They’ll adjust to your weight and find an equilibrium with your gravitational pull. So one size fits all. Same with the shoe size. You’ll notice they look large. You can slip them on over your existing footwear, though you should probably disable the gravity fields on those first. Press the button on the tongue and they’ll snug up. Press it again to relax them for removal.”

“How do you activate the hover field?”

“Once they’re tight, fit the toe flange into the heel notch. Either side. Press until you feel it click in. They’ll turn on at a calibrated ratio, nice and easy. Movement is then accomplished by leaning: Sideways leaning for lateral movement, slight forward and backward leaning for ascension and descent, strong forward and backward leaning for forward and backward lateral movement. Would you like a demonstration?”

“No,” Jumper said. “That’s simple enough. We’ll figure it out from there.”

“I’m sure you will. Please understand these are designed primarily for safety. The water harvesters use them in the deep mines. You would want a different model for rapid ascension and descent. Being as you expressed a desire to exercise physically, I thought these would be best. Are you certain you wouldn’t like to each have a pair for the climb?”

Shaldan and Alan looked at each other and shrugged.

“No thanks,” Jumper said. He buried the hover boots in his backpack. “We only wanted to see a pair of them out of curiosity. Something to play with when we reach the top, maybe. We prefer a freestyle climb.”

At that moment, everyone’s attention was captured by the sound of Kayla’s voice shouting from the pen.

“Wasah!”

Alan looked across the mote just in time to see Casanova charging at a dummy holding a laser.

“Oh no,” Jumper groaned.

Casanova didn’t dodge the nondestructive laser beams. One struck him, but not for long. The attack dummy was shortly ripped to pieces. What Casanova lacked in agility he made up for in brute force. Very little was left of the dummy.

“There goes the x-factor in your mercenary course,” Alan said.

Jumper slowly shook his head. “Why did she have to do that? He was such a nice cat.”

Alan couldn’t help but chuckle when he noticed Shaldan staring with a blank look on his face. Jumper frowned at Alan in response. Alan stopped laughing and motioned back towards the pen.

“Casanova’s not afraid of lasers, Jumper. I was thinking about that the last time I saw him out on the course. Erob forbid he should ever have real weapons fired at him. He’d be a sitting tenson bird. You guys trained him with nondestructive lasers, so he thinks lasers are all harmless beams of light.”

“Worse than that,” Jumper said. “He knows he’s supposed to stop the attack when one hits him. Or at least, he did. So he sits still afterwards, because he’s trained to be dead in the game when he’s hit. Most of the time he’s really good about that, too. What a waste! I had him trained so perfectly. All over now.”

Kayla jogged up to the fence on the other side of the mote. She was beaming.

“Did you see that?” she yelled.

“Yeah,” Jumper said. “We saw it.” His tone exposed his complete dejection.

“Oh honey, stop that. He’s going to be fine. And now he’s good for protection, too!”

“That’s all he’s good for now, Kayla. And there’s nothing to protect us from on Banor.”

“You need to get over it, Jumper. He’s my cat, remember? And this is my vacation, too.”

“Whatever,” Jumper said. “We’ll be outside.”

“See you later, grump.” Kayla turned and ran back towards Fardo and the two cats.

“Hmm,” Alan said.

Jumper turned to him. “What?”

“Have you thought about what’s going to happen when we leave? With Casanova, I mean. How are you guys going to tear him away from Kush, and make him go back in his crate? How is he going to act for the trip home now, and even after he gets home?”

“You heard her. It’s her cat, her problem.”

“It may be her cat, but I think her problems are also your problems.”

“Maybe we can just leave him here,” Jumper said.

Alan laughed. “Not unless you also plan on leaving Kayla here.”

Jumper raised his eyebrows and displayed that look again, as if he were considering the possibilities.

“Come on,” he finally said. “Let’s go climbing.”

*

“Sorry to send you off again,” Brandon said. “And for such a long trip.”

Perry was his usual emotionless self. As the two of them stood on the hangar deck underneath the docked ITF1, he pushed his sleeves up on his forearms.